Project 2025

PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION PROJECT

214 Massachusetts Ave., NE

Washington, DC 20002

(202) 546-4400 | heritage.org

Printed in the United States of America.

ISBN: 978-0-89195-174-2

Foreword by Kevin D. Roberts, PhD

Edited by Paul Dans and Steven Groves

Foreword by Kevin D. Roberts, PhD

Edited by Paul Dans and Steven Groves

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS....................................................................................................... ix

THE PROJECT 2025 ADVISORY BOARD ............................................................... xi

THE 2025 PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION PROJECT:

A NOTE ON “PROJECT 2025” .................................................................................... xiii

AUTHORS ................................................................................................................................... xv

CONTRIBUTORS ................................................................................................................. xxv

FOREWORD: A PROMISE TO AMERICA ................................................................. 

Kevin D. Roberts, PhD

SECTION 1: TAKING THE REINS OF GOVERNMENT ..........................

 WHITE HOUSE OFFICE ....................................................................................................

Rick Dearborn

 EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

OF THE UNITED STATES .................................................................................................

Russ Vought

 CENTRAL PERSONNEL AGENCIES:

MANAGING THE BUREAUCRACY ............................................................................. 

Donald Devine, Dennis Dean Kirk, and Paul Dans

SECTION 2: THE COMMON DEFENSE .............................................................. 

 DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ........................................................................................ 

Christopher Miller

 DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY ..................................................... 

Ken Cuccinelli

 DEPARTMENT OF STATE .............................................................................................

Kiron K. Skinner

 INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY .....................................................................................

Dustin J. Carmack

 MEDIA AGENCIES ............................................................................................................ 

U.S. AGENCY FOR GLOBAL MEDIA ................................................................ 

Mora Namdar

CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING ..................................... 

Mike Gonzalez

 AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ....................................... 

Max Primorac

SECTION 3: THE GENERAL WELFARE ......................................................... 

 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE ......................................................................... 

Daren Bakst

 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION .............................................................................. 

Lindsey M. Burke

 DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

AND RELATED COMMISSIONS ................................................................................. 

Bernard L. McNamee

 ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ......................................................

Mandy M. Gunasekara

 DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

AND HUMAN SERVICES ............................................................................................... 

Roger Severino

 DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING

AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT ................................................................................... 

Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., MD

 DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR ..........................................................................

William Perry Pendley

 DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE ....................................................................................... 

Gene Hamilton

 DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

AND RELATED AGENCIES ...........................................................................................

Jonathan Berry

 DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION .............................................................. 

Diana Furchtgott-Roth

 DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS ............................................................

Brooks D. Tucker

SECTION 4: THE ECONOMY .....................................................................................

 DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE ............................................................................... 

Thomas F. Gilman

 DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY .......................................................................

William L. Walton, Stephen Moore, and David R. Burton

 EXPORT–IMPORT BANK ...............................................................................................

THE EXPORT–IMPORT BANK SHOULD BE ABOLISHED ....................

Veronique de Rugy

THE CASE FOR THE EXPORT–IMPORT BANK ......................................... 

Jennifer Hazelton

 FEDERAL RESERVE .........................................................................................................

Paul Winfree

 SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION ................................................................. 

Karen Kerrigan

 TRADE ...................................................................................................................................... 

THE CASE FOR FAIR TRADE ............................................................................... 

Peter Navarro

THE CASE FOR FREE TRADE .............................................................................. 

Kent Lassman

SECTION 5: INDEPENDENT REGULATORY AGENCIES ............... 

 FINANCIAL REGULATORY AGENCIES ............................................................... 

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

AND RELATED AGENCIES ..................................................................................... 

David R. Burton

CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU ...................................

Robert Bowes

 FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION ............................................... 

Brendan Carr

 FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION ...................................................................... 

Hans A. von Spakovsky

 FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION ............................................................................ 

Adam Candeub

ONWARD! ............................................................................................................................... 

Edwin J. Feulner

— ix —

Acknowledgments

his work, Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise, is a col-

lective eort of hundreds of volunteers who have banded together in the

spirit of advancing positive change for America. Our work is by no means

the comprehensive compendium of conservative policies, nor is our group the

exclusive cadre of conservative thinkers. The ideas expressed in this volume are

not necessarily shared by all. What unites us is the drive to make our country better.

First and foremost, we thank the chapter authors and contributors who gave

so freely of their time in service of their country.

We were particularly grateful to have the help of dedicated members of The

Heritage Foundation’s management and policy teams. Executive Vice President

Derrick Morgan, Chief of Sta Wesley Coopersmith, Associate Director of Project

2025 Spencer Chretien, and Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies

Director Paul Ray devoted a signiﬁcant amount of their valuable time to reviewing

and editing the lengthy manuscript and provided expert advice and insight.

The job of transforming the work of dozens of authors and hundreds of

contributors into a cohesive manuscript fell upon Heritage’s formidable team of

editors led by Director of Research Editors Therese Pennefather, Senior Editor

William T. Poole, Marla Hess, Jessica Lowther, Karina Rollins, and Kathleen

Scaturro, without whose tireless eorts you would not be reading these words.

The talented work of Data Graphics Services Manager John Fleming, Manager of

Web Development and Print Projects Jay Simon, Director of Marketing Elizabeth

Fender, Senior Graphic Designer Grace Desandro, and Senior Designer Melissa

Bluey came together to bring the volume to life. We also thank the dedicated junior

sta who provided immeasurable assistance, especially Jordan Embree, Sarah

Calvis, and Jonathan Moy.

Most important, we are grateful to the leadership, supporters, and donors of

each of the Project 2025 advisory board member organizations and those of The

Heritage Foundation, without whom Project 2025 would not be possible.

Thank you.

Paul Dans & Steven Groves

— xi —

The Project 2025

Advisory Board

Alabama Policy Institute

Alliance Defending Freedom

American Compass

The American Conservative

America First Legal Foundation

American Accountability Foundation

American Center for Law and Justice

American Cornerstone Institute

American Council of Trustees and Alumni

American Legislative Exchange Council

The American Main Street Initiative

American Moment

American Principles Project

Center for Equal Opportunity

Center for Family and Human Rights

Center for Immigration Studies

Center for Renewing America

Claremont Institute

Coalition for a Prosperous America

Competitive Enterprise Institute

Conservative Partnership Institute

Concerned Women for America

Defense of Freedom Institute

Ethics and Public Policy Center

Family Policy Alliance

Family Research Council

First Liberty Institute

Forge Leadership Network

Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Foundation for Government Accountability

FreedomWorks

The Heritage Foundation

Hillsdale College

Honest Elections Project

— xii —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Independent Women’s Forum

Institute for the American Worker

Institute for Energy Research

Institute for Women’s Health

Intercollegiate Studies Institute

James Madison Institute

Keystone Policy

The Leadership Institute

Liberty University

National Association of Scholars

National Center for Public Policy Research

Paciﬁc Research Institute

Patrick Henry College

Personnel Policy Operations

Recovery for America Now Foundation

1792 Exchange

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America

Texas Public Policy Foundation

Teneo Network

Young America’s Foundation

— xiii —

The 2025 Presidential

Transition Project

A NOTE ON

“PROJECT 2025”

e want you! The 2025 Presidential Transition Project is the conservative

movement’s unified effort to be ready for the next conservative

Administration to govern at 12:00 noon, January 20, 2025. Welcome

to the mission. By opening this book, you are now a part of it. Indeed, one set

of eyes reading these passages will be those of the 47th President of the United

States, and we hope every other reader will join in making the incoming Admin-

istration a success.

History teaches that a President’s power to implement an agenda is at its apex during

the Administration’s opening days. To execute requires a well-conceived, coordinated,

uniﬁed plan and a trained and committed cadre of personnel to implement it. In recent

election cycles, presidential candidates normally began transition planning in the late

spring of election year or even after the party’s nomination was secured. That is too late.

The federal government’s complexity and growth advance at a seemingly logarithmic

rate every four years. For conservatives to have a ﬁghting chance to take on the Adminis-

trative State and reform our federal government, the work must start now. The entirety

of this eort is to support the next conservative President, whoever he or she may be.

In the winter of 1980, the ﬂedging Heritage Foundation handed to President-elect

Ronald Reagan the inaugural Mandate for Leadership. This collective work by conser-

vative thought leaders and former government hands—most of whom were not part of

Heritage—set out policy prescriptions, agency by agency for the incoming President.

The book literally put the conservative movement and Reagan on the same page, and

the revolution that followed might never have been, save for this band of committed and

volunteer activists. With this volume, we have gone back to the future—and then some.

— xiv —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

It’s not 1980. In 2023, the game has changed. The long march of cultural Marxism

through our institutions has come to pass. The federal government is a behemoth,

weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and

liberty under siege as never before. The task at hand to reverse this tide and restore

our Republic to its original moorings is too great for any one conservative policy shop

to spearhead. It requires the collective action of our movement. With the quickening

approach of January 2025, we have two years and one chance to get it right.

Project 2025 is more than 50 (and growing) of the nation’s leading conservative

organizations joining forces to prepare and seize the day. The axiom goes “person-

nel is policy,” and we need a new generation of Americans to answer the call and

come to serve. This book is functionally an invitation for you the reader—Mr. Smith,

Mrs. Smith, and Ms. Smith—to come to Washington or support those who can. Our

goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives

to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State.

The project is built on four pillars.

Pillar I—this volume—puts in one place a consensus view of how major

federal agencies must be governed and where disagreement exists brackets

out these dierences for the next President to choose a path.

Pillar II is a personnel database that allows candidates to build their own

professional proﬁles and our coalition members to review and voice their

recommendations. These recommendations will then be collated and shared

with the President-elect’s team, greatly streamlining the appointment process.

Pillar III is the Presidential Administration Academy, an online

educational system taught by experts from our coalition. For the newcomer,

this will explain how the government functions and how to function in

government. For the experienced, we will host in-person seminars with

advanced training and set the bar for what is expected of senior leadership.

In Pillar IV—the Playbook—we are forming agency teams and drafting tran-

sition plans to move out upon the President’s utterance of “so help me God.”

As Americans living at the approach of our nation’s 250th birthday, we have been

given much. As conservatives, we are as much required to steward this precious

heritage for the next generation. On behalf of our coalition partners, we thank you

and invite you to come join with us at project2025.org.

Paul Dans

Director, Project 2025

— xv —

Authors

Daren Bakst is Deputy Director, Center for Energy and Environment, and Senior

Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). Before joining CEI, Daren

was a Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, where he played a lead-

ing role in the launch of the organization’s new energy and environmental center.

For a decade, he led Heritage’s food and agricultural policy work, and he edited and

co-authored Heritage’s book Farms and Free Enterprise. He has testiﬁed numerous

times before Congress, has appeared frequently on media outlets, and has played

leadership roles in such organizations such as the Federalist Society, American

Agricultural Law Association, and Food and Drug Law Institute (serving on the

Food and Drug Law Journal’s editorial advisory board).

Jonathan Berry is managing partner at Boyden Gray & Associates PLLC. He

served as acting Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor,

overseeing all aspects of rulemaking and policy development. At the U.S. Depart-

ment of Justice, he assisted with the development of regulatory policy and with

the nominations of Justice Neil Gorsuch and dozens of other judges. He previ-

ously served as Chief Counsel for the Trump transition and earlier clerked for

Associate Justice Samuel Alito and Judge Jerry Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals

for the Fifth Circuit. He is a graduate of Yale College and Columbia University

School of Law.

Lindsey M. Burke is Director of the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage

Foundation. Burke served on Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin’s transition

steering committee and landing team for education. She serves on the Board

of Visitors for George Mason University, the board of the Educational Free-

dom Institute, and the advisory board of the Independent Women’s Forum’s

Education Freedom Center. Dr. Burke’s research has been published in such

journals as Social Science Quarterly, Educational Research and Evaluation, and

Research in Educational Administration and Leadership. She holds a BA from

Hollins University, an MA from the University of Virginia, and a PhD from George

Mason University.

David R. Burton is Senior Fellow in Economic Policy in the Thomas A. Roe

Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He focuses

on securities regulation, tax policy, business law, entrepreneurship, administra-

tive law, ﬁnancial privacy, the U.S. Department of Commerce, corporate welfare,

— xvi —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

international investment, international information sharing, the U.S. economic

relationship with China, and climate-related ﬁnancial risk. Previously, Burton was

General Counsel at the National Small Business Association; a partner in the Argus

Group; Vice President, Finance, and General Counsel for New England Machinery;

and manager of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Tax Policy Center. He holds a JD

from the University of Maryland School of Law and a BA in Economics from the

University of Chicago.

Adam Candeub is a professor of law at Michigan State University. His scholarly

research focuses on telecommunication, antitrust, and Internet issues. He served

as acting Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Deputy Associate Attorney Gen-

eral at the Justice Department during the Trump Administration. He received his

BA magna cum laude from Yale University and his JD magna cum laude from the

University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Dustin J. Carmack is Research Fellow for Cybersecurity, Intelligence, and Emerg-

ing Technologies in the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage

Foundation. Previously, he served in the Intelligence Community as Chief of Sta

to the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratclie. In Congress, he served

as Chief of Sta to Congressman John Ratclie (TX-04) and Congressman Ron

DeSantis (FL-06). Mr. Carmack studied at Truman State University in Missouri

and Tel Aviv University in Israel.

Brendan Carr has nearly 20 years of private-sector and public-sector experience

in communications and tech policy. He currently serves as the senior Republican

on the Federal Communications Commission. Prior to this role, Carr served as

the Federal Communication Commission’s General Counsel. Earlier, he worked

as an attorney at Wiley Rein LLP. Previously, he clerked on the U.S. Court of

Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. After graduating from Georgetown University,

he earned his JD magna cum laude from the Catholic University of America’s

Columbus School of Law where he served as an editor of the Catholic Univer-

sity Law Review.

Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., MD, is Founder and Chairman of the American Corner-

stone Institute and previously served as the 17th Secretary of the U.S. Department

of Housing and Urban Development. Born in Detroit to a single mother with a

third-grade education, Dr. Carson was raised to love reading and education. He

attended Yale and earned his MD from the University of Michigan Medical School.

For nearly 30 years, Dr. Carson served as Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at

the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, where he performed the ﬁrst separation of

twins conjoined at the back of the head.

— xvii —

Authors

Ken Cuccinelli served as Acting Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration

Services in 2019 and then, from November 2019 through the end of the Trump

Administration, as Acting Deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland

Security. During his tenure as Acting Deputy Secretary, Ken also served as the Chief

Regulatory Ocer for the Department of Homeland Security. He also has served

the Commonwealth of Virginia, ﬁrst as a state senator and then as Virginia’s 46th

Attorney General.

Rick Dearborn served as Deputy Chief of Sta for President Donald Trump and

was responsible for the day-to-day operations of ﬁve separate departments of the

Executive Oce of the President. He also served as Executive Director of the 2016

President-elect Donald Trump transition team. Before that, Rick served in several

roles, including as Chief of Sta, in the oce of then-U.S. Senator Je Sessions

(R-AL) for nearly two decades. Between his two tours in Senator Sessions’ oce,

he was appointed by President George W. Bush as Assistant Secretary of Energy for

Congressional Aairs. Earlier in his career, Rick worked for the National Repub-

lican Senatorial Committee, the Senate Republican Conference, and the Senate

Steering Committee. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a BA in

Public Administration and a minor in economics.

Veronique de Rugy is the George Gibbs Chair in Political Economy and Senior

Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a nation-

ally syndicated columnist. Her primary research interests include the U.S. economy,

the federal budget, taxation, tax competition, and cronyism. De Rugy is the author

of a weekly opinion column for the Creators Syndicate, writes regular columns

for Reason magazine, and blogs about economics at National Review Online’s The

Corner. She received her MA in economics from the Paris Dauphine University and

her PhD in economics from the Panthéon-Sorbonne University.

Donald Devine is Senior Scholar at The Fund for American Studies in Washington,

DC. He was President Ronald Reagan’s ﬁrst-term Oce of Personnel Management

Director when The Washington Post labeled him “Reagan’s Terrible Swift Sword of

the Civil Service” for cutting bureaucracy and reducing spending by billions of dol-

lars. He was a professor at the University of Maryland and Bellevue University and

is a columnist and author of 10 books, including his recent The Enduring Tension.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, an Oxford-educated economist, directs the Center for

Energy, Climate, and Environment at The Heritage Foundation and is adjunct

professor of economics at George Washington University. Diana served as Deputy

Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology at the U.S. Department of Trans-

portation, where she directed the Department’s $1.2 billion research budget; the

— xviii —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Oce of Positioning, Navigation and Timing and Spectrum Management; and the

University Transportation Center program. Diana worked in senior roles in the

White House under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W.

Bush, where she was Chief of Sta of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Thomas F. Gilman served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Administration

and Chief Financial Ocer of the U.S. Department of Commerce in the Trump

Administration. Currently, he is a Director of ACLJ Action and Chairman of Torn-

gat Metals. Tom is the former CEO of Chrysler Financial and has had a 40-plus year

career as a senior executive and entrepreneur in the global automotive industry,

including roles at Chrysler Corporation, Cerberus Capital Management, Asbury

Automotive Group, TD Auto Finance, and Automotive Capital Services. He holds

a BS in ﬁnance from Villanova University.

Mandy M. Gunasekara of Oxford, Mississippi, is a principal at Section VII Strat-

egies, a Senior Policy Analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum, and Visiting

Fellow in the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at The Heritage Foun-

dation. During the Trump Administration, Mandy served as the Chief of Sta at

the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as well as Principal Deputy Assistant

Administrator for the Oce of Air and Radiation. She previously served in numer-

ous roles at the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, including as Majority

Counsel for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee under Chair-

man Jim Inhofe. She received her BA from Mississippi College and her JD from

the University of Mississippi School of Law.

Gene Hamilton is Vice-President and General Counsel of America First Legal Foun-

dation. Gene served as Counselor to the Attorney General at the U.S. Department of

Justice; Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Homeland Security; General Counsel on

the Senate Committee on the Judiciary; Assistant Chief Counsel at U.S. Immigration

and Customs Enforcement; and as an Attorney Advisor in the Secretary’s Honors

Program for Attorneys at the Department of Homeland Security. Gene graduated

from the Washington and Lee University School of Law magna cum laude and Order

of the Coif and has a BA in international aairs from the University of Georgia.

Jennifer Hazelton has worked as a senior strategic consultant for the Depart-

ment of Defense in Industrial Base Policy and has held senior positions at USAID,

the Export–Import Bank of the United States, and the State Department. She was

also a communications director in the U.S. Congress and worked as an award-win-

ning journalist for CNN and Fox News Channel. Hazelton holds an MA in business

administration from Emory University and earned her BA from the Univer-

sity of Georgia.

— xix —

Authors

Karen Kerrigan is President and CEO of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship

Council and has helped to strengthen U.S. entrepreneurship and global business

growth for 28 years. She has provided counsel across the globe via training missions

focused on entrepreneurial development, eective advocacy, policy formation,

and implementation. Karen testiﬁes regularly before Congress and has served on

numerous federal advisory boards representing the interests of entrepreneurs

and small businesses.

Dennis Dean Kirk is Associate Director for Personnel Policy with the 2025 Pres-

idential Transition Project at The Heritage Foundation. Born and raised in Kansas,

he graduated with honors from Northern Arizona University and Washburn Uni-

versity Law School. Dennis has over 45 years of experience in private law and

public federal government counsel services. He served in President George Bush’s

Administration in the U.S. Army’s Oce of General Counsel and later as Associate

General Counsel for Strategic Integration and Business Transformation, where

he was recognized with the Exceptional Civilian and Meritorious Civilian Service

Awards and other awards. During the Trump Administration, Dennis served in

senior positions at the Oce of Personnel Management and was nominated by

President Trump to be Chairman of the Merit Systems Protection Board.

Kent Lassman is President and CEO of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Educated at the Catholic University of America and North Carolina State Univer-

sity, he has written on telecommunications, privacy, environmental, antitrust, and

consumer protection regulation as well as trade policy and the design of regulatory

systems. Kent’s policy research and advocacy have taken him to 45 state capitals,

more than a dozen countries, and deep into the heart of the federal regulatory state.

Bernard L. McNamee is an energy and regulatory attorney with a major law

ﬁrm and was formerly a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

He is also the Street Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at the Appalachian

School of Law. In addition to serving as a Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner,

McNamee has served in various senior policy and legal positions throughout his

career, including at the U.S. Department of Energy, for U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, and

for Virginia Governor George Allen. McNamee also served four attorneys general

in two states (Virginia and Texas).

Christopher Miller served in several positions during the Trump Administration,

including as Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense, Director of the National Counter-

terrorism Center, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations

and Combating Terrorism, and Senior Director for Counterterrorism and Trans-

national Threats at the National Security Council. Before his civilian service in the

— xx —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Department of Defense, Miller was an Army Green Beret in the 5th Special Forces

Group with multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, achieving the rank of

colonel. Miller earned a BA from George Washington University and an MA from

the Naval War College. He also graduated from the College of Naval Command and

Sta and the Army War College.

Stephen Moore is a conservative economist and author. He is currently a senior

economist at FreedomWorks, a Distinguished Fellow at The Heritage Foundation,

and a Fox News analyst. From 2005 to 2014, Moore served as the senior economics

writer for The Wall Street Journal editorial page and as a member of the Journal’s

editorial board. He still contributes regularly to the Journal’s editorial page. He is

a frequent lecturer to business investment and university audiences around the

world on the U.S. economic and political outlook in Washington, DC.

Mora Namdar is an attorney and Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy

Council. She speaks ﬂuent Farsi and is an expert on U.S. national security, human

rights, global communications, the Middle East, and international law. Mora served

as senior advisor for critical issues at the U.S. State Department and was appointed

by President Donald Trump to perform the duties of the Assistant Secretary of

State for Consular Aairs. She also served as Vice President of Legal, Compliance,

and Risk at the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

Peter Navarro holds a PhD in economics from Harvard and was one of only three

senior White House ocials to serve with Donald Trump from the 2016 campaign

to the end of the President’s ﬁrst term. He was the West Wing’s chief China hawk

and trade czar and served as Director of the Oce of Trade and Manufacturing

Policy and Defense Production Act Policy Coordinator. His books include The

Coming China Wars (2006); Death by China (2011); Crouching Tiger (2015); and his

White House memoirs In Trump Time (2021) and Taking Back Trump’s America

(2022). His top-rated Taking Back Trump’s America podcast appears on Apple

Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

William Perry Pendley was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He earned a BA and

an MA from George Washington University, was a U.S. Marine Corps captain, and

earned his JD from the University of Wyoming College of Law. He was an attorney

on Capitol Hill, a senior ocial for President Ronald Reagan, and leader of the

Bureau of Land Management for President Donald Trump. For 30 years, he was

president of Mountain States Legal Foundation where he argued and won cases

before the Supreme Court of the United States. He authored ﬁve books, includ-

ing Sagebrush Rebel: Reagan’s Battle with Environmental Extremists and Why It

Matters Today.

— xxi —

Authors

Max Primorac is Director of the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign

Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He was acting Chief Operating Ocer

and Assistant to the Administrator, Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, at the

U.S. Agency for International Development. Previously he was deputy director of

Iraq’s reconstruction program at the U.S. Department of State and a senior adviser

in the Oce of the Secretary. Max was educated at Franklin and Marshall College

and the University of Chicago.

Roger Severino is Vice President of Domestic Policy at The Heritage Founda-

tion. As director of the Oce for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and

Human Services (HHS) from 2017 to 2021, he led a team of more than 250 sta

enforcing civil rights, conscience, and health information privacy laws. Roger sub-

sequently founded the HHS Accountability Project at the Ethics & Public Policy

Center. He holds a JD from Harvard Law School, an MA in public policy from

Carnegie Mellon University, and a BA from the University of Southern California.

Kiron K. Skinner is President and CEO of the Foundation for America and the

World, Taube Professor of International Relations and Politics at Pepperdine

University’s School of Public Policy, W. Glenn Campbell Research Fellow at the

Hoover Institution, and a Visiting Fellow and Senior Advisor at The Heritage

Foundation. Skinner served as Director of Policy Planning and Senior Advisor at

the U.S. Department of State from 2018 to 2019 and was a member of the Defense

Business Board at the U.S. Department of Defense in 2020. Skinner holds an MA

and a PhD in political science from Harvard University and undergraduate degrees

from Spelman College and Sacramento City College.

Brooks D. Tucker served in the U.S. Department of Veterans Aairs as Assis-

tant Secretary for Congressional and Legislative Aairs from 2017 to 2021 and

as Acting Chief of Sta from 2020 to 2021. He helped to craft the policy frame-

work for President-elect Trump’s transition team and served as the Senior Policy

Adviser for National Security and Veterans Aairs to Senator Richard Burr from

2010 to 2015. A retired Marine lieutenant colonel, Brooks served in Afghanistan,

Iraq, North Africa, the Caucasus, and the Western Paciﬁc. He is a graduate of the

University of Maryland, Marine Corps Infantry Ocer Course, and Marine Corps

Command and Sta College and holds a Certiﬁcate in Legislative Studies from

Georgetown University.

Hans A. von Spakovsky is Senior Legal Fellow and Manager of the Election Law

Reform Initiative in the Edwin Meese Center III Center for Legal and Judicial

Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He is a former member of President Donald

Trump’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. From 2006 to 2007, von

— xxii —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Spakovsky was a Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission. He served

as career Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S.

Department of Justice from 2002 to 2005.

Russ Vought is Founder and President of the Center for Renewing America. A

longtime conservative leader on Capitol Hill, Russ served in President Trump’s

Cabinet as Director of the Oce of Management and Budget, where he oversaw

the implementation of the presidential budget, key policies on deregulation, and

a landmark eort to eliminate critical race theory and other radical ideologies in

executive agencies. Prior to his White House service, Russ spent nearly two decades

in the broader conservative movement on Capitol Hill, including as Policy Direc-

tor for the House Republican Conference, Executive Director of the Republican

Study Committee, and Legislative Assistant to former U.S. Senator Phil Gramm.

Russ graduated with a BA from Wheaton College and received a JD from George

Washington University Law School.

William L. Walton is Chairman of the Resolute Protector Foundation and host

of The Bill Walton Show. In 2016 and 2017, Mr. Walton served in President-elect

Donald Trump’s transition team as Agency Action Leader for all the federal eco-

nomic agencies. He served as Chairman of the Board and CEO of Allied Capital

Corporation, a $6 billion NYSE-traded private investment ﬁrm, from 1997 to 2010.

He is the immediate past President of the Council for National Policy. His extensive

board service includes The Heritage Foundation, American Conservative Union,

American Enterprise Institute, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Venture Cap-

ital Association, and Financial Services Roundtable.

Paul Winfree is Distinguished Fellow in Economic Policy and Public Leadership

at The Heritage Foundation. Before rejoining Heritage in 2018, Paul was Deputy

Assistant to the President, Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council, and

Director of Budget Policy at the White House. During the 2016 presidential transi-

tion, he led the team responsible for the Oce of Management and Budget. He also

has served as a senior sta member for the U.S. Senate Committee on the Budget.

Paul served in both the Biden and Trump Administrations for three terms as the

Chair of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board that oversees the Fulbright pro-

gram and educational exchanges sponsored by the Department of State.

EDITORS

Paul Dans is Director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project at The Heritage

Foundation, organizing policy and personnel recommendations and training for

appointees in the next presidential Administration. Before joining Heritage, he

served in the Trump Administration as Chief of Sta at the U.S. Oce of Personnel

— xxiii —

Authors

Management, as OPM’s White House liaison, and as a senior advisor at the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development. Paul has extensive experience

in high-stakes commercial litigation and worked for several large international law

ﬁrms in New York City from 1997 to 2012 before founding his own law ﬁrm. He is a

graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and received his graduate and

undergraduate degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Steven Groves is the Margaret Thatcher Fellow in the Margaret Thatcher Center

for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation. Groves served in the Trump Adminis-

tration, ﬁrst as Ambassador Nikki Haley’s Chief of Sta at the U.S. Mission to the

United Nations. He later joined the White House as Assistant Special Counsel,

representing the White House in the Mueller investigation. Groves also served as

White House Deputy Press Secretary. His prior positions include Senior Counsel

for the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and associate at

Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP. Groves holds an LLM from Georgetown University

Law Center, a JD from Ohio Northern University's College of Law, and a BA from

Florida State University.

— xxv —

Contributors

he contributors listed below generously volunteered their time and eort

to assist the authors in the development and writing of this volume’s 30

chapters. The policy views and reform proposals herein are not an all-inclu-

sive catalogue of conservative ideas for the next President, nor is there unanimity

among the contributors or the organizations with which they are aliated with

regard to the recommendations.

Mark Albrecht

Chris Anderson, Oce of Senator Steve Daines

Je Anderson, The American Main Street Initiative

Michael Anton, Hillsdale College

EJ Antoni, The Heritage Foundation

Andrew “Art” Arthur, Center for Immigration Studies

Paul Atkins, Patomak Global Partners

Julie Axelrod, Center for Immigration Studies

James Bacon

James Baehr

Stewart Baker, Steptoe and Johnson LLP

Erik Baptist, Alliance Defending Freedom

Brent Bennett, Texas Public Policy Foundation

John Berlau, Competitive Enterprise Institute

Russell Berman, Hoover Institution

Sanjai Bhagat, University of Colorado Boulder

Stephen Billy, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America

Brad Bishop, American Cornerstone Institute

Willis Bixby, WWBX, LLC

Josh Blackman, South Texas College of Law

Jim Blew, Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies

Robert Bortins, Classical Conversations

Rachel Bovard, Conservative Partnership Institute

Robert Bowes

Matt Bowman, Alliance Defending Freedom

Steven G. Bradbury, The Heritage Foundation

Preston Brashers, The Heritage Foundation

Jonathan Bronitsky, ATHOS

Kyle Brosnan, The Heritage Foundation

— xxvi —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Patrick T. Brown, Ethics and Public Policy Center

Robert Burkett, ACLJ Action

Michael Burley, American Cornerstone Institute

David R. Burton, The Heritage Foundation

Jonathan Butcher, The Heritage Foundation

Mark Buzby, Buzby Maritime Associates, LLC

Margaret Byﬁeld, American Stewards of Liberty

David Byrd, Korn Ferry

Anthony Campau, Center for Renewing America

James Jay Carafano, The Heritage Foundation

Frank Carroll, Professional Forest Management

Oren Cass, American Compass

Brian J. Cavanaugh, American Global Strategies

Spencer Chretien, The Heritage Foundation

Claire Christensen, American Cornerstone Institute

Victoria Coates, The Heritage Foundation

Ellie Cohanim, Independent Women’s Forum

Ezra Cohen

Elbridge Colby, Marathon Initiative

Earl Comstock, White & Case LLP

Lisa Correnti, Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam)

Monica Crowley, The Nixon Seminar

Laura Cunlie, Independent Women’s Forum

Tom Dans, Amberwave Partners

Sohan Dasgupta, Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP

Sergio de la Peña

Chris De Ruyter, National Center for Urban Operations

Corey DeAngelis, American Federation for Children

Caroline DeBerry, Paragon Health Institute

Arielle Del Turco, Family Research Council

Irv Dennis, American Cornerstone Institute

David Deptula, Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies

Donald Devine, The Fund for American Studies

Chuck DeVore, Texas Public Policy Foundation

C. Wallace DeWitt, Allen & Overy LLP

James Di Pane, The Heritage Foundation

Matthew Dickerson, The Heritage Foundation

Michael Ding, America First Legal Foundation

David Ditch, The Heritage Foundation

Natalie Dodson, Ethics and Public Policy Center

Dave Dorey, The Fairness Center

Max Eden, American Enterprise Institute

— xxvii —

Contributors

Troy Edgar, IBM Consulting

Joseph Edlow, The Heritage Foundation

Jen Ehlinger, Booz Allen Hamilton

John Ehrett, Oce of Senator Josh Hawley

Kristen Eichamer, The Heritage Foundation

Robert S. Eitel, Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies

Will Estrada, Parents Rights Foundation

Jon Feere, Center for Immigration Studies

Baruch Feigenbaum, Reason Foundation

Travis Fisher, The Heritage Foundation

George Fishman, Center for Immigration Studies

Leslie Ford, The Heritage Foundation

Aharon Friedman, Federal Policy Group

Bruce Frohnen, Ohio Northern University College of Law

Joel Frushone

Finch Fulton

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, The Heritage Foundation

Caleigh Gabel, American Cornerstone Institute

Christopher Gacek, Family Research Council

Alexandra Gaiser, River FinancialInc.

Mario Garza

Patty-Jane Geller, The Heritage Foundation

Andrew Gillen, Texas Public Policy Foundation

James S. Gilmore III, Gilmore Global Group LLC

Vance Ginn, Economic Consulting, LLC

Alma Golden, The Institute for Women’s Health

Mike Gonzalez, The Heritage Foundation

Chadwick R. Gore, Defense Forum Foundation

David Gortler, Ethics and Public Policy Center

Brian Gottstein, The Heritage Foundation

Dan Greenberg, Competitive Enterprise Institute

Rob Greenway, Hudson Institute

Rachel Greszler, The Heritage Foundation

DJ Gribbin, Madrus Consulting

Garrison Grisedale, American Cornerstone Institute

Joseph Grogan, USC Schaeer School for Health Policy and Economics

Andrew Guernsey

Jerey Gunter, Republican Jewish Coalition

Joe Guy, Club for Growth

Joseph Guzman

Amalia Halikias, The Heritage Foundation

Gene Hamilton, America First LegalFoundation

— xxviii —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Richard Hanania, Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology

Simon Hankinson, The Heritage Foundation

David Harlow

Derek Harvey, Oce of Congressman Devin Nunes

Jason Hayes, Mackinac Center for Public Policy

Jennifer Hazelton

Lou Heinzer

Edie Heipel

Troup Hemenway, Personnel Policy Operations

Nathan Hitchen, Equal Rights Institute

Pete Hoekstra

Gabriella Homan, Independent Women’s Forum

Tom Homan, The Heritage Foundation

Chris Horner

Mike Howell, The Heritage Foundation

Valerie Huber, The Institute for Women’s Health

Andrew Hughes, American Cornerstone Institute

Joseph Humire, Center for a Secure Free Society

Christopher Iacovella, American Securities Association

Melanie Israel, The Heritage Foundation

Ken Ivory, Utah House of Representatives

Roman Jankowski, The Heritage Foundation

Abby Jones

Emilie Kao, Alliance Defending Freedom

Jared M. Kelson, Boyden Gray & Associates

Aaron Kheriaty, Ethics and Public Policy Center

Ali Kilmartin, Alliance Defending Freedom

Julie Kirchner, Federation for American Immigration Reform

Dan Kish, Institute for Energy Research

Kenneth A. Klukowski

Adam Korzeniewski, American Principles Project

Kathy Nuebel Kovarik, Sagitta Solutions, LLC

Bethany Kozma, Keystone Policy

Matthew Kozma

Julius Krein, American Aairs

Stanley Kurtz, Ethics and Public Policy Center

David LaCerte, Baker Botts, LLP

Paul J. Larkin, The Heritage Foundation

Kent Lassman, Competitive Enterprise Institute

James R. Lawrence III, Envisage Law

Paul Lawrence, Lawrence Consulting

Nathan Leamer, Targeted Victory

— xxix —

Contributors

David Legates, University of Delaware (Ret.)

Marlo Lewis, Competitive Enterprise Institute

Ben Lieberman, Competitive Enterprise Institute

John Ligon

Evelyn Lim, American Cornerstone Institute

Mario Loyola, Competitive Enterprise Institute

John G. Malcolm, The Heritage Foundation

Joseph Masterman, Cooper & Kirk, PLLC

Earl Matthews, The Vandenberg Coalition

Dan Mauler, Heritage Action for America

Drew McCall, American Cornerstone Institute

Trent McCotter, Boyden Gray & Associates

Micah Meadowcroft, The American Conservative

Edwin Meese III, The Heritage Foundation

Jessica Melugin, Competitive Enterprise Institute

Frank Mermoud, Orpheus International

Mark Miller, Oce of Governor Kristi Noem

Cleta Mitchell, Conservative Partnership Institute

Kevin E. Moley

Caitlin Moon, American Center for Law & Justice

Clare Morell, Ethics and Public Policy Center

Mark Morgan, The Heritage Foundation

Hunter Morgen, American Cornerstone Institute

Rachel Morrison, Ethics and Public Policy Center

Jonathan Moy, The Heritage Foundation

Iain Murray, Competitive Enterprise Institute

Ryan Nabil, National Taxpayers Union

Michael Nasi, Jackson Walker LLP

Lucien Niemeyer, The Niemeyer Group, LLC

Nazak Nikakhtar, Wiley Rein LLP

Milan “Mitch” Nikolich

Matt O’Brien, Immigration Reform Law Institute

Caleb Orr, Boyden Gray & Associates

Michael Pack

Leah Pedersen

Michael Pillsbury, The Heritage Foundation

Patrick Pizzella, Leadership Institute

Robert Poole, Reason Foundation

Christopher B. Porter

Kevin Preskenis, Allymar Health Solutions

Pam Pryor, National Committee for Religious Freedom

Thomas Pyle, Institute for Energy Research

— xxx —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

John Ratclie, American Global Strategies

Paul Ray, The Heritage Foundation

Joseph Reddan, Flexilis Forestry, LLC

Jay W. Richards, The Heritage Foundation

Jordan Richardson, Heise Suarez Melville, P.A.

Jason Richwine, Center for Immigration Studies

Shaun Rieley, The American Conservative

Lora Ries, The Heritage Foundation

Leo Rios

Mark Robeck, Energy Evolution Consulting LLC

James Rockas, ACLJ Action

Mark Royce, NOVA-Annandale College

Reed Rubinstein, America First Legal Foundation

William Ruger, American Institute for Economic Research

Austin Ruse, Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam)

Brent D. Sadler, The Heritage Foundation

Alexander William Salter, Texas Tech University

Jon Sanders, John Locke Foundation

Carla Sands, America First Policy Institute

Robby Stephany Saunders, Coalition for a Prosperous America

David Sauve

Brett D. Schaefer, The Heritage Foundation

Nina Owcharenko Schaefer, The Heritage Foundation

Matt Schuck, American Cornerstone Institute

Justin Schwab, CGCN Law

Jon Schweppe, American Principles Project

Marc Scribner, Reason Foundation

Darin Selnick, Selnick Consulting

Josh Sewell, Taxpayers for Common Sense

Kathleen Sgamma, Western Energy Alliance

Matt Sharp, Alliance Defending Freedom

Judy Shelton, Independent Institute

Nathan Simington

Loren Smith, Skyline Policy Risk Group

Zack Smith, The Heritage Foundation

Jack Spencer, The Heritage Foundation

Adrienne Spero, U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security

Thomas W. Spoehr, The Heritage Foundation

Peter St Onge, The Heritage Foundation

Chris Stanley, Functional Government Initiative

Paula M. Stannard

Parker Stathatos, Texas Public Policy Foundation

— xxxi —

Contributors

William Steiger, Independent Consultant

Kenny Stein, Institute for Energy Research

Corey Stewart, Stewart PLLC

Mari Stull

Katharine T. Sullivan, 1792 Exchange

Brett Swearingen, Miller Johnson

Michael Sweeney

Robert Swope

Aaron Szabo, CGCN Group

Katy Talento, AllBetter Health

Tony Tata, Tata Leadership Group, LLC

Farnaz Farkish Thompson

Todd Thurman, American Cornerstone Institute

Brett Tolman, Tolman Group

Kayla M. Tonnessen, Recovery for America NowFoundation

Joe Trotter, American Legislative Exchange Council

Tevi Troy, Mercatus Center

Clayton Tufts

Erin Valdez, Texas Public Policy Foundation

Mark Vandro

Jessica M. Vaughan, Center for Immigration Studies

John “JV” Venable, The Heritage Foundation

Morgan Lorraine Viña, Jewish Institute for National Security of America

Andrew N. Vollmer, Mercatus Center

Hans A. von Spakovsky, The Heritage Foundation

Greg Walcher, Natural Resources Group, LLC

David M. Walsh, Takota Group

Erin Walsh, The Heritage Foundation

Jacklyn Ward, American Cornerstone Institute

Emma Waters, The Heritage Foundation

Michael Williams, American Cornerstone Institute

Aaron Wol

Jonathan Wolfson

Alexei Woltornist, ATHOS

Frank Wuco

Cesar Ybarra, FreedomWorks

John Zadrozny, America First LegalFoundation

Laura Zorc, FreedomWorks

— 1 —

A PROMISE

TO AMERICA

Kevin D. Roberts, PhD

orty-four years ago, the United States and the conservative movement were

in dire straits. Both had been betrayed by the Washington establishment

and were uncertain whom to trust. Both were internally splintered and stra-

tegically adrift. Worse still, at that moment of acute vulnerability and division, we

found ourselves besieged by existential adversaries, foreign and domestic. The late

1970s were by any measure a historic low point for America and the political coa-

lition dedicated to preserving its unique legacy of human ﬂourishing and freedom.

Today, America and the conservative movement are enduring an era of division

and danger akin to the late 1970s. Now, as then, our political class has been discred-

ited by wholesale dishonesty and corruption. Look at America under the ruling

and cultural elite today: Inﬂation is ravaging family budgets, drug overdose deaths

continue to escalate, and children suer the toxic normalization of transgender-

ism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries. Overseas,

a totalitarian Communist dictatorship in Beijing is engaged in a strategic, cultural,

and economic Cold War against America’s interests, values, and people—all while

globalist elites in Washington awaken only slowly to that growing threat. Moreover,

low-income communities are drowning in addiction and government dependence.

Contemporary elites have even repurposed the worst ingredients of 1970s “radical

chic” to build the totalitarian cult known today as “The Great Awokening.” And

now, as then, the Republican Party seems to have little understanding about what

to do. Most alarming of all, the very moral foundations of our society are in peril.

