Council On Environmental Quality (ceq)

The Council on Environmental Quality is the EOP component with the prin- cipal task of administering the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)36 by issuing regulations and interpretive documents and by overseeing the processes of individual permitting agencies’ own NEPA regulations, including categorical exclusions. The CEQ also coordinates environmental policy across the federal government, and its influence has waxed and waned across Administrations. The President should instruct the CEQ to rewrite its regulations implementing NEPA along the lines of the historic 2020 effort and restoring its key provisions such as banning the use of cumulative impact analysis.

This effort should incorporate new learning and more aggressive reform options that were not included in the 2020 reform package with the overall goal of streamlining the process to build on the Supreme Court ruling that “CEQ’s interpretation of NEPA is entitled to substantial deference.”37 It should frame the new regulations to limit the scope for judicial review of agency NEPA analysis and judicial remedies, as well as to vindicate the strong public interest in effective and timely agency action. The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (FPISC), of which the CEQ is a part, has been empowered by Congress through significant new funding and amendments to FAST-41.38 The President should build on this foundation to

OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY (ONDCP)

Congress created the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) through the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 198840 to serve as a coordinative auxiliary for the Pres- ident on all matters related to drug policy. The next President’s top drug policy priority must be to address the current fentanyl crisis and reduce the number of overdoses and fatalities. This crisis resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 Americans in 2021.

The next Administration must reaffirm a commitment to preventing drug use before it starts, providing treatment that leads to long-term recovery, and reducing the availability of illicit drugs in the United States. The drug trafficking environ- ment is exponentially more dynamic and dangerous today than it was just five years ago as powerful synthetic opioids (fentanyl and its analogues) are mixed into other drugs of abuse. Drug trafficking organizations are extremely nimble and able to adapt quickly to federal government actions and changes in user behavior. Disrupting the flow of drugs across our borders and into our communities is of paramount importance, both to save lives and to bolster our public health efforts. For these reasons, the Director of ONDCP should make it a point to consult with federal border enforcement officials.

further empower the FPISC by making its Executive Director an EOP appointee with delegated presidential directive authority over executive branch permitting agencies. For instance, the implementation of Executive Order 13807’s One Federal Decision39 revealed many ways that the systems established by EO 13807 can be improved. The new President should seek to issue a new executive order to create a unified process for major infrastructure projects that includes giving project proponents more control of any regulatory clocks.

The President should issue an executive order establishing a Senior Advisor to coordinate the policy development and implementation of relevant energy and environment policy by officials across the EOP (for example, the policy staff of the NSC, NEC, DPC, CEQ, and OSTP) and abolishing the existing Office of Domestic Cli- mate Policy. The Senior Advisor would report directly to the Chief of Staff. The role would be similar to the role that Brian Deese and John Podesta had in the Obama White House. This energy/environment coordinator would help to lead the fight for sound energy and environment policies both domestically and internationally. The President should eliminate the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC), which is cochaired by the OSTP, OMB, and CEA, and by executive order should end the use of SCC analysis.

Finally, the President should work with Congress to establish a sweeping mod- ernization of the entire permitting system across all departments and agencies that is aimed at reducing litigation risk and giving agencies the authority to establish programmatic, general, and provisional permits.

The National Drug Control Program agencies represented a total of $41 billion in fiscal year 2022. Whereas the position for overseeing budget activities is tradi- tionally held by a career official, it is imperative that a political appointee lead the ONDCP budget office to ensure coordination between the OMB Program Associate Director and the ONDCP budgetary appointee.

ONDCP grant-making activities have been controversial over the years, par- ticularly within conservative Administrations concerned that the White House lacks the expertise to oversee such programs directly. The ONDCP administers two grant programs: the Drug-Free Communities Support Program and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program. While it makes sense to transfer these programs eventually to the Department of Justice and Department of Health and Human Services, respectively, it is vital that the ONDCP Director ensure in the immediate term that these grant programs are funding the President’s drug control priorities and not woke nonprofits with leftist policy agendas. Thus, the President must insure that the ONDCP is managed by political appointees who are commit- ted to the Administration’s agenda and not acquiesce to management by political or career military personnel who oversaw the prior Administration’s ONDCP.

