BiDen's productive First Day

Wednesday, January 20th was President Joe Biden's first day in office. That same day, he signed 15 executive orders and two other directives. They spanned immigration, environmental, LGBTQ and POC rights.

One of his biggest was canceling the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline to move oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, rescinding Trump's approval of a project long criticized by environmentalists.
Biden also extended the pause on student loan payments and nationwide restrictions on evictions and foreclosures, protecting people during the financial struggle of COVID.
To fight for POC rights, he signed an order launching a government-wide initiative directing every federal agency to review its state of racial equity and deliver an action plan within 200 days to address any disparities in policies and programs.

His other orders include:

• Rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement.
• Reversing Trump's "Muslim Ban".
• Rescinding Trump's 1776 Commission, a panel Trump established as a response to the New York Times' 1619 Project, a Pulitzer Prize-winning collection that focused on America's history with slavery.
• Revoking Trump's plan to exclude noncitizens from the census.
• Prohibiting workplace discrimination in the federal government based on sexual orientation and gender identity and directing federal agencies to ensure protections for LGBTQ people are included in anti-discrimination statutes.
• Creating a COVID-19 response coordinator who will report directly to the president.
• Revoking Trump's 2017 Interior Enforcement Executive Order, which broadened the categories of undocumented immigrants subject for removal, restarted the Secure Communities program and supported the federal 287(g) deportation program.