Yet students of history will note that, notwithstanding all those challenges,

the late 1970s proved to be the moment when the political Right uniﬁed itself

Foreword

— 2 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

and the country and led the United States to historic political, economic, and

global victories.

The Heritage Foundation is proud to have played a small but pivotal role in that

story. It was in early 1979—amid stagﬂation, gas lines, and the Red Army’s inva-

sion of Afghanistan, the nadir of Jimmy Carter’s days of malaise—that Heritage

launched the Mandate for Leadership project. We brought together hundreds of

conservative scholars and academics across the conservative movement. Together,

this team created a 20-volume, 3,000-page governing handbook containing more

than 2,000 conservative policies to reform the federal government and rescue

the American people from Washington dysfunction. It was a promise from the

conservative movement to the country—conﬁdent, speciﬁc, and clear.

Mandate for Leadership was published in January 1981—the same month Ronald

Reagan was sworn into his presidency. By the end of that year, more than 60 percent

of its recommendations had become policy—and Reagan was on his way to ending

stagﬂation, reviving American conﬁdence and prosperity, and winning the Cold War.

The bad news today is that our political establishment and cultural elite have

once again driven America toward decline. The good news is that we know the

way out even though the challenges today are not what they were in the 1970s.

Conservatives should be conﬁdent that we can rescue our kids, reclaim our culture,

revive our economy, and defeat the anti-American Left—at home and abroad. We

did it before and will do it again.

As Ronald Reagan put it:

Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from

extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and

defended constantly by each generation[.]

This is the duty history has put before us and the standard by which our gen-

eration of conservatives will be judged. And we should not want it any other way.

The legacy of Mandate for Leadership, and indeed of the entire Reagan Rev-

olution, is that if conservatives want to save the country, we need a bold and

courageous plan. This book is the ﬁrst step in that plan.

THE CONSERVATIVE PROMISE

This volume—The Conservative Promise—is the opening salvo of the 2025 Pres

idential Transition Project, launched by The Heritage Foundation and our many

partners in April 2022. Its 30 chapters lay out hundreds of clear and concrete policy

recommendations for White House oces, Cabinet departments, Congress, and

agencies, commissions, and boards.

Just as important as the scope of The Conservative Promise’s recommendations

is the breadth of its authorship. This book is the product of more than 400 scholars

— 3 —

Foreword

and policy experts from across the conservative movement and around the country.

Contributors include former elected ocials, world-renowned economists, and

veterans from four presidential Administrations. This is an agenda prepared by

and for conservatives who will be ready on Day One of the next Administration to

save our country from the brink of disaster.

The Heritage Foundation is once again facilitating this work. But as our dozens

of partners and hundreds of authors will attest, this book is the work of the entire

conservative movement. As such, the authors express consensus recommendations

already forged, especially along four broad fronts that will decide America’s future:

 Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect

our children.

 Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the

American people.

 Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.

 Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution

calls “the Blessings of Liberty.”

What makes these four pieces of the conservative promise so valuable to the

next President is that they cut through superﬁcial distractions and focus on the

moral and foundational challenges America faces in this moment of history. This

was one of the secrets of conservatives’ success in the Reagan Era, one our gener-

ation should emulate.

As in the late 1970s, Americans today experience the failures of political and cul-

tural elites in countless ways: in the job market and in the grocery store checkout

lines, on the streets and in our schools, in the media and within our institutions. But

in truth, these daily dysfunctions are not innumerable problems, but innumerable

manifestations of a few core crises.

In 1979, the threats we faced were the Soviet Union, the socialism of 1970s lib-

erals, and the predatory deviancy of cultural elites. Reagan defeated these beasts

by ignoring their tentacles and striking instead at their hearts.

His approach to the Cold War? “We win and they lose.”

His economic agenda? The human dignity of work and its many rewards.

His platform in the culture wars? The “community of values embodied in these

words: family, work, neighborhood, peace and freedom.”

This book—and Project 2025 as a whole—will arm the next conservative Pres-

ident with the same kind of strategic clarity, but for a new age.

— 4 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

PROMISE #1: RESTORE THE FAMILY AS THE CENTERPIECE

OF AMERICAN LIFE AND PROTECT OUR CHILDREN.

The next conservative President must get to work pursuing the true priority of

politics—the well-being of the American family.

In many ways, the entire point of centralizing political power is to subvert the

family. Its purpose is to replace people’s natural loves and loyalties with unnatu-

ral ones. You see this in the popular left-wing aphorism, “Government is simply

the name we give to the things we choose to do together.” But in real life, most of

the things people “do together” have nothing to do with government. These are

the mediating institutions that serve as the building blocks of any healthy society.

Marriage. Family. Work. Church. School. Volunteering. The name real people give

to the things we do together is community, not government. Our lives are full of

interwoven, overlapping communities, and our individual and collective happiness

depends upon them. But the most important community in each of our lives—and

the life of the nation—is the family.

Today, the American family is in crisis. Forty percent of all children are born

to unmarried mothers, including more than 70 percent of black children. There

is no government program that can replace the hole in a child’s soul cut out by

the absence of a father. Fatherlessness is one of the principal sources of Ameri-

can poverty, crime, mental illness, teen suicide, substance abuse, rejection of the

church, and high school dropouts. So many of the problems government programs

are designed to solve—but can’t—are ultimately problems created by the crisis of

marriage and the family. The world has never seen a thriving, healthy, free, and

prosperous society where most children grow up without their married parents.

If current trends continue, we are heading toward social implosion.

Furthermore, the next conservative President must understand that using gov-

ernment alone to respond to symptoms of the family crisis is a dead end. Federal

power must instead be wielded to reverse the crisis and rescue America’s kids from

familial breakdown. The Conservative Promise includes dozens of speciﬁc policies

to accomplish this existential task.

Some are obvious and long-standing goals like eliminating marriage penalties

in federal welfare programs and the tax code and installing work requirements for

food stamps. But we must go further. It’s time for policymakers to elevate family

authority, formation, and cohesion as their top priority and even use government

power, including through the tax code, to restore the American family.

Today the Left is threatening the tax-exempt status of churches and charities

that reject woke progressivism. They will soon turn to Christian schools and clubs

with the same totalitarian intent.

The next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil

society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms

sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion

— 5 —

Foreword

(“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensi-

tive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used

to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule,

agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.

Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender

ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot

inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual

liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its

purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product

is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime.

Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should

be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed

as registered sex oenders. And telecommunications and technology ﬁrms that

facilitate its spread should be shuttered.

In our schools, the question of parental authority over their children’s education

is a simple one: Schools serve parents, not the other way around. That is, of course,

the best argument for universal school choice—a goal all conservatives and con-

servative Presidents must pursue. But even before we achieve that long-term goal,

parents’ rights as their children’s primary educators should be non-negotiable in

American schools. States, cities and counties, school boards, union bosses, princi-

pals, and teachers who disagree should be immediately cut o from federal funds.

The noxious tenets of “critical race theory” and “gender ideology” should be

excised from curricula in every public school in the country. These theories poison

our children, who are being taught on the one hand to arm that the color of their

skin fundamentally determines their identity and even their moral status while

on the other they are taught to deny the very creatureliness that inheres in being

human and consists in accepting the givenness of our nature as men or women.

Allowing parents or physicians to “reassign” the sex of a minor is child abuse and

must end. For public institutions to use taxpayer dollars to declare the superiority

or inferiority of certain races, sexes, and religions is a violation of the Constitu-

tion and civil rights law and cannot be tolerated by any government anywhere in

the country.

But the pro-family promises expressed in this book, and central to the next

conservative President’s agenda, must go much further than the traditional, narrow

deﬁnition of “family issues.” Every threat to family stability must be confronted.

This resolve should color each of our policies. Consider our approach to Big

Tech. The worst of these companies prey on children, like drug dealers, to get them

addicted to their mobile apps. Many Silicon Valley executives famously don’t let

their own kids have smart phones.

They nevertheless make billions of dollars

addicting other people’s children to theirs. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,

and other social media platforms are speciﬁcally designed to create the digital

— 6 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

dependencies that fuel mental illness and anxiety, to fray children’s bonds with

their parents and siblings. Federal policy cannot allow this industrial-scale child

abuse to continue.

Finally, conservatives should gratefully celebrate the greatest pro-family win

in a generation: overturning Roe v. Wade, a decision that for ﬁve decades made a

mockery of our Constitution and facilitated the deaths of tens of millions of unborn

children. But the Dobbs decision is just the beginning. Conservatives in the states

and in Washington, including in the next conservative Administration, should

push as hard as possible to protect the unborn in every jurisdiction in America. In

particular, the next conservative President should work with Congress to enact the

most robust protections for the unborn that Congress will support while deploying

existing federal powers to protect innocent life and vigorously complying with

statutory bans on the federal funding of abortion. Conservatives should ardently

pursue these pro-life and pro-family policies while recognizing the many women

who ﬁnd themselves in immensely dicult and often tragic situations and the hero-

ism of every choice to become a mother. Alternative options to abortion, especially

adoption, should receive federal and state support.

In summary, the next President has a moral responsibility to lead the nation in

restoring a culture of life in America again.

PROMISE #2: DISMANTLE THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE AND

RETURN SELF-GOVERNANCE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

Of course, the surest way to put the federal government back to work for the

American people is to reduce its size and scope back to something resembling

the original constitutional intent. Conservatives desire a smaller government

not for its own sake, but for the sake of human ﬂourishing. But the Washington

Establishment doesn’t want a constitutionally limited government because it

means they lose power and are held more accountable by the people who put

them in power.

Like restoring popular sovereignty, the task of reattaching the federal gov-

ernment’s constitutional and democratic tethers calls to mind Ronald Reagan’s

observation that “there are no easy answers, but there are simple answers.”

In the case of making the federal government smaller, more eective, and

accountable, the simple answer is the Constitution itself. The surest proof of this

is how strenuously and creatively generations of progressives and many Repub-

lican insiders have worked to cut themselves free from the strictures of the 1789

Constitution and subsequent amendments.

Consider the federal budget. Under current law, Congress is required to pass

a budget—and 12 issue-speciﬁc spending bills comporting with it—every single

year. The last time Congress did so was in 1996. Congress no longer meaningfully

budgets, authorizes, or categorizes spending.

— 7 —

Foreword

Instead, party leaders negotiate one multitrillion-dollar spending bill—several

thousand pages long—and then vote on it before anyone, literally, has had a chance

to read it. Debate time is restricted. Amendments are prohibited. And all of this

is backed up against a midnight deadline when the previous “omnibus” spending

bill will run out and the federal government “shuts down.”

This process is not designed to empower 330 million American citizens and

their elected representatives, but rather to empower the party elites secretly nego-

tiating without any public scrutiny or oversight.

In the end, congressional leaders’ behavior and incentives here are no dier

ent from those of global elites insulating policy decisions—over the climate, trade,

public health, you name it—from the sovereignty of national electorates. Public

scrutiny and democratic accountability make life harder for policymakers—so they

skirt it. It’s not dysfunction; it’s corruption.

And despite its gaudy price tag, the federal budget is not even close to the worst

example of this corruption. That distinction belongs to the “Administrative State,”

the dismantling of which must a top priority for the next conservative President.

The term Administrative State refers to the policymaking work done by the

bureaucracies of all the federal government’s departments, agencies, and millions

of employees. Under Article I of the Constitution, “All legislative Powers herein

granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of

a Senate and a House of Representatives.” That is, federal law is enacted only by

elected legislators in both houses of Congress.

This exclusive authority was part of the Framers’ doctrine of “separated powers.”

They not only split the federal government’s legislative, executive, and judicial

powers into dierent branches. They also gave each branch checks over the others.

Under our Constitution, the legislative branch—Congress—is far and away the most

powerful and, correspondingly, the most accountable to the people.

In recent decades, members of the House and Senate discovered that if they give

away that power to the Article II branch of government, they can also deny responsi-

bility for its actions. So today in Washington, most policy is no longer set by Congress

at all, but by the Administrative State. Given the choice between being powerful but

vulnerable or irrelevant but famous, most Members of Congress have chosen the latter.

Congress passes intentionally vague laws that delegate decision-making over

a given issue to a federal agency. That agency’s bureaucrats—not just unelected

but seemingly un-ﬁreable—then leap at the chance to ﬁll the vacuum created by

Congress’s preening cowardice. The federal government is growing larger and less

constitutionally accountable—even to the President—every year.

A combination of elected and unelected bureaucrats at the Environmental

Protection Agency quietly strangles domestic energy production through

dicult-to-understand rulemaking processes;

— 8 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Bureaucrats at the Department of Homeland Security, following the lead

of a feckless Administration, order border and immigration enforcement

agencies to help migrants criminally enter our country with impunity;

Bureaucrats at the Department of Education inject racist, anti-American,

ahistorical propaganda into America’s classrooms;

Bureaucrats at the Department of Justice force school districts to

undermine girls’ sports and parents’ rights to satisfy transgender extremists;

Woke bureaucrats at the Pentagon force troops to attend “training”

seminars about “white privilege”; and

Bureaucrats at the State Department infuse U.S. foreign aid programs with

woke extremism about “intersectionality” and abortion.

Unaccountable federal spending is the secret lifeblood of the Great Awokening.

Nearly every power center held by the Left is funded or supported, one way or

another, through the bureaucracy by Congress. Colleges and school districts are

funded by tax dollars. The Administrative State holds 100 percent of its power at

the suerance of Congress, and its insulation from presidential discipline is an

unconstitutional fairy tale spun by the Washington Establishment to protect its

turf. Members of Congress shield themselves from constitutional accountability

often when the White House allows them to get away with it. Cultural institutions

like public libraries and public health agencies are only as “independent” from

public accountability as elected ocials and voters permit.

Let’s be clear: The most egregious regulations promulgated by the current

Administration come from one place: the Oval Oce. The President cannot hide

behind the agencies; as his many executive orders make clear, his is the respon-

sibility for the regulations that threaten American communities, schools, and

families. A conservative President must move swiftly to do away with these vast

abuses of presidential power and remove the career and political bureaucrats

who fuel it.

Properly considered, restoring ﬁscal limits and constitutional accountability

to the federal government is a continuation of restoring national sovereignty to

the American people. In foreign aairs, global strategy, federal budgeting and pol-

icymaking, the same pattern emerges again and again. Ruling elites slash and tear

at restrictions and accountability placed on them. They centralize power up and

away from the American people: to supra-national treaties and organizations, to

left-wing “experts,” to sight-unseen all-or-nothing legislating, to the unelected

career bureaucrats of the Administrative State.

— 9 —

Foreword

As monolithic as the Left’s institutional power appears to be, it originates with

appropriations from Congress and is made complete by a feckless President. A

conservative President must look to the legislative branch for decisive action. The

Administrative State is not going anywhere until Congress acts to retrieve its own

power from bureaucrats and the White House. But in the meantime, there are

many executive tools a courageous conservative President can use to handcu the

bureaucracy, push Congress to return to its constitutional responsibility, restore

power over Washington to the American people, bring the Administrative State

to heel, and in the process defang and defund the woke culture warriors who have

inﬁltrated every last institution in America.

The Conservative Promise lays out how to use many of these tools including:

how to ﬁre supposedly “un-ﬁreable” federal bureaucrats; how to shutter wasteful

and corrupt bureaus and oces; how to muzzle woke propaganda at every level of

government; how to restore the American people’s constitutional authority over

the Administrative State; and how to save untold taxpayer dollars in the process.

Finally, the President can restore public conﬁdence and accountability to our

most important government function of all: national defense. The American people

desire a military full of highly skilled servicemen and women who can protect the

homeland and our interests overseas. The next conservative President must end

the Left’s social experimentation with the military, restore warﬁghting as its sole

mission, and set defeating the threat of the Chinese Communist Party as its high-

est priority.

The next conservative President must possess the courage to relentlessly put

the interests of the everyday American over the desires of the ruling elite. Their

outrage cannot be prevented; it must simply be ignored. And it can be. The Left

derives its power from the institutions they control. But those institutions are only

powerful to the extent that constitutional ocers surrender their own legitimate

authority to them. A President who refuses to do so and uses his or her oce to

reimpose constitutional authority over federal policymaking can begin to correct

decades of corruption and remove thousands of bureaucrats from the positions

of public trust they have so long abused.

PROMISE #3: DEFEND OUR NATION’S SOVEREIGNTY,

BORDERS, AND BOUNTY AGAINST GLOBAL THREATS.

The United States belongs to “We the people.” All government authority derives

from the consent of the people, and our nation’s success derives from the character

of its people. The American people’s right to rule ourselves is the obverse of our

duty: We cannot outsource to others our obligation to ensure the conditions that

allow our families, local communities, churches and synagogues, and neighbor-

hoods to thrive. The buck stops with each of us, so each of us must have the freedom

to pursue the good for ourselves and those entrusted to our care.

— 10 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

To most Americans, this is common sense. But in Washington, D.C. and other

centers of Leftist power like the media and the academy, this statement of basic

civics is branded hate speech. Progressive elites speak in lofty terms of openness,

progress, expertise, cooperation, and globalization. But too often, these terms are

just rhetorical Trojan horses concealing their true intention—stripping “we the

people” of our constitutional authority over our country’s future.

America’s corporate and political elites do not believe in the ideals to which our

nation is dedicated—self-governance, the rule of law, and ordered liberty. They

certainly do not trust the American people, and they disdain the Constitution’s

restrictions on their ambitions.

Instead, they believe in a kind of 21st century Wilsonian order in which the

“enlightened,” highly educated managerial elite runs things rather than the humble,

patriotic working families who make up the majority of what the elites contemp-

tuously call “ﬂy-over country.”

This Wilsonian hubris has spread like a cancer through many of America’s larg-

est corporations, its public institutions, and its popular culture. Those who run our

so-called American corporations have bent to the will of the woke agenda and care

more for their foreign investors and organizations than their American workers

and customers. Today, nearly every top-tier U.S. university president or Wall Street

hedge fund manager has more in common with a socialist, European head of state

than with the parents at a high school football game in Waco, Texas. Many elites’

entire identity, it seems, is wrapped up in their sense of superiority over those

people. But under our Constitution, they are the mere equals of the workers who

shower after work instead of before.

This is as it should and must be. Intellectual sophistication, advanced degrees,

ﬁnancial success, and all other markers of elite status have no bearing on a per-

son’s knowledge of the one thing most necessary for governance: what it means

to live well. That knowledge is available to each of us, no matter how humble our

backgrounds or how unpretentious our attainments. It is open to us to read in

the book of human nature, to which we are all oered the key just by merit of

our shared humanity. One of the great premises of American political life is that

everyone who can read in that book must have a voice in deciding the course and

fate of our Republic.

Progressive policymakers and pundits in America either fail to understand this

premise or intentionally reject it. They enthusiastically support supranational

organizations like the United Nations and European Union, which are run and

staed almost entirely by people who share their values and are mostly insulated

from the inﬂuence of national elections. That’s why they are eager for America to

sign international treaties on everything from pharmaceutical patents to climate

change to “the rights of the child”—and why those treaties invariably endorse poli-

cies that could never pass through the U.S. Congress. Like the progressive Woodrow

— 11 —

Foreword

Wilson a century ago, the woke Left today seeks a world, bound by global treaties

they write, in which they exercise dictatorial powers over all nations without being

subject to democratic accountability.

That’s why today’s progressive Left so cavalierly supports open borders despite

the lawless humanitarian crisis their policy created along America’s southern

border. They seek to purge the very concept of the nation-state from the Amer-

ican ethos, no matter how much crime increases or resources drop for schools

and hospitals or wages decrease for the working class. Open-borders activism is a

classic example of what the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeer called “cheap

grace”—publicly promoting one’s own virtue without risking any personal incon-

venience. Indeed, the only direct impact of open borders on pro-open borders

elites is that the constant ﬂow of illegal immigration suppresses the wages of their

housekeepers, landscapers, and busboys.

“Cheap grace” aptly describes the Left’s love aair with environmental extrem-

ism. Those who suer most from the policies environmentalism would have us

enact are the aged, poor, and vulnerable. It is not a political cause, but a pseu-

do-religion meant to baptize liberals’ ruthless pursuit of absolute power in the

holy water of environmental virtue.

At its very heart, environmental extremism is decidedly anti-human. Stew-

ardship and conservation are supplanted by population control and economic

regression. Environmental ideologues would ban the fuels that run almost all of the

world’s cars, planes, factories, farms, and electricity grids. Abandoning conﬁdence

in human resilience and creativity in responding to the challenges of the future

would raise impediments to the most meaningful human activities. They would

stand human aairs on their head, regarding human activity itself as fundamentally

a threat to be sacriﬁced to the god of nature.

The same goals are the heart of elite support for economic globalization. For 30

years, America’s political, economic, and cultural leaders embraced and enriched

Communist China and its genocidal Communist Party while hollowing out Ameri-

ca’s industrial base. What may have started out with good intentions has now been

made clear. Unfettered trade with China has been a catastrophe. It has made a

handful of American corporations enormously proﬁtable while twisting their

business incentives away from the American people’s needs. For a generation, pol-

iticians of both parties promised that engagement with Beijing would grow our

economy while injecting American values into China. The opposite has happened.

American factories have closed. Jobs have been outsourced. Our manufacturing

economy has been ﬁnancialized. And all along, the corporations proﬁting failed

to export our values of human rights and freedom; rather, they imported China’s

anti-American values into their C-suites.

Even before the rise of Big Tech, Wall Street ignored China’s serial theft of

American intellectual property. It outright cheered the elimination of American

— 12 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

manufacturing jobs. (“Learn to code!” they would gloat.) These were just the price

of progress. Engagement was at every step Beijing’s project, not America’s. The

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) dictated terms, only to break them whenever it

suited them. They stole our technology, spied on our people, and threatened our

allies, all with trillions of dollars of wealth and military power ﬁnanced by their

access to our market.

Then came the rise of Big Tech, which is now less a contributor to the U.S.

economy than it is a tool of China’s government. In exchange for cheap labor and

regulatory special treatment from Beijing, America’s largest technology ﬁrms

funnel data about Americans to the CCP. They hand over sensitive intellectual

property with military and intelligence applications to keep the money rolling

in. They let Beijing censor Chinese users on their platforms. They let the CCP

set their corporate policies about mobile apps. And they run interference for our

rival’s political priorities in Washington. One side of Big-Tech companies’ business

model is old-fashioned American competitiveness and world-changing techno-

logical innovation; but increasingly, that side of these businesses is overshadowed

by their role as operatives in the lucrative employ of America’s most dangerous

international enemy.

If you want to understand the danger posed by collaboration between Big Tech

and the CCP, look no further than TikTok. The highly addictive video app, used by

80 million Americans every month and overwhelmingly popular among teenage

girls, is in eect a tool of Chinese espionage. The ties between TikTok and the

Chinese government are not loose, and they are not coincidental.

The same can be observed of many U.S. colleges and universities. Through the

CCP's Confucius Institutes, Beijing has been just as successful at compromising

and coopting our higher education system as they have at compromising and coopt-

ing corporate America.

A casual reader might take the last few pages as surveying a broad array of

challenges facing the American people and the next conservative President: supra-

national policymaking, border security, globalization, engagement with China,

manufacturing, Big Tech, and Beijing-compromised colleges.

But these really are not many issues, but two: (1) that China is a totalitarian

enemy of the United States, not a strategic partner or fair competitor, and (2) that

America’s elites have betrayed the American people. The solution to all of the above

problems is not to tinker with this or that government program, to replace this or

that bureaucrat. These are problems not of technocratic eciency but of national

sovereignty and constitutional governance. We solve them not by trimming and

reshaping the leaves but by ripping out the trees—root and branch.

International organizations and agreements that erode our Constitution, rule

of law, or popular sovereignty should not be reformed: They should be aban-

doned. Illegal immigration should be ended, not mitigated; the border sealed, not

— 13 —

Foreword

reprioritized. Economic engagement with China should be ended, not rethought.

Our manufacturing and industrial base should be restored, not allowed to dete-

riorate further. Confucius Institutes, TikTok, and any other arm of Chinese

propaganda and espionage should be outlawed, not merely monitored. Univer-

sities taking money from the CCP should lose their accreditation, charters, and

eligibility for federal funds.

The next conservative President should go beyond merely defending America’s

energy interests but go on oense, asserting them around the world. America’s

vast reserves of oil and natural gas are not an environmental problem; they are the

lifeblood of economic growth. American dominance of the global energy market

would be a good thing: for the world, and, more importantly, for “we the people.”

It’s not just about jobs, even though unleashing domestic energy production would

create millions of them. It’s not just about higher wages for workers who didn’t

go to college, though they would receive the raises they have missed out on for

two generations. Full-spectrum strategic energy dominance would facilitate the

reinvigoration of America’s entire industrial and manufacturing sector as we dis-

entangle our economy from China. Globally, it would rebalance power away from

dangerous regimes in Russia and the Middle East. It would build powerful alliances

with fast-growing nations in Africa and provide us the leverage to counter Chi-

nese ambitions in South America and the Paciﬁc. Locally, it would drive billions

of dollars of private investment to the communities that have been hammered by

globalization since the 1990s. And it would clarify our intentions to Beijing that

the next President can ensure that a large part of America’s reindustrialization is in

the production of the equipment we will need to dissuade future foreign meddling

with U.S. vital interests.

PROMISE #4 SECURE OUR GOD-GIVEN INDIVIDUAL

RIGHT TO ENJOY “THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY.”

The Declaration of Independence famously asserted the belief of America’s

Founders that “all men are created equal” and endowed with God-given rights to

“Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” It’s the last—“the pursuit of Happi-

ness”—that is central to America’s heroic experiment in self-government.

When the Founders spoke of “pursuit of Happiness,” what they meant might

be understood today as in essence “pursuit of Blessedness.” That is, an individual

must be free to live as his Creator ordained—to ﬂourish. Our Constitution grants

each of us the liberty to do not what we want, but what we ought. This pursuit of the

good life is found primarily in family—marriage, children, Thanksgiving dinners,

and the like. Many ﬁnd happiness through their work. Think of dedicated teach-

ers or health care professionals you know, entrepreneurs or plumbers throwing

themselves into their businesses—anyone who sees a job well done as a personal

reward. Religious devotion and spirituality are the greatest sources of happiness

— 14 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

around the world. Still others ﬁnd themselves happiest in their local voluntary

communities of friends, their neighbors, their civic or charitable work.

The American Republic was founded on principles prioritizing and maximizing

individuals’ rights to live their best life or to enjoy what the Framers called “the

Blessings of Liberty.” It’s this radical equality—liberty for all—not just of rights but

of authority—that the rich and powerful have hated about democracy in America

since 1776. They resent Americans’ audacity in insisting that we don’t need them

to tell us how to live. It’s this inalienable right of self-direction—of each person’s

opportunity to direct himself or herself, and his or her community, to the good—

that the ruling class disdains.

With the Declaration and Constitution, our nation’s Founders handed to us

the means with which to preserve this right. Abraham Lincoln wrote of the Dec-

laration as an “apple of gold” in a silver frame, the Constitution. So must the next

conservative President look to these documents when the elites mount their next

assault on liberty.

Left to our own devices, the American people rejected European monarchy

and colonialism just as we rejected slavery, second-class citizenship for women,

mercantilism, socialism, Wilsonian globalism, Fascism, Communism, and (today)

wokeism. To the Left, these assertions of patriotic self-assurance are just so many

signs of our moral depravity and intellectual inferiority—proof that, in fact, we

need a ruling elite making decisions for us.

But the next conservative President should be proud, not ashamed of Americans’

unique culture of social equality and ordered liberty. After all, the countries where

Marxist elites have won political and economic power are all weaker, poorer, and

less free for it.

The United States remains the most innovative and upwardly mobile society

in the world. Government should stop trying to substitute its own preferences

for those of the people. And the next conservative President should champion

the dynamic genius of free enterprise against the grim miseries of elite-di-

rected socialism.

The promise of socialism—Communism, Marxism, progressivism, Fascism,

whatever name it chooses—is simple: Government control of the economy can

ensure equal outcomes for all people. The problem is that it has never done so.

There is no such thing as “the government.” There are just people who work for

the government and wield its power and who—at almost every opportunity—wield

it to serve themselves ﬁrst and everyone else a distant second. This is not a failing

of one nation or socialist party, but inherent in human nature.

Nighttime satellite images of the Korean peninsula famously show the free-mar-

ket South lit up, with homes, businesses, and cities electriﬁed from coast to coast.

By contrast, Communist North Korea is almost completely dark, except for the

small dot of the capital city, Pyongyang, where a psychotic dictator and his cronies

— 15 —

Foreword

live. The same phenomenon is on display in the infuriating fact that four of the

six richest counties in the United States are suburbs of Washington, D.C.—a city

infamous for its lack of native productive industries.

We see the same corruption expressed on an individual level whenever billion-

aire climate activists, who want to outlaw carbon-fueled transportation, ﬂy to A-list

conferences on their private jets. Or when COVID-19 shutdown politicians like

former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and California Governor Gavin Newsom were

caught at the hair salon or dining at fancy restaurants after moralizing about how

everyone else must stay home and forgo such luxuries during the pandemic. For

socialists, who are almost always well-to-do, socialism is not a means of equalizing

outcomes, but a means of accumulating power. They never get around to helping

anyone else.

The Soviet empire was a social and economic failure. North Korea, despite the

opulence of its tyrants, is one of the poorest nations in the world. Cuba is so corrupt

that its people regularly risk their lives to escape to Florida on rafts. Venezuela was

once the richest nation in South America; today, a decade after a Marxist dictator

took over, 94 percent of Venezuelans live in poverty.

Even socialist Senator Bernie

Sanders’ home state of Vermont was forced to repeal the state’s single-payer health

care system just three years after creating it.

In every case, socialist elites promised that if only they could direct the econ-

omy, everything would be better. Very quickly, everything got worse. In socialist

nation after socialist nation, the only way the government could keep its disgrun-

tled people in line was to surveil and terrorize them.

By contrast, in countries with a high degree of economic freedom, elites are

not in charge because everyone is in charge. People work, build, invest, save, and

create according to their own interests and in service to the common good of their

fellow citizens.

There is a reason why the private economy hews to the maxim “the customer

is always right” while government bureaucracies are notoriously user-unfriendly,

just as there is a reason why private charities are cheerful and government welfare

systems are not. It’s not because grocery store clerks and PTA moms are “good”

and federal bureaucrats are “bad.” It’s because private enterprises—for-proﬁt or

nonproﬁt—must cooperate, to give, to succeed.

So as the American people take back their sovereignty, constitutional authority,

respect for their families and communities, they should also take back their right

to pursue the good life.

The next President should promote pro-growth economic policies that spur

new jobs and investment, higher wages, and productivity. Yes, that agenda should

include overdue tax and regulatory reform, but it should go further and include

antitrust enforcement against corporate monopolies. It should promote educa-

tional opportunities outside the woke-dominated system of public schools and

— 16 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

universities, including trade schools, apprenticeship programs, and student-loan

alternatives that fund students’ dreams instead of Marxist academics. Just as

important as expanding opportunities for workers and small businesses, the

next President should crack down on the crony capitalist corruption that enables

America’s largest corporations to proﬁt through political inﬂuence rather than

competitive enterprise and customer satisfaction.

Analogous pro-growth reforms for America’s voluntary civil society are also

in order. America is not an economy; it is a country. Economic freedom is not the

only important freedom. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the freedom

to assemble also represent key components of the American promise. Today, in

addition to the problem of Big Tech censorship, we see speakers at universities

shouted down, parents investigated and arrested for attempting to speak at school

board meetings, and donors to conservative causes harassed and intimidated. The

next conservative President must defend our First Amendment rights.

BEST EFFORT

Ultimately, the Left does not believe that all men are created equal—they think

they are special. They certainly don’t think all people have an unalienable right to

pursue the good life. They think only they themselves have such a right along with

a moral responsibility to make decisions for everyone else. They don’t think any

citizen, state, business, church, or charity should be allowed any freedom until

they ﬁrst bend the knee.

This book, this agenda, the entire Project 2025 is a plan to unite the conservative

movement and the American people against elite rule and woke culture warriors.

Our movement has not been united in recent years, and our country has paid

the price. In the past decade, though, the breakdown of the family, the rise of

China, the Great Awokening, Big Tech’s abuses, and the erosion of constitutional

accountability in Washington have rendered these divisions not just inconvenient

but politically suicidal. Every hour the Left directs federal policy and elite institu-

tions, our sovereignty, our Constitution, our families, and our freedom are a step

closer to disappearing.

Conservatives have just two years and one shot to get this right. With enemies

at home and abroad, there is no margin for error. Time is running short. If we fail,

the ﬁght for the very idea of America may be lost.

But we should take this small window of opportunity we have left to act with

courage and conﬁdence, not despair. The last time our nation and movement were

so near defeat, we rallied together behind a great leader and great ideas, tran-

scended our dierences, rescued our nation, and changed the world. It’s time to

do it again.

Now, as then, we know who we are ﬁghting and what we are ﬁghting for: for

our Republic, our freedom, and for each other. The next conservative President

— 17 —

Foreword

will enter oce on January 20, 2025, with a simple choice: greatness or failure. It

will be a daunting test, but no more so than every generation of Americans has

faced and passed.

The Conservative Promise represents the best eort of the conservative move-

ment in 2023—and the next conservative President’s last opportunity to save

our republic.

ENDNOTES

 Ronald Reagan, Inaugural Address, January 5, 1967, https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/january-

5-1967-inaugural-address-public-ceremony (accessed March 14, 2023).

 Quispe López, “6 Tech Executives Who Raise Their Kids Tech-Free or Seriously Limit Their Screen Time,”

Business Insider, March 5, 2020, https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-execs-screen-time-children-bill-gates-

steve-jobs-2019-9#google-ceo-sundar-pichais-middle-school-aged-son-doesnt-own-a-cell-phone-and-the-

tv-can-only-be-accessed-with-activation-energy-1 (accessed March 14, 2023).

 Simon Hankinson, “‘Woke’ Public Diplomacy Undermines the State Department’s Core Mission and Weakens

U.S. Foreign Policy,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3738, December 12, 2022, https://www.heritage.

org/global-politics/report/woke-public-diplomacy-undermines-the-state-departments-core-mission-and.

 Michelle Nichols, “Venezuelans Facing ‘Unprecedented Challenges,’ Many Need Aid—Internal U.N. Report,”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-un/venezuelans-facing-unprecedented-challenges-

many-need-aid-internal-u-n-report-idUSKCN1R92AG (accessed March 14, 2023).

— 19 —

Section One

TAKING THE REINS

OF GOVERNMENT

merica’s Bicentennial, which culminated on July 4, 1976, was a spirited

and unifying celebration of our country, its Founding, and its ideals. As we

approach our nation’s 250th anniversary, which will take place during the

next presidency, America is now divided between two opposing forces: woke revolu-

tionaries and those who believe in the ideals of the American revolution. The former

believe that America is—and always has been—“systemically racist” and that it is not

worth celebrating and must be fundamentally transformed, largely through a cen-

tralized administrative state. The latter believe in America’s history and heroes, its

principles and promise, and in everyday Americans and the American way of life. They

believe in the Constitution and republican government. Conservatives—the Ameri-

canists in this battle—must ﬁght for the soul of America, which is very much at stake.

Just two years after the death of the last surviving Constitutional Convention

delegate, James Madison, Abraham Lincoln warned that the greatest threat to

America would come not from without, but from within. This is evident today:

Whether it be mask and vaccine mandates, school and business closures, eorts

to keep Americans from driving gas cars or using gas stoves, or eorts to defund

the police, indoctrinate schoolchildren, alter beloved books, abridge free speech,

undermine the colorblind ideal, or deny the biological reality that there are only

two sexes, the Left’s steady stream of insanity appears to be never-ending. The

next Administration must stand up for American ideals, American families, and

American culture—all things in which, thankfully, most Americans still believe.

Highlighting this need, former director of the Oce of Management and Budget

Russ Vought writes in Chapter 2, “The modern conservative President’s task is to

— 20 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

limit, control, and direct the executive branch on behalf of the American people.”

At the core of this goal is the work of the White House and the central personnel

agencies. Article II of the Constitution vests all federal executive power in a Pres-

ident, made accountable to the citizenry through regular elections. Our Founders

wrote, “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States

of America.” Accordingly, Vought writes, “it is the President’s agenda that should

matter to the departments and agencies,” not their own.

Yet the federal bureaucracy has a mind of its own. Federal employees are often

ideologically aligned—not with the majority of the American people—but with one

another, posing a profound problem for republican government, a government

“of, by, and for” the people. As Donald Devine, Dennis Kirk, and Paul Dans write

in Chapter 3, “An autonomous bureaucracy has neither independent constitu-

tional status nor separate moral legitimacy.” Byzantine personnel rules provide the

bureaucrats with their chief means of self-protection. What’s more, knowledge of

such rules is used to thwart the President’s appointees and agenda. As Devine, Kirk,

and Dans write, “Managing the immense bureaucracy of the federal government

is impossible without an understanding of the key central personnel agencies and

their governing laws and regulations.”

Many of these laws and regulations governing a largely underworked, over-

compensated, and unaccountable federal civilian workforce are so irrational that

they would be comical in a less important context. This is true whether it comes to

evaluating employees’ performance or hiring new employees. Only in the federal

government could an applicant in the hiring process be sent to the front of the

line because of a “history of drug addiction” or “alcoholism,” or due to “morbid

obesity,” “irritable bowel syndrome,” or a “psychiatric disorder.” The next Admin-

istration should insist that the federal government’s hiring, evaluation, retention,

and compensation practices beneﬁt taxpayers, rather than beneﬁting the lowest

rung of the federal workforce.

In order to carry out the President’s desires, political appointees must be

given the tools, knowledge, and support to overcome the federal government’s

obstructionist Human Resources departments. More fundamentally, the new

Administration must ﬁll its ranks with political appointees. Devine, Kirk, and Dans

observe that “the Trump Administration appointed fewer political appointees in

its ﬁrst few months in oce” than any other recent presidency. This left career

employees in charge in many places. This can occur even after departments have

been fully staed with political appointees. Vought writes that the White House

Oce of Management and Budget (OMB) should establish a “reputation as the

keeper of ‘commander’s intent,’” yet OMB is dominated by career employees who

often try to overrule political appointees serving in the various executive depart-

ments. Empowering political appointees across the Administration is crucial to

a President’s success.

— 21 —

Section 1: Taking the Reins of Government

Above all, the President and those who serve under him or her must be commit-

ted to the Constitution and the rule of law. This is particularly true of a conservative

Administration, which knows that the President is there to uphold the Constitu-

tion, not the other way around. If a conservative Administration does not respect

the Constitution, no Administration will. In Chapter 1, former deputy chief of

sta to the President Rick Dearborn writes that the White House Counsel “must

take seriously the duty to protect the powers and privileges of the President from

encroachments by Congress, the judiciary, and the administrative components of

departments and agencies.” Equally important, the President must enforce the

Constitution and laws as written, rather than proclaiming new “law” unilaterally.

Presidents should not issue mask or vaccine mandates, arbitrarily transfer student

loan debt, or issue monarchical mandates of any sort. Legislatures make the laws

in a republic, not executives.

It is crucial that all three branches of the federal government respect what Mad-

ison called the “double security” to our liberties: the separation of powers among

the three branches, and the separation of powers between the federal government

and the states. This double security has been greatly compromised over the years.

Vought writes that “the modern executive branch…writes federal policy, enforces

that policy, and often adjudicates whether that policy was properly drafted and

enforced.” He describes this as “constitutionally dire” and “in urgent need of repair,”

adding: “Nothing less than the survival of self-governance in America is at stake.”

When it comes to ensuring that freedom can ﬂourish, nothing is more import-

ant than deconstructing the centralized administrative state. Political appointees

who are answerable to the President and have decision-making authority in the

executive branch are key to this essential task. The next Administration must not

cede such authority to non-partisan “experts,” who pursue their own ends while

engaging in groupthink, insulated from American voters. The following chapters

detail how the next Administration can be responsive to the American people (not

to entrenched “elites”); how it can take care that all the laws are “faithfully exe-

cuted,” not merely those that the President desires to see executed; and how it can

achieve results and not be stymied by an unelected bureaucracy.

— 23 —

WHITE HOUSE OFFICE

Rick Dearborn

rom popular culture to academia, the American presidency has long been a

prominent ﬁxture of the national imagination—naturally so since it is the

beating heart of our nation’s power and prestige. It has played, for instance,

a feature role in innumerable movies and television shows and has been prodded,

analyzed, and critiqued by countless books, essays, and studies. But like nearly

everything else in life, there is no substitute for ﬁrsthand experience, which this

manual has compiled from the experience of presidential appointees and provides

in accessible form for future use.

With respect to the presidency, it is best to begin with our Republic’s founda-

tional document. The Constitution gives the “executive Power” to the President.

It designates him as “Commander in Chief”

and gives him the responsibility to

“take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

It further prescribes that the

President might seek the assistance of “the principal Ocer in each of the execu-

tive Departments.”

Beginning with George Washington, every President has been

supported by some form of White House oce consisting of direct sta ocers as

well as a Cabinet comprised of department and agency heads.

Since the inaugural Administration of the late 18th century, citizens have chosen

to devote both their time and their talent to defending and strengthening our nation

by serving at the pleasure of the President. Their shared patriotic endeavor has

proven to be a noble one, not least because the jobs in what is now known as the

White House Oce (WHO) are among the most demanding in all of government.

The President must rely on the men and women appointed to the WHO. There

simply are not enough hours in the day to manage the aairs of state single-handedly,

— 24 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

so delegation is not just advisable: It is essential. The decisions that assistants and

senior advisers make will directly impact the Administration, its legacy, and—most

important—the fate of the country. Their agenda must therefore be the President’s

agenda. Choosing who will carry out that agenda on a daily basis is not only one of

the ﬁrst decisions a President makes in oce, but also one of the most critical. The

tone and tempo of an administration are often determined on January 20.