GENDER POLICY COUNCIL (GPC)

The President should immediately revoke Executive Order 1402041 and every policy, including subregulatory guidance documents, produced on behalf of or related to the establishment or promotion of the Gender Policy Council and its subsidiary issues. Abolishing the Gender Policy Council would eliminate central promotion of abortion (“health services”); comprehensive sexuality education (“education”); and the new woke gender ideology, which has as a principal tenet “gender affirming care” and “sex-change” surgeries on minors. In addition to elim- inating the council, developing new structures and positions will have the dual effect of demonstrating that promoting life and strengthening the family is a pri- ority while also facilitating more seamless coordination and consistency across the U.S. government.

Specifically, the President should appoint a position/point of contact with the rank of Special Assistant to the President or higher to coordinate and lead the Pres- ident’s domestic priorities on issues related to life and family in cooperation with the Domestic Policy Council. This position would be responsible for facilitating meetings, discussions, and agreements among personnel; coordinating Adminis- tration policy; and ensuring agency support for implementation of policies related to the promotion of life and family in the United States.

OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT (OVP)

The Vice President is elected to the second highest office in the nation and plays a constitutionally vital role as President-in-waiting. The Vice President is also the President of the Senate and is charged with breaking tie votes in that body. In recent years, the Vice President has been granted office space in the West Wing and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

The OVP is another one of the levers that the President should use to execute his agenda. This is particularly true because there is significant and unique leverage that the Vice President’s leadership of the OVP can evoke to shape policy discus- sions and outcomes. Every other appointed White House official serves at the pleasure of the President, whereas the Vice President is elected, and the process for filling vacancies in that Article II constitutional office, which includes confir- mation of a replacement Vice President by a majority of both Houses of Congress, is governed by the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.42

The Vice President has his or her own economic advisers, domestic policy and national security staff, and daily intelligence briefings. The Vice President should fill his or her office with strong and sound policy minds to effectively assist the President in fulfilling his agenda.

The Vice President is also a statutory member of the National Security Council.43 In theory, in light of the fact that the Vice President is a member of the Smithso- nian Institution’s Board of Regents,44 there is nothing to prevent Congress from assigning the Vice President additional statutory duties. All of the component councils and offices discussed in this chapter include real policy development and implementation authority, and a robust OVP should be fully integrated into all policy-formation procedures. Only a Vice President who is deeply steeped in the interworking of the interagency and policy councils can offer useful advice and prove helpful in accomplishing the President’s agenda. It is also obvious, in view of the fact that many former Vice Presidents have gone on to be elected President in their own right,45 that the Vice Presidency can act as a training ground for presidential office.

In the past, the Vice President has been tasked with leading certain initiatives or issues. For example, Mike Pence was tasked with coordinating the federal response to COVID-19, and both Pence and Kamala Harris have chaired the National Space Council. Vice Presidents Richard Cheney and Dan Quayle were also active on the deregulatory front and in imposing regulatory moratoria. However, OVP offi- cials should be fully integrated into each and every process from the start of a new Administration and not have to wait to be invited to join various meetings or working groups on an ad hoc basis. For example, the budget and regulatory review processes are linchpins in the execution of policy, and the OVP should have a seat at the table through every phase of policy development.

Past Vice Presidents have also spent significant time abroad serving as a type of brand ambassador for the White House and, more broadly, for the United States, announcing Administration priorities and coordinating with heads of state and other top officials of foreign governments. The Vice President, as President of the

Senate, often serves as a presidential emissary to the Senate and thus can be espe- cially helpful in securing passage of the President’s legislative agenda. To the extent that he or she desires, a Vice President can have a direct role in shaping Administration policy. A Vice President who regularly attends meetings and disperses staff across the interagency and policy councils is a Vice President whose voice will be heard.