CHIEF OF STAFF

As with most of the positions that will be covered in this ﬁrst chapter, the Chief

of Sta is also an Assistant to the President. However, the chief is truly ﬁrst among

equals. Of all presidential sta members, the chief is the most critical to implementa-

tion of the President’s vision for the country. The chief also has a dual role as manager

of the stas of both the WHO and the Executive Oce of the President (EOP).

The Chief of Sta’s ﬁrst managerial task is to establish an organizational chart

for the WHO. It should be simple and contain clear lines of authority and respon-

sibility to avoid conﬂicts. It should also identify speciﬁc points of contact for each

element of the government outside of the White House. These contacts should

include the White House Liaisons who are selected by the Oce of Presidential

Personnel (PPO).

Receiving guidance from the President, the chief endeavors to implement the

President’s agenda by setting priorities for the WHO. This process begins by taking

stock of the President’s campaign promises, identifying current and prospective

opportunities, and then delegating policy priorities among the departments and

agencies of the Cabinet and throughout the three White House policy councils:

The National Economic Council (NEC);

The Domestic Policy Council (DPC); and

The National Security Council (NSC).

The President is briefed on all of his policy priorities by his Cabinet and senior

sta as directed by the chief. The chief—along with senior WHO sta—maps out

the issues and themes that will be covered daily and weekly. The chief then works

with the policy councils, the Cabinet, and the Oce of Communications and Oce

of Legislative Aairs (OLA) to sequence and execute the rollout of policies and

announcements. White House Counsel and senior advisers and senior counselors

are also intimately involved.

All senior sta report to the Chief of Sta, either directly or through his two

or three deputies, unless the President determines that a particular Assistant to

the President reports directly to him. Most chiefs have interacted directly with

— 25 —

White House Oce

Cabinet ocers and a select number of direct reports. In most cases, the direct

reports to the chief are his two or three deputies, the Communications Director,

PPO Director, White House Counsel, and senior advisers. Occasionally, the Oce

of Public Liaison (OPL), the Cabinet Secretary, and Intergovernmental Aairs

(IGA) also report directly to the chief. Usually, however, they report instead to a

Deputy Chief of Sta.

The Chief of Sta’s main challenge is time management. His use of his deputies,

meetings with senior sta, and direction provided to the WHO must all balance

with the daily needs of the President. A successful chief steers the West Wing using

his management of and inﬂuence with the various individuals and entities around

him. It goes without saying that selecting the right person to be chief is vital.

DEPUTY CHIEFS OF STAFF

In recent years, Presidents typically have appointed two Deputy Chiefs of Sta:

a Deputy Chief of Sta for Management and Operations and a Deputy Chief of

Sta for Policy. There also have been other types of deputy chiefs whose roles have

included, for example, overseeing strategy, planning, and implementation. Chiefs

of Sta have then occasionally appointed a principal Deputy Chief to be in charge

of guiding decision-making, organizational structure, and information ﬂow.

PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CHIEFS OF STAFF

Not all Chiefs of Sta have tapped a principal deputy. A major reason is that

doing so adds another layer of command complexity. When principal deputies

have been installed, their roles have varied based on the needs of particular chiefs.

Most principal deputies have functioned as doorkeepers, sorting through action

items, taking on those that can be handled at their own level, and passing up others

that truly require the attention of the Chief of Sta or the President. Principal

deputies also have assumed control of the scheduling functions, normally under

the operations deputy, and have worked directly with the policy councils at the

direction of the Chief of Sta. The OPL and Oce of Political Aairs (OPA) also

have reported to a principal deputy.

Deputy Chief of Sta for Management and Operations. The Deputy Chief

of Sta for Management and Operations oversees the President’s schedule and

all logistical aspects of his movement within and outside of the White House (for

example, both air travel on Air Force One and Marine One and ground transpor-

tation). This deputy also interfaces directly with the Secret Service as well as the

military oces tasked with keeping the President and his family safe.

In the past, this deputy has also worked with the NSC, the Secretary of Defense,

the Secretary of State, and the Intelligence Community and on advancing all foreign

trips. If their roles are separated from that of the policy deputy, this deputy should

have a strong grasp of international aairs and robust foreign policy credentials.

— 26 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

This deputy further manages all facets of the working White House: technology,

grounds management, support sta, personnel administration, and communica-

tions. This individual therefore needs to be meticulous and ideally should possess

a great deal of command-and-control experience.

Deputy Chief of Sta for Policy. In some Administrations, the functions of

the IGA, OPA, and OPL and other advisers within the WHO have fallen under the

Deputy Chief of Sta for Policy. For conservatives, this arrangement could help

to connect the WHO’s outreach to political and external groups and be a strong

conduit for state and local elected ocials, state party organizations, and both

grasstop and grassroots groups.

This deputy chief works directly with the Chief of Sta, Cabinet ocers, and

all three policy councils to support the development and implementation of the

President’s agenda. This deputy chief should therefore have impressive policy cre-

dentials in the realms of economic, domestic, and social aairs.

SENIOR ADVISERS

Presidents have surrounded themselves with senior advisers whose experi-

ence and interests are not necessarily neatly deﬁned. In recent Administrations,

senior advisers have been appointed to oer broad guidance on political matters

and communications issues; others have acted as “czars” for speciﬁc projects or

policy areas.

The most powerful senior advisers frequently have had a long personal relation-

ship with the President and often have spent a signiﬁcant amount of time with him

within and outside of the White House. They have been asked not only to provide

guidance on a variety of policy issues, but also to oer instruction on communi-

cating with the American people and the media.

In a number of Administrations, new oces—or “councils”—have been created

to support senior advisers. For the most part, their functions have been duplicative

or overlapping, as a result of which these oces have tended to be short-lived. Even

so, senior advisers should be provided the sta and resources that their portfo-

lios require. To ensure that senior advisers are eective, their portfolios must be

clearly delineated and clearly communicated across the White House. This too is

a responsibility of the Chief of Sta.

OFFICE OF WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL

The Oce of White House Counsel provides legal guidance to the President and

elements of the EOP on a host of issues, including presidential powers and privi-

leges, ethics compliance, review of clemency applications, and judicial nominations.

The selection of White House Counsel is one of the most important decisions an

incoming President will make. The oce is not designed to create or advance pol-

icies on its own initiative—nor should it do so. Rather, it is dedicated to guiding

— 27 —

White House Oce

the President and his reports on how (within the bounds of the law) to pursue and

realize the President’s agenda.

While the White House Counsel does not serve as the President’s personal attor-

ney in nonocial matters, it is almost impossible to delineate exactly where an

issue is strictly personal and has no bearing on the President’s ocial function. The

White House Counsel needs to be deeply committed both to the President’s agenda

and to aording the President proactive counsel and zealous representation. That

individual directly advises the President as he performs the duties of the oce,

and this requires a relationship that is built on trust, conﬁdentiality, and candor.

The Oce of White House Counsel is also responsible for ensuring that each

component of the White House adheres to all applicable legal and ethical guide-

lines, which often requires ongoing training and monitoring to ensure compliance.

This means ensuring that White House sta regularly consult with oce attor-

neys on required ﬁnancial disclosures, received gifts, potential conﬂicts of interest,

and other ethical concerns. The Oce of White House Counsel is the ﬁrst line of

defense for the EOP. Its sta must take seriously the duty to protect the powers

and privileges of the President from encroachments by Congress, the judiciary,

and the administrative components of departments and agencies.

In addition to the White House Counsel, the oce includes deputies, assistants,

associates, and legal support sta. The assistant and associate attorneys are often

specialists in particular areas of the law and oer guidance to the EOP on issues

related to national security, criminal law, environmental law, and a host of admin-

istrative and regulatory matters. Attorneys working in the Oce of White House

Counsel serve as legal advisers to the White House policy operation by reviewing

executive orders, agency regulations, and other policy-related functions. Here

again, subordinates should be deeply committed to the President’s agenda and

see their role as helping to accomplish the agenda through problem solving and

advocacy. They should not erect roadblocks out of an abundance of caution; rather,

they should oer practical legal advice on how to promote the President’s agenda

within the bounds of the law.

The White House Counsel’s oce cannot serve as a ﬁnishing school to credential

the next set of white-shoe law ﬁrm attorneys or federal judges in waiting who cabin

their opinions for fear their elite credentials could be tarnished through a policy

disagreement. Rather, it should function more as an activist yet ethical plaintis’

ﬁrm that advocates for its client—the Administration’s agenda—within the limits

imposed by the Constitution and the duties of the legal profession.

The Oce of White House Counsel also serves as the primary gateway for

communication between the White House and the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Traditionally, both the White House Counsel and the Attorney General have issued

a memo requiring all contact between the two institutions to occur only between

the Oce of White House Counsel and the Attorney General or Deputy Attorney

— 28 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

General. The next Administration should reexamine this policy and determine

whether it might be more ecient or more appropriate for communication to occur

through additional channels. The White House Counsel also works closely with

the DOJ Oce of Legal Counsel to seek opinions on, for example, matters of policy

development and the constitutionality of presidential power and privileges and

with OLA and the DOJ Oce of Legal Policy on presidential judicial nominees.

When a new President takes oce, he will need to decide expeditiously how to

handle any major ongoing litigation or other pending legal matters that might pres-

ent a challenge to his agenda. To oer guidance, the White House Counsel must get

up to speed as quickly as possible on all signiﬁcant ongoing legal challenges across

the executive branch that might aect the new Administration’s policy agenda and

must be prepared at the outset of the Administration to present recommenda-

tions to the President, including recommendations for reconsidering or reversing

positions of the previous Administration in any signiﬁcant litigation. This review

will usually require consulting with the new political leadership at the Justice

Department, including during the transition period.

No day is predictable at the White House. Therefore, to handle the pace and

volatility of aairs, the Oce of White House Counsel must oer measured legal

guidance in a timely manner. This often means forgoing law review–style memos

about esoteric legal concepts and instead quickly providing high-level yet incisive

guidance. Due to evolving world events, domestic aairs, and political pressures, the

oce often faces legal questions for which there may not be a wealth of precedent.

Attorneys in the Oce of White House Counsel must therefore work collaboratively

within the White House and the Department of Justice, relying on each other as a

team, to ensure that proper legal guidance is delivered to the President.

The President should choose a White House Counsel who is well-versed in

the Constitution, administrative and regulatory law, and the inner workings of

Congress and the political process. Instead of choosing a specialist, the President

should hire a counsel with extensive experience with a wide range of complex legal

subjects. Moreover, while a candidate with elite credentials might seem ideal, the

best one will be above all loyal to the President and the Constitution.

STAFF SECRETARY

The Oce of the Sta Secretary is rarely visible to the outside world, but it

performs work of tremendous importance. The oce is similar to a military com-

mander’s adjutant as it is responsible for ﬁelding and managing a vast amount of

information at the top of its organization. This includes information on its way into

the Oval Oce as well as information ﬂowing out from the Oval Oce. Because

of its gatekeeping function, the position of Sta Secretary is one of extreme trust,

and the individual who possesses it should be vetted to work as an “honest broker”

in the President’s service.

— 29 —

White House Oce

The Oce of the Sta Secretary has been described as the last substantive

control point before papers reach the Oval Oce. A great deal of information is

headed toward the Oval Oce at any moment. This includes presidential decision

memos; bills passed by Congress (which may be accompanied by signing or veto

statements); and brieﬁng books, reading materials, samples of constituent mail,

personal mail, and drafts of speeches. The Sta Secretary makes certain that these

materials are complete, well-ordered, and up to date before they reach the Presi-

dent. This necessarily means that the Sta Secretary plays a key role in determining

who weighs in on policy matters and when.

As noted above, the Sta Secretary also handles information leaving the Oval

Oce. The President may have questions after reviewing incoming material, may

wish to seek more information, or may demand revisions. The Sta Secretary is

often responsible for directing these requests to the appropriate places and fol-

lowing up on them to ensure that they are completed.

One of the Sta Secretary’s critical functions is managing and overseeing the

clearance process for the President’s daily/nightly brieﬁng book. This book is ﬁlled

with all the reading material and leading documentation the President needs in

the morning and the evening to help him make decisions. The Sta Secretary also

oversees the use of the President’s signature, whether by hand or by autopen, and

manages the Oce of the Executive Clerk, Oce of Records Management, and

Oce of Presidential Correspondence.

OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

The Oce of Communications, which operates under the Director of Com-

munications, conveys the President’s agenda to the public through various media,

including speeches and remarks, press brieﬁngs, o-the-record discussions with

reporters, and social media. Depending on how a President chooses to structure

his White House, the Oce of Communications may include the Oce of the Press

Secretary (Press Oce), but no matter how it is structured, the oce must work

closely with the Press Oce as well as the President’s speechwriters and digital

strategists.

Operational functions of the Oce of Communications include scheduling and

running press brieﬁngs, interviews, meetings, media appearances, speeches, and a

range of other events. The Oce of Communications must maintain robust rela-

tionships with the White House Press Corps, the White House Correspondents’

Association, regional stakeholders, and key interest groups. No legal entitle-

ment exists for the provision of permanent space for media on the White House

campus, and the next Administration should reexamine the balance between media

demands and space constraints on the White House premises.

Leadership within the Office of Communications should include a Com-

munications Director (who is a direct report to the Chief of Sta), a Deputy

— 30 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Communications Director, a Deputy Director for Strategic Communications, and

a Press Secretary. This leadership team must work together closely to drive the

national narrative about the White House.

The best resource for the Oce of Communications is the President. The Pres-

ident conveys the White House’s overall message through one or two inaugural

addresses, State of the Union addresses, speeches to Congress, and press confer-

ences. The oce must also ensure that the various White House oces disseminate

a uniﬁed message to the public. The Communications Director and Press Secretary

in particular should be careful to avoid contradicting the President or delivering

conﬂicting information.

The speechwriting team is a critical component of the communications team.

Speechwriting is a unique talent: The writers selected must understand policy,

should have a ﬁrm grasp of history and other liberal-arts disciplines, and should

be able to learn and adopt the President’s style of rhetoric and mode of delivery.

The Press Secretary is the President’s spokesperson, communicating to the

American people through the media. The Press Secretary engages with the White

House Press Corps formally through press brieﬁngs and informally through

impromptu gaggles and meetings. Individuals who serve in this role must be quick

on their feet, which means, when appropriate, deftly refuting and rebutting corre-

spondents’ questions and comments.

The Communications Director must convey the President’s mission to the

American people. Especially for conservatives, this means navigating the main-

stream media to ensure that the President’s agenda is conveyed eectively and

accurately. The Communications Director must be politically savvy and very aware

of the ongoing activities of the other White House oces. The new Administration

should examine the nature of the relationship between itself and the White House

Correspondents Association and consider whether an alternative coordinating

body might be more suitable.

OFFICE OF LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS (OLA)

Created by President Dwight Eisenhower, the OLA has continued to serve as the

liaison between the White House and Congress. The White House must work with

congressional leaders to ensure presidential nominees, for roles such as Cabinet

secretaries and ambassadors, are conﬁrmed by the Senate. The White House also

relies on Congress to enact reforms promised by the President on the campaign

trail, whether those promises relate to health care, education, or national defense.

Because Congress holds the power of the purse, White House staers must ensure

that there is enough support on the Hill to secure the necessary funding through

the appropriations process to fulﬁll the President’s agenda.

The OLA reports directly to the Chief of Sta and in some Administrations has

done so under the guidance of a Deputy Chief of Sta (usually the Deputy Chief

— 31 —

White House Oce

for Policy). Regardless of the person to whom the OLA reports, however, the oce

exercises a certain autonomy on behalf of the President and the Chief of Sta in

directly inﬂuencing congressional leaders of both major political parties. The OLA

often must function as the mediator among the parties and ﬁnd common ground

to facilitate the successful enactment of the President’s agenda.

As is the case with many White House oces (but especially the Oce of Com-

munications), the OLA must ensure that congressional leaders receive one uniﬁed

message. If other actors within the White House maintain their own relationships

with congressional leaders and staers, it may appear that the President’s agenda

is fractured and lacks consensus. This dynamic has caused real problems for many

Presidents in the past.

Internally, OLA staers need to be involved in policy discussions, budget reviews,

and other important meetings. They must also provide advice to policy staers

regarding whether certain ideas are politically feasible. Externally, OLA staers

have to communicate continuously with congressional oces of both parties in

both the House and the Senate to ensure that the President has enough support

to enact his legislative priorities or sustain votes.

The OLA requires staers who are eective communicators and can provide a

dose of reality to other White House staers when necessary. Although a policy

proposal from within the White House may be a great idea, OLA staers must

ensure that it is politically feasible. OLA staers must therefore be skilled in both

politics and policy. Furthermore, the President should seek out individuals who

can advance his agenda and at the same time forge pathways with members of the

opposing political party on other priorities.

Most important, the OLA must function as a well-oiled machine: precisely

synced. The President cannot aord to have a tennis player on—much less as the

leader of—his football team.

OFFICE OF PRESIDENTIAL PERSONNEL (PPO)

The political axiom that “personnel is policy” was popularized under President

Ronald Reagan during the 1981 presidential transition. One of the most important

oces in the White House is the PPO, which was created under President Richard

Nixon to centralize political appointments. Departments and agencies had and still

have direct legal authority on hiring and ﬁring, but the power to ﬁll Schedule C posi-

tions—the core of political jobs—is vested with the President. Therefore, the White

House, not the department or agency, has the ﬁnal word on political appointments.

PPO’s primary responsibility is to sta the executive branch with individuals

who are equipped to implement the President’s agenda. Although its focus should

be identifying and recruiting leaders to ﬁll the approximately 1,000 appointments that

require Senate conﬁrmation, PPO must also ﬁll approximately 3,000 political jobs that

require dedicated conservatives to support the Administration’s political leadership.

— 32 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Frequently, many medium-tier and top-tier jobs have been ﬁlled by policy

experts tasked with accomplishing much of the work of the Administration. At

the same time, appointees in the entry-level jobs have brought invaluable energy

and commitment to the White House and have proved to be the “farm team” for

the conservative movement.

The Oce of Presidential Personnel is responsible for:

Identifying potential political personnel both actively through recruitment

and passively by ﬁelding resumes and adjudicating requests from

political actors.

Vetting potential political personnel by conducting political background

checks and reviewing any clearance and ﬁtness assessments by departments

and agencies.

Making recommendations to the President and to other appointment

authorities on behalf of the President.

Identifying programmatic political workforce needs early and developing

plans (for example, Schedule F).

Maintaining a strong relationship with the Oce of Personnel Management

(OPM) both for operational purposes and to eectuate the President’s direct

Title 5 authorities. The President is in charge of the federal workforce and

exercises control principally by working through the Director of the Oce

of Personnel Management.

Training and connecting political personnel.

Playing “bad cop” in a way that other White House oces cannot

(including serving as the oce that takes direct responsibility for ﬁrings

and hirings).

Serving as a personnel link between conservative organizations and the

executive branch.

In most Administrations, PPO will sta more than 100 positions during a transi-

tion and thousands of noncareer positions during the President’s ﬁrst term. Direct

authority and a strong relationship with the President are necessary attributes for

any PPO Director. Historically, PPO has had direct review and control of personnel

ﬁles, including security clearance dossiers.

— 33 —

White House Oce

At the highest level, PPO is tasked with long-term, strategic workforce devel-

opment. The “billets” of political appointments are of immense importance in

credentialing and training future leaders. In addition, whatever one’s view of the

constitutionality of various civil service rules (for example, the Federal Vacancies

Reform Act of 1998

) might be, it is necessary to ensure that departments and

agencies have robust cadres of political sta just below senior levels in the event

of unexpected vacancies.

OFFICE OF POLITICAL AFFAIRS (OPA)

The OPA is the primary oce within the executive branch for managing the

President’s political interests. Although its speciﬁc functions vary from Admin-

istration to Administration, the OPA typically serves as the liaison between the

President and associated political entities: national committees, federal and state

campaigns, and interest groups. Within legal guidelines, the OPA engages in out-

reach, conducts casework, and—if the President is up for reelection—assists with

his campaign. The OPA may also monitor congressional campaigns, arrange pres-

idential visits with other political campaigns, and recommend campaign sta to

the Oce of Presidential Personnel for service in the executive branch.

The OPA further serves as a line of communication between the White House

and the President’s political party. This includes both relaying the President’s

ambitions to political interests and listening to the needs of political interests. This

relationship allows for the exchange of information between the White House and

political actors across the country. The OPA should have one director of political

aairs who reports either to the Chief of Sta or to a Deputy Chief of Sta. The

OPA should also include various deputy directors, each of whom is responsible for

a certain geographical region of the country.

Because nearly all White House activities are in some way inherently political,

the OPA needs to be aware of all presidential actions and activities—including

travel, policy decisions, speeches, nominations, and responses to matters of

national security—and consider how they might aect the President’s image. The

OPA must therefore have a designated staer who communicates not only with

other White House oces, but also with the Cabinet and executive branch agencies.

OFFICE OF CABINET AFFAIRS (OCA)

The OCA’s role has changed to some degree over the course of various Adminis-

trations, but its overriding function remains the same: to ensure the coordination

of policy and communication between the White House and the Cabinet. Most

important, the OCA coordinates all Cabinet meetings with the President. It should

also organize and administer regular meetings of the Deputy Secretaries because

they also typically serve vital roles in the departments and agencies and, further,

often become acting secretaries when Cabinet members resign.

— 34 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

There should be one Cabinet Secretary who reports to the Chief of Sta’s oce,

either directly or through a deputy chief, according to the chief’s preference and

focus. The Cabinet Secretary maintains a direct relationship with all members of

the Cabinet.

The OCA further consists of deputies and special assistants who work with each

department’s principal, Deputy Secretary, Under Secretaries, Assistant Secretaries,

and other senior sta. The OCA also connects the departments to WHO oces.

The OCA coordinates with the Chief of Sta’s oce and the Oce of Communi-

cations to promote the President’s agenda through the Cabinet departments and

agencies. The Cabinet’s communications staers are obviously another critical

component of this operation.

In prior Administrations, the OCA has played a vital role by tracking the Pres-

ident’s agenda for the Chief of Sta, Deputy Chiefs, and senior advisers. It has

worked with each department and agency to advance policy priorities. In the future,

amplifying this function would truly beneﬁt both the President and the conser-

vative movement.

From time to time throughout an Administration, travel optics, ethics chal-

lenges, and Hatch Act

issues involving Cabinet members, deputies, and senior

staers can arise. The OCA is normally tasked with keeping the WHO informed

of such developments and providing support if and when necessary.

The ideal Cabinet Secretary will have exceptional organizational skills and be

a seasoned political operative or attorney. Because many Cabinet ocials have

been former presidential candidates, governors, ambassadors, and Members of

Congress, the ideal candidate should also possess the ability to interact with and

persuade accomplished individuals.

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LIAISON (OPL)

The OPL is critically important in building coalitions and support for the Pres-

ident’s agenda across every aligned social, faith-based, minority, and economic

interest group. It is a critical tool for shaping public opinion and keeping myriad

supporters, as well as “frenemies” and opponents alike who are within reach,

better informed.

The OPL is a notably large oce. It should have one Director who reports to the

Chief of Sta’s oce, either directly or through a deputy, according to the chief’s

preference and focus. The Director must maintain relationships not only with

other WHO heads, but also with the senior sta of every Cabinet department and

agency. Since a President’s agenda is always in motion, it is important for the OPL

to facilitate listening sessions to receive the views of the various leaders and mem-

bers of key interest groups.

The OPL should also have a sucient number of deputies and special assistants

to cover the vast number of disparate interest groups that are engaged daily. The

— 35 —

White House Oce

OPL has, by far, held more meetings in the Eisenhower Executive Oce Building

(EEOB) and within the West Wing itself than any other oce within the WHO.

The OPL is the chief White House enforcer and gatekeeper among these var-

ious interest groups. It has operated best whenever the Chief of Sta has given it

permission to use both the proverbial “carrot” and the proverbial “stick.” To make

this work, communication with the chief’s oce is vital. Additionally, the OPL has

had an outsized role in presidential scheduling and both ocial and political travel.

The OPL Director should come from the President’s election campaign or Cap-

itol Hill—but should not have deeply entrenched connections to a K Street entity

or any other potential stakeholder. Some prior relationships can create real or

perceived biases toward one group or another. The Director should be amiable,

gregarious, highly organized, and willing to shoulder criticism and pushback from

interest groups and other elements of the Administration.

Unlike the Director, OPL deputies and special assistants need a deep under-

standing of the capital, from K Street to Capitol Hill. They should have extensive

experience in private industry, the labor sector, the conservative movement, and

among the speciﬁc interest groups with which they will be asked to engage on

behalf of the White House.

OPL staers work with more external and internal parties than any other WHO

staers. In turn, they must be eective communicators and initiative-takers. They

must also be able to inﬂuence, persuade, and—most important—listen to various

stakeholders and ensure that they feel heard. All OPL staers must understand

from the outset that their jobs might be modiﬁed or even phased out entirely as

the Administration’s priorities change.

OFFICE OF INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS (IGA)

The IGA connects the White House to state, county, local, and tribal govern-

ments. In other words, it is the one-stop shop for disseminating an Administration’s

agenda to all non–federal government entities.

The IGA should have a Director to whom one or two Deputy Directors report.

The Director must ensure that the White House remains connected to all non–

federal government entities. The interests and perspectives of these entities are

represented in policy discussions, organized events with the West Wing, EOP

senior sta, and IGA sta throughout the departments and agencies.

The IGA can be staffed in a variety of ways, but two arrangements are

most common:

Each deputy and that deputy’s staers are responsible for a type of government.

A group of staers is responsible for a speciﬁc geographical region of

the country.

— 36 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

The IGA, as suggested above, represents the interests and perspectives of non–

federal government entities, but its primary job is to make sure that these entities

understand an Administration’s agenda and ultimately support it.

The IGA must work with all other White House oces, especially the OPA and

the OPL, and manage its sta throughout the departments and agencies. IGA sta-

ers must therefore have communication skills, understand political nuance, and

be willing to engage in complex policy discussions. They should also be not just

generally responsive, but also proactive in seeking out the interests and perspec-

tives of non–federal government entities.

WHITE HOUSE POLICY COUNCILS

As the federal government has ballooned in size over the past century, it has

become increasingly dicult for the President alone to direct his agenda across

the executive branch. Three White House policy councils have come into existence

to help the President to control the bureaucracy and ensure continued alignment

between agency leadership and White House priorities. Those councils—as pre-

viewed above—are the NSC, NEC, and DPC. Each is headed by an Assistant to the

President and performs three signiﬁcant functions.

Policy Coordination. The primary role of the policy councils is to

coordinate the development of Administration policy. This frequently

includes developing signiﬁcant legislative priorities, coordinating policy

decisions that impact multiple departments and agencies, and at times

coordinating policy decisions within a single department or agency. This

process must ensure that all relevant oces are included; that competing

or conﬂicting opinions are thoroughly discussed and evaluated; and, when

there is disagreement among White House senior sta or among Cabinet

members, a well-structured question is presented to the President for an

intermediate or ﬁnal decision.

Policy Advice. By virtue of working in the White House, the heads of the

three policy councils will also function as independent policy advisers to

the President. This aspect of the role will vary depending on the individual

in this position and the President’s governing philosophy. Incumbents have

ranged from “honest brokers,” who mostly coordinate and ensure that all

opinions are fairly presented to the President, to “policy deciders,” who

largely drive a given policy topic on behalf of the President.

Policy Implementation. The policy councils also manage and mediate

the implementation of previous policy decisions. Implementation of a new

statute or an executive order frequently takes years and involves many

— 37 —

White House Oce

distinct and more granular policy decisions along the way. It is essential

to have a centralized process for evaluating and coordinating these

decisions, especially if they involve more than one Cabinet department

or agency with diering opinions on the best approach for securing the

President’s goals.

The above functions have recently been managed by policy councils through

a tiered interagency policy process. This process helps to identify dierences of

opinion and reach a decision without having to take every issue to the President. It

can be used to address a single question or monitor a recurring issue on an ongoing

basis. Typically, the process involves multiple Cabinet departments and agencies

that have a pertinent role, policy interest, or disagreement. Each policy council’s

process could involve the following committees:

Policy Coordinating Committee (PCC). A PCC is led by a Special

Assistant to the President from the policy council and includes political

Assistant Secretary–level experts from the relevant departments,

agencies, or oces. The purpose is to determine where consensus exists,

clearly identify where there are diering opinions, and develop options

for resolving the remaining questions. If no outstanding questions or

disagreements exist, the PCC may resolve the issue and move toward

implementation at the agency level.

Deputies Committee (DC). A DC is a meeting of presidentially appointed

executives chaired by the policy council’s Deputy Assistant to the President

and relevant Deputy Secretaries. It evaluates the options produced by the

PCC and frequently directs the PCC to add, expand, or reevaluate an option

or even to reach a compromise and resolve an issue at that level.

Principals Committee (PC). When questions are not resolved by a DC,

the Director of the Policy Council will chair a PC, which is attended by the

relevant Cabinet Secretaries and senior White House political sta. This is

the ﬁnal opportunity for the President’s most senior advisers to discuss the

question, make sure that each principal’s position is carefully understood,

and see whether consensus or a compromise might be reached. If not,

the Chief of Sta’s oce will schedule time for the PC to meet with the

President for a ﬁnal decision.

Despite having seemingly clear and separate portfolios, the three policy coun-

cils frequently have areas of overlap, which can result in confusion, duplication,

or conﬂict. For example, there are the areas of immigration and border security

— 38 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

(either NSC or DPC); health care, energy, and environment (either NEC or DPC);

and trade and international economic policy (either NSC or NEC). Identifying

these potentially problematic areas and assigning policy responsibilities to only

one council where possible will help to speed up the policy-coordination process.

While other chapters will cover speciﬁc policy goals for each department or

agency, incoming policy councils will need to move rapidly to lead policy processes

around cross-cutting agency topics, including countering China, enforcing immi-

gration laws, reversing regulatory policies in order to promote energy production,

combating the Left’s aggressive attacks on life and religious liberty, and confronting

“wokeism” throughout the federal government.

National Security Council. The NSC is intended to be an interdepartmen-

tal body within the White House that can set national security policy with a

whole-of-government approach. Unlike the other policy councils, the NSC was

established by statute.

Statutory members and advisers who are currently part of

the NSC include the President and Vice President; the Secretaries of State, Defense,

and Energy; the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Sta; and the Director of National

Intelligence.

The NSC staff, and particularly the National Security Adviser, should be

vetted for foreign and security policy experience and insight. The National Secu-

rity Adviser and NSC sta advise the President on matters of foreign policy and

national security, serve as an information conduit in times of crisis, and as liaisons

ensuring that written communications are properly shared among NSC members.

Special attention should be given to the use of detailees to sta the NSC. In

recent years, the NSC’s sta size has been rightsized from its peak of 400 in 2015

down to 100–150 professional members. The next Administration should try to

limit the number of detailees to ensure more direct presidential control.

National Economic Council. The NEC was established in 1993 by executive

order and has four key functions:

To “coordinate the economic policy-making process with respect to

domestic and international economic issues.”

To “coordinate economic policy advice to the President.”

To “ensure that policy decisions and programs are consistent with the

President’s stated goals” and “that those goals are being eectively pursued.”

To “monitor implementation of the President’s economic policy agenda.”

The NEC Director coordinates and implements the President’s economic policy

objectives by working with Cabinet secretaries, their departments, and multiple

— 39 —

White House Oce

agencies. The Director is supported by a sta of policy experts in various ﬁelds,

including infrastructure, manufacturing, research and development, agriculture,

small business, ﬁnancial regulation, housing, technology and innovation, and

ﬁscal policy.

The NEC considers economic policy matters, and the DPC typically considers

anything related to domestic matters with the exception of economic policy mat-

ters. It also diers from the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). Whereas the

NEC is in charge of policy development, the CEA acts as the White House’s internal

research arm for economic analysis.

It is therefore critically important to ﬁnd people with the right qualiﬁca-

tions to head both the NEC and the CEA. The CEA is almost always led by a

well-known academic economist, and the NEC is regularly led by someone with

expertise in directing the President’s economic policy process. Those who have

served in the role have ranged from former CEOs of the nation’s largest invest-

ment ﬁrms to ﬁnancial-services industry managers to seasoned congressional

staers who have managed the economic policy issues for top ﬁnancial and

tax-writing committees.

Domestic Policy Council. The Domestic Policy Council (DPC) consists of

advisers to the President on noneconomic domestic policy issues as well as inter-

national issues with a signiﬁcant domestic component (such as immigration). It is

one of the primary policy councils serving the President along with the NSC and

NEC. The Director serves as the principal DPC adviser to the President, along with

members of the Cabinet, and the Deputy Director chairs the committee respon-

sible for coordinating domestic policy development at the Deputy Secretary level.

In this respect, both the Director and the Deputy Director have critical institu-

tional functions that aect the development of domestic policy throughout the

Administration.

The DPC also has policy experts (for example, Special Assistants to the Presi-

dent or SAPs) who are responsible for developing and coordinating, as well as for

advising the President, on speciﬁc issues. It is essential that DPC policy expertise

reﬂect the most prominent issues that are before the Administration: issues such

as the environment, health care, housing, and immigration. In addition, DPC SAPs

should demonstrate a working knowledge of the rulemaking process (although

they need not necessarily be experts on regulation) because a working knowledge

of the rulemaking process will facilitate the DPC’s eectiveness in coordinating

Administration policy.

The DPC also needs to work closely with other oces within the Executive

Oce of the President to promote economic opportunity and private-sector inno-

vation. This includes working with the Oce of Management and Budget and its

Oce of Information and Regulatory Aairs as well as the Council of Economic

Advisers, Council on Environmental Quality, and Oce of Science and Technology

— 40 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Policy. To this end, the Director should chair a standing meeting with the princi-

pals from each of the other EOP oces to enhance coordination from within the

White House.

Several areas will be especially important as the DPC works to develop a

well-deﬁned domestic policy agenda. One is the promotion of innovation as a

foundation for economic growth and opportunity. The President should establish

an economic opportunity working group, chaired by the DPC Director, to coordi-

nate the development of policies that promote economic opportunity. Another

important area is the promotion of health care reform to bring down costs for the

American people and the pressure that spending on health programs puts on the

federal budget. Finally, DPC should coordinate with the NSC on a policy agenda

to enhance border security.

OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT (OVP)

In modern U.S. history, the Vice President has acted as a signiﬁcant adviser to

the President. Once elected, the VP helps to promote and, in many instances, put

into place and execute the President’s agenda. The President may additionally

determine the inclusion of OVP sta in White House meetings, including Policy

Coordinating Committee, Deputies Committee, and Principals Committee dis-

cussions as has been done in various recent Administrations.

Recent Presidents have decided to give Vice Presidents space in the West Wing.

The VP’s proximity to the President—as well as to the Chief of Sta and additional

senior advisers—makes his or her role a powerful one within the West Wing.

Presidents typically tap VPs to lead various Administration eorts. These eorts

have included serving on the NSC Principals Committee, heading the National

Space Council, addressing immigration and border issues, leading the response

to health care crises, and supervising workforce programs. VPs traditionally also

spearhead projects of personal interest that have been authorized by the President.

The VP is also charged with breaking tie votes in the Senate and in recent years

has served abroad as a brand ambassador for the White House and more broadly

the United States, announcing Administration priorities and coordinating with

heads of state and other top foreign government ocials. The Vice President, as

President of the Senate, could be a President’s emissary to the Senate.

OFFICE OF THE FIRST LADY/FIRST GENTLEMAN

The First Lady or First Gentleman plays an interesting role in the formation,

implementation, and execution of policy in concert with the President. Active

and interested ﬁrst spouses often champion a select number of signature issues,

whether they be thorny social issues or deeper policy issues. One advantage of the

ﬁrst spouse’s taking on hot-button social issues is that any political backlash will

be less severe than it would be for the President.

— 41 —

White House Oce

The ﬁrst spouse normally appoints a chief of sta who has enough assistants

to support the spouse’s activities in the East Wing of the White House. This group

works exclusively with the ﬁrst spouse and senior members of the White House

along with EOP personnel to implement and execute the ﬁrst spouse’s priorities,

which reﬂect the ﬁrst spouse’s passions and interests and are often identiﬁed as

important in discussions with the President. Executed well, they can be strategi-

cally useful in accelerating the Administration’s agenda. Past East Wing initiatives

have focused on such issues as combating bullying, ﬁghting drug abuse, promoting

literacy, and encouraging physical education for young adults and children.

The ﬁrst spouse is aorded signiﬁcant resources. His or her sta also works with

the President’s policy team, members of the Cabinet, and other EOP sta.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in the

2025 Presidential Transition Project. All contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume, but Edwin

Meese III, Donald Devine, Ambassador Andrew Bremberg, and Jonathan Bronitsky deserve special mention. The

author alone assumes responsibility for the content of this chapter, and no views expressed herein should be

attributed to any other individual.

— 42 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

 U.S. Constitution, art. II, § 1, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-2/ (accessed February 14, 2023).

 U.S. Constitution, art. II, § 2.

 U.S. Constitution, art. II, § 3.

 U.S. Constitution, art. II, § 2.

 See Chapter 2, “Executive Oce of the President,” infra.

 H.R. 4328, Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999, Public Law No. 105-

277, 105th Congress, October 21, 1998, Division C, Title I, § 151, https://www.congress.gov/105/plaws/publ277/

PLAW-105publ277.pdf (accessed February 15, 2023).

 S. 1871, An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, Public Law No. 76-252, 76th Congress, August 2, 1939,

https://govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/53/STATUTE-53-Pg1147.pdf (accessed March 7, 2023).

 S. 758, National Security Act of 1947, Public Law No. 80-253, 80th Congress, July 26, 1947, https://govtrackus.

s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/61/STATUTE-61-Pg495.pdf (accessed February 15, 2023). “The National

Security Council was established by the National Security Act of 1947 (PL 235 – 61 Stat. 496; U.S.C. 402),

amended by the National Security Act Amendments of 1949 (63 Stat. 579; 50 U.S.C. 401 et seq.). Later in 1949,

as part of the Reorganization Plan, the Council was placed in the Executive Oce of the President.” The White

House, “National Security Council,” https://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/ (accessed February 15, 2023).

 See Chapter 2, “Executive Oce of the President,” infra.

 President William J. Clinton, Executive Order 12835, “Establishment of the National Economic Council,”

January 25, 1993, in Federal Register, Vol. 58, No. 16 (January 27, 1993), pp. 6189–6190, https://www.govinfo.

gov/content/pkg/FR-1993-01-27/pdf/FR-1993-01-27.pdf (accessed March 7, 2023).

— 43 —

n its opening words, Article II of the U.S. Constitution makes it abundantly

clear that “[t]he executive power shall be vested in a President of the United

States of America.”

That enormous power is not vested in departments or

agencies, in sta or administrative bodies, in nongovernmental organizations or

other equities and interests close to the government. The President must set and

enforce a plan for the executive branch. Sadly, however, a President today assumes

oce to ﬁnd a sprawling federal bureaucracy that all too often is carrying out its

own policy plans and preferences—or, worse yet, the policy plans and preferences

of a radical, supposedly “woke” faction of the country.

The modern conservative President’s task is to limit, control, and direct the

executive branch on behalf of the American people. This challenge is created

and exacerbated by factors like Congress’s decades-long tendency to delegate its

lawmaking power to agency bureaucracies, the pervasive notion of expert “inde-

pendence” that protects so-called expert authorities from scrutiny, the presumed

inability to hold career civil servants accountable for their performance, and the

increasing reality that many agencies are not only too big and powerful, but also

increasingly weaponized against the public and a President who is elected by the

people and empowered by the Constitution to govern.

In Federalist No. 47, James Madison warned that “[t]he accumulation of all powers,

legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many,

and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the

very deﬁnition of tyranny.”

Regrettably, that wise and cautionary note describes

to a signiﬁcant degree the modern executive branch, which—whether controlled

EXECUTIVE OFFICE

OF THE PRESIDENT

OF THE UNITED STATES

Russ Vought

— 44 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

by the bureaucracy or by the President—writes federal policy, enforces that policy,

and often adjudicates whether that policy was properly drafted and enforced. The

overall situation is constitutionally dire, unsustainably expensive, and in urgent need

of repair. Nothing less than the survival of self-governance in America is at stake.

The great challenge confronting a conservative President is the existential need

for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch to return power—

including power currently held by the executive branch—to the American people.

Success in meeting that challenge will require a rare combination of boldness and

self-denial: boldness to bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will and

self-denial to use the bureaucratic machine to send power away from Washington

and back to America’s families, faith communities, local governments, and states.

Fortunately, a President who is willing to lead will ﬁnd in the Executive Oce

of the President (EOP) the levers necessary to reverse this trend and impose a

sound direction for the nation on the federal bureaucracy. The eectiveness of

those EOP levers depends on the fundamental premise that it is the President’s

agenda that should matter to the departments and agencies that operate under his

constitutional authority and that, as a general matter, it is the President’s chosen

advisers who have the best sense of the President’s aims and intentions, both with

respect to the policies he intends to enact and with respect to the interests that

must be secured to govern successfully on behalf of the American people. This

chapter focuses on key features of and recommendations for several of the EOP’s

important components.

U.S. OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET (OMB)

OMB assists the President in the execution of his policy agenda across the gov-

ernment by employing many statutory and executive procedural levers to bring

the bureaucracy in line with all budgetary, regulatory, and management decisions.

Properly understood, it is a President’s air-trac control system with the abil-

ity and charge to ensure that all policy initiatives are ﬂying in sync and with the

authority to let planes take o and, at times, ground planes that are ﬂying o course.

OMB’s key roles include:

Developing and enforcing the President’s budget and executing the

appropriations laws that fund the government;

Managing agency and personnel performance, procurement policy,

ﬁnancial management, and information technology;

Developing the President’s regulatory agenda, reviewing new regulatory

actions, reviewing federal information collections, and setting and enforcing

federal information policy; and

— 45 —

Executive Oce of the President of the United States

Coordinating and clearing agency communications with Congress,

including testimonies and views on draft legislation.

OMB cannot perform its role on behalf of the President eectively if it is not inti-

mately involved in all aspects of the White House policy process and lacks knowledge

of what the agencies are doing. Internally to the EOP, ensuring that the policy-for-

mulation procedures developed by the White House to serve the President include

OMB is one of any OMB Director’s major responsibilities. A common meme of those

who intend to evade OMB review is to argue that where “resources” are not being

discussed, OMB’s participation is optional. This ignores both OMB’s role in all down-

stream execution and the reality that it has the only statutory tools in the White

House that are powerful enough to override implementing agencies’ bureaucracies.

The Director must view his job as the best, most comprehensive approxima-

tion of the President’s mind as it pertains to the policy agenda while always being

ready with actual options to eect that agenda within existing legal authorities and

resources. This role cannot be performed adequately if the Director acts instead as

the ambassador of the institutional interests of OMB and the wider bureaucracy

to the White House. Once its reputation as the keeper of “commander’s intent”

is established, then and only then does OMB have the ability to shape the most

ecient way to pursue an objective.

Externally, the Director must ensure that OMB has sucient visibility into

the deep caverns of agency decision-making. One indispensable statutory tool to

that end is to ensure that policy ocials—the Program Associate Directors (PADs)

managing the vast Resource Management Oces (RMOs)—personally sign what

are known as the apportionments. In 1870, Congress passed the Anti-Deﬁciency

Act

to prevent the common agency practice of spending down all appropriated

funding, creating artiﬁcial funding shortfalls that Congress would have to ﬁll. The

law mandated that all funding be allotted or “apportioned” in installments. This

process, whereby agencies come to OMB for allotments of appropriated funding, is

essential to the eective ﬁnancial stewardship of taxpayer dollars. OMB can then

direct on behalf of a President the amount, duration, and purpose of any appor-

tioned funding to ensure against waste, fraud, and abuse and ensure consistency

with the President’s agenda and applicable laws.

The vast majority of these apportionments were signed by career ocials—the

Deputy Associate Directors (DADs)—until the Trump Administration placed this

responsibility in the hands of the PADs and thereby opened wide vistas of oversight

that had escaped the attention of policy ocials. The Biden Administration sub-

sequently reversed this decision. No Director should be chosen who is unwilling

to restore apportionment decision-making to the PADs’ personal review, who is

not aggressive in wielding the tool on behalf of the President’s agenda, or who is

unable to defend the power against attacks from Congress.

— 46 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

It should be noted that each of OMB’s primary functions, along with other

executive and statutory roles, is carried out with the help of many essential OMB

support oces. The two most important oces for moving OMB at the will of a

Director are the Budget Review Division (BRD) and the Oce of General Counsel

(OGC). The Director should have a direct and eective relationship with the head

of the BRD (considered the top career ocial within OMB) and transmit most

instructions through that oce because the rest of the agency is institution-

ally inclined toward its direction and responds accordingly. The BRD inevitably

will translate the directions from policy ocials to the career sta, and at every

stage, it is obviously vital that the Director ensure that this translation is an

accurate one.

In addition, many key considerations involved in enacting a President’s agenda

hinge on existing legal authorities. The Director must ensure the appointment

of a General Counsel who is respected yet creative and fearless in his or her abil-

ity to challenge legal precedents that serve to protect the status quo. This is vital

within OMB not only with respect to the adequate development of policy options

for the President’s review, but also with respect to agencies that attempt to protect

their own institutional interests and foreclose certain avenues based on the mere

assertion (and not proof) that the law disallows it or that, conversely, attempt to

disregard the clear statutory commands of Congress.

In general, the Director should empower a strong Deputy Director with author-

ity over the Deputy for Management, the PADs, and the Oce of Information and

Regulatory Aairs (OIRA) to work diligently to break down barriers within OMB

and not allow turf disputes or a lack of visibility to undermine the agency’s prin-

cipal budget, management, and regulatory functions. OMB should work toward a

“One OMB” position on behalf of the President and represent that view during the

various policymaking processes.

Budget. The United States today faces an untenable ﬁscal situation and owes

$31 trillion on a debt that is steadily increasing. The OMB Director should present

a ﬁscal goal to the President early in the budget development process to address

the federal government’s ﬁscal irresponsibility. This goal would help to align the

months-long process of developing the actual proposals for inclusion in the budget.

Though some mistakenly regard it as a mere paper-pushing exercise, the Pres-

ident’s budget is in fact a powerful mechanism for setting and enforcing public

policy at federal agencies. The budget team includes six Resource Management

Oces that, together with the BRD and other components, help the Director of

OMB to develop and execute detailed agency spending plans that bear on every

major aspect of policy formation and execution at federal agencies. Through initial

priority-setting and ongoing supervision of agency spending, OMB’s budget team

plays a key role in executing policy across the executive branch, including at many

agencies wrongly regarded as “independent.”

— 47 —

Executive Oce of the President of the United States

The RMOs, each of which is led by a political appointee known as the PAD and

a career DAD, are separated into six functional units:

National Security.

Natural Resources, Energy, and Science.

Health.

Education, Income Maintenance, and Labor.

Transportation, Justice, and Homeland Security.

Treasury, Commerce, and Housing.

Because the RMOs are institutionally ingrained in nearly all policymaking and

implementation across the executive branch, they play a critical role in helping the

Director to implement the President’s public policy agenda. However, because each

RMO is responsible for formulating and supervising such a wide range of policy

details, many granular but critical policy decisions are eectively left to the career

professionals who serve across Administrations.

To enhance the OMB Director’s ability to help the President drive policy at the

agencies, the existing six RMOs should be divided into smaller subject-matter areas,

allowing for more PADs, and each of these PADs should have a Deputy PAD. This

expanded pool of RMOs with additional political leadership would enable more

comprehensive direction and oversight of policy development and implementation.

Regardless of whether Congress adopts the President’s full set of budget rec-

ommendations, the President should reintroduce the concept of administrative

pay-as-you-go, or administrative PAYGO. This simple procedural requirement

imposes budget neutrality on the discretionary choices of federal agencies, of

which there are many in nearly all areas of policymaking. This simple step forces

the executive branch to control what it can control. The principle may occasionally

yield to other overarching requirements, such as a presidential regulatory budget,

but in nearly all cases, administrative PAYGO plays a unique and indispensable

role in enforcing ﬁscal responsibility at federal departments and agencies.

The President should use every possible tool to propose and impose ﬁscal disci-

pline on the federal government. Anything short of that would constitute abject failure.

Management. The Management Oce of OMB (the “M-Side” as it is often

called) is responsible for carrying out several important agency oversight functions,

many of which are statutory. The Management team includes the following oces

led by presidentially appointed Senate-conﬁrmed individuals:

— 48 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

The Oce of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP).

The Oce of Performance and Personnel Management (OPPM).

The Oce of Federal Financial Management (OFFM).

The Oce of the Federal Chief Information Ocer (OFCIO).

The Made in America Oce (MIAO), which was added by the Biden

Administration and is not a Senate-conﬁrmed slot.

Each of these oces has responsibilities and authorities that a President can

use to help drive policy across the government. It is vital that the Director and his

political sta, not the careerists, drive these oces in pursuit of the President’s

actual priorities and not let them set their own agenda based on the wishes of the

sprawling “good government” management community in and outside of govern-

ment. Many Directors do not properly prioritize the management portfolio, leaving

it to the Deputy for Management, but such neglect creates purposeless bureaucracy

that impedes a President’s agenda—an “M Train to Nowhere.”

OFPP. This oce plays a critical role in leading the development of new policies

and regulations concerning federal contracting and procurement. Through the

Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council, which is generally chaired by the OFPP

Administrator, OFPP helps the Director to set a wide range of policies for all of

those who contract with the executive branch. In the past, those governmentwide

contracting rules have played a key role in helping to implement the President’s

policy agenda. This oce should be engaged early and often in OMB’s eort to drive

policy, including by obtaining transparency about entities that are awarded federal

contracts and grants and by using government contracts to push back against woke

policies in corporate America.

OPPM. Through this oce, the Director helps federal agencies to establish their

performance goals and performance review processes. OPPM also works with the

U.S. Oce of Personnel Management (OPM) to establish and manage personnel

policies and practices across the federal government. The Director should instruct

OPPM to establish annual performance goals and review processes for agencies

that reﬂect the President’s agenda. OPPM should also be part of the President’s

strategy to set and enforce sensible policies and practices for the federal workforce.

OFFM. This oce helps the Director to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in fed-

eral programs—for example, through the Do Not Pay program. It should be part of

eorts to save precious taxpayer resources.

OFCIO. This oce guides the federal government’s use and adoption of Inter-

net-based technologies to improve government operations and save taxpayer

— 49 —

Executive Oce of the President of the United States

money. As a function of its leadership role, it is critical in interagency discussions

on a wide range of technology issues. The oce thus is an important part of the

President’s eorts to modernize, strengthen, and set technology-adoption policy

for the executive branch.

MIAO. Building on the example and work of the Trump Administration, Presi-

dent Biden established this oce to centralize, carry out, and further develop the

federal government’s Buy-American and other Made-in-America commitments.

Its work ought to be continued and further strengthened.

Regulatory and Information Policy. OMB’s OIRA plays an enormous and

vital role in reining in the regulatory state and ensuring that regulations achieve

important beneﬁts while imposing minimal burdens on Americans. The President

should maintain Executive Order (EO) 12866,

the foundation of OIRA’s review

of regulatory actions. The Administration should likewise maintain the recent

extension of those standards to regulatory actions of the U.S. Department of the

Treasury.

Regulatory analysis and OIRA review should also be required of the

historically “independent” agencies as the Oce of Legal Counsel has found is

legally permissible.

If the current Administration proceeds with its declared intent to modify

aspects of EO 12866 or review OMB Circular A-4,

the related document that

provides the foundation for cost-beneﬁt analysis, the next President should imme-

diately begin to undo those changes and develop a rigorous, data-driven approach

that will result in the least burdensome rules possible. The next President should

also revive the directive in Executive Order 13891

that signiﬁcant guidance doc-

uments also must pass through OIRA review.

Because OIRA review often leads to fewer regulatory burdens, more regulatory

beneﬁts, and better coordination of regulatory policy, funding for OIRA tends to

pay large dividends. Yet over the years, funding for OIRA has diminished. This

trend should be reversed. The budget should also include sucient full-time equiv-

alent (FTE) employees to form regulatory advance teams that would consult with

agencies on cost-beneﬁt analysis and good regulatory practices at the beginning

of the rulemaking process for the most important regulations. These teams would

help agencies take cost-beneﬁt analysis into account from the beginning of their

rulemaking eorts, which in turn would result in higher-quality regulations and a

swifter eventual OIRA review. To preserve the integrity of OIRA review, the sta

who consult at the beginning of a rulemaking should not handle its eventual review.

The next President should also reinstate the many executive orders signed

by President Trump that were designed to make the regulatory process more

just, ecient, and transparent. Executive Orders 13771,

13777,

13891,

13892,

13893,

13924 Section 6,

13979,

and 13980

should be revived (with modiﬁca-

tions as needed). Executive Order 13132

on federalism should be strengthened

so that state regulatory and ﬁscal operations are not commandeered by the federal

— 50 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

government through so-called cooperative federalism programs. Additionally, the

President should revise and sign an updated version of President Ronald Reagan’s

Executive Order 12630

on federal takings.

The next President should strengthen implementation of the Information Qual-

ity Act,

robustly use the authority of the Paperwork Reduction Act,

carefully

enforce the Privacy Act,

and ensure the sound execution of OIRA’s statistical

and other information policy functions. Regulatory cooperation agreements can

also promote the further adoption of good regulatory practices, which improve

market conditions for America and her allies. OIRA should also work with other

components of OMB to revise and apply OMB’s uniform Guidance for Grants and

Agreements

and ensure that federal contract and grant guidelines satisfy EO

12866 and other centralized standards as appropriate.

But executive reforms and actions, while vital, are not enough: Congress also

must act. The next President should work with Congress to pass signiﬁcant reg-

ulatory policy and process reforms, which could go a long way toward reining in

the administrative state. Excellent examples of such legislation include the Reg-

ulatory Accountability Act,

SMART Act,

GOOD Act,

Early Participation in

Regulations Act,

Unfunded Mandates Accountability and Transparency Act,

and REINS Act.

Finally, the next President should work with Congress to maximize the utility

of the Congressional Review Act (CRA),

which allows Congress to undo midnight

regulatory actions (including those disguised as “guidance”) on an accelerated

timeline. To leverage the CRA’s power to the maximum extent, Congress and

the President should enact the Midnight Rules Relief Act,

which would help to

ensure that multiple regulatory actions could be packaged and voted on at the same

time. Immediate and robust use of the CRA would allow the President to focus

his rulemaking resources on major new regulatory reforms rather than devoting

months or years to undoing the ﬁnal rulemakings of the Biden Administration.

Legislative Clearance and Coordination. OMB plays a critical role in ensur-

ing that the executive branch is aligned on legislative proposals and language,

agency testimonies, and other communications with Congress. The Director should

use these authorities to enforce policy and message consistency aggressively and

promote the eective engagement of the executive branch in legislative processes.

NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL (NSC)

The National Security Council (NSC) was established by statute to support the

President in developing and implementing national security policy by coordinating

across relevant departments and agencies, integrating authorities and resources

toward common ends, and objectively assessing progress toward established

goals. Led by the National Security Advisor (NSA), the NSC sta will be success-

ful in implementing the President’s national security goals only if it is made up

— 51 —

Executive Oce of the President of the United States

of personnel with technical expertise and experience as well as an alignment to

the President’s declared national security policy priorities. The NSC must then

chart a course that articulates and achieves the President’s national security goals

and objectives. The President should empower a strong NSC that not only has the

power to convene the policy process, but also is entrusted with the full power of

the presidency to drive the bureaucracy.

In organizing (by means of Presidential Directive

) an NSC sta that is more

responsive and aligned with the President’s goals and empowered to implement

them, the NSA should immediately evaluate and eliminate directorates that are

not aligned with the President’s agenda and replace them with new directorates as

appropriate that can drive implementation of the President’s signature national

security priorities. In addition to realigning the sta organization to the President’s

priorities, the NSA should assign responsibility for implementation of speciﬁc

policy initiatives to senior NSC ocials from across the NSC sta structure. These

ocials should develop, direct, and execute tangible action plans in coordination

with multiple agencies to achieve measurable, time-deﬁned milestones.

Aligning NSC sta to the President’s national security goals will provide clearer

direction, a mandate for action, and a baseline of accountability that can be used

to evaluate sta performance and the NSC’s overall progress. Accountable senior

ocials, themselves either political appointees or a minimum number of career

detailees, who are selected and vetted politically and report directly to political

sta should be the main day-to-day managers for interagency coordination and

implementation of their assigned national security policy objectives. They should

provide policy analysis for consideration by the broader NSC and relevant agencies

and ensure timely responses to decisions made by the President. The accountable

senior ocials should be established at the direction of the NSA and draw on per-

sonnel and expertise from beyond the NSC, including OMB, the National Economic

Council, and relevant federal agencies.

The NSC sta and principals should work in tandem with the National Eco-

nomic Council and OMB at all levels, presenting a united eort to achieve the

President’s goals and drawing on the latter’s statutory authorities to guide the

bureaucracy. To accomplish national objectives eectively, foreign policy should

fully incorporate the economic instruments of national power. National security

policy must also include the prioritized allocation of resources. When policies are

divorced from the resources required to implement them, they are stillborn—aca-

demic exercises that undermine our national security and leave departments and

agencies to their own devices.

The accountable senior ocials should be empowered to identify, recruit, clear,

and hire sta who are aligned with and willing to shepherd the President’s national

security priorities. NSC sta leads, under the direction of the NSA, should have

the discretion to reduce the number of positions that need high-level clearances,

— 52 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

and the NSC should be adequately resourced and authorized to adjudicate and

hold security clearances internally with investigators who work directly for the

NSC and whose sole task is to clear NSC ocials. If certain sta are determined

not to need high-level clearances, the question becomes whether they should be

part of the NSC at all.

The NSC should take a leading role in directing the drafting and thorough review

of all formal strategies: the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strat-

egy, the Nuclear Posture Review, the Missile Defense Strategy, etc. In particular,

the National Defense Strategy, which by tradition has evaded signiﬁcant review,

should be prioritized for White House review by the NSC and OMB. Both should

also conduct reviews of operational war plans and global force planning and allo-

cations with the Secretary of Defense to align them with presidential priorities and

review all key policy and guidance intended for implementation by the heads of the

Department of Defense, the Department of State, and the Intelligence Community

before they are authorized for distribution. The NSC should rigorously review all

general and ﬂag ocer promotions to prioritize the core roles and responsibilities

of the military over social engineering and non-defense matters, including climate

change, critical race theory, manufactured extremism, and other polarizing policies

that weaken our armed forces and discourage our nation’s ﬁnest men and women

from enlisting to serve in defense of our liberty.

The NSC sta will need to consolidate the functions of both the NSC and the

Homeland Security Council (HSC), incorporate the recently established Oce of

the National Cyber Director, and evaluate the required regional and functional

directorates. Given the aforementioned prerequisites, the NSC should be prop-

erly resourced with sucient policy professionals, and the NSA should prioritize

stang the vast majority of NSC directorates with aligned political appointees

and trusted career ocials. For instance, the NSA should return all nonessen-

tial detailees to their home agencies on their ﬁrst day in oce so that the new

Administration can proceed eciently without the personnel land mines left by

the previous stewards and as soon as possible should replace all essential detailees

with sta aligned to the new President’s priorities. The HSC has overseen pandemic

response, and its incorporation is important.

In the end, change requires intervention, and the NSC sta should be appro-

priately recruited, manned, and empowered to achieve the President’s national

security and foreign policy objectives and maintain robust policy analysis and

discussion while minimizing resistance from those who have an agenda or who

jealously guard their resources and autonomy at the expense of national security

and sound policy development. This resistance and inertia can be inadvertently

enabled by a small and unempowered NSC.

Additionally, the White House Chief of Sta and NSA must ensure that the NSC

is functioning in tandem with the rest of the White House sta to beneﬁt from

— 53 —

Executive Oce of the President of the United States

the best strategic thinking of the President’s top advisers. History shows that an

unsupervised NSC sta can stray from its statutory role and adversely aect a Pres-

ident and his policies. Moreover, while the NSC should be fully incorporated into

the White House, it should also be allowed to do its job without the impediment

of dually hatted sta that report to other oces. For instance, the NSC needs its

own counsel to inform what legal options can be provided to the President. The

White House Counsel should be part of that policy process as the President’s top

legal adviser. These recommendations provide a clear road map for rapidly sizing

and solidifying the NSC sta to support and achieve the President’s objectives

beginning on Inauguration Day.

NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL (NEC)

The National Economic Council is one of the policy councils serving the Pres-

ident along with the NSC and the Domestic Policy Council (DPC). The Director

serves as principal adviser to the President on domestic and international eco

nomic policy and communicates the President’s economic message to the media.

The Deputy Director is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the council,

which includes chairing the committee that coordinates economic policy devel

opment at the Deputy Secretary level. In eect, the Director and Deputy Director

are the ocials who are primarily responsible for the development of economic

policymaking for the Administration. Once a policy is adopted, it is the appropri-

ate agency’s responsibility to implement it. The NEC’s policy process is also used

to determine whether the President should support or oppose legislation passed

by Congress.

In addition to its leadership, the NEC has policy experts (for example, Special

Assistants to the President or SAPs) who are responsible for developing and coor-

dinating, as well as advising the President, on speciﬁc issues. It is essential that

the policy expertise of the NEC reﬂect the current environment’s most pressing

issues. Today, this would include (among other topics) taxes, energy and envi-

ronment, technology, infrastructure, health care, ﬁnancial services, workforce,

agriculture, antitrust and competition policy, and retirement programs. NEC’s

SAPs should have a working knowledge of how the Administration can implement

policy through the rulemaking process, although it is not necessary that they be

experts on regulation themselves, particularly given OMB’s role. This will facilitate

the NEC’s eectiveness in coordinating Administration policy.

The NEC needs to work closely with other oces within the Executive Oce

of the President to promote innovation by the private sector and create an envi-

ronment that will stimulate economic activity while reducing federal spending

and debt. This includes working with the DPC, NSC, OMB, Council of Economic

Advisers, Oce of Intergovernmental Aairs, Oce of Cabinet Aairs, White

House Counsel, Council on Environmental Quality, Oce of Legislative Aairs,

— 54 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

and Oce of Science and Technology Policy. To this end, the NEC Director should

chair a standing meeting with the principals from each of the other EOP oces to

enhance coordination from within the White House.

In the past, there has been tension among the DPC, NEC, and NSC over juris-

diction. It is important to set clear jurisdictions at the start of an Administration

to prevent needless and counterproductive turf ﬁghts. In addition, the Principal

Deputy for international economic policy is jointly appointed at NEC and NSC and

could end up serving two dierent interests. To avoid such problems, international

economic policy should be entirely coordinated from NEC.

It will be especially important for the NEC to work seamlessly with the Council

of Economic Advisers (CEA), which provides the President and the White House

oces with the latest economic data and forecasts, as well as estimates of the eco-

nomic impact of proposed policies, and prepares the annual Economic Report of

the President. The CEA is not a policy council and therefore does not run policy

processes, which is the responsibility of the NEC, DPC, and NSC. However, the

CEA does play a key role in ensuring that any policy considered by the councils is

rigorously evaluated for its economic impacts.

The NEC works closely with the White House Oce of Communications and

Oce of Speechwriting to ensure that the White House’s messaging and media

engagement communicate the President’s economic policy eectively.

The NEC also plays a key role in advancing the President’s economic agenda

by advising the Oce of Presidential Personnel on appointments to key economic

posts, including positions in ﬁnancial regulatory agencies. The NEC helps to ensure

that each economic post is held by a person who shares the President’s policy pri-

orities and works well with the rest of the Administration’s economic team. The

ﬁnancial regulators are run partly by civil servants (some of whom were politi-

cal appointees in prior liberal Administrations) who often resist a conservative

Administration’s policies. It is therefore critical that an Administration not only

appoints capable individuals to lead these agencies, but also has personnel who

can be hired into senior sta positions within the agencies.

A few areas will be especially important if the NEC is to develop a well-deﬁned

economic policy agenda. One is the promotion of innovation as a foundation for

economic growth and opportunity. Another is the creation of an environment that

fosters economic growth through tax reform and the elimination of regulatory and

procedural barriers.

OFFICE OF THE U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE (USTR)

The Oce of the U.S. Trade Representative provides the President with the

internal White House resources necessary to formulate and execute a uniﬁed,

whole-of-government approach to trade policy. The President should ensure

that the USTR is empowered to serve in that leadership role, much as other

— 55 —

Executive Oce of the President of the United States

EOP components organize and drive a coordinated policy agenda on behalf of

the President.

The People’s Republic of China’s predatory trade practices have disrupted the

open-market trading system that has provided mutual beneﬁt to all participating

countries—including China—for decades. The failure of the World Trade Organi-

zation (WTO) to discipline China for abrogation of its trading commitments has

seriously undermined its credibility and made it a largely ineective institution.

The United States, through an empowered USTR, must act to rebalance and refocus

international trading relationships in favor of democratic nations that embrace

free, fair, and open trade principles built on market-driven economies.

Chapter 26 of this book outlines recommended trade policy priorities for the

incoming President. However, regardless of the approach, successful implemen-

tation of that trade agenda will require the President to articulate a clear policy

direction and instructions for the executive branch to operate in a coordinated

fashion under the leadership of an empowered USTR.

To address these and other challenges, protect the American worker, and secure

free and open markets for our communities and businesses, the next President

must leverage the institutional resources and strength of the USTR and neither

allow institutional interests to drive a fragmented trade policy that is developed

from the ground up nor cater to parochial interests across government and Wash-

ington’s broader industry of inﬂuence.

The USTR’s mission is vitally important in reorienting the global trading system

in a direction that is open, fair, and prosperous. In order to achieve the President’s

policy goals, a strong USTR must be empowered to set trade policy from the White

House with the authority and resources to represent the interests of the Presi-

dent’s trade agenda with adequate budget, sta, analysis, and expertise to engage

meaningfully in internal and interagency policy deliberations. The USTR should

organize and harness existing interagency trade committees to serve the Presi-

dent’s trade agenda and drive a consensus among federal stakeholders, dispose

of legacy advisory committees with members who serve special interests, direct

action to implement policy priorities, measure progress toward implementing the

President’s agenda, and hold agencies and ocials accountable for delivering the

President’s agenda. The USTR’s leadership should not only coordinate and enforce

the President’s agenda across the federal community, but also set and enforce the

President’s trade agenda internally.

Trade policy and priorities should be set by the President and implemented by

the U.S. Trade Representative in cooperation with the other economic and national

security ocials, not by the range of governmental and nongovernmental interests

that attempt to force their policy preferences on the USTR. A strong USTR empow-

ered with the necessary resources, authorities, and interagency cooperation will

protect U.S. interests in the global marketplace more eectively.

— 56 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS (CEA)

Congress established the Council of Economic Advisers in 1946 to advise the

President on economic policy based on data, research, and evidence. The CEA is

one of the oldest congressionally created oces within the White House complex

and plays a broad role in bringing economic expertise to Administration policy

across a large range of policy areas. The CEA has one presidentially appointed

and Senate-conﬁrmed chair, two presidentially appointed members who assist

and often have expertise that complements the chair, and approximately 40

sta employees.

Statutorily, the CEA is charged with being the President’s principal source of

economic advice. However, this role has diminished over time as its policy appraisal

and especially formulation and recommendation functions have been taken over or

diluted by other economic policy bodies within the White House. By law, the CEA

is required to publish an annual Economic Report of the President within 10 days

after submission of the budget. This report is not just a messaging document; it is

an opportunity to provide greater rigor in support of policy areas that the White

House is prioritizing and to build up the external credibility of those ideas.

A future conservative Administration should utilize the CEA as the senior inter

nal White House economists much as the White House Counsel’s oce functions

as the senior internal White House lawyers. This does not mean that there are no

economists in other oces. There are, just as there often are lawyers in the policy

councils and other White House oces, but the CEA’s role, like the White House

Counsel’s, is to employ its unique expertise (particularly on the technical side) to

ensure that sound analysis is contributing to and shaping the policy discussion.

In practice, this means that CEA sta do not “coordinate” the policy process in

the way that the DPC or NEC would, but they should be integral to the EOP’s policy

development processes. CEA sta should support sound policy development and

execution by actively contributing to running policy dialogues, proactively raising

issues that need to be addressed, consulting on questions that arise, and guiding

EOP and agency ocials on the analytical foundations of policy. Structurally, the

White House Chief of Sta should ensure that the CEA has a seat at the policymak-

ing table on all relevant policy.

Senior economists traditionally have not gone through the Oce of Presidential

Personnel process and more often than not are hired on an academic-year cycle. As

a result, senior economists hired in the summer of a presidential election year tend

to remain on sta until the next summer even if a President from the opposite party

takes power and installs a new slate of CEA political appointees for chair, members,

etc. Although these hiring practices create some continuity, the presence of senior

economists who were never fully vetted for their alignment with White House

policy objectives or who were holdovers from a recently departed Administra-

tion can breed skepticism and distrust of the CEA by other units within the White

— 57 —

Executive Oce of the President of the United States

House, creating the risk that the CEA’s role in the policymaking process will be

diminished. A future Administration should consider hiring that reﬂects the White

House calendar (mid-January) and involves the Oce of Presidential Personnel.

NATIONAL SPACE COUNCIL (NSPC)

The National Space Council is responsible for providing advice and recommen-

dations to the President on the formulation and implementation of space policy

and strategy. It is charged with conducting a whole-of-government approach to

the nation’s space interests: civil, military, intelligence, commercial, or diplomatic.

Historically, it has been chaired by the Vice President at the President’s direction,

and its members consist of members of the Cabinet and other senior executive

branch ocials as speciﬁed by the President in Executive Order 13803.

The

NSpC’s purpose is to ensure that the President’s priorities relative to space are

carried out and, as necessary, to resolve policy conﬂicts among departments and

agencies that are related to space.

Space projects and programs are risky, complex, expensive, and time consum-

ing—although commercial space innovations are lowering costs and accelerating

schedules. Nevertheless, while ﬁscal discipline should not be ignored, long-term

policy stability is crucial to investors, innovators, industry, and agencies. Policy

stability is easier when policies and programs are aligned with long-term national

interests as opposed to those of particular advocacy groups or political factions.

The Trump Administration’s major space policies—including the U.S. Space Force,

the Artemis program to land the next Americans on the moon, and support for a

strong commercial space sector—have endured under the Biden Administration.

Major challenges remain in implementation and regulatory reform to keep up

with rapidly evolving space markets and competitors. These include the long-term

sustainability of space activities in light of increasing orbital debris; creation of

space situational awareness services for civil and commercial uses; management

of mega-constellations; licensing of new commercial remote sensing capabilities;

keeping up with licensing demands due to high launch rates; transitioning Inter

national Space Station operations to multiple, privately owned space platforms;

and (most important) accelerating the acquisition and ﬁelding of national security

space capabilities in response to an increasingly aggressive China.

The Vice President should have a clear understanding with the National Secu-

rity Advisor and the White House Counsel that they and their respective stas

will work within the White House to determine the scope and leadership of policy

reviews that can overlap multiple areas of responsibility. A similar understanding

is necessary with the heads of other policy councils such as the NEC, DPC, and

National Science and Technology Council (NSTC).

As a result of the President’s direction and the Vice President’s leadership, the

NSpC under the Trump Administration was able to coordinate a wide range of

— 58 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

space policy reviews, legislative proposals, and regulatory reforms smoothly. The

NSpC generally led on space issues within the EOP, but other White House oces

also took on space topics.

As a member of the NSpC, and in coordination with other members, the

Oce of Science and Technology Policy developed a national space weather

strategy, research and development (R&D) plans to mitigate the eects of

orbital debris, and protocols for planetary protection to avoid biological

contamination of celestial bodies.

The Council of Economic Advisers did research on the economic beneﬁts of

space property rights.

OMB’s Oce of Information and Regulatory Reform updated and

streamlined commercial launch licensing and commercial remote sensing

satellite rules.

During the Trump Administration, if a topic was purely military, such as stand-

ing up the U.S. Space Command, the NSC took the lead. If a topic cut across military,

civil, and commercial sectors, as was the case with cybersecurity in space, the NSpC

and NSC would cochair the policy review groups.

Trusted, collegial relationships across the White House complex are critical to

successful space policy development, implementation, and oversight. Nowhere

is this more important than in the relationship between the NSpC sta and OMB

sta who oversee civil and national security–related space spending. Teamwork

between the NSpC and OMB sta can communicate clear presidential priorities

to departments and agencies, facilitating smooth development of the President’s

budget request. The NSpC and OMB have many opportunities to collaborate in

promoting presidential priorities while ﬁnding osets in lower-priority programs

and funding lines.

OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY (OSTP)

The White House Oce of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) was created

by the National Science and Technology Policy, Organization, and Priorities Act

of 1976.

Before its creation, Presidents received their advice and counsel on such

matters through advisers and boards that had no statutory authority. The Director

of OSTP is one of the few Senate-conﬁrmed positions within the Executive Oce

of the President. Consistent with other laws, the President may delegate to the

Director of OSTP directive authority over other elements of the executive branch.

Other EOP policy ocials and organizations such as the NSC and NEC are formally

only advisory with relevant agency directives issued by the President.

— 59 —

Executive Oce of the President of the United States

The OSTP’s functions, as contained in the law, are to advise the President of

scientiﬁc and technological considerations, evaluate the eectiveness of the federal

eort, and generally lead and coordinate the federal government’s R&D programs.

If science is being manipulated at the agencies to support separate political and

institutional agendas, the President should increase the prominence of the OSTP’s

Director either formally or informally. This would elevate the role of science in

policy discussions and subsequent outcomes and theoretically help to balance

out agencies like the Departments of Energy, State, and Commerce and the Envi-

ronmental Protection Agency and Council on Environmental Quality. The OSTP

can also help to bring technical expertise to regulatory matters in support of OMB.

The OSTP should continue to play a lead role in coordinating federal R&D pro-

grams. Recent legislation, especially the CHIPS and Science Act,

has expanded

federal policy and funding across the enterprise, and there is a need for more sig-

niﬁcant leadership in this area both to ensure eectiveness and to avoid duplication

of eort. As beﬁtting its location in the White House, the OSTP must be concerned

with advancing national interests and not merely the parochial concerns of depart-

ments, agencies, or parts of the scientiﬁc community.

During the Trump and Biden Administrations, there has been a bipartisan focus

on prioritizing R&D funding around the so-called Industries of the Future (IOTF).

Under President Trump, IOTF priorities were artiﬁcial intelligence (AI), quantum

information science (QIS), advanced communications/5G, advanced manufacturing,

and biotechnology. Under President Biden, this list has been expanded to include

advanced materials, robotics, battery technology, cybersecurity, green products and

clean technology, plant genetics and agricultural technologies, nanotechnology, and

semiconductor and microelectronics technologies. These priorities should be eval-

uated and narrowed to ensure consistency with the next Administration’s priorities.

Given a long list of priorities, coordinating eorts across agencies and mea-

suring success are extremely challenging. The OSTP and OMB are required to

work together on an annual basis to prioritize the funding requests and whatever

Congress adds on top of them, but there continues to be concern about mission

creep and funds expended on nonscientiﬁc R&D.

The President should also issue an executive order to reshape the U.S. Global

Change Research Program (USGCRP) and related climate change research pro-

grams. The USGCRP produces strategic plans and research (for example, the

National Climate Assessment) that reduce the scope of legally proper options in

presidential decision-making and in agency rulemakings and adjudications. Also,

since much environmental policymaking must run the gauntlet of judicial review,

USGCRP actions can frustrate successful litigation defense in ways that the career

bureaucracy should not be permitted to control. The process for producing assess-

ments should include diverse viewpoints. The OSTP and OMB should jointly assess

the independence of the contractors used to conduct much of this outsourced

— 60 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

government research that serves as the basis for policymaking. The next President

should critically analyze and, if required, refuse to accept any USGCRP assessment

prepared under the Biden Administration.

The President should also restore related EOP research components to their

purely informational and advisory roles. Consistent with the Global Change

Research Act of 1990,

USGCRP-related EOP components should be conﬁned to

a more limited advisory role. These components should include but not necessarily

be limited to the OSTP; the NSTC’s Committee on Environment; the USGCRP’s

Interagency Groups (for example, the Carbon Cycle Interagency Working Group);

and the Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and Technology.

As a general matter, the new Administration should separate the scientiﬁc risk

assessment function from the risk management function, which is the exclusive

domain of elected policymakers and the public.

Finally, the next Administration will face a signiﬁcant challenge in unwinding

policies and procedures that are used to advance radical gender, racial, and equity

initiatives under the banner of science. Similarly, the Biden Administration’s

climate fanaticism will need a whole-of-government unwinding. As with other

federal departments and agencies, the Biden Administration’s leveraging of the

federal government’s resources to further the woke agenda should be reversed and

scrubbed from all policy manuals, guidance documents, and agendas, and scientiﬁc

excellence and innovation should be restored as the OSTP’s top priority.

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)

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 eort and restoring its key provisions

such as banning the use of cumulative impact analysis. This eort should incor-

porate 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.”

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 eective 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.

The President should build on this foundation to

— 61 —

Executive Oce of the President of the United States

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

Decision

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 ocials across the EOP (for example, the policy sta of the

NSC, NEC, DPC, CEQ, and OSTP) and abolishing the existing Oce of Domestic Cli

mate Policy. The Senior Advisor would report directly to the Chief of Sta. 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.

OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY (ONDCP)

Congress created the Oce of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) through

the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988

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 rearm 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 tracking 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 tracking 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 eorts.

For these reasons, the Director of ONDCP should make it a point to consult with

federal border enforcement ocials.

— 62 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

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 ocial, it is imperative that a political appointee lead the

ONDCP budget oce 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 Tracking 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 14020

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 arming care” and “sex-change” surgeries on minors. In addition to elim-

inating the council, developing new structures and positions will have the dual

eect 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 oce in the nation and plays

a constitutionally vital role as President-in-waiting. The Vice President is also

— 63 —

Executive Oce of the President of the United States

the President of the Senate and is charged with breaking tie votes in that body. In

recent years, the Vice President has been granted oce space in the West Wing

and the Eisenhower Executive Oce 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 ocial serves at the

pleasure of the President, whereas the Vice President is elected, and the process

for ﬁlling vacancies in that Article II constitutional oce, which includes conﬁr-

mation of a replacement Vice President by a majority of both Houses of Congress,

is governed by the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.

The Vice President has his or her own economic advisers, domestic policy and

national security sta, and daily intelligence brieﬁngs. The Vice President should

ﬁll his or her oce with strong and sound policy minds to eectively assist the

President in fulﬁlling his agenda.

The Vice President is also a statutory member of the National Security Council.

In theory, in light of the fact that the Vice President is a member of the Smithso-

nian Institution’s Board of Regents,

there is nothing to prevent Congress from

assigning the Vice President additional statutory duties.

All of the component councils and oces 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

oer 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,

that the Vice Presidency can act as a

training ground for presidential oce.

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 o-

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 ocials of foreign governments. The Vice President, as President of the

— 64 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

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 sta across the interagency and policy councils is a Vice President

whose voice will be heard.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Special thanks to those who contributed to this chapter: Stephen Billy, Scott Pace, Casey

Mulligan, Edie Heipel, Mike Duey, Vance Ginn, Iain Murray, Laura Cunlie, Mario Loyola, Anthony Campau, Paige

Agostin, Molly Sikes, Paul Ray, Kenneth A. Klukowski, Michael Anton, Robert Greenway, Valerie Huber, James Rockas,

Paul Winfree, Aaron Hedlund, Brian McCormack, David Legates, Art Kleinschmidt, Paul Larkin, Kayla Tonnessen,

Jerey B. Clark, Jonathan Wolfson, and Bob Burkett.

— 65 —

Executive Oce of the President of the United States

ENDNOTES

 U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1, https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii#section1 (accessed

January 30, 2023).

 James Madison, The Federalist Papers No. 47, January 30, 1788, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/

Madison/01-10-02-0266 (accessed January 30, 2023).

 31 U.S.C. §§ 1341(a)(1)(A) and 1341(a)(1)(B), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/1341 (accessed

January 30, 2023); § 1342, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/1342 (accessed January 30, 2023); and

§ 1517(a), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/1517(a) (accessed January 30, 2023).

 President William J. Clinton, Executive Order 12866, “Regulatory Planning and Review,” September 30, 1993,

in Federal Register, Vol. 58, No. 190 (October 4, 1993), pp. 51735–51744, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/

FR-1993-10-04/pdf/FR-1993-10-04.pdf (accessed March 9, 2023).

 Brent J. McIntosh, General Counsel, Department of the Treasury, and Neomi Rao, Administrator, Oce of

Information and Regulatory Aairs, Memorandum of Agreement, “The Department of the Treasury and the

Oce of Management and Budget Review of Tax Regulations Under Executive Order 12866,” April 11, 2018,

https://home.treasury.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/2018-04/04-11%20Signed%20Treasury%20OIRA%20MOA.pdf

(accessed January 31, 2023).

 See Steven A. Engel, Assistant Attorney General, Oce of Legal Counsel, “Extending Regulatory Review

Under Executive Order 12866 to Independent Regulatory Agencies,” 43 Op. O.L.C. __ (Oct. 8, 2019), https://

www.justice.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/opinions/attachments/2020/12/30/2019-10-08-extend-reg-review.pdf

(accessed January 31, 2023).

 Oce of Management and Budget, Circular A-4, “Regulatory Analysis,” September 17, 2003, https://

www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/legacy_drupal_ﬁles/omb/circulars/A4/a-4.pdf (accessed

January 31, 2023).

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13891, “Promoting the Rule of Law Through Improved Agency

Guidance Documents,” October 9, 2019, in Federal Register, Vol. 84, No. 199 (October 15, 2019), pp. 55235–

55238, https://home.treasury.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/2018-04/04-11%20Signed%20Treasury%20OIRA%20MOA.

pdf (accessed January 31, 2023).

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13771, “Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs,”

January 30, 2017, in Federal Register, Vol. 82, No. 22 (February 3, 20170, pp. 9339–9341, https://www.govinfo.

gov/content/pkg/FR-2017-02-03/pdf/2017-02451.pdf (accessed January 31, 2023).

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13777, “Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda,” February 24,

2017, in Federal Register, Vol. 82, No. 39 (March 1, 2017), pp. 12285–12287, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/

pkg/FR-2017-03-01/pdf/2017-04107.pdf (accessed January 31, 2023).

 See note 8, supra.

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13892, “Promoting the Rule of Law Through Transparency and

Fairness in Civil Administrative Enforcement and Adjudication,” in Federal Register, Vol. 84, No. 199 (October

15, 2019), pp. 55239–55243, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2019-10-15/pdf/2019-22624.pdf

(accessed January 31, 2023).

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13893, “Increasing Government Accountability for Administrative

Actions by Reinvigorating Administrative PAYGO,” October 10, 2019, in Federal Register, Vol. 84, No. 200

(October 16, 2019), pp. 55487–55488, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2019-10-16/pdf/2019-22749.

pdf (accessed January 31, 2023).

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13924, “Regulatory Relief to Support Economic Recovery,” May 19,

2020, in Federal Register, Vol. 85, No. 100 (May 22, 2020), pp. 31353–31356, esp. 31355, https://www.govinfo.

gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-05-22/pdf/2020-11301.pdf (accessed January 31, 2023).

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13979, “Ensuring Democratic Accountability in Agency

Rulemaking,” January 18, 2021, in Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 13 (January 22, 2021), pp. 6813–6815, https://

www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-01-22/pdf/2021-01644.pdf (accessed January 31, 2023).

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13980, “Protecting Americans from Overcriminalization

Through Regulatory Reform,” January 18, 2021, in Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 13 (January 22, 2021),

pp. 6817–6820, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-01-22/pdf/2021-01645.pdf (accessed

January 31, 2023).

— 66 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 President William J. Clinton, Executive Order 13132, “Federalism,” August 4, 1999, in Federal Register, Vol. 64,

No. 153 (August 10, 1999), pp. 43255–43259, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1999-08-10/pdf/99-

20729.pdf (accessed January 31, 2023).

 President Ronald Reagan, Executive Order 12630, “Governmental Actions and Interference with

Constitutionally Protected Property Rights,” March 15, 1988, in Federal Register, Vol. 53, No. 53 (March 18,

1988), pp. 8859–8862, https://www.regulationwriters.com/downloads/Executive_Orders/EO_12630.pdf

(accessed January 31, 2023).

 Section 115 in H.R. 4577, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2001, Public Law No. 106-544, 106th Congress,

December 21, 2000, https://www.congress.gov/106/plaws/publ554/PLAW-106publ554.pdf (accessed

January 31, 2023).

 H.R. 6410, Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980, Public Law No. 96-511, 96th Congress, December 11, 1980, https://

www.congress.gov/96/statute/STATUTE-94/STATUTE-94-Pg2812.pdf (accessed January 31, 2023).

 S. 3418, An Act to Amend Title 5, United States Code, by Adding a Section 552a, to Safeguard Individual

Privacy from the Misuse of Federal Records, to Provide that Individuals Be Granted Access to Records

Concerning Them Which Are Maintained by Federal Agencies, to Establish a Privacy Protection Study

Commission, and for Other Purposes (Privacy Act of 1974), Public Law No. 93-579, 93rd Congress,

December 31, 1974, https://www.congress.gov/93/statute/STATUTE-88/STATUTE-88-Pg1896.pdf (accessed

January 31, 2023).

 Oce of Management and Budget, “Guidance for Grants and Agreements,” Final Guidance, Federal Register,

Vol. 85, No. 157 (August 13, 2020), pp. 49506–49582, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-08-13/

pdf/2020-17468.pdf (accessed January 31, 2023), and “Guidance for Grants and Agreements,” Correcting

Amendments, Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 33 (February 22, 2021), pp. 10439–10440, https://www.govinfo.

gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-02-22/pdf/2021-02969.pdf (accessed January 31, 2023).

 H.R. 5, Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017, 115th Congress, introduced January 3, 2017, https://www.

congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/5 (accessed January 31, 20/23), and S. 951, Regulatory

Accountability Act of 2017, 115th Congress, introduced April 26, 2017, https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-

congress/senate-bill/951 (accessed January 31, 2023).

 S. 2314, Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology Act (SMART Act), 116th Congress, introduced July 30,

2019, https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/2314/text (accessed January 31, 2023).

 H.R. 1605, Guidance Out of Darkness Act (GOOD Act), 117th Congress, introduced March 8, 2021, https://www.

congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1605 (accessed January 31, 2023).

 S. 2804, Early Participation in Regulations Act of 2021, 117th Congress, introduced September 22, 2021, https://

www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2804 (accessed January 31, 2023).

 S. 170, Unfunded Mandates Accountability and Transparency Act, 117th Congress, introduced February 2, 2021,

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/170 (accessed January 31, 2023).

 H.R. 277, Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2023 (REINS Act), 118th Congress,

introduced January 11, 2023, https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/277/all-info?r=217

(accessed January 31, 2023).

 Subtitle E, “Congressional Review,” in H.R. 3136, Contract with America Advancement Act of 1996, Public Law

No. 104-121, 104th Congress, March 29, 1996, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-104publ121/pdf/

PLAW-104publ121.pdf (accessed January 31, 2023).

 H.R. 115, Midnight Rules Relief Act of 2023, 118th Congress, introduced January 9, 2023, https://www.congress.

gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/115/text?s=1&r=18 (accessed January 31, 2023).

 See Federation of American Scientists, Intelligence Resource Program, “Presidential Directives and Executive

Orders,” https://irp.fas.org/odocs/direct.htm (accessed February 1, 2023), and Library of Congress,

Researchers, Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room, “Presidential Directives and Where to Find

Them,” March 30, 2022, https://www.loc.gov/rr/news/directives.html (accessed February 1, 2023).

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13803, “Reviving the National Space Council,” June 30, 2017, in

Federal Register, Vol. 82, No. 129 (July 7, 2017), pp. 31429–31432, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-

2017-07-07/pdf/2017-14378.pdf (accessed February 1, 2023).

— 67 —

Executive Oce of the President of the United States

 H.R. 10230, National Science and Technology Policy, Organization, and Priorities Act of 1976, Public Law No.

94-282, 94th Congress, May 11, 1976, https://www.congress.gov/94/statute/STATUTE-90/STATUTE-90-Pg459.

pdf (accessed February 1, 2023).

 H.R. 4346, CHIPS [Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors] and Science Act, Public Law No.

117-167, 117th Congress, August 9, 2022, https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ167/PLAW-117publ167.pdf

(accessed February 1, 2023).

 S. 169, Global Change Research Act of 1990, Public Law No. 101-606, 101st Congress, November 16, 1990,

https://www.congress.gov/101/statute/STATUTE-104/STATUTE-104-Pg3096.pdf (accessed February 1, 2023).

 S. 1075, National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, Public Law No. 91-190, 91st Congress, January 1, 1970,

https://uscode.house.gov/statutes/pl/91/190.pdf (accessed February 1, 2023).

 Andrus v. Sierra Club, 442 U.S. 347, 358 (1979), https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep442/

usrep442347/usrep442347.pdf (accessed March 7, 2023).

 Title XLI (41) in H.R. 22, Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act), Public Law No. 114-94, 114th

Congress, December 4, 2015, https://www.congress.gov/114/statute/STATUTE-129/STATUTE-129-Pg1312.pdf

(accessed February 1, 2023).

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13807, “Establishing Discipline and Accountability in the

Environmental Review and Permitting Process for Infrastructure Projects,” August 15, 2017, in Federal Register,

Vol. 82, No. 163 (August 24, 2017), pp. 40463–40469, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2017-08-24/

pdf/2017-18134.pdf (accessed February 1, 2023).

 H.R. 5210, Anti-Drug Abuse of 1988, Public Law No. 100-690, 100th Congress, November 18, 1988, https://www.

congress.gov/100/statute/STATUTE-102/STATUTE-102-Pg4181.pdf (accessed February 1, 2023).

 President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Executive Order 14020, “Establishment of the White House Gender Policy

Council,” March 8, 2021, in Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 46 (March 11, 2021), pp. 13797–13801, https://www.

govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-03-11/pdf/2021-05183.pdf (accessed January 31, 2023).

 U.S. Constitution, Amendment XXV, https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxv (accessed

March 9, 2023).

 50 U.S.C. § 3021(c)(1), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3021 (accessed March 9, 2023).

 20 U.S.C. § 20(a), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/20/42#:~:text=The%20business%20of%20the%20

Institution%20shall%20be%20conducted,no%20two%20of%20them%20of%20the%20same%20State

(accessed March 9, 2023).

 Vice Presidents Gerald Ford and Lyndon Johnson assumed (Ford) or initially assumed (Johnson) the oce of

the presidency by a process of succession.

— 69 —

CENTRAL PERSONNEL AGENCIES:

MANAGING THE BUREAUCRACY

Donald Devine,

Dennis Dean Kirk,

and Paul Dans

OVERVIEW

From the very ﬁrst Mandate for Leadership, the “personnel is policy” theme has been

the fundamental principle guiding the government’s personnel management. As the U.S.

Constitution makes clear, the President’s appointment, direction, and removal author-

ities are the central elements of his executive power.

In implementing that power, the

people and the President deserve the most talented and responsible workforce possible.

Who the President assigns to design and implement his political policy agenda

will determine whether he can carry out the responsibility given to him by the

American people. The President must recognize that whoever holds a government

position sets its policy. To fulﬁll an electoral mandate, he must therefore give per-

sonnel management his highest priority, including Cabinet-level precedence.

The federal government’s immense bureaucracy spreads into hundreds of agen-

cies and thousands of units and is centered and overseen at the top by key central

personnel agencies and their governing laws and regulations. The major separate

personnel agencies in the national government today are:

The Oce of Personnel Management (OPM);

The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB);

The Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA); and

The Oce of Special Counsel (OSC).

— 70 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Title 5 of the U.S. Code charges the OPM with executing, administering, and

enforcing the rules, regulations, and laws governing the civil service.

It grants the

OPM direct responsibility for activities like retirement, pay, health, training, federal

unionization, suitability, and classiﬁcation functions not speciﬁcally granted to other

agencies by statute. The agency’s Director is charged with aiding the President, as

the President may request, in preparing such civil service rules as the President pre-

scribes and otherwise advising the President on actions that may be taken to promote

an ecient civil service and a systematic application of the merit system principles,

including recommending policies relating to the selection, promotion, transfer, per-

formance, pay, conditions of service, tenure, and separation of employees.

The MSPB is the lead adjudicator for hearing and resolving cases and contro

versies for 2.2 million federal employees.

It is required to conduct fair and neutral

case adjudications, regulatory reviews, and actions and studies to improve the

workforce. Its court-like adjudications investigate and hear appeals from agency

actions such as furloughs, suspensions, demotions, and terminations and are

appealable to the U.S. Court of Appeals.

The FLRA hears appeals of agency personnel cases involving federal labor griev-

ance procedures to provide judicial review with binding decisions appealable to

appeals courts.

It interprets the rights and duties of agencies and employee labor

organizations—on management rights, OPM interpretations, recognition of labor

organizations, and unfair labor practices—under the general principle of bargain-

ing in good faith and compelling need.

The OSC serves as the investigator, mediator, publisher, and prosecutor before

the MSPB with respect to agency and employees regarding prohibited person-

nel practices, Hatch Act

politicization, Uniformed Services Employment and

Reemployment Rights Act

issues, and whistleblower complaints.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has general respon-

sibility for reviewing charges of employee discrimination against all civil rights

breaches. However, it also administers a government employee section that investi-

gates and adjudicates federal employee complaints concerning equal employment

violations as with the private sector.

This makes the agency an additional de facto

factor in government personnel management.

While not a personnel agency per se, the General Services Administration (GSA)

is charged with general supervision of contracting.

Today, there are many more

contractors in government than there are civil service employees. The GSA must

therefore be a part of any personnel management discussion.

ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

OPM: Managing the Federal Bureaucracy. At the very pinnacle of the

modern progressive program to make government competent stands the ideal

of professionalized, career civil service. Since the turn of the 20th century,

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Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy

progressives have sought a system that could eectively select, train, reward,

and guard from partisan inﬂuence the neutral scientiﬁc experts they believe are

required to sta the national government and run the administrative state. Their

U.S. system was initiated by the Pendleton Act of 1883

and institutionalized by

the 1930s New Deal to set principles and practices that were meant to ensure that

expert merit rather than partisan favors or personal favoritism ruled within the

federal bureaucracy. Yet, as public frustration with the civil service has grown,

generating calls to “drain the swamp,” it has become clear that their project has

had serious unintended consequences.

The civil service was devised to replace the amateurism and presumed corrup-

tion of the old spoils system, wherein government jobs rewarded loyal partisans

who might or might not have professional backgrounds. Although the system

appeared to be sucient for the nation’s ﬁrst century, progressive intellectuals

and activists demanded a more professionalized, scientiﬁc, and politically neutral

Administration. Progressives designed a merit system to promote expertise and

shield bureaucrats from partisan political pressure, but it soon began to insulate

civil servants from accountability. The modern merit system increasingly made it

almost impossible to ﬁre all but the most incompetent civil servants. Complying

with arcane rules regarding recruiting, rating, hiring, and ﬁring simply replaced

the goal of cultivating competence and expertise.

In the 1970s, Georgia Democratic Governor Jimmy Carter, then a political

unknown, ran for President supporting New Deal programs and their Great Soci-

ety expansion but opposing the way they were being administered. The policies

were not actually reducing poverty, increasing prosperity, or improving the envi-

ronment, he argued, and to make them work required fundamental bureaucratic

reform. He correctly charged that almost all government employees were rated

as “successful,” all received the same pay regardless of performance, and even the

worst were impossible to ﬁre—and he won the presidency.

President Carter fulﬁlled his campaign promise by hiring Syracuse University

Dean Alan Campbell, who served ﬁrst as Chairman of the U.S. Civil Service Com-

mission and then as Director of the OPM and helped him devise and pass the Civil

Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA)

to reset the basic structure of today’s bureau-

cracy. A new performance appraisal system was devised with a ﬁve rather than

three distribution of rating categories and individual goals more related to agency

missions and more related to employee promotion for all. Pay and beneﬁts were

based directly on improved performance appraisals (including sizable bonuses) for

mid-level managers and senior executives. But time ran out on President Carter

before the act could be fully executed, so it was left to President Ronald Reagan

and his new OPM and agency leadership to implement.

Overall, the new law seemed to work for a few years under Reagan, but the Carter–

Reagan reforms were dissipated within a decade. Today, employee evaluation is back

— 72 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

to pre-reform levels with almost all rated successful or above, frustrating any rela-

tion between pay and performance. An “outstanding” rating should be required for

Senior Executive Service (SES) chiefs to win big bonuses, but a few years ago, when

it was disclosed that the Veterans Administration executives who encouraged false

reporting of waiting lists for hospital admission were rated outstanding, the Senior

Executive Association justiﬁed it, telling Congress that only outstanding performers

would be promoted to the SES in the ﬁrst place and that precise ratings were unnec-

essary.

The Government Accountability Oce (GAO), however, has reported that

pay raises, within-grade pay increases, and locality pay for regular employees and

executives have become automatic rather than based on performance—as a result

of most employees being rated at similar appraisal levels.

OPM: Merit Hiring in a Merit System. It should not be impossible even

for a large national government to hire good people through merit selection. The

government did so for years, but it has proven dicult in recent times to select

personnel based on their knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) as the law dictates.

Yet for the past 34 years, the U.S. civil service has been unable to distinguish con-

sistently between strong and unqualiﬁed applicants for employment.

As the Carter presidency was winding down, the U.S. Department of Justice

and top lawyers at the OPM contrived with plaintis to end civil service IQ exam-

inations because of concern about their possible impact on minorities. The OPM

had used the Professional and Administrative Career Examination (PACE) gen-

eral intelligence exam to select college graduates for top agency employment, but

Carter Administration ocials—probably without the President’s informed con

currence—abolished the PACE through a legal consent court decree capitulating

to demands by civil rights petitioners who contended that it was discriminatory.

The judicial decree was to last only ﬁve years but still controls federal hiring and

is applied to all KSA tests even today.

General ability tests like the PACE have been used successfully to assess the use-

fulness and cost-eectiveness of broad intellectual qualities across many separate

occupations. Courts have ruled that even without evidence of overt, intentional

discrimination, such results might suggest discrimination. This doctrine of dispa-

rate impact could be ended legislatively or at least narrowed through the regulatory

process by a future Administration. In any event, the federal government has been

denied the use of a rigorous entry examination for three decades, relying instead

on self-evaluations that have forced managers to resort to subterfuge such as

preselecting friends or associates that they believe are competent to obtain qual-

iﬁed employees.

In 2015, President Barack Obama’s OPM began to introduce an improved merit

examination called USAHire, which it had been testing quietly since 2012 in a few

agencies for a dozen job descriptions. The tests had multiple-choice questions with

only one correct answer. Some questions even required essay replies: questions

— 73 —

Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy

that would change regularly to depress cheating. President Donald Trump’s OPM

planned to implement such changes but was delayed because of legal concerns

over possible disparate impact.

Courts have agreed to review the consent decree if the Uniform Guidelines

on Employee Selection Procedures setting the technical requirements for sound

exams are reformed. A government that is unable to select employees based on

KSA-like test qualiﬁcations cannot work, and the OPM must move forward on this

very basic personnel management obligation.

The Centrality of Performance Appraisal. In the meantime, the OPM must

manage the workforce it has. Before they can reward or discipline federal employees,

managers must ﬁrst identify who their top performers are and who is performing

less than adequately. In fact, as Ludwig von Mises proved in his classic Bureaucracy,

unlike the proﬁt-and-loss evaluation tool used in the private sector, government

performance measurement depends totally on a functioning appraisal system. If

they cannot be identiﬁed in the ﬁrst place within a functioning appraisal system, it is

impossible to reward good performance or correct poor performance. The problem

is that the collegial atmosphere of a bureaucracy in a multifaceted appraisal system

that is open to appeals makes this a very challenging ideal to implement successfully.

The GAO reported more recently that overly high and widely spread perfor-

mance ratings were again plaguing the government, with more than 99 percent of

employees rated fully successful or above by their managers, a mere 0.3 percent

rated as minimally successful, and 0.1 percent actually rated unacceptable.

Why?

It is human nature that no one appreciates being told that he or she is less than

outstanding in every way. Informing subordinates in a closely knit bureaucracy

that they are not performing well is dicult. Rating compatriots is even consid-

ered rude and unprofessional. Moreover, managers can be and often are accused

of racial or sexual discrimination for a poor rating, and this discourages honesty.

In 2018, President Trump issued Executive Order 13839

requiring agen-

cies to reduce the time for employees to improve performance before corrective

action could be taken; to initiate disciplinary actions against poorly performing

employees more expeditiously; to reiterate that agencies are obligated to make

employees improve; to reduce the time for employees to respond to allegations

of poor performance; to mandate that agencies remind supervisors of expiring

employee probationary periods; to prohibit agencies from entering into settlement

agreements that modify an employee’s personnel record; and to reevaluate proce-

dures for agencies to discipline supervisors who retaliate against whistleblowers.

Unfortunately, the order was overturned by the Biden Administration,

so it will

need to be reintroduced in 2025.

The fact remains that meaningfully evaluating employees’ performance is a

critical part of a manager’s job. In the Reagan appraisal process, managers were

evaluated on how they themselves rated their subordinates. This is critical to

— 74 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

responsibility and improved management. It is essential that political executives

build policy goals directly into employee appraisals both for mission success and

for employees to know what is expected. Indistinguishable from their coworkers

on paper, hard-working federal employees often go unrewarded for their eorts

and are often the system’s greatest critics. Federal workers who are performing

inadequately get neither the beneﬁt of an honest appraisal nor clear guidance on

how to improve. Political executives should take an active role in supervising per-

formance appraisals of career sta, not unduly delegate this responsibility to senior

career managers, and be willing to reward and support good performers.

Merit Pay. Performance appraisal means little to daily operations if it is not tied

directly to real consequences for success as well as failure. According to a survey of

major U.S. private companies—which, unlike the federal government, also have a

proﬁt-and-loss evaluation—90 percent use a system of merit pay for performance

based on some type of appraisal system. Despite early eorts to institute merit pay

throughout the federal government, however, compensation is still based primarily

on seniority rather than merit.

Merit pay for executives and managers was part of the Carter reforms and was

implemented early in the Reagan presidency. Beginning in the summer of 1982,

the Reagan OPM entered 18 months of negotiations with House and Senate sta

on extending merit pay to the entire workforce. Long and detailed talks between

the OPM and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress ensued, and a ﬁnal

agreement was reached in 1983 that supposedly ensured the passage of legislation

creating a new Performance Management and Recognition System (PMRS) for all,

(not just management) GS-13 through GS-15 employees.

Meanwhile, the OPM issued regulations to expand the role of performance

related to pay throughout the entire workforce, but congressional allies of the

employee unions, led by Representative Steny Hoyer (D) of government employee–

rich Maryland, stoutly resisted this extension of pay-for-performance and, with

strong union support, used the congressional appropriations process to block OPM

administrative pay reforms. Bonuses for SES career employees survived, but per-

formance appraisals became so high and widely distributed that there was little

relationship between performance and remuneration.

Ever since the original merit pay system for federal managers (GM-13 through

GM-15 grade levels, just below the SES) was allowed to expire in September 1993,

little to nothing has been done either to reinstate the federal merit pay program for

managers or to distribute performance rating evaluations for the SES, much less to

extend the program to the remainder of the workforce. A reform-friendly President

and Congress might just provide the opportunity to create a more comprehensive

performance plan; in the meantime, however, political executives should use exist-

ing pay and especially ﬁscal awards strategically to reward good performance to

the degree allowed by law.

— 75 —

Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy

Making the Appeals Process Work. The nonmilitary government dismissal

rate is well below 1 percent, and no private-sector industry employee enjoys the

job security that a federal employee enjoys. Both safety and justice demand that

managers learn to act strategically to hire good and ﬁre poor performers legally.

The initial paperwork required to separate poor or abusive performers (when they

are infrequently identiﬁed) is not overwhelming, and managers might be motivated

to act if it were not for the appeals and enforcement processes. Formal appeal in the

private sector is mostly a rather simple two-step process, but government unions

and associations have been able to convince politicians to support a multiple and

extensive appeals and enforcement process.

As noted, there are multiple administrative appeals bodies. The FLRA, OSC,

and EEOC have relatively narrow jurisdictions. Claims that an employee’s removal

or disciplinary actions violate the terms of a collective bargaining agreement

between an agency and a union are handled by the FLRA, employees who claim

their removal was the result of discrimination can appeal to the EEOC, and employ-

ees who believe their ﬁring was retribution for being a whistleblower can go to the

OSC. While the MSPB specializes in abuses of direct merit system issues, it can

and does hear and review almost any of the matters heard by the other agencies.

Cases involving race, gender, religion, age, pregnancy, disability, or national

origin can be appealed to the EEOC or the MSPB—and in some cases to both—and

to the OSC. This gives employees multiple opportunities to prove their cases, and

while the EEOC, MSPB, FLRA, and OSC may all apply essentially the same burden

of proof, the odds of success may be substantially dierent in each forum. In fact,

forum shopping among them for a friendlier venue is a common practice, but fre-

quent ﬁlers face no consequences for frivolous complaints. As a result, meritorious

cases are frequently delayed, denying relief and justice to truly aggrieved individuals.

The MSPB can and does handle all such matters, but it faces a backlog of an

estimated 3,000 cases of people who were potentially wrongfully terminated or

disciplined as far back as 2013. From 2017–2022 the MSPB lacked the quorum

required to decide appeals. On the other hand, as of January 2023, the EEOC had

a backlog of 42,000 cases.

While federal employees win appeals relatively infrequently—MSPB adminis-

trative judges have upheld agency decisions as much as 80 percent of the time—the

real problem is the time and paperwork involved in the elaborate process that

managers must undergo during appeals. This keeps even the best managers from

bringing cases in all but the most egregious cases of poor performance or mis-

conduct. As a result, the MSPB, EEOC, FLRA, and OSC likely see very few cases

compared to the number of occurrences, and nonperformers continue to be paid

and often are placed in nonwork positions.

Having a choice of appeals is especially unique to the government. If lower-pri-

ority issues were addressed in-house, serious adverse actions would be less subject

— 76 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

to delay. With the proper limitation of labor union actions, the FLRA should

have limited reason for appeals. The EEOC’s federal employee section should be

transferred to the MSPB, and many of the OCS’s investigatory functions should be

returned to the OPM. The MSPB could then become the main reviewer of adverse

actions, greatly simplifying the burdensome appeal process.

Making Civil Service Beneﬁts Economically and Administratively Ratio-

nal. In recent years, the combined wages and beneﬁts of the executive branch

civilian workforce totaled $300 billion according to ocial data. But even that

amount does not properly account for billions in unfunded liability for retirement

and other government reporting distortions. Ocial data also report employment

as approximately 2 million, but this ignores approximately 20 million contractors

who, while not eligible for government pay and beneﬁts, do receive them indirectly

through contracting (even if they are less generous). Ocial data also claim that

national government employees are paid less than private-sector employees are

paid for similar work, but several more neutral sources demonstrate that pub-

lic-sector workers make more on average than their private-sector counterparts.

All of this extravagance deserves close scrutiny.

Market-Based Pay and Beneﬁts. According to current law, federal workers

are to be paid wages comparable to equivalent private-sector workers rather than

compared to all private-sector employees. While the ocial studies claim that

federal employees are underpaid relative to the private sector by 20 percent or

more,

a 2016 Heritage Foundation study found that federal employees received

wages that were 22 percent higher than wages for similar private-sector workers;

if the value of employee beneﬁts was included, the total compensation premium

for federal employees over their private-sector equivalents increased to between

30 percent and 40 percent.

The American Enterprise Institute found a 14 percent

pay premium and a 61 percent total compensation premium.

Base salary is only one component of a federal employee’s total compensation.

In addition to high starting wages, federal employees normally receive an annual

cost-of-living adjustment (available to all employees) and generous scheduled

raises known as step increases. Moreover, a large proportion of federal employ-

ees are stationed in the Washington, D.C., area and other large cities and are

entitled to steep locality pay enhancement to account for the high cost of living

in these areas.

A federal employee with ﬁve years’ experience receives 20 vacation days, 13 paid

sick days, and all 10 federal holidays compared to an employee at a large private

company who receives 13 days of vacation and eight paid sick days. Federal health

beneﬁts are more comparable to those provided by Fortune 500 employers with

the government paying 72 percent of the weighted average premiums, but this is

much higher than for most private plans. Almost half of private ﬁrms do not oer

any employer contributions at all.

— 77 —

Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy

The obvious solution to these discrepancies is to move closer to a market model

for federal pay and beneﬁts. One need is for a neutral agency to oversee pay hiring

decisions, especially for high-demand occupations. The OPM is independent of

agency operations, so it can assess requirements more neutrally. For many years,

with its Special Pay Rates program, the OPM evaluated claims that federal rates

in an area were too low to attract competent employees and allowed agencies to

oer higher pay when needed rather than increased rates for all. Ideally, the OPM

should establish an initial pay schedule for every occupation and region, monitor

turnover rates and applicant-to-position ratios, and adjust pay and recruitment

on that basis. Most of this requires legislation, but the OPM should be an advocate

for a true equality of beneﬁts between the public and private sectors.

Reforming Federal Retirement Beneﬁts. Career civil servants enjoy retire-

ment beneﬁts that are nearly unheard of in the private sector. Federal employees

retire earlier (normally at age 55 after 30 years), enjoy richer pension annuities,

and receive automatic cost-of-living adjustments based on the areas in which they

retire. Deﬁned-beneﬁt federal pensions are fully indexed for inﬂation—a practice

that is extremely rare in the private sector. A federal employee with a preretire-

ment income of $25,000 under the older of the two federal retirement plans will

receive at least $200,000 more over a 20-year period than will private-sector work-

ers with the same preretirement salary under historic inﬂation levels.

During the early Reagan years, the OPM reformed many speciﬁc provisions of

the federal pension program to save billions administratively. Under OPM pres-

sure, Reagan and Congress ultimately ended the old Civil Service Retirement

System (CSRS) entirely for new employees, which (counting disbursements for

the unfunded liability) accounted for 51.3 percent of the federal government's

total payroll. The retirement system that replaced it—the Federal Employees

Retirement System (FERS)—reduced the cost of federal employee retirement dis-

bursements to 28.5 percent of payroll (including contributions to Social Security

and the employer match to the Thrift Savings Plan). More of the pension cost was

shifted to the employee, but the new system was much more equitable for the 40

percent who received few or no beneﬁts under the old system.

By 1999, more than half of the federal workforce was covered by the new system,

and the government’s per capita share of the cost (as the employer) was less than

half the cost of the old system: 20.2 percent of FERS payroll vs. 44.3 percent of

CSRS payroll, representing one of the largest examples of government savings

anywhere. Although the government pension system has become more like private

pension systems, it still remains much more generous, and other means might be

considered in the future to move it even closer to private plans.

GSA: Landlord and Contractor Management. The General Services

Administration is best known as the federal government’s landlord—designing,

constructing, managing, and preserving government buildings and leasing and

— 78 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

managing outside commercial real estate contracting with 376.9 million square feet

of space. Obviously, as its prime function, real estate expertise is key to the GSA’s

success. However, the GSA is also the government’s purchasing agent, connecting

federal purchasers with commercial products and services in the private sector

and their personnel management functions. With contractors performing so many

functions today, the GSA therefore becomes a de facto part of governmentwide

personnel management. The GSA also manages the Presidential Transition Act

(PTA) process, which also directly involves the OPM. A recent proposal would

have incorporated the OPM and GSA (and OMB). Fortunately, this did not take

place in that form, but it would make sense for GSA and OPM leadership and sta

to hold regular meetings to work through matters of common interest such as

moderating PTA personnel restrictions and the relationships between contract

and civil service employees.

Reductions-in-Force. Reducing the number of federal employees seems an

obvious way to reduce the overall expense of the civil service, and many prior

Administrations have attempted to do just this. Presidents Bill Clinton and

Barack Obama began their terms, as did Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, by

mandating a freeze on the hiring of new federal employees, but these eorts did

not lead to permanent and substantive reductions in the number of nondefense

federal employees.

First, it is a challenge even to know which workers to cut. As mentioned, there

are 2 million federal employees, but since budgets have exploded, so has the

total number of personnel with nearly 10 times more federal contractors than

federal employees. Contractors are less expensive because they are not entitled

to high government pensions or beneﬁts and are easier to ﬁre and discipline. In

addition, millions of state government employees work under federal grants, in

eect administering federal programs; these cannot be cut directly. Cutting federal

employment can be helpful and can provide a simple story to average citizens, but

cutting functions, levels, funds, and grants is much more important than setting

simple employment size.

Simply reducing numbers can actually increase costs. OMB instructions fol-

lowing President Trump’s employment freeze told agencies to consider buyout

programs, encouraging early retirements in order to shift costs from current bud-

gets in agencies to the retirement system and minimize the number of personnel

ﬁred. The Environmental Protection Agency immediately implemented such a

program, and OMB urged the passage of legislation to increase payout maximums

from $25,000 to $40,000 to further increase spending under the “cuts.” President

Clinton’s OMB had introduced a similar buyout that cost the Treasury $2.8 billion,

mostly for those who were going to retire anyway. Moreover, when a new employee

is hired to ﬁll a job recently vacated in a buyout, the government for a time is paying

two people to ﬁll one job.

— 79 —

Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy

What is needed at the beginning is a freeze on all top career-position hiring

to prevent “burrowing-in” by outgoing political appointees. Moreover, four fac-

tors determine the order in which employees are protected during layos: tenure,

veterans’ preference, seniority, and performance in that order of importance.

Despite several attempts in the House of Representatives during the Trump years

to enact legislation that would modestly increase the weight given to performance

over time-of-service, the ﬁerce opposition by federal managers associations and

unions representing long-serving but not necessarily well-performing constituents

explains why the bills failed to advance. A determined President should insist that

performance be ﬁrst and be wary of costly types of reductions-in-force.

Impenetrable Bureaucracy. The GAO has identiﬁed almost a hundred actions

that the executive branch or Congress could take to improve eciency and eec-

tiveness across 37 areas that span a broad range of government missions and

functions. It identiﬁed 33 actions to address mission fragmentation, overlap, and

duplication in the 12 areas of defense, economic development, health, homeland

security, and information technology. It also identiﬁed 59 other opportunities for

executive agencies or Congress to reduce the cost of government operations or

enhance revenue collection across 25 areas of government.

A logical place to begin would be to identify and eliminate functions and pro-

grams that are duplicated across Cabinet departments or spread across multiple

agencies. Congress hoped to help this eort by passing the Government Perfor-

mance and Results Act of 1993,

which required all federal agencies to deﬁne

their missions, establish goals and objectives, and measure and report their per-

formance to Congress. Three decades of endless time-consuming reports later,

the government continues to grow but with more paper and little change either

in performance or in the number of levels between government and the people.

The Brookings Institution’s Paul Light emphasizes the importance of the

increasing number of levels between the top heads of departments and the people

at the bottom who receive the products of government decision-making. He esti-

mates that there are perhaps 50 or more levels of impenetrable bureaucracy and no

way other than imperfect performance appraisals to communicate between them.

The Trump Administration proposed some possible consolidations, but these

were not received favorably in Congress, whose approval is necessary for most such

proposals. The best solution is to cut functions and budgets and devolve respon-

sibilities. That is a challenge primarily for Presidents, Congress, and the entire

government, but the OPM still needs to lead the way governmentwide in managing

personnel properly even in any future smaller government.

Creating a Responsible Career Management Service. The people elect a

President who is charged by Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution

with seeing

that the laws are “faithfully executed” with his political appointees democratically

linked to that legitimizing responsibility. An autonomous bureaucracy has neither

— 80 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

independent constitutional status nor separate moral legitimacy. Therefore, career

civil servants by themselves should not lead major policy changes and reforms.

The creation of the Senior Executive Service was the top career change intro-

duced by the 1978 Carter–Campbell Civil Service Reform Act. Its aim was to

professionalize the career service and make it more responsible to the democrat-

ically elected commander in chief and his political appointees while respecting the

rights due to career employees, very much including those in the top positions. The

new SES would allow management to be more ﬂexible in ﬁlling and reassigning

executive positions and locations beyond narrow specialties for more ecient

mission accomplishment and would provide pay and large bonuses to motivate

career performance.

The desire to inﬁltrate political appointees improperly into the high career

civil service has been widespread in every Administration, whether Democrat or

Republican. Democratic Administrations, however, are typically more successful

because they require the cooperation of careerists, who generally lean heavily to

the Left. Such burrowing-in requires career job descriptions for new positions that

closely mirror the functions of a political appointee; a special hiring authority that

allows the bypassing of veterans’ preference as well as other preference categories;

and the ability to frustrate career candidates from taking the desired position.

President Reagan’s OPM began by limiting such SES burrowing-in, arguing

that the proper course was to create and ﬁll political positions. This simultane-

ously promotes the CSRA principle of political leadership of the bureaucracy and

respects the professional autonomy of the career service. But this requires that

career SES employees should respect political rights too. Actions such as career

sta reserving excessive numbers of key policy positions as “career reserved” to

deny them to noncareer SES employees frustrate CSRA intent. Another evasion

is the general domination by career sta on SES personnel evaluation boards, the

opposite of noncareer executives dominating these critical meeting discussions

as expected in the SES. Career training also often underplays the political role in

leadership and inculcates career-ﬁrst policy and value viewpoints.

Frustrated with these activities by top career executives, the Trump Adminis-

tration issued Executive Order 13957

to make career professionals in positions

that are not normally subject to change as a result of a presidential transition but

who discharge signiﬁcant duties and exercise signiﬁcant discretion in formulating

and implementing executive branch policy and programs an exception to the com-

petitive hiring rules and examinations for career positions under a new Schedule

F. It ordered the Director of OPM and agency heads to set procedures to prepare

lists of such conﬁdential, policy-determining, policymaking, or policy-advocating

positions and prepare procedures to create exceptions from civil service rules when

careerists hold such positions, from which they can relocate back to the regular

civil service after such service. The order was subsequently reversed by President

— 81 —

Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy

Biden

at the demand of the civil service associations and unions. It should be

reinstated, but SES responsibility should come ﬁrst.

Managing Personnel in a Union Environment. Historically, unions were

thought to be incompatible with government management. There is a natural limit

to the bargaining power of private-sector unions, but the ﬁnancial bottom line of

public-sector unions is not similarly constrained. If private-sector unions push

too hard a bargain, they can so harm a company or so reduce eciency that their

employer is forced to go out of business and eliminate union jobs altogether. There

is no such limit in government, which cannot go out of business, so demands can

be excessive without negatively aecting employee and union bottom lines.

Even Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt considered union representa-

tion in the federal government to be incompatible with democracy. Striking and

even threats of bargaining and delay were considered acts against the people and

thus improper. It was not until President John Kennedy that union representation

in the federal government was recognized—and then merely by executive order.

Labor bargaining was not set in statute until the Carter Administration was forced

by Congress to do so in order to pass the CSRA, although all bargaining was placed

under OPM review.

The CSRA was able to maintain strong management rights for the OPM and

agencies and forbade collective bargaining on pay and beneﬁts as well as manage-

ment prerogatives. Over time, OPM, FLRA, and agencies’ personnel oces and

courts, especially in Democratic Administrations, narrowed management rights

so that labor bargaining expanded as management rights contracted. But the man-

agement rights are still in statute, have been enforced by some Administrations,

and should be enforced again by any future OPM and agency managements, which

should not be intimidated by union power.

Rather than being daunted, President Trump issued three executive orders:

Executive Order 13836, encouraging agencies to renegotiate all union

collective bargaining agreements to ensure consistency with the law and

respect for management rights;

Executive Order 13837, encouraging agencies to prevent union

representatives from using ocial time preparing or pursuing grievances or

from engaging in other union activity on government time;

and

Executive Order 13839, encouraging agencies both to limit labor grievances

on removals from service or on challenging performance appraisals and to

prioritize performance over seniority when deciding who should be retained

following reductions-in-force.

— 82 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

All were revoked by the Biden Administration

and should be reinstated by the

next Administration, to include the immediate appointment of the FLRA General

Counsel and reactivation of the Impasses Panel.

Congress should also consider whether public-sector unions are appropriate

in the ﬁrst place. The bipartisan consensus up until the middle of the 20th cen-

tury held that these unions were not compatible with constitutional government.

After more than half a century of experience with public-sector union frustrations

of good government management, it is hard to avoid reaching the same conclusion.

Fully Stang the Ranks of Political Appointees. The President must rely

legally on his top department and agency ocials to run the government and on top

White House sta employees to coordinate operations through regular Cabinet and

other meetings and communications. Without this political leadership, the career

civil service becomes empowered to lead the executive branch without democratic

legitimacy. While many obstacles stand in his way, a President is constitutionally

and statutorily required to ﬁll the top political positions in the executive branch

both to assist him and to provide overall legitimacy.

Most Presidents have had some diculty obtaining congressional approval of

their appointees, but this has worsened recently. After the 2016 election, President

Trump faced special hostility from the opposition party and the media in getting

his appointees conﬁrmed or even considered by the Senate. His early Oce of

Presidential Personnel (PPO) did not generally remove political appointees from

the previous Administration but instead relied mostly on prior political appoin

tees and career civil servants to run the government. Such a reliance on holdovers

and bureaucrats led to a lack of agency control and the absolute refusal of the

Acting Attorney General from the Obama Administration to obey a direct order

from the President.

Under the early PPO, the Trump Administration appointed fewer political

appointees in its ﬁrst few months in oce than had been appointed in any recent

presidency, partly because of historically high partisan congressional obstructions

but also because several ocials announced that they preferred fewer political

appointees in the agencies as a way to cut federal spending. Whatever the reasoning,

this had the eect of permanently hampering the rollout of the new President’s

agenda. Thus, in those critical early years, much of the government relied on senior

careerists and holdover Obama appointees to carry out the sensitive responsibili-

ties that would otherwise belong to the new President’s appointees.

Fortunately, the later PPO, OPM, and Senate leadership began to cooperate to

build a strong team to implement the President’s personnel appointment agenda.

Any new Administration would be wise to learn that it will need a full cadre of

sound political appointees from the beginning if it expects to direct this enormous

federal bureaucracy. A close relationship between the PPO at the White House

and the OPM, coordinating with agency assistant secretaries of administration

— 83 —

Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy

and PPO’s chosen White House Liaisons and their sta at each agency, is essential

to the management of this large, multilevel, resistant, and bureaucratic challenge.

If “personnel is policy” is to be our general guide, it would make sense to give the

President direct supervision of the bureaucracy with the OPM Director available

in his Cabinet.

A REFORMED BUREAUCRACY

Today, the federal government’s bureaucracy cannot even meet its own civil

service ideals. The merit criteria of ability, knowledge, and skills are no longer the

basis for recruitment, selection, or advancement, while pay and beneﬁts for com-

parable work are substantially above those in the private sector. Retention is not

based primarily on performance, and for the most part, inadequate performance

is not appraised, corrected, or punished.

The authors have made many suggestions here that, if implemented, could

bring that bureaucracy more under control and enable it to work more eciently

and responsibly, which is especially required for the half of civilian government

that administers its undeniable responsibilities for defense and foreign aairs.

While a better administered central bureaucracy is crucial for both those and

domestic responsibilities, the problem of properly running the government goes

beyond simple bureaucratic administration. The speciﬁc deﬁciencies of the fed-

eral bureaucracy—size, levels of organization, ineciency, expense, and lack of

responsiveness to political leadership—are rooted in the progressive ideology that

unelected experts can and should be trusted to promote the general welfare in just

about every area of social life.

The Constitution, however, reserved a few enumerated powers to the federal

government while leaving the great majority of domestic activities to state, local,

and private governance. As James Madison explained: “The powers reserved to

the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of

aairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people; and the internal

order, improvement and prosperity of the state.”

Modern progressive politics

has simply given the national government more to do than the complex separa-

tion-of-powers Constitution allows.

That progressive system has broken down in our time, and the only real solution

is for the national government to do less: to decentralize and privatize as much as

possible and then ensure that the remaining bureaucracy is managed eectively

along the lines of the enduring principles set out in detail here.

AUTHORS’ NOTE: The authors are grateful for the collaborative work of the individuals listed as contributors to

this chapter for the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. The authors alone assume responsibility for the content of

this chapter, and no views expressed herein should be attributed to any other individual.

— 84 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

 U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 2, https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii#section1 (accessed

February 1, 2023).

 5 U.S. Code §§ 1101 et seq. and 1103(a)(5), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/part-II/chapter-11

(accessed February 1, 2023).

 5 U.S. Code § 1201, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/1201 (accessed February 1, 2023).

 5 U.S. Code § 7101, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/7101 (accessed February 1, 2023), and § 7117,

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/7117 (accessed February 1, 2023).

 S. 1871, An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, Public Law No. 76-252, August 2, 1939, https://

govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/53/STATUTE-53-Pg1147.pdf (accessed February 1, 2023).

 H.R. 995, Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994, Public Law No. 103-353,

101st Congress, October 13, 1994, https://www.congress.gov/103/statute/STATUTE-108/STATUTE-108-Pg3149.

pdf (accessed February 1, 2023).

 5 U.S. Code § 1206, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/1206 (accessed February 1, 2023).

 42 U.S. Code § 2000e, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000e (accessed February 1, 2023).

 40 U.S. Code § 581, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/40/581 (accessed February 1, 2023).

 U.S. National Archives, “Milestone Documents: Pendleton Act (1883),” last reviewed February 8, 2022, https://

www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/pendleton-act (accessed February 2, 2023).

 S. 2640, Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, Public Law No. 95-454, 95th Congress, October 13, 1978, https://

www.congress.gov/95/statute/STATUTE-92/STATUTE-92-Pg1111.pdf (accessed February 2, 2023).

 Donovan Sack and Bill Theobald, “Veterans Aairs Pays $140 Million in Bonuses Amid Scandals,” USA Today,

November 11, 2015, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/11/11/veterans-aairs-pays-142-

million-bonuses-amid-scandals/75537586/ (accessed March 15, 2023).

 U.S. Government Accountability Oce, “Federal Workforce: Distribution of Performance Ratings Across

the Federal Government, 2013,” GAO-16-520R, May 9, 2016, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-16-520r.pdf

(accessed March 15, 2023); U.S. Government Accountability Oce, Results-Oriented Management: OPM Needs

to Do More to Ensure Meaningful Distinctions Are Made in SES Ratings and Performance Awards, GAO-15-

189, January 2015, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-15-189.pdf (accessed March 15, 2023); U.S. Government

Accountability Oce, “Measuring Federal Employee Performance,” WatchBlog, posted October 18, 2016,

https://www.gao.gov/blog/2016/10/18/measuring-federal-employee-performance (accessed March 15, 2023);

Lisa Rein, “The Federal Workforce, Where Everyone’s Performance Gets Rave Reviews,” The Washington Post,

June 13, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/06/13/heres-the-news-from-the-

federal-government-where-everyone-is-above-average-way-above/ (accessed March 15, 2023).

 Ludwig von Mises, Bureaucracy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1944), https://ia902300.us.archive.

org/17/items/mises-pdfs/1944-01-01_LudwigVonMises_Bureaucracy.pdf (accessed February 2, 2023).

 Figure 1, “Permanent, Non-Senior Executive Service Employee Performance Rating Outcomes (All Rating

Systems, Calendar Year 2013),” in U.S. Government Accountability Oce, “Federal Workforce: Distribution of

Performance Ratings Across the Federal Government, 2013,” p. 6.

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13839, “Promoting Accountability and Streamlining Removal

Procedures Consistent with Merit System Principles,” May 25, 2018, in Federal Register, Vol. 83, No. 106 (June 1,

2018), pp. 25343–25347, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-06-01/pdf/2018-11939.pdf (accessed

February 2, 2023).

 President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Executive Order 14003, “Protecting the Federal Workforce,” January 22, 2021, in

Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 16 (January 27, 2021), pp. 7231–7233, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-

2021-01-27/pdf/2021-01924.pdf (accessed February 2, 2023).

 Rachel Greszler and James Sherk, “Why It Is Time to Reform Compensation for Federal Employees,” The

Heritage Foundation, July 27, 2016, https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/why-it-time-reform-

compensation-federal-employees.

 Andrew G. Biggs and Jason Richwine, “Comparing Federal and Private Sector Compensation,” American

Enterprise Institute Working Paper No. 2011-02, revised June 2011, https://www.aei.org/wp-content/

uploads/2011/10/AEI-Working-Paper-on-Federal-Pay-May-2011.pdf?x91208 (accessed February 2, 2023).

— 85 —

Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy

 See Gene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States, “Government Eciency and Eectiveness:

Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and Achieve Billions in Financial Beneﬁts,”

testimony before the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight, Committee on Homeland

Security and Governmental Aairs, U.S. Senate, GAO-21-544T, May 12, 2021, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-

21-544t.pdf (accessed February 2, 2023).

 S. 20, Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, Public Law No. 103-62, 103rd Congress, August

3, 1993, https://www.congress.gov/103/statute/STATUTE-107/STATUTE-107-Pg285.pdf (accessed

February 2, 2023).

 Paul Light, “The Real Crisis in Government,” The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin), January 22, 2010, https://

captimes.com/news/opinion/column/paul-c-light-the-real-crisis-in-government/article_9e139318-3d00-

5898-908d-4c7aee1e105d.html (accessed March 15, 2023).

 U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 3, https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii#section3 (accessed

February 2, 2023).

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13957, “Creating Schedule F in the Excepted Service,” October 21,

2020, in Federal Register, Vol. 85, No. 207 (October 26, 2020), pp. 67631–67635, https://www.govinfo.gov/

content/pkg/FR-2020-10-26/pdf/2020-23780.pdf (accessed February 2, 2023).

 See note 17, supra.

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13836, “Developing Ecient, Eective, and Cost-Reducing

Approaches to Federal Sector Collective Bargaining,” May 25, 2018, in Federal Register, Vol. 83, No. 106 (June 1,

2018), pp. 25329–25334, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-06-01/pdf/2018-11913.pdf (accessed

February 2, 2023).

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13837, “Ensuring Transparency, Accountability, and Eciency

in Taxpayer-Funded Union Time Use,” May 25, 2018, in Federal Register, Vol. 83, No. 106 (June 1, 2018),

pp. 25335–25340, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-06-01/pdf/2018-11916.pdf (accessed

February 2, 2023).

 See note 16, supra.

 See note 17, supra.

 Philip K. Howard, Not Accountable: Rethinking the Constitutionality of Public Employee Unions (Garden City,

NY: Rodin Books, 2023).

 James Madison, The Federalist Papers No. 45, January 26, 1788, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/

Madison/01-10-02-0254 (accessed February 1, 2023).

— 87 —

Section Two

hile the lives of Americans are aected in noteworthy ways, for better or

worse, by each part of the executive branch, the inherent importance of

national defense and foreign aairs makes the Departments of Defense

and State ﬁrst among equals. Originating in the George Washington Administra-

tion, the War Department (as it was then known) was headed by Henry Knox,

America’s chief artillery ocer in the Revolutionary War; Thomas Jeerson, the

primary author of the Declaration of Independence, was the ﬁrst Secretary of State.

Despite such long and storied histories, neither department is currently living up

to its standards, and the success of the next presidency will be determined in part

by whether they can be signiﬁcantly improved in short order.

“Ever since our Founding,” former acting secretary of defense Christopher Miller

writes in Chapter 4, “Americans have understood that the surest way to avoid war is

to be prepared for it in peace.” Yet the Department of Defense “is a deeply troubled

institution.” It has emphasized leftist politics over military readiness, “Recruiting

was the worst in 2022 that it has been in two generations,” and “the Biden Admin-

istration’s profoundly unserious equity agenda and vaccine mandates have taken a

serious toll.” Additionally, Miller writes that “the atrophy of our defense industrial

base, the impact of sequestration, and eective disarmament by many U.S. allies

have exacted a high toll on America’s military.” Moreover, our military has adopted

a risk-averse culture—think of masked soldiers, sailors, and airmen—rather than

instilling and rewarding courage in thought and action.

The good news is that most enlisted personnel, and most ocers, especially

below the rank of general or admiral, continue to be patriotic defenders of liberty.

THE COMMON DEFENSE

— 88 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

But this is now Barack Obama’s general ocer corps. That is why Russ Vought

argues in Chapter 2 that the National Security Council “should rigorously review

all general and ﬂag ocer promotions to prioritize the core roles and responsi-

bilities of the military over social engineering and non-defense related matters,

including climate change, critical race theory, manufactured extremism, and other

polarizing policies that weaken our armed forces and discourage our nation’s ﬁnest

men and women from enlisting.” Ensuring that many of America’s best and bright-

est continue to choose military service is essential.

“By far the most signiﬁcant danger” to America from abroad, Miller writes, “is

China.” That communist regime “is undertaking a historic military buildup,” which

“could result in a nuclear force that matches or exceeds America’s own nuclear

arsenal.” Resisting Chinese expansionist aims “requires a denial defense” whereby

we make “the subordination of Taiwan or other U.S. allies in Asia prohibitively

dicult.” However, Miller adds that “[c]ritically, the United States must be able

to do this at a level of cost and risk that Americans are willing to bear.”

The best gauge of such willingness is congressional approval. Accordingly, we

must rediscover and adhere to the Founders’ wise division of war powers, whereby

Congress, the most representative and deliberative branch, decides whether to

go to war; and the executive, the most energetic and decisive branch, decides how

to carry it out once begun. As the past 75 years have repeatedly demonstrated in

dierent ways—from Korea, to Vietnam, to Iraq, to Afghanistan—we depart from

our constitutional design at our peril.

Miller writes that we “must treat missile defense as a top priority,” ensure that

more of our weapons are made in America, reform the budgeting process, and

sustain “an ecient and eective counterterrorism enterprise.” Across all of our

eorts, we must keep in mind that part of peace through strength is knowing when

to ﬁght. As George Washington warned nearly two centuries ago, we must con-

tinue to be on guard against being drawn into conﬂicts that do not justify great

loss of American treasure or signiﬁcant shedding of American blood. At the same

time, we must be prepared to defend our interests and meet challenges where and

when they arise.

An eective diplomatic corps is central to defending our interests and inﬂu-

encing world events. Whereas most military personnel have had leftist priorities

imposed from above, the problem at State comes largely from within. Former

State Department director of policy planning Kiron Skinner writes in Chapter

6, “[L]arge swaths of the State Department’s workforce are left-wing and predis-

posed to disagree with a conservative President’s policy agenda and vision.” She

adds that the department possesses a “belief that it is an independent institution

that knows what is best for the United States, sets its own foreign policy, and

does not need direction from an elected President”—a view that does not align

with the Constitution.

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Section 2: The Common Defense

The solution to this problem is strong political leadership. Skinner writes, “The

next Administration must take swift and decisive steps to reforge the department

into a lean and functional diplomatic machine that serves the President and, thereby,

the American people.” Because the Senate has been extraordinarily lax in fulﬁlling

its constitutional obligation to conﬁrm presidential appointees, she recommends

putting appointees into acting roles until such time as the Senate conﬁrms them.

Skinner writes that State should also stop skirting the Constitution’s trea-

ty-making requirements and stop enforcing “agreements” as treaties. It should

encourage more trade with allies, particularly with Great Britain, and less with

adversaries. And it should implement a “sovereign Mexico” policy, as our neighbor

“has functionally lost its sovereignty to muscular criminal cartels that eectively

run the country.” In Africa, Skinner writes, the U.S. “should focus on core security,

economic, and human rights” rather than impose radical abortion and pro-LGBT

initiatives. Divisive symbols such as the rainbow ﬂag or the Black Lives Matter ﬂag

have no place next to the Stars and Stripes at our embassies.

When it comes to China, Skinner writes that “a policy of ‘compete where we

must, but cooperate where we can’…has demonstrably failed.” The People’s Repub-

lic of China’s (PRC) “aggressive behavior,” she writes, “can only be curbed through

external pressure.” Eorts to protect or excuse China must stop. She observes,

“[M]any were quick to dismiss even the possibility that COVID escaped from a

Chinese research laboratory.” Meanwhile, Skinner writes, “[g]lobal leaders includ-

ing President Joe Biden…have tried to normalize or even laud Chinese behavior.”

She adds, “In some cases, these voices, like global corporate giants BlackRock and

Disney”—or the National Basketball Association (NBA)—“directly beneﬁt from

doing business with Beijing.”

Former vice president of the U.S. Agency for Global Media Mora Namdar writes

in Chapter 8 that we need to have people working for USAGM who actually believe

in America, rather than allowing the agencies to function as anti-American, tax-

payer-funded entities that parrot our adversaries’ propaganda and talking points.

Former acting deputy secretary of homeland security Ken Cuccinelli says in Chap-

ter 5 that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a creation of the George

W. Bush era, should be closed, as it has added needless additional bureaucracy and

expense without corresponding beneﬁt. He recommends that it be replaced with

a new “stand-alone border and immigration agency at the Cabinet level” and that

the remaining parts of DHS be distributed among other departments.

Former chief of sta for the director of National Intelligence Dustin Carmack

writes in Chapter 7 that the U.S. Intelligence Community is too inclined to look

in the rearview mirror, engage in “groupthink,” and employ an “overly cautious”

approach aimed at personal approval rather than at oering the most accurate,

unvarnished intelligence for the beneﬁt of the country. And in Chapter 9, former

acting deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development Max

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Primorac asserts that the United States Agency for International Development

(USAID) must be reformed, writing, “The Biden Administration has deformed the

agency by treating it as a global platform to pursue overseas a divisive political and

cultural agenda that promotes abortion, climate extremism, gender radicalism,

and interventions against perceived systematic racism.”

If the recommendations in the following chapters are adopted, what Skinner

says about the State Department could be true for other parts of the federal gov-

ernment’s national security and foreign policy apparatus: The next conservative

President has the opportunity to restructure the making and execution of U.S.

defense and foreign policy and reset the nation’s role in the world. The recom-

mendations outlined in this section provide guidance on how the next President

should use the federal government’s vast resources to do just that.

— 91 —

he Constitution requires the federal government to “provide for the

common defence.”

It assigns to Congress the authority to “raise and

support Armies” and to “provide and maintain a Navy”

and speci-

ﬁes that the President is “commander in Chief” of America’s armed forces.

Ever since our Founding, Americans have understood that the surest way to

avoid war is to be prepared for it in peace—but when deterrence fails, we must

ﬁght and win.

The Department of Defense (DOD) is the largest part of our federal government.

It has almost 3 million people serving in uniform or a civilian capacity throughout

the world and consumes approximately $850 billion annually—more than 50 per-

cent of our government’s discretionary spending.

The DOD is also a deeply troubled institution. Historically, the military has

been one of America’s most trusted institutions, but years of sustained misuse, a

two-tiered culture of accountability that shields senior ocers and ocials while

exposing junior ocers and soldiers in the ﬁeld, wasteful spending, wildly shifting

security policies, exceedingly poor discipline in program execution, and (most

recently) the Biden Administration’s profoundly unserious equity agenda and

vaccine mandates have taken a serious toll.

Our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, our impossibly muddled China

strategy, the growing involvement of senior military ocers in the political arena,

and deep confusion about the purpose of our military are clear signals of a disturb-

ing decay and markers of a dangerous decline in our nation’s capabilities and will.

Additionally, more than 100,000 Americans die annually in large measure because

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Christopher Miller

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

of illicit narcotics ﬂows—more than four times as many people in one year as we

lost in our 20-year war against al-Qaeda.

We also are witnessing a transformation in the character of war. The democ

ratization of technology and the collapse of time and space require dramatic,

thoughtful changes in how we defend, deter, and ﬁght. As with any huge bureau-

cracy—and the DOD is one of the world’s largest—breaking the status quo requires

leadership and endurance. Technology is critical to maintaining our warﬁghting

primacy, but we must be leery of the siren song that technology alone can protect

us. More important is how new technologies are developed, tested, procured, and

used, and that relies on the true competitive advantages of our people: ingenuity,

common sense, and thoughtfulness grounded in a free society. Because war will

continue to be the most stressful and consequential human endeavor, the most

powerful weapon systems will remain the six inches between the ears of our citi-

zens and the strength of their hearts and content of their souls.

Military service is the most dicult task we ask of our citizens, and our nation is

enormously blessed that so many young, patriotic Americans eagerly volunteer to

carry such a heavy burden. We owe them everything, and we must do better. To do

better, however, means recognizing and implementing four overriding priorities:

Priority No. 1: Reestablish a culture of command accountability,

nonpoliticization, and warﬁghting focus.

Priority No. 2: Transform our armed forces for maximum eectiveness in

an era of great-power competition.

Priority No. 3: Provide necessary support to Department of Homeland

Security (DHS) border protection operations. Border protection is a

national security issue that requires sustained attention and eort by all

elements of the executive branch.

Priority No. 4: Demand ﬁnancial transparency and accountability.

This chapter oers recommendations for improving our armed forces and the

civilian organizations that support and oversee them.

DOD POLICY

By far the most signiﬁcant danger to Americans’ security, freedoms, and pros-

perity is China. China is by any measure the most powerful state in the world other

than the United States itself. It apparently aspires to dominate Asia and then, from

that position, become globally preeminent. If Beijing could achieve this goal, it

could dramatically undermine America’s core interests, including by restricting

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Department of Defense

U.S. access to the world’s most important market. Preventing this from happening

must be the top priority for American foreign and defense policy.

Beijing presents a challenge to American interests across the domains of

national power, but the military threat that it poses is especially acute and signif-

icant. China is undertaking a historic military buildup that includes increasing

capability for power projection not only in its own region, but also far beyond as

well as a dramatic expansion of its nuclear forces that could result in a nuclear

force that matches or exceeds America’s own nuclear arsenal.

The most severe immediate threat that Beijing’s military poses, however, is to

Taiwan and other U.S. allies along the ﬁrst island chain in the Western Paciﬁc. If

China could subordinate Taiwan or allies like the Philippines, South Korea, and

Japan, it could break apart any balancing coalition that is designed to prevent Bei-

jing’s hegemony over Asia. Accordingly, the United States must ensure that China

does not succeed. This requires a denial defense: the ability to make the subordi-

nation of Taiwan or other U.S. allies in Asia prohibitively dicult. Critically, the

United States must be able to do this at a level of cost and risk that Americans are

willing to bear given the relative importance of Taiwan to China and to the U.S.

The United States and its allies also face real threats from Russia, as evidenced

by Vladimir Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine, as well as from Iran, North Korea, and

transnational terrorism at a time when decades of ill-advised military operations

in the Greater Middle East, the atrophy of our defense industrial base, the impact

of sequestration, and eective disarmament by many U.S. allies have exacted a

high toll on America’s military.

This is a grim landscape. The United States needs to deal with these threats

forthrightly and with strength, but it also needs to be realistic. It cannot wish away

these problems. Rather, it must confront them with a clear-eyed recognition of the

need for choice, discipline, and adequate resources for defense.

In this light, U.S. defense strategy must identify China unequivocally as the

top priority for U.S. defense planning while modernizing and expanding the

U.S. nuclear arsenal and sustaining an ecient and eective counterterrorism

enterprise. U.S. allies must also step up, with some joining the United States in

taking on China in Asia while others take more of a lead in dealing with threats

from Russia in Europe, Iran, the Middle East, and North Korea. The reality is

that achieving these goals will require more spending on defense, both by the

United States and by its allies, as well as active support for reindustrialization

and more support for allies’ productive capacity so that we can scale our free-

world eorts together.

Needed Reforms

Prioritize a denial defense against China. U.S. defense planning should

focus on China and, in particular, the eective denial defense of Taiwan.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

This focus and priority for U.S. defense activities will deny China the ﬁrst

island chain.

1. Require that all U.S. defense eorts, from force planning to employment

and posture, focus on ensuring the ability of American forces to prevail

in the pacing scenario and deny China a fait accompli against Taiwan.

2. Prioritize the U.S. conventional force planning construct to defeat

a Chinese invasion of Taiwan before allocating resources to other

missions, such as simultaneously ﬁghting another conﬂict.

Increase allied conventional defense burden-sharing. U.S. allies must

take far greater responsibility for their conventional defense. U.S. allies

must play their part not only in dealing with China, but also in dealing with

threats from Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

1. Make burden-sharing a central part of U.S. defense strategy with the

United States not just helping allies to step up, but strongly encouraging

them to do so.

2. Support greater spending and collaboration by Taiwan and allies

in the Asia–Paciﬁc like Japan and Australia to create a collective

defense model.

3. Transform NATO so that U.S. allies are capable of ﬁelding the great

majority of the conventional forces required to deter Russia while

relying on the United States primarily for our nuclear deterrent, and

select other capabilities while reducing the U.S. force posture in Europe.

4. Sustain support for Israel even as America empowers Gulf partners to

take responsibility for their own coastal, air, and missile defenses both

individually and working collectively.

5. Enable South Korea to take the lead in its conventional defense against

North Korea.

Implement nuclear modernization and expansion. The United States

manifestly needs to modernize, adapt, and expand its nuclear arsenal.

Russia maintains and is actively brandishing a very large nuclear arsenal,

but China is also undertaking a historic nuclear breakout.

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Department of Defense

1. Expand and modernize the U.S. nuclear force so that it has the size,

sophistication, and tailoring to deter Russia and China simultaneously.

2. Develop a nuclear arsenal with the size, sophistication, and tailoring—

including new capabilities at the theater level—to ensure that

there is no circumstance in which America is exposed to serious

nuclear coercion.

Increase allied counterterrorist burden-sharing. Transnational

terrorism remains a threat to Americans even as we pivot toward Asia.

1. Sustain the military forces needed to deter, prevent, and combat

terrorism, but at a sustainable cost in concert with other elements of

national power and partner eorts.

2. Prioritize enhancing the capability of allies and partners to take the lead

in combating terrorism in their regions.

DOD ACQUISITION AND SUSTAINMENT (A&S)

The DOD’s ability to acquire and ﬁeld new and existing technologies is essential

to the ability of America’s military personnel to ﬁght and win our nation’s wars.

To succeed in this endeavor, we must optimize the systems and personnel that

the department uses, but the inﬂexible bureaucratic structure and risk-adverse

culture that have developed over the decades make it dicult to provide the tools

that warﬁghters need at the speed of relevance.

The number one problem is the DOD budgeting process (instituted in 1961)

that requires acquisition spending to be locked years in advance. Because tech-

nologies change so rapidly and requirements can change overnight, this creates

situations in which military personnel not only go to war with outdated technol-

ogy, but also may be ﬁghting with equipment that is less capable than that of their

competitors. America owes its military many things, and the most important is

the resources they need to survive on the battleﬁeld and carry out the tasks we

ask of them.

Needed Reforms

Reform the planning, programming, budgeting, and execution

(PPBE) process.

1. Enhance funding and authority for DOD mission-focused innovation

organizations and away from program-speciﬁc stovepipes that,

planned for and designed two or three years earlier, may no longer be

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

relevant. This allows the acquisition community to focus on portfolio

management and move money around more easily instead of being

locked into inﬂexible, multiyear procurement cycles.

2. The President should examine the recommendations of the

congressionally mandated Commission on Planning, Programming,

Budgeting, and Execution Reform

and develop a strategy for

implementing those that the Administration considers to be in the best

interests of the American people. The commission’s ﬁnal report is due

on September 1, 2023.

3. Develop legislation or other means of providing funding outside the

traditional PPBE process for the prototyping and experimentation of

emerging technologies that are deemed essential to modernization and

future conﬂict. Consider creating a “fast track” for projects that satisfy

the most pressing national security needs.

4. Require the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and

Sustainment, the Under Secretary for Research and Engineering,

and all service secretaries to conduct “Night Court” and use existing

authorities to terminate outdated or underperforming programs

so that money can be used for what works and will work. Require

the Under Secretaries and service secretaries to brief the Secretary

annually on the results.

5. Require the Oce of the Secretary of Defense to research and report

on the acquisition processes used by America’s adversaries to improve

our understanding of how they are often able to innovate and ﬁeld new

technologies on a faster timeline.

Strengthen America’s defense industrial base.

1. Replenish and maintain U.S. stockpiles of ammunition and other

equipment that have been depleted as a result of U.S. support to Ukraine.

This will strengthen the defense industry supply chain and ensure that

adequate inventory exists if it is needed for a future conﬂict.

2. Collaborate with industry to develop a prioritized list of reforms that

the DOD and Congress can enact and implement to incentivize industry

to help America’s military innovate and ﬁeld needed capabilities.

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Department of Defense

3. Strengthen the ability of acquisition authorities to engage in multiyear

procurements and block buys. This will improve private-sector rates of

return, thereby incentivizing defense contractors to partner with the

government. It will also reduce government overhead by reducing the

number of procurement competitions.

4. Prioritize the U.S. and allies under the “domestic end product”

and “domestic components” requirements of the Build America,

Buy America Act.

Currently, defense companies are required to

manufacture defense items for the U.S. government that are 100

percent domestically produced and at least 50 percent composed of

domestically produced components. However, there are loopholes that

allow companies to manufacture these items overseas. This can create

supply chain and other issues, especially in wartime. Manufacturing

components and end products domestically and with allies spurs

factory development, increases American jobs, and builds resilience in

America’s defense industrial base.

5. Review the sectors currently prioritized for onshoring or

“friendshoring” of manufacturing (kinetic capabilities, castings and

forgings, critical materials, microelectronics, space, and electric vehicle

batteries); evaluate them according to the strategic landscape; and

expand or reprioritize the list as appropriate.

6. Help small businesses to become medium-size and large vendors, which

encourages a more resilient industrial base and fosters competition.

Encourage and plan for durable supply chains for small businesses

so they also have commercial/private-sector customers and are not

solely dependent on defense orders, which can be highly specialized,

expensive, and irregular.

7. Increase external engagement among small businesses to inform them

of DOD’s needs and how they could work with DOD to meet national

security priorities.

Optimize the DOD acquisition community.

1. Create incentives to emphasize speed and agility in decision-making

for prototyping and program-of-record starts and terminations.

Most bureaucrats would rather follow a checklist and fail than go

outside the procedures and win because failure means negative

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

career repercussions. Senior acquisition leaders should design a

system that allows decision-makers to stay within the law but bypass

unnecessary departmental regulations that are not in the best interest

of the government and hamper the acquisition of capabilities that

warﬁghters require.

2. The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment,

Under Secretary for Research and Engineering, and all service

secretaries should assess their acquisition workforces; determine what

additional personnel, resources, and training they need; and develop

implementation plans. The goal is to develop, prototype, acquire, and

ﬁeld required capabilities at the speed of relevance to meet America’s

pacing threats and maintain a warﬁghting advantage.

3. Decentralize Defense Acquisition University (DAU) oerings and

expand the DAU mission to include accreditation of non-DOD

institutions. The critical shortage of trained and certiﬁed acquisition

personnel must be addressed with urgency in order to support DOD

mission objectives and goals. With the rapid evolution of training and

educational technologies, including remote and virtual practices, there

is no reason for DAU to maintain a monopoly on the knowledge and

certiﬁcation that are required to perform as acquisition professionals.

Further, the cost to private contractors and non-DOD civilians who

aspire to such a role limits the supply of trained and certiﬁed candidates.

DAU has become an unnecessary barrier to entry in a career ﬁeld that is

vital to the DOD mission.

DOD RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, TEST, AND EVALUATION (RDT&E)

The FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act established the position of

Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and assigned broad

responsibility for “all defense research and engineering, technology develop-

ment, technology transition, prototyping, experimentation, and developmental

testing activities and programs, including the allocation of resources for defense

research and engineering, and unifying defense research and engineering eorts

across the Department,” to the new Under Secretary, who also was tasked with

“serving as the principal advisor to the Secretary on all research, engineering,

and technology development activities and programs in the Department.”

This

led to the single largest DOD structural change since the Goldwater–Nichols

act of 1986

and was organized eectively during President Donald Trump’s

Administration.

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Department of Defense

Needed Reforms

Champion, engage, and focus the American innovation ecosystem.

To maintain leadership in the era of great-power competition and

succeed against our adversaries, a key DOD eort must be the creation

of mechanisms and processes to embrace America’s most signiﬁcant

competitive advantage: innovation.

1. Engage and leverage all of America’s scientiﬁc, engineering, and high-

tech production communities to research, develop, prototype, and

rapidly deploy advanced technology capabilities on a continuing basis to

preserve our warﬁghting advantage.

2. Increase integration and collaboration among the DOD, government labs,

and private companies to solve the department’s most dicult problems.

3. Reduce the number of critical technology areas from 14 to a more

manageable number to concentrate eort and resources on those that

bear directly on great-power competition.

4. Rebuild RDT&E infrastructure that resides in Cold War–era facilities

and is not well-suited to the current era of rapid development and

testing of advanced technology and concepts to the maturity level

necessary for acquisition and operational ﬁelding.

5. Move toward a much more comprehensive independent risk-reduction

approach to increase understanding of the technical risks by drawing

on the expertise in DOD laboratories and agencies to help acquisition

programs succeed.

Improve the rapid deployment of technology to the battleﬁeld.

America’s military advantage has derived from the professionalism of our

servicemembers and our ability to manifest our technological advantage

in battleﬁeld capability. The current era of great-power competition will

continue for the foreseeable future, and technology will be the currency of

competition. Our ability to prevail will rest on our ability to develop new

technologies and move them onto the battleﬁeld more rapidly than our

adversaries can.

1. Accelerate the prototyping cycle to meet immediate battleﬁeld needs.

2. Require tighter integration with user communities to provide value.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

3. Establish a pipeline of near-term, mid-term, and long-term technology

that is aimed at great-power competition (China) and can be matured,

prototyped, and evaluated to support major acquisitions (the ability to

produce at scale) to break the cycle of schedule delays and cost overruns

from underdeveloped and poorly understood technologies.

Develop a framework to protect the RDT&E enterprise from foreign

exploitation. Strategic competition and adaptive adversaries require new

thinking about how to protect technology. China has been relentless in

stealing U.S. technology, using the full range of measures from inﬂuence

operations to outright theft. This has been a major factor in its ability to

close the gap and in some cases to exceed U.S. capabilities.

1. Implement a comprehensive approach to preserving U.S. technological

leadership that is based on outpacing our adversaries; clear about what we

need to protect; tailored to various speciﬁc sectors (for example, academia,

the defense industrial base, and laboratories); and underpinned with a full

range of consequences for attempted or actual theft.

DOD FOREIGN MILITARY SALES

The United States must regain its role as the “Arsenal of Democracy.” In ﬁscal

year (FY) 2021, U.S. government foreign military sales (FMS) nosedived to a low of

$34.8 billion from a record high of $55.7 billion in FY 2018.

This decrease hinders

interoperability with partners and allies, decreases defense industrial base capac-

ity, and increases the taxpayer burden on the U.S. military’s own procurements.

Under previous Administrations, the United States built its reputation as a reliable

partner with a strong defense industrial base that could supply military articles

and goods in a timely manner. Today’s FMS process is encumbered by byzantine

bureaucracy, long contracting times, high costs, and mundane technology.

The United States can change this downward trajectory by improving inter-

nal processes that incentivize partners and allies to procure U.S. defense systems,

thereby expanding our “defense ecosystem.” We must reverse the recent dip in

FMS to ensure both that our partners remain interoperable with the United States

and that our defense industrial base regains much-needed capacity in preparation

for future challenges.

Needed Reforms

Emphasize exportability with U.S. procurements. The record-low

FMS sales in 2021 were driven partly by the high costs of converting

weapon systems on the back end of production rather than emphasizing

exportability in initial capability planning.

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Department of Defense

1. Ensure that senior U.S. military leadership emphasizes exportability in

the initial development of defense systems that are both available and

interoperable with our partners and allies.

2. Create a funding mechanism to incentivize exportability in initial

planning, which can be recouped after future FMS transactions.

End informal congressional notiﬁcation. Informal congressional

notiﬁcation or “tiered review” is a hinderance to ensuring timely sales to

our global partners. The tiered review process is not codiﬁed in law; it is

merely a practice by which the Department of State provides a preview of

prospective arms transfers before Congress is formally notiﬁed.

1. End the tiered review process to eliminate at least 20 days from the

FMS process.

2. Use the tiered review process only when unanimous congressional

support is guaranteed in order to eliminate the “weaponization” by

select Members of Congress that has prevented billions of dollars of

arms sales from moving into formal congressional notiﬁcation.

Minimize barriers to collaboration. The high cost of developing

advanced defense platforms requires the United States to collaborate with

key allies to minimize waste, complement strengths, and supplement our

defense industrial base to create a system that is greater than that of the

United States alone.

1. Enhance defense industrial base planning with partners to allow

them to focus on niche areas where there are cost advantages for the

United States.

2. Decrease International Trac in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to facilitate

trade with such allies as the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.

3. Create opportunities to improve the health of the defense supply chain

with added opportunities for partners and allies to contribute.

Reform the FMS contracting process. The contracting timeline for the

FMS process is shockingly slow. On average, the DOD contracting timeline

takes approximately 18 months because of slow bureaucratic processes and

chronic understang.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

1. Immediately fund more contracting capacity in all services to decrease

the contracting timeline and improve the delivery of defense articles to

our global partners.

2. Rationalize and speed arms sales decision-making to preclude our

enemies from exploiting bureaucratic slothfulness and allow us to

manage the development of indigenous defense industrial bases.

DOD PERSONNEL

The men and women of America’s armed forces are the most critical component

of our national defense strategy, but in recent years, they have been overextended,

undervalued, and insuciently resourced. Their families help them to carry the

burden of service, but the assistance they receive is disproportionately less than

the sacriﬁces they make. Young civilians who would thrive in a military environ-

ment are disenfranchised when educators and inﬂuencers discourage them from

learning about military service and preparing for the honor of wearing Ameri-

ca’s uniform.

The United States military is an extraordinary institution, staed by exceptional

people who have defended our nation and changed the course of history, but the

Biden Administration, through word and deed, has treated the armed forces as just

another place to work. We must restore our military to a place of honor and respect

and recruit and retain the individuals who will meet the rigorous standards of

excellence that are required for membership in the world’s greatest ﬁghting force.

Needed Reforms

Rescue recruiting and retention. Recruiting was the worst in 2022 that it

has been in two generations and is expected to be even worse in 2023. Some

of the problems are self-inﬂicted and ongoing. The recruiting problem is not

service-speciﬁc: It aects the entire Joint Force.

1. Appoint a Special Assistant to the President who will maintain liaison

with Congress, DOD, and all other interested parties on the issue of

recruiting and retention.

2. Improve recruiting by suspending the use of the recently introduced

MHS Genesis system that uses private medical records of potential

recruits at Military Entrance Processing Stations (MEPS), creating

unnecessary delays and unwarranted rejections.

3. Improve military recruiters’ access to secondary schools and require

completion of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery

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Department of Defense

(ASVAB)—the military entrance examination—by all students in schools

that receive federal funding.

4. Encourage Members of Congress to provide time to military recruiters

during each townhall session in their congressional districts.

5. Increase the number of Junior ROTC programs in secondary schools.

Restore standards of lethality and excellence. Entrance criteria for

military service and speciﬁc occupational career ﬁelds should be based on

the needs of those positions. Exceptions for individuals who are already

predisposed to require medical treatment (for example, HIV positive

or suering from gender dysphoria) should be removed, and those with

gender dysphoria should be expelled from military service. Physical

ﬁtness requirements should be based on the occupational ﬁeld without

consideration of gender, race, ethnicity, or orientation.

Eliminate politicization, reestablish trust and accountability, and

restore faith to the force. In 2021, the Reagan National Defense Survey

found that only 45 percent of Americans have “a great deal of trust and

conﬁdence in the military”—down from 70 percent in 2018.

1. Strengthen protections for chaplains to carry out their ministry

according to the tenets of their faith.

2. Codify language to instruct senior military officers (three and four

stars) to make certain that they understand their primary duty

to be ensuring the readiness of the armed forces, not pursuing a

social engineering agenda. This direction should be reinforced

during the Senate confirmation process. Orders and direction

motivated by purely partisan motives should be identified as

threats to readiness.

3. Reinstate servicemembers to active duty who were discharged for

not receiving the COVID vaccine, restore their appropriate rank, and

provide back pay.

4. Eliminate Marxist indoctrination and divisive critical race theory

programs and abolish newly established diversity, equity, and inclusion

oces and sta.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

5. Restrict the use of social media solely for purposes of recruitment and

discipline any armed services personnel who use an ocial command

channel to engage with civilian critics on social media.

6. Audit the course oerings at military academies to remove Marxist

indoctrination, eliminate tenure for academic professionals, and

apply the same rules to instructors that are applied to other DOD

contracting personnel.

7. Reverse policies that allow transgender individuals to serve in the

military. Gender dysphoria is incompatible with the demands of military

service, and the use of public monies for transgender surgeries or to

facilitate abortion for servicemembers should be ended.

Value the military family. Military service requires extreme sacriﬁces

by families.

1. Support legislation to increase wages and family allowances for active-

duty enlisted personnel. No uniformed personnel should ever have to

rely on social beneﬁts like as food stamps or public housing assistance.

2. Improve base housing and consider the military family holistically when

considering change-of-station moves.

3. Improve spouse employment opportunities and protections, including

licensing reform,

and expand childcare.

4. Audit all curricula and health policies in DOD schools for

military families, remove all inappropriate materials, and reverse

inappropriate policies.

5. Support legislation giving education savings account options to

military families.

Reduce the number of generals. Rank creep is pervasive. The number

of 0-6 to 0-9 ocers is at an all-time high across the armed services

(above World War II levels), and the actual battleﬁeld experience of this

ocer corps is at an all-time low. The next President should limit the

continued advancement of many of the existing cadre, many of whom

have been advanced by prior Administrations for reasons other than their

warﬁghting prowess.

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Department of Defense

DOD INTELLIGENCE

Our national defense establishment must evolve to meet the rapid, pro-

found, and dynamic change in the global landscape, but absent signiﬁcant eort

to evaluate and retool in critical areas—including our intelligence and security

portfolios—America’s competitive advantage against rivals and adversaries is at

serious risk. However, for any structural changes to succeed, the crisis in our Intel-

ligence Community (IC)/Defense Intelligence Enterprise (DIE) leadership must

be addressed.

The DIE accounts for the bulk of the Intelligence Community’s personnel and a

signiﬁcant portion of its budget. Of the IC’s 17 elements, eight are within DOD,

two

are independent,

and seven belong to various other departments and agencies.

Overall, “[t]he DoD provides 86 percent of the personnel who conduct intelligence

activities, both military and civilian.”

The Defense Intelligence Enterprise must deliver accurate, unbiased, and

timely insights consistently and with clarity, objectivity, and independence. If they

continue on their current path, however, both the DIE and the Intelligence Com-

munity writ large will continue to provide inaccurate and politicized intelligence

assessments that mislead policymakers.

Needed Reforms

Improve the intelligence process. Defense intelligence assets have been

committed to the prosecution of operational campaigns since September 11,

2001, at the expense of our strategic objectives, and this has led to increased

risk.

Further, the DIE has evolved into a “customer-based” model with

the DIE/IC trying to be supportive of policy direction at the expense

of analytical integrity. The result has been a signiﬁcant politicization of

intelligence.

1. Establish unbiased intelligence reporting from DIE/IC senior leaders.

As the leader of the DIE, the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence

and Security should provide a top-line, dissenting, or clarifying view of

DIE and IC assessments as needed.

2. Align collection and analysis with vital national interests (countering

China and Russia).

3. Establish an eective global federated intelligence framework

with allies and partners and our Combatant Commands. Avoid the

temptation to neglect areas that appear less pertinent but that support

a convergence of threats and the critical requirements to sustain

those threats.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

4. Establish and sustain feedback loops to provide insight and direction

for continuous improvement and accountability.

We must revisit

our assessments and understand where we got it right and where we

got it wrong.

5. Better exploit publicly available information (PAI) data and foster

innovation to improve collection and analysis. We must end the practice

of multiple DIE organizations paying to acquire the same PAI data and

invest more in machine learning (ML) and artiﬁcial intelligence (AI) to

exploit open-source and classiﬁed intelligence data.

6. Remove policy obstacles that impede available technical solutions

and tailored approaches in order to preclude corruption at the point

of collection.

7. Develop statistical discrimination techniques based on relative value

to deal with the volume and velocity of available data and information,

which are rapidly exceeding our ability to exploit and analyze available

data and information eciently.

Expand the integration of intelligence activities. The prevalence of

asymmetric warfare requires Defense Intelligence to leverage the unique

authorities and capabilities of U.S. departments and agencies, as well as our

partners and allies, to competitive advantage.

1. Create an improved cyber defense and capability. We must reevaluate

the dual-hat structure between the National Security Agency (NSA) and

U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM).

2. Resurrect economic analysis capability to improve our ability to counter

Chinese whole-of-government strategies that combine security with

predatory economic objectives.

3. Resurrect critical thinking to provide true strategic intelligence that will

enable the U.S. to counter global adversaries and emerging technologies

(such as adversary advances in hypersonics, Unmanned Aerial Systems

(UAS), cyber domain, advanced ﬁghter aircraft, and advanced undersea

capabilities) more eectively.

4. Rebuild human intelligence (HUMINT) and counterintelligence (CI) and

improve their integration with defensive and oensive cyber operations.

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Department of Defense

5. Establish true alignment between DOD and DHS both to improve the

defense of critical U.S. infrastructure and national border integrity

and to develop vital information that enables defense against foreign

targeted disruptions.

Restore accountability and public trust. In recent years, public trust in

Defense Intelligence has been eroded by, for example, ﬂawed assumptions

leading up to our Afghanistan withdrawal, ﬂawed Russia–Ukraine

assessments, divergences in relations with key Gulf allies, and voids being

ﬁlled by Russia and China around the world. For trust to be restored and

sustained, ocials must be held accountable.

1. Restore DIE critical thinking. Establish mechanisms to restore analytic

integrity and return to true intelligence-driven operations. The next

Administration should eliminate the conﬂict of interest in the current

customer-based model (in which the customer is always right) by

enforcing time-tested procedures that guarantee independent analysis,

even if it means challenging policymakers’ assumptions. The Under

Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security’s leadership role

should be expanded to include providing analytic top-line views and

improve DIE transparency by highlighting diverging views.

2. Elevate the DIE’s voice in national policy discussions, commensurate

with the DIE’s 75 percent share of the IC budget. Present defense

intelligence to senior policymakers, either independently to

avoid all-source bias or in consensus products like the National

Intelligence Estimates.

Eliminate peripheral intelligence obligations that do not advance

military readiness. In 2019, following the catastrophic 2015 data

breach at the U.S. Oce of Personnel Management (OPM), the Defense

Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) accepted transfer of the

responsibility to conduct security clearance and suitability investigations

for 95 percent of the U.S. government’s civilian workforce. This decision,

which grew out of an intention to deconstruct OPM, was wrongheaded on

many levels and made the federal bureaucracy dependent on a new overlay

of DOD bureaucracy, in a sense instilling DOD control of civilian managers.

This function should be returned to OPM except for military security

clearance investigations.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

U.S. ARMY

The U.S. Army’s mission is “[t]o deploy, ﬁght and win our nation’s wars by pro-

viding ready, prompt and sustained land dominance by Army forces across the full

spectrum of conﬂict as part of the joint force.”

Today, however, the Army cannot

execute its land dominance mission.

The U.S. Army is at an inﬂection point that

is marked by more than a decade of steadily eroding budgets and diluted buying

power, an appreciable degradation in readiness and training capacity, a near crisis

in the recruiting and retention of critical personnel, and a bevy of aging weapons

systems that no longer provide a qualitative edge over peer and near-peer com-

petitors but will not be replaced in the near term.

All of these challenges are set against the backdrop of a complex and dynamic

global geopolitical environment that is exempliﬁed and exacerbated by the triumph

of our adversaries in Afghanistan after a 20-year struggle there as well as recent

Russian outrages in the Ukraine and China’s bellicosity both on its borders and in

surrounding disputed regions. In spite of these ever-increasing operational pulls, our

Army is consistently being asked to do more with fewer resources. The status quo

is further marked by a pervasive politically driven top-down focus on progressive

social policies that emphasize matters like so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion

and climate change, often to the detriment of the Army’s core warﬁghting mission.

Needed Reforms

Rebuild the Army. The total Army budget has decreased by roughly 11

percent since 2018, perilously aecting the service’s readiness and ability to

train and to procure new personnel and equipment. Declining budgets and

decreased buying power have forced the Army to lower training standards

and opportunities to train, propose reductions in end strength, slash

military construction programs to historically low levels, and scale back

essential modernization programs.

1. Increase the Army budget to remain the world’s preeminent land power.

2. Accelerate the development and procurement of the six current

Army modernization priorities (long-range precision ﬁres, the Next-

Generation Combat Vehicle, Future Vertical Lift, the Army network,

air and missile defense, and soldier lethality) to replace worn out and

outdated combat systems and ensure ground combat dominance.

3. Increase funding to improve Army training and operational readiness.

4. Increase the Army force structure by 50,000 to handle two major

regional contingencies simultaneously.

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Department of Defense

5. Reform recruiting eorts. The Army missed its 2022 recruitment goal

by 25 percent, or 15,000 soldiers.

Focus on deployability and sustained operations. The U.S. Army’s

very lethal ground force capability is irrelevant if it cannot quickly deploy

to locations for employment in decisive operations to secure our global

security interests. Additionally, Army logisticians provide the ground

transportation (of both personnel and equipment); fuel, food, and water;

munitions (bombs and bullets); medical supplies and services; and

veterinary services (food safety) that are critical to sustainment of the

other services.

1. Immediately increase the production and stockpiling of critical

munitions and repair parts.

2. Prioritize expeditionary logistics in all force design and operational

planning to guarantee entry into a contested theater of war.

3. Increase the level of Joint Force training, synchronization, and

coordination focused on logistics.

4. Prepare to deploy forces from degraded U.S.-based transportation

infrastructure that is compromised by opposing forces.

Transform Army culture and training. The Army can no longer serve

as the nation’s social testing ground. A rebuilt Army that is focused again

on its core warﬁghting mission and empowered it with the tools, resources,

and authorities it needs to accomplish that mission must be the next

Administration’s highest defense priority.

1. Stop using the Army as a test bed for social evolution. Misusing the

Army in this way detracts from its core purpose while doing little to

reshape the American social structure. The Army no longer reﬂects

national demographics to the degree that it did before 1974 when the

draft was eliminated.

2. Demand accountability in senior leaders to reverse the decline in public

support for military service.

3. Reestablish the experiential base for the planning, execution, and

leadership of Army formations in large-scale operations. Currently,

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

there are no general or ﬁeld-grade ocers who served as planners or

commanders against a near-peer adversary in combat.

4. Examine the logic of emerging Army concepts about employing massed

long-range ﬁres and eects without considering how to gain advantage

by closing with and dominating an adversary on land.

5. Recognize that high-intensity land combat operations cannot be

sustained through short-term individual or unit rotations in the style of

the sustained low-intensity campaigns conducted over the past 20 years.

6. Transform how the National Guard is employed during extended

operations short of declared war to preclude back-to-back federal and

state deployments of National Guard soldiers in order to stabilize and

preserve military volunteerism in our communities.

7. Revamp Army school curricula to concentrate on preparation for large-

scale land operations that focus on defeating a peer threat.

8. Address the underlying causal issues driving increasing Army suicide

rates, which have surpassed pre–World War II rates and are now

eclipsing the rate among civilians.

U.S. NAVY

As noted at the beginning of this chapter, the U.S. Constitution gives Congress

the power to “provide and maintain a Navy.” Inherent in this phrase is a recognition

that there is a vital national interest in the maritime environment and that this

national interest requires sustained planning and investment. This is as true today

as it was almost 250 years ago and will remain true into the future.

The U.S. Navy (USN) exists for two primary reasons: to project prompt, sus-

tained, and eective combat power globally, both at sea and ashore, and to deter

aggression by potential adversaries by maintaining a forward operating presence

in conjunction with allies and partners. Today, the People’s Republic of China Peo-

ple’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) can challenge the USN’s ability to accomplish

its mission in the Paciﬁc and Indian Oceans.

In the production, employment, and control of maritime forces, the USN must

consider the scope and rate of technological change and, where appropriate, adapt

its processes and workforce development. In balancing the necessary long-term

industrial model of naval platforms against emerging short-term opportunities,

the USN must take account of advances that may present vulnerabilities and risks

as well as what is assured and secure.

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Department of Defense

Needed Reforms

Invest in and expand force structure. The USN’s organizing principle

remains platform-centered: vessels manned by sailors. The manned surface

and subsurface forces act in concert with land-based, air-based, and space-

based forces to project power outside sovereign territory, principally by

operating in international waters. Investments must be closely coordinated

with these other elements of military power.

1. Build a ﬂeet of more than 355 ships.

2. Develop and ﬁeld unmanned systems to augment the manned forces.

3. Require that range and lethality be the key factors in all procurement

and sustainment decisions for ships, aircraft, and munitions.

Reestablish the General Board. In contrast with the Navy General

Board that served ship development so well during the interwar period,

the current joint process

for defining the requirements for major

defense acquisitions is not well-suited to long-term planning of the

sort that is needed for USN fleet architecture and shipbuilding. The

interwar General Board should serve as a model, empowered with

final decision authority over all requirements documents concerning

ships and the major defense systems fielded on ships. The individual

board members would ensure a broad base of knowledge as well as

independent thinking.

Establish a Rapid Capabilities Oce. The USN must transition

technology into warﬁghting capability more rapidly. It must foster a culture

of innovation that includes connecting theoretical and intangible ideas with

real production environments that produce tangible and practical outcomes

and adapting proven processes to advance material solutions.

1. Harness innovation and willingness to tolerate risk so that “good

enough” systems can be ﬁelded rapidly.

2. Use the Space Development Agency as a model.

3. Establish an oversight Board of Directors made up of the service chief,

service secretary, and Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and

Sustainment.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Accelerate the purchase of key munitions. It takes years to build and

maintain navies but only hours to expend their ordnance in combat. The

USN must be prepared to expend large quantities of air-launched and

sea-launched stealthy, precision, cruise missiles against targets both at

sea and ashore. Additionally, modern air defense requires the use of high-

performance surface-to-air missiles.

1. Produce key munitions at the maximum rate with signiﬁcant capacity.

2. Working with the Congress, employ the widest possible range of

techniques to enhance the munitions supply chains and workforce.

Enhance warﬁghter development. The USN requires a variety of

documented qualiﬁcations for personnel to advance in their careers and

assume leadership positions. It also requires individual professional

qualiﬁcations that are focused on warﬁghting.

1. Mandate qualiﬁcations that demonstrate an understanding of core

competence in collective, integrated warﬁghting, especially based on

current plans and technologies.

2. Elevate the Headquarters Sta focused on Warﬁghter Development

(N7) within the Oce of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV) and

empower it to develop such requirements.

3. Require that war games be utilized as experiential learning environments

for the participants as a prerequisite for achieving career milestones

(department heads, commanding ocers, and major commanders).

4. Highlight in training and leader development that USN forces can and

must maintain the ability to operate from and/or defend sovereign

territory to include our allies and partners.

5. Train to balance eects from kinetic to nonkinetic and from lethal to

nonlethal through eective command and control.

U.S. AIR FORCE

The U.S. Air Force today lacks a force structure with the lethality, survivabil-

ity, and capacity to ﬁght a major conﬂict with a great power like China, deter

nuclear threats, and meet its other operational requirements under the National

Defense Strategy.

For 30 years, the Air Force has received less annual funding

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Department of Defense

(if pass-through funding, deﬁned as money in the Air Force budget that does not

go to the Air Force, is removed from the equation) than the Army and Navy have

received. This underfunding has forced the Air Force to cut its forces and forgo

modernizing aging weapons systems that were never designed to operate in current

threat environments and are structurally and mechanically exhausted. The result

is an Air Force that is the oldest, smallest, and least ready in its history.

The decline in Air Force capacity and capability is occurring at the same time

the security environment demands the very options that the Air Force uniquely

provides. Combatant commanders routinely request more Air Force capabilities

than the service has the capacity to provide. The Air Force today simply cannot

accomplish all of the missions it is required to perform.

The Air Force has consistently stated on the ocial record that it is not sized to

meet the mission demands placed on it by the various U.S. Combatant Commands.

A 2018 study, “The Air Force We Need,”

showed a 24 percent deﬁcit in Air Force

capacity to meet the needs of the National Defense Strategy. Those conclusions

remain valid and are more pronounced today because of subsequent aircraft retire-

ments. The demand is also higher because of world events. To understand these

trends, one needs only to consider that the Air Force’s future ﬁve-year budget plan

retires 1,463 aircraft while buying just 467. This makes for a reduction of 996 air-

craft by 2027. The net result is a force that is smaller, older, and less ready at a time

when demand is burgeoning.

Needed Reforms

Increase spending and budget accuracy in line with a threat-based

strategy. Returning the U.S. military to a force that can achieve deterrence

or win in a ﬁght if necessary requires returning to a threat-based defense

strategy. Real budget growth combined with a more equitable distribution

of resources across the armed services is the only realistic way to create a

modernized Air Force with the capacity to meet the needs of the National

Defense Strategy. Additionally, as noted above, pass-through funding causes

numbers cited in current DOD budget documents to be higher than the

dollar amounts actually received by the Air Force.

1. Adopt a two-war force defense strategy with scenarios for each service

that will allow the Air Force to attain the resources it requires by

developing a force-sizing construct that reﬂects what is required to

accomplish strategic objectives.

2. Eliminate pass-through funding, which has grown to more than

$40 billion per year and has caused the Air Force to be chronically

underfunded for decades.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

3. Increase the Air Force budget by 5 percent annually (after adjusting for

inﬂation) to reverse the decline in size, age, and readiness and facilitate

the transition to a more modern, lethal, and survivable force.

Reduce near-term and mid-term risk. Increasing the Air Force’s

acquisition of next-generation capabilities that either are or soon will be in

production will increase the ability of the United States to deter or defeat

near-term to mid-term threats.

1. Increase F-35A procurement to 60–80 per year.

2. Build the capacity for a B-21 production rate of 15–18 aircraft per year along

with applicable elements of the B-21 long-range strike family of systems.

3. Increase Air Force airlift and aerial refueling capacity to support agile

combat employment operations that generate combat sorties from a

highly dispersed posture in both Europe and the Paciﬁc.

4. Develop and buy larger quantities of advanced mid-range weapons (50

nm to 200 nm) that are sized to maximize targets per sortie for stealth

aircraft ﬂying in contested environments against target sets that could

exceed 100,000 aimpoints.

5. Accelerate the development and production of the Sentinel

intercontinental ballistic missile to reduce the risk inherent in an aging

Minuteman III force in light of China’s nuclear modernization breakout.

6. Increase the number of EC-37B electronic warfare aircraft from 10 to 20

in order to achieve a minimum capacity to engage growing threats from

China across the electromagnetic spectrum.

Invest in future Air Force programs and eorts. Increasingly capable

adversaries require new capabilities to enable victory against those adversaries.

1. Attain an operationally optimized advanced battle management system

as the Air Force element of the DOD Joint All Domain Command and

Control enterprise.

2. Produce the next-generation air dominance system of systems (air

moving target indication, other sensors, communications, command

and control, weapons, and uninhabited aerial vehicles).

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Department of Defense

3. Achieve moving target engagement capability and capacity against sea,

surface, and ground mobile targets at the scale necessary to meet the

needs of the National Defense Strategy.

4. Build resilient basing, sustainment, and communications for

survivability in a contested environment.

5. Establish a vigorous and suciently funded electromagnetic spectrum

operations recovery plan to make up for more than 20 years of neglect of

this mission area.

U.S. MARINE CORPS

The U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) is the maritime land force of the Department

of Defense and Department of the Navy. It serves a critical role as an expedition-

ary amphibious force that can project power from sea to shore and beyond while

performing other specialized missions like securing America’s diplomatic out-

posts abroad.

Between the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the conclusion of U.S.

military operations in Afghanistan in August 2022, the Marine Corps engaged

in extended operations ashore as directed by the Secretary of Defense, leaving it

with little opportunity or ability to train for and execute the naval and amphibious

operations for which it is uniquely suited and directed by law. This lengthy diver-

gence from its primary mission led to deep concern that the Corps had become a

“second land army,” prompting senior Marine Corps leaders to push for the service

to return to the sea. In addition, the USMC spent nearly two decades ﬁghting coun-

terinsurgency wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and developed capabilities that were

speciﬁcally geared to those ﬁghts but have limited utility in scenarios involving

evenly matched and advanced enemies or amphibious operations that are neces-

sary for the projection of naval power.

As a result, Marine Corps Commandant General David H. Berger developed

and began to implement Force Design 2030,

a plan that, if completed, would be

the most radical transformation of the Marine Corps since World War II. The suc-

cessful implementation of this force redesign, coupled with reforms in the Marine

Corps’ personnel system and the Navy’s amphibious shipbuilding plans, will be

critical to ensuring the Corps’ future combat eectiveness.

Needed Reforms

Divest systems to implement the Force Design 2030 transformation.

Divesting equipment that is less relevant to distributed, low-signature

operations in a contested maritime environment will make funds available

for modernization.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

1. Transform USMC force structure.

a. Eliminate all USMC law enforcement battalions.

b. Transform at least one Marine Infantry Regiment into a Marine

Littoral Regiment.

c. Reduce the size of remaining infantry battalions.

2. Divest systems or equipment that are better suited to heavier

U.S. Army units.

a. Maintain divestment of M1 Abrams tanks.

b. Eliminate the majority of tube artillery (M777) batteries.

c. Reduce the number of Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicles and

the number of their replacements.

3. Use funds made available by divestment of systems to support new

systems that are geared to the likely needs of future conﬂicts.

a. Increase the number of rocket artillery batteries (HIMARS).

b. Increase the number of upgraded Light Armored Vehicle

(LAV) companies.

c. Increase the number of Unmanned Aerial Systems and anti-air

systems (including counter-UAS systems).

d. Develop long-range strike missiles and anti-ship missiles for the Corps.

e. Modernize USMC infantry equipment.

Transform the USMC personnel paradigm. More than other services,

the USMC relies heavily on junior noncommissioned ocers (NCOs) to sta

key positions across the force but especially in combat arms. For example,

E-4s routinely hold squad leader billets when the Army normally has E-6s in

those billets. The nature of more distributed operations and the increasingly

complex responsibilities of a Marine Corps riﬂe squad and platoon under

Force Design 2030 will only put more responsibility on the backs of squad

leaders and platoon sergeants, increasing the need for more senior Marines

in those critical positions. Additionally, the Corps needs to improve its

retention of junior NCOs after their ﬁrst enlistments (the Marines have

much lower rates of reenlistment than other branches).

1. Align the USMC’s combat arms rank structure with the U.S. Army’s (squad

leader billets are for E-6s, and platoon sergeant billets are for E-7s).

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Department of Defense

2. Create better incentives to retain talented junior NCOs, especially in

infantry and other critical military occupational specialties.

3. Reduce unnecessary deployments to increase dwell time in order to

enable more robust primary military education.

Align Navy amphibious shipbuilding with Force Design 2030. The U.S.

Navy has struggled for decades to maintain an amphibious ﬂeet that could

support USMC war plans around large-scale amphibious operations. In

addition, amphibious shipbuilding has often had to compete against other

priorities within a constrained budget and limited shipbuilding capacity.

1. Develop and produce light amphibious warships (LAWs) to support

more distributed amphibious operations, especially in the Paciﬁc.

2. Maintain between 28 and 31 larger amphibious warships as opposed to

the 25 speciﬁed in current Navy shipbuilding plans and the 38 speciﬁed

before 2020.

U.S. SPACE FORCE

U.S. space forces conduct global space operations to sustain and enhance air,

land, and sea eectiveness, lethality, and superiority by providing secure broad-

band global communications (precision position, navigation, and timing accuracy);

attack warning and threat tracking and targeting capability (real-time intelligence,

surveillance, and reconnaissance information); and their assured continuity of

operations both by defending U.S. assets and by conducting oensive operations

that are capable of imposing unacceptable losses on adversaries that might seek

to attack them.

The U.S. Space Force (USSF) was established to assure continuous global and

theater combat support from space, to deter attacks against U.S. space assets, and

to prevail in space should deterrence fail. The USSF posture was conceived as a

balance of oensive and defensive deterrent capabilities designed for maximum

eectiveness.

Needed Reforms

Reverse the Biden Administration’s defensive posture. The Biden

Administration has eliminated almost all oensive deterrence capabilities

and instead will rely solely on defensive capabilities of disaggregation,

maneuver, and reconstitution—the most costly, the slowest, and ultimately

the most fragile architecture selection.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

1. Reestablish oensive capabilities to guarantee a favorable balance of

forces, eciently manage the full deterrence spectrum, and seriously

complicate enemy calculations of a successful ﬁrst strike against U.S.

space assets.

2. Restore architectural balance in U.S. space forces, both oensive and

defensive, to restore deterrence dominance eciently and quickly.

3. Rapidly expand space control capability, to include cis-lunar space (the

region beginning at geosynchronous altitude and encompassing the

moon), to provide early warning of an enemy attack.

4. Seek arms control and “rules of the road” understandings only when

they are unambiguously in the interests of the U.S. and its allies, and

prohibit their unilateral implementation.

Reduce overclassiﬁcation. The USSF must move beyond the Cold War–

era culture of secrecy and overclassiﬁcation that surrounded military space

to facilitate greater coordination and synchronization of eorts across the

government and commercial sectors.

Declassify appropriate information about terrestrial and on-orbit space

capabilities that threaten the U.S. space constellation, as well as those

being pursued by our competitors, to secure the principled right to

counter them oensively.

Implement policies suited to a mature USSF. No longer a “newborn,” the

USSF has entered its fourth year of existence, and the lessons learned can be

incorporated across all facets of the force to increase its eectiveness.

1. Restructure from the current “unity of eort” structure to “unity

of command.”

2. Lead the U.S. government’s development of a clear and unambiguous

declaratory policy that the United States will operate at will in space

and enforce these operations with capabilities that ensure eective

deterrence and the ability to impose our will if necessary.

3. End the current study phase of concept development and issue

necessary guidance for the development and ﬁelding of oensive

capabilities.

— 119 —

Department of Defense

4. Alter the Space Development Agency’s current “fail-early” approach

and transition to a methodology that maintains aggressive timelines but

with signiﬁcantly greater engineering rigor, with special attention to

sustainment, support, and fully integrated space operations.

5. Increase the number of general ocer positions to ensure the Space

Force’s ability to compete for resources on a common basis with the

other services.

6. Explore creation of a Space Force Academy to attract top aero–astro

students, engineers, and scientists and develop astronauts. The academy

could be attached initially to a large existing research university like

the California Institute of Technology or MIT, share faculty and

funding, and eventually be built separately to be on par with the other

service academies.

U.S. CYBER COMMAND

USCYBERCOM was established in 2010 by the Department of Defense to unify

the direction of cyberspace operations, strengthen DOD cyberspace capabilities,

and integrate and enhance U.S. cyber expertise. Cyber capabilities and threats are

evolving rapidly. Accordingly, a conservative Administration should be especially

sensitive to and prepared to meet the challenges presented by bureaucratic silos,

inappropriately rigid tactical doctrine, and strategic thinking’s historic tendency

to lag behind technological capability.

The preliminary evidence from the war in Ukraine suggests that existing cyber

doctrine and certain capability and target assumptions may be incorrect or mis-

placed. The following recommendations therefore presuppose that there will be

a rigorous “lessons learned” analysis and review of existing U.S. doctrine in light

of the battleﬁeld evidence.

Needed Reforms

Ensure that USCYBERCOM is properly focused. Mission creep

is leading to wasteful overlap with the Department of Homeland

Security, National Security Agency, Department of Defense, and Central

Intelligence Agency.

1. Separate USCYBERCOM from the National Security Agency per

congressional direction.

2. Conduct eective oensive cyber-eects operations at the tactical and

strategic levels.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

3. Expand defensive cyber-eects operations authorized by President

Trump's classiﬁed National Security Presidential Memorandum 13,

“United States Cyber Operations Policy.”

4. End USCYBERCOM’s participation in federal eorts to “fortify”

U.S. elections to eliminate the perception that DOD is engaging in

partisan politics.

Increase USCYBERCOM’s eectiveness.

1. Accelerate the integration of cyber and electronic warfare (EW)

doctrine and capabilities, abiding by the time-tested norms of

combined-arms warfare.

2. Mandate that development teams will include both coders and soldiers,

aircrew, and sailors with kinetic experience at the platoon level.

3. Break the paradigm of cyber authorities held at the strategic level.

4. Increase cyber resilience by, for example, protecting the Nuclear

Command, Control, and Communications Network and the Air Force’s

Cyber Resiliency Oce for Weapons Systems (CROWS).

5. Expand coordination of joint operations with allies.

6. Implement the Government Accountability Oce’s recommendation

that the DOD Chief Information Ocer, Commander of USCYBERCOM,

and Commander of Joint Force Headquarters–DOD Information

Network “align policy and system requirements to enable DOD to have

enterprise-wide visibility of cyber incident reporting to support tactical,

strategic, and military strategies for response.”

Rationalize strategy and doctrine.

1. Update the October 2022 National Security Strategy to deﬁne DOD

roles and responsibilities beyond existing platitudes.

2. Apply traditional deterrence strategies and principles for using cyber/

EW in retaliation for foreign cyberattacks and/or EW actions against

U.S. infrastructure and citizens.

— 121 —

Department of Defense

SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES

Even though America’s conventional war in Afghanistan was a failure, Special

Operations Forces of the United States Special Operation Command (USSOCOM)

executed an extremely eective counterterrorism campaign: There has not been

another major attack on the homeland, global terrorist threats are reduced and

managed, collaboration with international partners is eective, and units under

USSOCOM are the most capable and experienced warﬁghters in two generations.

There is a movement to reduce the scope and scale of USSOCOM’s mission in

favor of other service priorities in great-power competition. This would be a mis-

take because USSOCOM can be employed eectively in great-power competition.

It makes sense to capitalize on USSOCOM’s experience and repurpose its mis-

sion to include irregular warfare within the context of great-power competition,

thereby providing a robust organization that is capable of achieving strategic

eects that are critical both to our national defense and to the defense of our

allies and partners around the globe. Irregular warfare should be used proactively

to prevent state and nonstate actors from negatively aecting U.S. policies and

objectives while simultaneously strengthening our regional partnerships. If we

maintain irregular warfare’s traditional focus on nonstate actors, we limit ourselves

to addressing only the symptoms (nonstate actors), not the problems themselves

(China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran).

Needed Reforms

Make irregular warfare a cornerstone of security strategy. The U.S.

can project strength through uniﬁed action with our Interagency,

allies,

and partners by utilizing irregular warfare capabilities synchronized

with elements of national power. Broadly redeﬁning irregular warfare to

address current state and nonstate actors is critical to countering irregular

threats that range from the Chinese use of economic warfare to Russian

disinformation and Islamist terrorism. A broad deﬁnition of irregular

warfare in the National Security Strategy would allow for a whole-of-

government approach, thereby providing resources and capabilities to

counter threats and ultimately serve as credible deterrence at the strategic

and tactical levels.

1. Deﬁne irregular warfare as “a means by which the United States uses all

elements of national power to project inﬂuence abroad to counter state

adversaries, defeat hostile nonstate actors, deter wider conﬂict, and

maintain peace in great-power competition.”

2. Characterize the state and nonstate irregular threats facing the U.S. by

region in the National Security Strategy.

— 122 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

3. Direct that irregular warfare resources, capabilities, and strategies be

incorporated directly into the overall National Defense Strategy instead

of being relegated to a supporting document.

4. Establish an Irregular Warfare Center of Excellence to help DOD train,

equip, and organize to conduct irregular warfare as a core competency

across the spectrum of competition, crisis, and conﬂict.

Counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) globally. DOD, in

conjunction with the Interagency, allies, and partner nations, must work

proactively to counter China’s BRI around the globe.

1. Task USSOCOM and corresponding organizations in the Pentagon

with conceptualizing, resourcing, and executing regionally based

operations to counter the BRI with a focus on nations that are key

to our energy policy, international supply chains, and our defense

industrial base.

2. Use regional and global information operations to highlight Chinese

violations of Exclusive Economic Zones, violations of human rights, and

coercion along Chinese fault lines in Xinjiang Province, Hong Kong, and

Taiwan in addition to China’s weaponization of sovereign debt.

3. Directly counter Chinese economic power with all elements of national

power in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean to

maintain maritime freedom of movement and protect the digital

infrastructure of nations in the region.

Establish credible deterrence through irregular warfare to protect

the homeland. A whole-of-government approach and willingness to

employ cyber, information, economic, and counterterrorist irregular

warfare capabilities should be utilized to protect the homeland.

1. Include the designation of USSOCOM as lead for the execution of

irregular warfare against hostile state and nonstate actors in the

National Defense Strategy.

2. Demonstrate a willingness to employ oensive cyber capabilities against

adversaries who conduct cyberattacks against U.S. infrastructure,

businesses, personnel, and governments.

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Department of Defense

3. Employ a “name and shame” approach by making information regarding

the names of entities that target democratic processes and international

norms available in a transparent manner.

4. Work with the Interagency to employ economic warfare, lawfare, and

diplomatic pressure against hostile state and nonstate actors.

5. Maintain the authorities necessary for an aggressive counterterrorism

posture against threats to the homeland.

NUCLEAR DETERRENCE

Nuclear deterrence is one of the most critical elements of U.S. national security,

as it forms a backstop to U.S. military forces. Every operational plan relies on the

assumption that nuclear deterrence holds. Ever since the U.S. ﬁrst acquired nuclear

weapons, Administrations of both parties have pursued a strategy designed to deter

nuclear and non-nuclear attack; assure allies; and, in the event of nuclear employ-

ment, restore deterrence at the lowest possible cost to the U.S. Today, however,

America’s ability to meet these goals is increasingly challenged by the growing

nuclear threats posed by our adversaries.

China is pursuing a strategic breakout of its nuclear forces, signiﬁcantly

shifting the nuclear balance and forcing the U.S. to learn how to deter two

nuclear peer competitors (China and Russia) simultaneously for the ﬁrst

time in its history.

Russia is expanding its nuclear arsenal and using the threat of nuclear

employment as a coercive tactic in its war on Ukraine.

North Korea is advancing its nuclear capabilities.

Iran is inching closer to nuclear capability.

Meanwhile, all U.S. nuclear capabilities and the infrastructure on which they

rely date from the Cold War and are in dire need of replacement. The next Admin-

istration will need to focus on continuing the eort to modernize the nuclear triad

while updating our strategy and capabilities to meet the challenges presented by

a more threatening nuclear environment.

Needed Reforms

Prioritize nuclear modernization. All components of the nuclear triad are

far beyond their intended lifetimes and will need to be replaced over the next

— 124 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

decade. This eort is required for the U.S. to maintain its nuclear triad—and

will be the bare minimum needed to maintain U.S. strategic nuclear deterrence.

1. Accelerate the timelines of critical modernization programs including the

Sentinel missile, Long Range Stando Weapon (LRSO), Columbia-class

ballistic missile submarine, B-21 bomber, and F-35 Dual Capable Aircraft.

2. Reject any congressional proposals that would further extend the

service lives of U.S. capabilities such as the Minuteman III ICBM.

3. Ensure sucient funding for warhead life extension programs (LEP),

including the B61-12, W80-4, W87-1 Mod, and W88 Alt 370.

Develop the Sea-Launched Cruise Missile-Nuclear (SLCM-N). In 2018,

the Trump Administration proposed restoring the SLCM-N to help ﬁll a

growing gap in U.S. nonstrategic capabilities and improve deterrence against

limited nuclear attack.

The Biden Administration canceled this program

in its 2022 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).

The next President should

support and accelerate funding for development of the SLCM-N with the

goal of deployment by the end of the decade.

Account for China’s nuclear expansion. To ensure its ability to deter

both Russia and the growing Chinese nuclear threat, the U.S. will need more

than the bare minimum of nuclear modernization. President Biden’s 2022

NPR described the problem but proposed no recommendations to restore or

maintain nuclear deterrence.

1. Consider procuring more modernized nuclear systems (such as the

Sentinel missile or LRSO) than currently planned.

2. Improve the ability of the U.S. to utilize the triad’s upload capacity in

case of a crisis.

3. Review what capabilities in addition to the SLCM-N (for example,

nonstrategic weapons or new warhead designs) are needed to deter the

unique Chinese threat.

Restore the nuclear infrastructure. The United States must restore

its necessary nuclear infrastructure so that it is capable of producing and

maintaining nuclear weapons.

— 125 —

Department of Defense

1. Accelerate the eort to restore plutonium pit production, which is essential

both for modern warhead programs and for recapitalizing the stockpile.

2. Continue to invest in rebuilding infrastructure, including facilities at

the National Laboratories that support nuclear weapons development.

3. Restore readiness to test nuclear weapons at the Nevada National

Security Site to ensure the ability of the U.S. to respond quickly to

asymmetric technology surprises.

Correctly orient arms control. The U.S. should agree to arms control

agreements only if they help to advance the interests of the U.S. and its allies.

1. Reject proposals for nuclear disarmament that are contrary to the goal

of bolstering deterrence.

2. Pursue arms control as a way to secure the national security interests of

the U.S. and its allies rather than as an end in itself.

3. Prepare to compete in order to secure U.S. interests should arms control

eorts continue to fail.

MISSILE DEFENSE

Missile defense is a critical component of the U.S. national security architecture.

It can help to deter attack by instilling doubt that an attack will work as intended,

take adversary “cheap shots” o the table, and limit the perceived value of mis-

siles as tools of coercion. It also allows space for diplomacy during a crisis and can

protect U.S. and allied forces, critical assets, and populations if deterrence fails.

Adversaries are relying increasingly on missiles to achieve their aims.

China and Russia, in addition to their vast and growing ballistic missile

inventories, are deploying new hypersonic glide vehicles and investing in

new ground-launched, air-launched, and sea-launched cruise missiles that

uniquely challenge the United States in dierent domains.

North Korea has pursued an aggressive missile testing program and is

becoming increasingly belligerent toward South Korea and Japan.

Iran continues to maintain a missile arsenal that is capable of striking U.S.

and allied assets in the Middle East and Europe, and its rocket launches

demonstrate that it either has or is developing the ability to build ICBMs.

— 126 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Missile defense has been underprioritized and underfunded in recent years. In

light of these growing threats, the incoming Administration should treat missile

defense as a top priority.

Needed Reforms

Champion the beneﬁts of missile defense. Despite its deterrence and

damage-limitation beneﬁts, opponents argue incorrectly that U.S. missile

defense is destabilizing because it threatens Russian and Chinese second-

strike capabilities.

1. Reject claims made by the Left that missile defense is destabilizing

while acknowledging that Russia and China are developing their own

advanced missile defense systems.

2. Commit to keeping homeland missile defense o the table in any arms

control negotiations with Russia and China.

Strengthen homeland ballistic missile defense. The United States

currently deploys 44 Ground-Based Interceptors (GBIs) as part of its

Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system to defend the homeland

against North Korea, but as North Korea improves its missile program, this

system is at risk of falling behind the threat.

1. Buy at least 64 of the Next Generation Interceptor (NGI), which is more

advanced than the GBI, for an eventual uniform ﬂeet of interceptors.

The Biden Administration currently plans to buy only 20.

2. Consider additional steps to strengthen the GMD system such as a

layered missile defense or a third interceptor site on the East Coast.

Increase the development of regional missile defense. As the Ukraine

conﬂict amply demonstrates, U.S. regional missile defense capabilities are

very limited. The United States has been unable to supply our partners

reliably with any capabilities, and the number and types of regional missile

defense platforms are less than the U.S. needs for its own defense. The U.S.

should prioritize procurement of more regional defense systems such as

Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), Standard Missile-3, and

Patriot missiles.

Change U.S. missile defense policy. Historically, the U.S. has chosen

to rely solely on deterrence to address the Russian and Chinese ballistic

— 127 —

Department of Defense

missile threat to the homeland and to use homeland missile defense only

against rogue nations.

1. Abandon the existing policy of not defending the homeland against

Russian and Chinese ballistic missiles and focus on how to improve

defense as the Russian and Chinese missile threats increase at an

unprecedented rate.

2. Invest in future advanced missile defense technologies like directed

energy or space-based missile defense that could defend against more

numerous missile threats.

Invest in new track-and-intercept capabilities. The advent of

hypersonic missiles and increased numbers of cruise missile arsenals by

threat actors poses new challenges to our missile defense capabilities.

1. Invest in cruise missile defense of the homeland.

2. Accelerate the program to deploy space-based sensors that can detect

and track missiles ﬂying on nonballistic trajectories.

3. Accelerate the Glide Phase Interceptor, which is intended to counter

hypersonic weapons.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The mission of the Department of Defense is to provide the military forces needed to deter

war and ensure our nation’s security. This chapter provides a blueprint to ensure that the Department can meet our

national security needs. Its preparation was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in the 2025 Presidential

Transition Project. All contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume, but Sergio de la Pena and

Chuck DeVore deserve special mention. The author alone assumes responsibility for the content of this chapter, and

no views expressed herein should be attributed to any other individual.

— 128 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

 U.S. Constitution, Preamble, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/preamble/ (accessed

February 16, 2023).

 U.S. Constitution, Article I, § 8, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-1/ (accessed

February 16, 2023).

 U.S. Constitution, Article II, § 2, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-2/ (accessed

February 16, 2023).

 Established pursuant to S. 1605, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022, Public Law No. 117-81,

117th Congress, December 27, 2021, Division A, Title X, § 1004, https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ81/

PLAW-117publ81.pdf (accessed February 16, 2023).

 H.R. 3684, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Public Law No. 117-58, 117th Congress, November 15, 2021,

Division G, Title IX, §§ 70901–70953, https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ58/PLAW-117publ58.pdf

(accessed February 16, 2023).

 S. 2943, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, Public Law 114-328, 114th Congress, December

23, 2016, Division A, Title IX, § 901, https://www.congress.gov/114/statute/STATUTE-130/STATUTE-130-Pg2000.

pdf (accessed February 16, 2023).

 H.R. 3622, Goldwater–Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, Public Law No. 99-433,

99th Congress, October 1, 1986, https://www.congress.gov/99/statute/STATUTE-100/STATUTE-100-Pg992.pdf

(accessed February 16, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Historical Sales Book, Fiscal Years

1950–2021, p. 7, https://www.dsca.mil/sites/default/ﬁles/dsca_historical_sales_book_FY21.pdf (accessed

February 15, 2023).

 Paul K. Kerr, “Arms Sales: Congressional Review Process,” Congressional Research Service Report for Members

and Committees of Congress No. RL31675, updated June 10, 2022, p. 1, https://sgp.fas.org/crs/weapons/

RL31675.pdf (accessed February 15, 2023).

 Keith Webster, “How to Reform America’s Military Sales Process,” The Hill Congress Blog, October 6, 2022,

https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/3675933-how-to-reform-americas-military-sales-process/

(accessed February 15, 2023).

 See Thomas W. Spoehr, “The Administration and Congress Must Act Now to Counter the Worsening Military

Recruiting Crisis, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No. 5283, July 28, 2022, https://www.heritage.org/sites/

default/ﬁles/2022-07/IB5283.pdf.

 Ibid.

 Ronald Reagan Institute, “Reagan National Defense Survey,” conducted November 2021, p. 4, https://www.

reaganfoundation.org/media/358085/rndf_survey_booklet.pdf (accessed February 16, 2023).

 See Paul J. Larkin, “Protecting the Nation by Employing Military Spouses,” Heritage Foundation Commentary,

June 6, 2019, https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/commentary/protecting-the-nation-employing-

military-spouses.

 See Jude Schwalbach, “Military Families Deserve Flexible Education Options,” Heritage Foundation

Commentary, April 14, 2021, https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/military-families-deserve-

ﬂexible-education-options.

 See Chapter 7, “The Intelligence Community,” infra.

 The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA); the National Security Agency (NSA); the National Geospatial-

Intelligence Agency (NGA); the National Reconnaissance Oce (NRO); and the intelligence and

counterintelligence elements of the military services: U.S. Air Force Intelligence, U.S. Navy Intelligence, U.S.

Army Intelligence, and U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, which also receive guidance and oversight from the

Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (USDI).

 The Oce of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

 The Department of Energy’s Oce of Intelligence and Counterintelligence; the Department of Homeland

Security’s Oce of Intelligence and Analysis and the intelligence and counterintelligence elements of the

U.S. Coast Guard; the Department of Justice’s Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement

Administration’s Oce of National Security Intelligence; the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and

Research; and the Department of the Treasury’s Oce of Intelligence and Analysis.

— 129 —

Department of Defense

 Sta Study, IC21: Intelligence Community in the 21st Century, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,

U.S. House of Representatives, 104th Congress, 1996, p. 71, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA315088.pdf

(accessed February 15, 2023).

 Ronald O’Rourke, “Great Power Competition: Implications for Defense—Issues for Congress,” Congressional

Research Service Report for Members and Committees of Congress No. R43838, updated November 8, 2022,

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R43838/93 (accessed February 15, 2023).

 U.S. Government Accountability Oce, Defense Intelligence and Security: DOD Needs to Establish Oversight

Expectations and to Develop Tools That Enhance Accountability, GAO-21-295, May 2021, https://www.gao.gov/

assets/gao-21-295.pdf (accessed February 15, 2023).

 The U.S. military has a long history of providing support to civil authorities, particularly in response to

disasters but for other purposes as well. The Defense Department currently deﬁnes defense support of civil

authorities (DSCA) as “Support provided by U.S. Federal military forces, DoD civilians, DoD contract personnel,

DoD Component assets, and National Guard forces (when the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the

Governors of the aected States, elects and requests to use those forces in Title 32, U.S.C., status) in response

to requests for assistance from civil authorities for domestic emergencies, law enforcement support, and

other domestic activities, or from qualifying entities for special events. Also known as civil support.” U.S.

Department of Defense, Directive No. 3025.18, “Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA),” December 29,

2010, p. 16, https://www.dco.uscg.mil/Portals/9/CG-5R/nsarc/DoDD%203025.18%20Defense%20Support%20

of%20Civil%20Authorities.pdf (accessed February 15, 2023).

 U.S. Army, “Who We Are: The Army’s Vision and Strategy,” https://www.army.mil/about/ (accessed

February 17, 2023).

 “[T]he Army’s internal assessment must be balanced against its own statements that unit training is focused

on company-level operations [reﬂective of counterintelligence requirements] rather than battalion or brigade

operations [much less division or corps to meet large-scale ground combat operations against a peer

competitor such as Russia or China]. Consequently, how these ‘ready’ brigade combat teams would perform

in combat operations is an open question.” “Executive Summary” in 2023 Index of U.S. Military Strength,

ed. Dakota L. Wood (Washington: The Heritage Foundation, 2023), p. 16, http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.

com/2022/Military_Index/2023_IndexOfUSMilitaryStrength.pdf (accessed February 15, 2023).

 For background on the USN’s ﬂeet size, see Brent D. Sadler, “Rebuilding America’s Military: The United States

Navy,” Heritage Foundation Special Report No. 242, February 18, 2021, https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/

ﬁles/2021-02/SR242.pdf, and Ronald O’Rourke, “Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background

and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service Report for Members and Committees of Congress

No. RL32665, December 21, 2022, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL32665 (accessed

February 15, 2023).

 The Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) is the process by which the services

develop and the Joint Sta approves the requirements for major defense acquisitions. See Defense

Acquisition University, “Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDA),” https://www.dau.

edu/acquipedia/pages/articledetails.aspx#!371 (accessed February 15, 2023).

 The board would seek to balance a mix of active military and civilians with expertise in and responsibility

for major acquisitions and former military and civilians with experience in strategy and acquisitions. The

proposed composition would include the Vice Chief of Naval Operations as Chairman, with three-star level

membership from the Joint Sta, the Navy and Defense Acquisition Executives, and the Naval Sea Systems

Command. In addition, there would be four-star retired naval ocers/Navy civil servants as members, one

each named by the Chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, the Secretary of the

Navy, and the Secretary of Defense. Finally, there would be a member appointed by the Secretary of the Navy

who had previous senior experience in the defense industry.

 See James Mattis, Secretary of Defense, Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States

of America: Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge, U.S. Department of Defense, https://

dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf (accessed

February 17, 2023), and U.S. Department of Defense, 2022 National Defense Strategy of the United States of

America Including the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review and the 2022 Missile Defense Review, https://oldcc.gov/

resource/2022-national-defense-strategy (accessed February 17, 2023).

— 130 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 U.S. Air Force, “The Air Force We Need: 386 Operational Squadrons,” September 17, 2018, https://www.

af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1635070/the-air-force-we-need-386-operational-squadrons/ (accessed

February 17, 2023).

 General David H. Berger, Commandant of the Marine Corps, “Force Design 2030,” U.S. Department of the

Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, March 2020, https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Portals/142/Docs/CMC38%20Force%20

Design%202030%20Report%20Phase%20I%20and%20II.pdf?ver=2020-03-26-121328-460 (accessed

February 17, 2023).

 Department of the Navy, United States Marine Corps, “Force Design 2030,” March 2020, https://www.hqmc.

marines.mil/Portals/142/Docs/CMC38%20Force%20Design%202030%20Report%20Phase%20I%20and%20II.

pdf?ver=2020-03-26-121328-460 (accessed February 15, 2023).

 Philip Athey, “Here Are Some of the Ways the Marines Are Trying to Improve Retention,” Marine Corps Times,

November 15, 2021, https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2021/11/15/treat-people-

like-human-beings-here-are-some-of-the-ways-the-marines-are-trying-to-improve-retention/ (accessed

February 15, 2023).

 Megan Eckstein, “Marines, Navy Near Agreement on Light Amphibious Warship Features,” Defense News,

October 5, 2022, https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2022/10/05/marines-navy-near-agreement-on-light-

amphibious-warship-features/ (accessed February 16, 2023).

 Megan Eckstein, “Marines Explain Vision for Fewer Traditional Amphibious Warships,” Defense News, June

21, 2021, https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2021/06/21/marines-explain-vision-for-fewer-traditional-

amphibious-warships-supplemented-by-new-light-amphib/ (accessed February 16, 2023).

 See Sidney J. Freedberg Jr., “Trump Eases Cyber Ops, but Safeguards Remain: Joint Sta,” Breaking Defense,

September 17, 2018, https://breakingdefense.com/2018/09/trump-eases-cyber-ops-but-safeguards-remain-

joint-sta/ (accessed March 7, 2023); Dustin Volz, “White House Conﬁrms It Has Relaxed Rules on U.S. Use

of Cyberweapons,” The Wall Street Journal, September 20, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-

conﬁrms-it-has-relaxed-rules-on-u-s-use-of-cyber-weapons-1537476729 (accessed March 7, 2023); and

Federation of American Scientists, Intelligence Resource Program, “National Security Presidential Memoranda

[NSPMs]: Donald J. Trump Administration,” updated March 7, 2022, https://irp.fas.org/odocs/nspm/index.

html (accessed March 7, 2023).

 U.S. Government Accountability Oce, DOD Cybersecurity: Enhanced Attention Needed to Ensure Cyber

Incidents Are Appropriately Reported and Shared, GAO-23-105084, November 2022, p. 36, https://www.gao.

gov/assets/gao-23-105084.pdf (accessed February 17, 2023).

 See Paul Evancoe, “Special Operations and the Interagency Team,” U.S.Military.com, https://usmilitary.

com/special-operations-and-the-interagency-team/#:~:text=Seldom%20considered%20are%20those%20

other%20government%20agency%20%28OGA%29,response%20and%20consequence%20management%20

to%20name%20a%20few (accessed February 17, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review, February 2018, pp. 54–55, https://media.defense.

gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872886/-1/-1/1/2018-NUCLEAR-POSTURE-REVIEW-FINAL-REPORT.PDF (accessed

February 17, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Defense, 2022 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America Including the

2022 Nuclear Posture Review and the 2022 Missile Defense Review, pp. 3 and 20.

 Patty-Jane Geller, “Missile Defense,” in 2023 Index of U.S. Military Strength, ed. Dakota L. Wood (Washington:

The Heritage Foundation, 2023), pp. 507–508, http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2022/Military_

Index/2023_IndexOfUSMilitaryStrength.pdf.

 Matthew R. Costlow, “The Folly of Limiting U.S. Missile Defenses for Nuclear Arms Control,” National

Institute for Public Policy Information Series, Issue No. 505, October 18, 2021, https://nipp.org/wp-content/

uploads/2021/10/IS-505.pdf (accessed February 16, 2023).

 Forum for American Leadership, “Don’t Hand North Korea a Win in the Missile Defense Review,” January 4,

2022, https://forumforamericanleadership.org/dprk-missile-threat (accessed February 16, 2023).

 Patty-Jane Geller, “It’s Time to Get Homeland Missile Defense Right,” Defense News, January 4, 2021, https://

www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2021/01/04/its-time-to-get-homeland-missile-defense-

right/#:~:text=Restoring%20our%20eroding%20edge%20when,advanced%20technology%20and%20

new%20capabilities.%E2%80%9D (accessed February 16, 2023).

— 131 —

Department of Defense

 Forum for American Leadership, “How Biden's Missile Defense Review Can Succeed,” October 21, 2021, https://

forumforamericanleadership.org/missile-defense-review (accessed February 16, 2023).

 Tom Karako, Matt Strohmeyer, Ian Williams, Wes Rumbaugh, and Ken Harmon, North America Is a Region,

Too: An Integrated, Phased, and Aordable Approach to Air and Missile Defense for the Homeland, Center

for Strategic and International Studies, Missile Defense Project, July 2022, https://csis-website-prod.

s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/220714_Karako_North_America.pdf?VersionId=BhIKa8jHHF_

kV94NXRMx6D4m2o6LQqUf (accessed February 16, 2023).

 Rebeccah Heinrichs, “Why America Needs the Ability to Track Enemy Missiles from Space,” The Hill, April 16,

2019, https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/438939-why-america-needs-the-ability-to-track-enemy-

missiles-from-space/ (accessed February 16, 2023).

— 133 —

DEPARTMENT OF

HOMELAND SECURITY

Ken Cuccinelli

PRIMARY RECOMMENDATION

Our primary recommendation is that the President pursue legislation to dis-

mantle the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). After 20 years, it has not

gelled into “One DHS.” Instead, its various components’ dierent missions have

outweighed its decades-long attempt to function as one department, rendering

the whole disjointed rather than cohesive. Breaking up the department along its

mission lines would facilitate mission focus and provide opportunities to reduce

overhead and achieve more limited government. In lieu of a status quo DHS, we

recommend that:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) be combined with

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); U.S. Citizenship

and Immigration Services (USCIS); the Department of Health and

Human Services (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR); and

the Department of Justice (DOJ) Executive Office for Immigration

Review (EOIR) and Office of Immigration Litigation (OIL) into a stand-

alone border and immigration agency at the Cabinet level (more than

100,000 employees, making it the third largest department measured

by manpower).

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) be moved to

the Department of Transportation.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) be moved to the

Department of the Interior or, if combined with CISA, to the Department of

Transportation.

The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) be moved to DOJ and, in time of full-scale

war (i.e., threatening the homeland), to the Department of Defense (DOD).

Alternatively, USCG should be moved to DOD for all purposes.

The U.S. Secret Service (USSS) be divided in two, with the protective

element moved to DOJ and the ﬁnancial enforcement element moved to the

Department of the Treasury.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) be privatized.

The Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) be moved to DOD and the

Oce of Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction be moved to the FBI.

All of the remaining supporting components could be dismantled because

their functions already exist in the moving components as well as the receiv-

ing departments. Cutting these costs would save the American taxpayers

significant sums.

Unless and until this dismantling recommendation is pursued and achieved,

however, DHS will statutorily continue to exist, and it needs many reforms. Accord-

ingly, we now turn to recommended changes in DHS as it exists now.

MISSION STATEMENT

The Department of Homeland Security protects the American homeland from

and prepares for terrorism and other hazards in both the physical and cyber realms,

provides for secure and free movement of trade and travel, and enforces U.S. immi-

gration laws impartially.

OVERVIEW

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created in the aftermath of

the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and subsequent mailings of anthrax

spores. The Homeland Security Act of 2002,

which created the department, states

that DHS’s primary mission is to prevent terrorist attacks within the U.S.; reduce

the nation’s vulnerability to terrorism; minimize the damage from and assist in the

recovery from any terrorist attacks; prepare and respond to natural and manmade

crises and emergencies; and monitor connections between illegal drug tracking

and terrorism, coordinate eorts to sever such connections, and interdict illegal

drug tracking.

— 135 —

Department of Homeland Security

Unfortunately for our nation, the federal government’s newest department

became like every other federal agency: bloated, bureaucratic, and expensive. It also

lost sight of its mission priorities. DHS has also suered from the Left’s wokeness and

weaponization against Americans whom the Left perceives as its political opponents.

To truly secure the homeland, a conservative Administration needs to return

the department to the right mission, the right size, and the right budget. This would

include reorganizing the department and shifting signiﬁcant resources away from

several supporting components to the essential operational components. Prior-

itizing border security and immigration enforcement, including detention and

deportation, is critical if we are to regain control of the border, repair the historic

damage done by the Biden Administration, return to a lawful and orderly immi-

gration system, and protect the homeland from terrorism and public safety threats.

This also includes consolidating the pieces of the fragmented immigration system

into one agency to fulﬁll the mission more eciently.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is a DHS com-

ponent that the Left has weaponized to censor speech and aect elections at the

expense of securing the cyber domain and critical infrastructure, which are threat-

ened daily.

A conservative Administration should return CISA to its statutory and

important but narrow mission.

The bloated DHS bureaucracy and budget, along with the wrong priorities,

provide real opportunities for a conservative Administration to cut billions in

spending and limit government’s role in Americans’ lives. These opportunities

include privatizing TSA screening and the Federal Emergency Management

Agency (FEMA) National Flood Insurance Program, reforming FEMA emergency

spending to shift the majority of preparedness and response costs to states and

localities instead of the federal government, eliminating most of DHS’s grant pro-

grams, and removing all unions in the department for national security purposes.

A successful DHS would:

Secure and control the border;

Thoroughly enforce immigration laws;

Correctly and eciently adjudicate immigration beneﬁt applications while

rejecting fraudulent claims;

Secure the cyber domain and collaborate with critical infrastructure sectors

to maintain their security;

Provide states and localities with a limited federal emergency response and

preparedness;

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Secure our coasts and economic zones;

Protect political leaders, their families, and visiting heads of state or

government; and

Oversee transportation security.

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY (SEC)

In the next Administration, the Oce of the Secretary should take on the fol-

lowing key issues and challenges to ensure the eective operation of DHS.

Expansion of Dedicated Political Personnel. The Secretary of Homeland

Security is a presidentially appointed and Senate-conﬁrmed political appointee,

but for budgetary reasons, he or she has historically been unable to fund a dedi-

cated team of political appointees. A key ﬁrst step for the Secretary to improve

front-oce functions is to have his or her own dedicated team of political appoin-

tees selected and vetted by the Oce of Presidential Personnel, which is not reliant

on detailees from other parts of the department, to help ensure the completion of

the next President’s agenda.

An Aggressive Approach to Senate-Conﬁrmed Leadership Positions.

While Senate confirmation is a constitutionally necessary requirement for

appointing agency leadership, the next Administration may need to take a novel

approach to the conﬁrmations process to ensure an adequate and rapid transition.

For example, the next Administration arguably should place its nominees for key

positions into similar positions as “actings” (for example, putting in a person to

serve as the Senior Ocial Performing the Duties of the Commissioner of CBP

while that person is going through the conﬁrmation process to direct ICE or

become the Secretary). This approach would both guarantee implementation of

the Day One agenda and equip the department for potential emergency situations

while still honoring the conﬁrmation requirement. The department should also

look to remove lower-level but nevertheless important positions that currently

require Senate conﬁrmation from the conﬁrmation requirement, although this

eort would require legislation (and might also be mooted in the event of legisla-

tion that closes portions of the department that currently have Senate-conﬁrmed

leadership).

Clearer, More Durable, and Political-Only Line of Succession. Based on

previous experience, the department needs legislation to establish a more durable

but politically oriented line of succession for agency decision-making purposes.

The ideal sequence for line of succession is certainly debatable, except that in cir-

cumstances where a career employee holds a leadership position in the department,

that position should be deemed vacant for line-of-succession purposes and the next

eligible political appointee in the sequence should assume acting authority. Further,

— 137 —

Department of Homeland Security

individuals wielding acting Secretary authority should have explicit authority to

ﬁnalize agency actions, including regulations, to ensure that the department’s

homeland security mission is fulﬁlled.

Soft Closure of Unnecessary Oces. Pending a possible presidential deci-

sion to shrink or eliminate DHS itself, the next Administration will still have the

obligation to protect the homeland as required by law. The Secretary therefore

can and should use his or her inherent, discretionary leadership authority to “soft

close” ineective and problematic corners of the department. While those corners

are to be determined, the Secretary could shift personnel, funding, and opera-

tional responsibility to mission-essential components of the department, including

the Oce of the Secretary itself. This eort not only would make the department

more ecient, but also would support a legislative move to shrink or dismantle

the department by showing that the agency can fulﬁll national security–critical

functions without its current bloated bureaucracy.

Restructuring and Redistribution of Career Personnel. To strengthen

political decision-making and ensure that taxpayer dollars are being used legally

and eciently, the Secretary should make major changes in the distribution of

career personnel throughout the department. For example, personnel from parts

of the department undergoing soft closure could be redistributed to what will be

workload-intensive corners of the department, including national security–critical

and transparency functions. All personnel with law enforcement capacity should

be removed immediately from oce billets and deployed to ﬁeld billets to maxi-

mize law enforcement capacity.

Compliance for Grants and Other Federal Funding. The next Adminis-

tration should take steps to restore lawfulness and integrity to the department’s

massive regimen of federal grant programs, most of which are managed and dis-

tributed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Secretary should

direct FEMA to ensure that all FEMA-issued grant funding for states, localities,

and private organizations is going to recipients who are lawful actors, can demon-

strate that they are in compliance with federal law, and can show that their mission

and actions support the broader homeland security mission. All applicants and

potential recipients of such grant funding should be required to meet certain pre-

conditions for eligibility (except for receipt of post-disaster or nonhumanitarian

funding) or should simply be considered ineligible for funding. Such preconditions

should include at least the following:

Certiﬁcation by applicants that they comply with all aspects of federal

immigration laws, including the honoring of all immigration detainers.

Certiﬁcation by applicants that they are both registered with E-Verify

and using E-Verify in a transparent and nonevasive manner. For states

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

and localities, that would include certiﬁcation that all components of that

government, and not just the applicant agency, are registered with and

use E-Verify.

If the applicant is a state or locality, commitment by that state or locality to

total information-sharing in the context of both federal law enforcement

and immigration enforcement. This would include access to department of

motor vehicles and voter registration databases.

Non-Use of Discretionary Guest Worker Visa Authorities. To stop facili-

tating the availability of cheap foreign labor in order to support American workers

(particularly poor and middle-class American workers) and follow congressional

intent, the Secretary should explicitly cease using at least two discretionary author-

ities as part of his or her broader eort to support American workers.

The Secretary should make it clear that he or she will not use the Secretary’s

existing discretionary authority to increase the number of H-2B (seasonal

non-agricultural) visas above the statutorily set cap.

The Secretary should not issue any regulations in support of the “H-2

eligible” country list, the eect of which would prevent favoring certain

foreign nationals seeking an H-2 guest worker visa based simply on their

nationality.

Restoration of Honesty and Transparency. The Secretary should use his or

her inherent authority as leader of the department to follow up with congressional

and other partners to disclose information and provide the transparency that has

been obstructed during the Biden Administration. The Secretary should proceed

from the assumption that congressional inquiries and public information requests

were unfulﬁlled and then seek to fulﬁll them.

Replacement of the Entire Homeland Security Advisory Committee. The

Secretary should plan to quickly remove all current members of the Homeland

Security Advisory Committee and replace them as quickly as is feasible.

U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION (CBP)

If all immigration agencies are not merged, including USCIS and ORR, then

an appropriate third alternative would be to consolidate ICE and CBP to form

a combined Border Security and Immigration Agency (BSIA). This would inte-

grate critical interdiction, enforcement, and investigative resources, enhancing

coordination and refocusing collective eorts on the vast and complex cross-bor-

der threats impacting our nation’s health, safety, and national security. It would

— 139 —

Department of Homeland Security

also simultaneously add eciencies to our nation’s capacity to facilitate lawful

trade and travel.

The BSIA should establish clear mission requirements, responsibilities, and

mandates under existing law regarding the persistent need for and utilization of

U.S. military personnel and resources to assist BSIA with increasing whole-of-gov-

ernment eorts and long-term strategy to secure our nation’s borders eectively.

In addition, appropriate elements within the newly created BSIA should be desig-

nated as part of the U.S. National Security and Intelligence Community.

A conservative Administration should eliminate any prohibitive guidance,

direction, or mandate from DHS or the Administration that curtails or limits CBP

from publishing detailed border security and enforcement data not impacting

intelligence, interdiction, and investigative operations, methods, or sources. DHS

should issue a regulation mandating that CBP publish accurate and timely border

security data, readily available to the public, on a regular basis that avoid White

House and DHS leadership review and approval.

The White House should grant the authority for CBP and DHS executives to

utilize component aviation assets under the Oce of Air and Marine (OAM). CBP

and DHS have worldwide missions with personnel and facilities that are deployed

across the globe and in every state in the U.S. With a CBP workforce alone of more

than 60,000 people (240,000-plus for DHS) encompassing more than a thousand

sea, land, and airports, it is essential that the Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner,

Secretary, and Deputy Secretary can travel eciently to facilities to maintain

appropriate situational awareness across the department’s vast mission set and

interact with the expansive workforce. Although CBP operates one of the largest

aviation components of any domestic U.S. law enforcement agency, executives are

prohibited from utilizing the agency’s aviation assets to facilitate ocial travel.

Executives are required to ﬂy on commercial airlines, and this requirement sig-

niﬁcantly limits their ability to have classiﬁed communications and takes them

oine for extended periods of time.

Border Patrol (BP) and OAM should be combined within CBP. BP has more than

20,000 personnel, and OAM has approximately 1,800. OAM’s assets are dedicated

in support of BP operations the vast majority of the time, yet redundant approv-

als, strategies, and independent hierarchal commands serve as impediments to

ecient and practical resource deployments.

CBP should restart and expand use of the horseback-mounted Border Patrol. As

part of this announcement, the Secretary should clear the records and personnel

ﬁles of those who were falsely accused by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of whip-

ping migrants and issue a formal apology on behalf of DHS and CBP.

The Secretary should combine the Oce of Trade (OT) and Trade Relations

with the Oce of Field Operations (OFO). The OT is the smallest of CBP’s compo-

nents, and its operational counterpart, OFO, has a workforce of more than 30,000.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

OT’s function is interwoven with that of its OFO operational counterpart. Combin-

ing OT with OFO would achieve streamlined operations and increase OT’s capacity

and capability by leveraging OFO’s expansive resources.

CBP, ICE, and USCIS all have authority to issue Notices to Appear (NTA) to

removable aliens in their presence, which begins removal proceedings. In most

instances, CBP should turn illegal aliens over to ICE for detention, and ICE can

then issue any needed NTA. CBP should issue NTAs only in limited situations

for humanitarian reasons, such as medical emergencies. In addition, CBP should

eliminate use of Notices to Report (NTR) altogether.

CBP’s established national standards of Transport, Escort, Detention, and

Search (TEDS) have been widely interpreted and expanded by lower courts. This

has resulted in unrealistic and diering detention standards for CBP facilities based

on the jurisdiction within which they fall, negatively impacting operations. ICE has

suered similarly. A single nationwide detention standard should be codiﬁed that

prevents individual states from mandating that federal government agencies adhere

to widely expansive and ever-changing sets of standards. Such standards should allow

the ﬂexibility to use large numbers of temporary facilities such as tents.

The annual costs associated with establishing and maintaining temporary facil-

ities to address the ﬂow of illegal migration and associated care, transportation,

and processing are prohibitive, and CBP’s budget is inadequate. CBP is forced to

forgo critical mission-essential endeavors to fund the additional associated costs.

Often, this requires the reprogramming of funding at the DHS level, which has a

negative impact on other DHS components’ operations. This predictable cost that

has to be paid from existing CBP and DHS funding levels reduces CBP’s operational

readiness and ability to accomplish its diverse and critical missions to protect the

American people. The next President should request a realistic budget that fully

pays for these costs.

Increased funding is needed for BP to hire additional support personnel, which

would relieve uniformed BP agents from administrative duties associated with

processing aliens and allow them to return to their national security mission.

Congress should increase funding for facility upgrades at strategic land Ports of

Entry (POEs), including expanding state-of-the-art technology such as Non-Intru-

sive Inspection equipment. Today, the cartels exploit the aging facilities and lack

of adequate technology to smuggle illicit drugs, contraband, and more successfully

through our nation’s POEs.

U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE)

Needed Reforms

Since the formation of DHS, ICE has increasingly been tasked with auxiliary

missions that have little or nothing to do with either immigration or customs

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Department of Homeland Security

enforcement. To return ICE to its primary mission, any new Administration that

wishes to restore the rule of law to our immigration enforcement eorts should:

Order ICE to stop closing out pending immigration cases and apply

the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) as written by Congress.

The Biden Administration closed out tens of thousands of immigration

cases that had already been prepared and were slated for expedited removal

processing or hearings before the U.S. Immigration Court. This misguided

action constituted an egregious example of lawlessness that allowed

thousands of illegal aliens and other immigration violators to go free in the

United States.

Direct ICE to stop ignoring criminal aliens identiﬁed through the

287(g) program.

Ultimately, Congress should prevent ICE from ignoring

criminal aliens identiﬁed by local law enforcement agencies that are partners

in the 287(g) program. However, before congressional action, ICE should

be directed to take custody of all aliens with records for felonies, crimes of

violence, DUIs, previous removals, and any other crime that is considered a

national security or public safety threat as deﬁned under current laws.

Eliminate T and U visas. Victimization should not be a basis for an

immigration beneﬁt. If an alien who was a tracking or crime victim is

actively and signiﬁcantly cooperating with law enforcement as a witness,

the S visa is already available and should be used. Pending elimination of the

T and U visas, the Secretary should signiﬁcantly restrict eligibility for each

visa to prevent fraud.

Issue clear guidance regarding detention and bond for aliens.

Thousands of illegal aliens are allowed to bond out of immigration detention

only to disappear into the interior of the United States where many commit

crimes and many others disappear, never to be heard from again. This

occurs primarily because of poorly worded bond regulations, contradictory

bond policy memoranda, and poor practices for managing released

aliens and the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) Program, which requires

signiﬁcant reform.

Prioritize national security in the Student and Exchange Visitor

Program (SEVP). ICE should end its current cozy deference to educational

institutions and remove security risks from the program. This requires

working with the Department of State to eliminate or signiﬁcantly reduce

the number of visas issued to foreign students from enemy nations.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Most of the foregoing can be accomplished rapidly and eectively through exec-

utive action that is both lawful and appropriate. Additionally, ICE should clarify

who is responsible for enforcing its criminal and civil authorities. It should also

remove self-imposed limitations on its nationwide jurisdiction.

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agents in the 1811

series should enforce Title 8 and 18 crimes as the biggest part of their

portfolio. Alien smuggling, tracking, and cross-border crime as deﬁned

under Title 8

and Title 18

should be the focus of ICE operations.

The role of ICE Deportation Ocers should be clariﬁed. ICE

Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) should be identiﬁed as being

primarily responsible for enforcing civil immigration regulations, including

the civil arrest, detention, and removal of immigration violators anywhere

in the United States, without warrant where appropriate, subject only to the

civil warrant requirements of the INA where appropriate.

All ICE memoranda identifying “sensitive zones” where

ICE personnel are prohibited from operating should be

rescinded. Rely on the good judgment of ocers in the ﬁeld to avoid

inappropriate situations.

To maximize the ecient use of its resources, ICE should make full

use of existing Expedited Removal (ER) authorities. The agency has

limited the use of ER to eligible aliens apprehended within 100 miles of the

border. This is not a statutory requirement.

New Policies

U.S. national security and public safety interests would be well-served if ICE

were to be combined with CBP and USCIS, as mentioned above. Additionally, ICE/

HSI, along with CBP, should be full participants in the Intelligence Community.

The use of Blackies Warrants should be operationalized within ICE. These civil

search warrants are commonly used for worksite enforcement when agents have

probable cause that illegal aliens are employed at a business. This would stream-

line investigations.

Safeguarding Americans will require not just securing the border, but con-

tinuous vetting and investigations of many aliens who exploited President

Biden’s open border for potentially nefarious purposes, including some Afghan

evacuees sent directly to the U.S. during America’s disastrous withdrawal from

Afghanistan.

— 143 —

Department of Homeland Security

Budget

Congress should mandate and fund additional bed space for alien

detainees. ICE should be funded for a signiﬁcant increase in detention

space, raising the daily available number of beds to 100,000.

Congress should fund ICE for at least 20,000 ERO ocers and 5,000

Oce of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA) attorneys.

U.S. CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES (USCIS)

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is the agency tasked with

administering the legal immigration and certain temporary visa programs.

Needed Reforms

Since January 2021, USCIS’s priorities have been misaligned, and this has trans-

formed it into an open-borders agency, ignoring the critical role that it plays in

national security, public safety, and safeguarding the integrity of our immigration

system. USCIS should be returned to operating as a screening and vetting agency.

Regulatory eorts have focused on easing asylum eligibility in a manner that is

guaranteed to exacerbate asylum fraud as people surge at the border. Emphasis

also has been placed on removing legal barriers to immigration, such as the use

of public beneﬁts. These actions violate statutes, erode congressional intent, and

provide a signiﬁcant magnet for continued illegal immigration.

Additionally, USCIS resources have been misappropriated to focus more on

creating and expanding large-scale parole and temporary status programs that

violate the law and are otherwise contrary to congressional intent instead of focus-

ing on a more secure and ecient process for those who are seeking beneﬁts. The

ever-increasing number of applications ﬁled has made it dicult to vet applica-

tions adequately for eligibility, fraud, and speciﬁc national security and public

safety problems.

The Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS) is currently a

small directorate with assigned ocers reporting through the chain of command in

the ﬁeld, and this has led to stovepiping, lack of coordination in national policy, and

inconsistencies throughout the agency. To prioritize vetting and fraud detection,

FDNS should undergo a structural shift focused on direct reporting from the ﬁeld

to headquarters, reclassiﬁcation of leadership, and FDNS directives taking prece-

dence over those of other component entities. Correcting the current misalignment

of agency priorities and resources should begin with this primary shift in focus to

vetting and fraud detection. These actions would reform the agency, returning it

to its screening and vetting mission in protecting the homeland.

Other structural changes should include reimplementation of the USCIS denat-

uralization unit—an eort to maintain integrity in the system by identifying and

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

prosecuting criminal and civil denaturalization cases, in combination with the

Department of Justice, for aliens who obtained citizenship through fraud or other

illicit means. Additionally, USCIS should create a criminal enforcement compo-

nent within the agency to investigate immigration beneﬁts fraud under Title 8

(perhaps requiring additional legislative and regulatory authorities for the o-

cers themselves) and to prosecute cases through Special Assistant U.S. Attorneys

(SAUSAs) with substantive knowledge in the ﬁeld. Particular attention should be

given to addressing increasing incidents of forced labor tracking in temporary

work visa programs.

While the Biden regulatory agenda has focused on at least two major rules—the

credible fear rule and the public charge rule—USCIS has utilized other policy and

internal procedural mechanisms to extend employment authorization to large

groups of people who are in the country without legal status. The agency has

taken quiet steps to cut corners and lessen adjudicatory standards. During a tran-

sition period, a complete audit of agency policies, memoranda, and management

directives issued during the Biden Administration should be completed, and rescis-

sion documents should be prepared for issuance within the ﬁrst few days of the

incoming Administration. Additionally, regulatory documents should be drafted

to review or reverse all regulations promulgated during the Biden Administration.

New Policies

To advance the national interest, the three core immigration agencies—USCIS,

ICE, and CBP—should remerge and have immigration elements outside of DHS

(such as ORR of HHS) included. The fragmented immigration enforcement frame-

work that developed in the wake of the Homeland Security Act has weakened

each agency and should be remediated. Combining these critical agencies would

strengthen their capabilities, ensure cooperation, and promote information-shar-

ing. Agency responsibilities and the delineation of authorities, such as inconsistent

use of deferred action and issuance of NTAs by each agency, have long been a point

of contention that would be addressed much more easily if they were recombined

into a single entity.

Alternatively, new policies for USCIS as it currently exists should focus on mat-

ters that can be addressed through administrative action.

The workforce should be realigned and, as necessary, retrained on base

eligibility and fraud detection rather than speed in processing.

Training should be returned to Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers

(FLETC), which would underscore the enforcement role of USCIS as a

vetting agency, and be rebranded accordingly.

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Department of Homeland Security

Management Directives and policies should realign to ensure that the

workforce, while adaptable and able to handle the bulk of the USCIS mission,

is not allowed to be pulled o mission work to focus on unlawful programs

(DACA, mass parole for Afghans, Ukrainians, Venezuelans, etc.), which

divert resources away from nuclear family and employment programs.

The regulatory agenda should include the immediate submission of notices of

proposed rulemaking for the Trump Administration’s public charge rule (includ-

ing aspects from its original notice of proposed rulemaking), temporary work

visa reform, employment authorization reform rules, asylum bars rule, and a

third-country transit rule. At a minimum, an enhanced regulatory agenda should

include rules strengthening the integrity of the asylum system, parole reform, and

U visa reform that prioritizes relief for victims of heinous crimes and ensures that

we protect the truest and most deserving victims of crime.

Not all policy changes require formal rulemaking, however, as internal guidance

documents are generally exempt under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

In this subregulatory space, USCIS policy memos and operational guidance should

reduce the validity of employment authorization documents and end the COVID

ﬂexibilities, including the reliance on biometrics reuse. USCIS should also enforce

existing regulations by rejecting incomplete applications and petitions, ensuring

both that they are completed before accepted for ﬁling and that FDNS signs o on

all approved applications and petitions before approval notices are sent to the alien

or petitioner. Other eorts should be focused on adjudication standards returning

to nearly 100 percent interview requirements for all appropriate cases.

The incoming Administration should spearhead an immigration legislative

agenda focused on creating a merit-based immigration system that rewards high-

skilled aliens instead of the current system that favors extended family–based and

luck-of-the-draw immigration. To that end, the diversity visa lottery should be

repealed, chain migration should be ended while focusing on the nuclear family,

and the existing employment visa program should be replaced with a system to

award visas only to the “best and brightest.”

Internal eorts to limit employment authorization should be matched by con-

gressional action to narrow statutory eligibility to work in the United States and

mitigate unfair employment competition for U.S. citizens. The oft-abused H-1B

program should be transformed into an elite program through which employers

are vying to bring in only the top foreign workers at the highest wages so as not to

depress American opportunities. Additionally, Congress should:

Improve the integrity of the temporary work visa programs;

Repeal Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations;

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Permanently authorize and make mandatory E-Verify; and

End parole abuse by legislating speciﬁc parole standards.

USCIS should make it clear that where no court jurisdiction exists, it will not

honor court decisions that seek to undermine regulatory and subregulatory eorts.

Finally, USCIS still requires access to all relevant national security and law enforce-

ment databases in the same vein as any other agency in the intelligence space. This

is a key concept that should be addressed as USCIS is returned to functioning

primarily as a vetting agency.

Budget

USCIS is primarily fee-funded, operating on revenue derived by those who are

seeking immigration beneﬁts, work permits, and naturalization. The total agency

budget requested for ﬁscal year (FY) 2023, including both fees and a small appropri-

ation, is slightly less than $6 billion.

The bulk of funds are derived from application

fees through the Immigrant Examinations Fee Account. As a general principle, adju-

dication of applications and petitions should be paid by applicants, not American

taxpayers. It is critical that any changes in the budget, even in the wake of a realigned

agency combined with ICE and CBP, should retain a fee-funded model.

Given the Obama and Biden Administrations’ lack of will, fees should be

increased agencywide to keep in step with inﬂation and the true cost of the adju-

dications. The incoming Administration should immediately submit a fee rule

that reﬂects such an increase. Aside from an increase in all fees, the rule should

drastically limit the availability for fee waivers and should implement a fee for

asylum applications. Additionally, Congress should allow for a 10 percent across-

the-board increase in all fees for all fee rules to account for the fact that new fee

rules always lag behind budget requirements.

USCIS should strive to increase opportunities for premium processing, a ben-

eﬁt by which applicants can expedite their processing times. While this places

time burdens on adjudicators, it provides an opportunity for a signiﬁcant inﬂux

of money into the agency, which is not currently available. While simply raising

fees to the necessary levels to make the agency run eciently would be prefera-

ble, without the need for expanded premium processing, this short-term measure

should be utilized, particularly if longer-term fee rules are unsuccessful.

At least until USCIS is caught up on all case backlogs, all applicants rejected for

any beneﬁt or status adjudication should be required to leave the U.S. immediately.

Ordinary process can resume once all case backlogs have been adjudicated.

Finally, USCIS should pause the intake of applications in a beneﬁt category

when backlogs in that category become excessive. Once USCIS adjudicators can

decrease that caseload to a manageable number, application intake should resume.

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Department of Homeland Security

Personnel

USCIS should be classiﬁed as a national security–sensitive agency, and all of

its employees should be classiﬁed as holding national security–sensitive posi-

tions. Leaks must be investigated and punished as they would be in a national

security agency, and the union should be decertiﬁed. Any employees who cannot

accept that change and cannot conform their behavior to the standards required

by such an agency should be separated. USCIS’s D.C. personnel presence should

be skeletal, and agency employees with operational or security roles should be

rotated out to oces throughout the United States. These USCIS employees

should live and work in the communities that are most aected by their daily

duties and decisions.

NECESSARY BORDER AND IMMIGRATION STATUTORY,

REGULATORY, AND ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES

The current border security crisis was made possible by glaring loopholes

in our immigration system. The result was a preventable and predictable his-

toric increase in illegal and inadmissible encounters along our southern border.

This pulled limited resources from the front lines of our nation’s borders and

away from their national security mission, releasing a vast and complex set

of threats into our country. To regain our sovereignty, integrity, and security,

Congress must pass meaningful legislation to close the current loopholes and

prevent future Administrations from exploiting them for political gain or per-

sonal ideology.

Legislative Proposals

Title 42 authority in Title 8. Create an authority akin to the Title 42

Public Health authority that has been used during the COVID-19 pandemic

to expel illegal aliens across the border immediately when certain non-

health conditions are met, such as loss of operational control of the border.

Mandatory appropriation for border wall system infrastructure. The

monies appropriated would be used to fund the construction of additional

border wall systems, technology, and personnel in strategic locations in

accordance with the Border Security Improvement Plan (BSIP).

Appropriation for Port of Entry infrastructure. Border security is not

addressed solely by systems in between the ports of entry. POEs require

technology and physical upgrades as well as an inﬂux of personnel to meet

capacity demands and act as the literal gatekeepers for the country. This is

the ﬁrst line of defense against drug and human smuggling operations.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Unaccompanied minors

1. Congress should repeal Section 235 of the William Wilberforce

Tracking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA),

which provides numerous immigration beneﬁts to unaccompanied

alien children and only encourages more parents to send their children

across the border illegally and unaccompanied. These children too often

become tracking victims, which means that the TVPRA has failed.

2. If an alternative to repealing Section 235 of the TVPRA is necessary,

the section should be amended so that all unaccompanied children,

regardless of nationality, may be returned to their home countries in a

safe and ecient manner. Currently, the TVPRA allows only children

from contiguous countries (Canada and Mexico) to be returned while

every other unaccompanied minor must be placed into a lengthy

process that usually results in the minor’s landing in the custody of an

illegal alien family member.

3. Congress must end the Flores Settlement Agreement by explicitly

setting nationwide terms and standards for family and unaccompanied

detention and housing. Such standards should focus on meeting human

needs and should allow for large-scale use of temporary facilities (for

example, tents).

4. Congress should amend the Homeland Security Act and portions of

the TVPRA to move detention of alien children expressly from the

Department of Health and Human Services to DHS.

Asylum reform

1. The standard for a credible fear of persecution should be raised and

aligned to the standard for asylum. It should also account speciﬁcally for

credibility determinations that are a key element of the asylum claim.

2. Codify former asylum bars and third-country transit rules.

3. Congress should eliminate the particular social group protected ground

as vague and overbroad or, in the alternative, provide a clear deﬁnition

with parameters that at a minimum codify the holding in Matter of A-B-

that gang violence and domestic violence are not grounds for asylum.

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Department of Homeland Security

Parole reform. Congress should end the widespread abuse of parole in

contravention of statute and return it to its origins as an extraordinary

remedy for very limited purposes.

NGOs and processing. Congress should halt funds given to

nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to process and transport

illegal aliens into and throughout the United States. Such funds and

infrastructure, including the DHS joint processing centers, should be

redirected to secure the border, detain aliens, and provide space for

immigration court proceedings.

Other pathways for border crossers. While Congress should use its

oversight authority to ensure that Expedited Removal is used to the fullest

extent and followed to the letter of the law, other paths for border crossers

should be included in a legislative package.

1. Migrant protection protocols. Update the statutory language

providing the basis for the Remain in Mexico program as needed to

withstand judicial scrutiny and executive inaction.

2. Asylum Cooperative Agreements. While the agreements themselves

must be negotiated, Congress should mandate that the executive branch

work faithfully to negotiate and execute ACAs and set parameters

to ensure that an unwilling executive cannot renege on an existing

agreement or abandon the eort.

3. Other expedited pathways. Congress should explicitly permit

programs akin to the Prompt Asylum Claim Review (PACR) and

Humanitarian Asylum Review Process (HARP) programs.

Employment authorization

1. Congress should reassert control of employment authorization, which is

subject to rampant regulatory abuse, and limit it to certain categories of

legal immigrants and non-immigrants.

2. Congress should also permanently authorize E-Verify and make

it mandatory.

State and local law enforcement

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

1. Congress should unequivocally authorize state and local law

enforcement to participate in immigration and border security actions

in compliance with Arizona v. United States.

2. Congress should require compliance with immigration detainers to

the maximum extent consistent with the Tenth Amendment and set

ﬁnancial disincentives for jurisdictions that implement either ocial or

unocial sanctuary policies.

Prosecutorial discretion. Congress should restrict the authority for

prosecutorial discretion to eliminate it as a “catch-all” excuse for limiting

immigration enforcement.

Mandatory detention. Congress should eliminate ambiguous

discretionary language in Title 8 that aliens “may” be detained and clarify

that aliens “shall” be detained. This language, which contrasts with other

“shall detain” language in statute, creates unhelpful ambiguity and allows the

executive branch to ignore the will of Congress.

Regulations

Withdraw Biden Administration regulations and reissue new

regulations in the following areas:

1. Credible Fear/Asylum Jurisdiction for Border Crossers.

2. Public Charge.

T-Visa and U-Visa reform. Unless and until T and U visas are repealed,

each program needs to be reformed to ensure that only legitimate victims

of tracking and crimes who are actively providing signiﬁcant material

assistance to law enforcement are eligible for spots in the queue.

Repeal TPS designations.

H-1B reform. Transform the program into an elite mechanism

exclusively to bring in the “best and brightest” at the highest wages while

simultaneously ensuring that U.S. workers are not being disadvantaged by

the program. H-1B is a means only to supplement the U.S. economy and to

keep companies competitive, not to depress U.S. labor markets artiﬁcially in

certain industries.

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Department of Homeland Security

Employment authorization. Along with the legislative proposal, take

regulatory action to limit the classes of aliens eligible for work authorization.

Executive Orders

Pathways for border crossers

1. Direct the Department of State and the Department of Homeland

Security to reinstate Asylum Cooperative Agreements with Northern

Triangle Countries immediately.

2. Recommence negotiations with Mexico to fully implement the Remain

in Mexico Protocols.

3. Reinstate, to the extent possible, expedited pathways with full credible

fear/immigration court process (PACR and HARP).

4. Prohibit the use of Notices to Report, the use of any funds for travel

into the interior of the United States, and government ﬂights or

transportation for aliens.

5. Mandate that ICE use all detention space in full compliance with

Section 235 of the INA, issue weekly reports on detention capacity, and

provide authority for low-level temporary capacity (for example, tents)

once permanent space is full.

6. Eliminate the use of ATD for border crossers except in rare cases and

only with the explicit authority of the Secretary.

7. Prohibit the use of parole except in matters that are certiﬁed by the

Secretary of Homeland Security as requiring action for humanitarian or

signiﬁcant public beneﬁt reasons, and prohibit the use of parole in any

categorical circumstance.

Enforcement

1. Restrict prosecutorial discretion to eliminate it as a “catch-all” excuse

for limiting immigration enforcement.

2. Mandate the use of E-Verify for anyone doing business with

the government.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

3. Designate USCIS as Intelligence Community–adjacent, ensuring that it

has access to national security and law enforcement databases.

4. Rescind all memoranda limiting enforcement of immigration laws

including those identifying sensitive zones.

5. End ICE’s widespread use of termination and administrative closure of

cases in immigration court.

Averting or curtailing a mass migration event

1. Provide that whenever the Secretary of Homeland Security determines

that an actual or anticipated mass migration of aliens en route to or

arriving o the coast of the U.S. presents urgent circumstances requiring

an immediate federal response, the Secretary may make, subject to the

approval of the President, rules and regulations prohibiting in whole or

in part the introduction of persons from such countries or places as he

or she shall designate in order to avert or curtail such mass migration

and for such period of time as is deemed necessary, including through

the expulsion of such aliens. Such rule and regulation making shall not

be subject to the requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act.

2. Provide that notwithstanding any other provision of law, when the

Secretary makes such a determination and then promulgates, subject to

the approval of the President, such rules and regulations, the Secretary

shall have the authority to waive all legal requirements of Title 8 that

the Secretary, in his or her sole discretion, determines are necessary to

avert or curtail the mass migration.

Subregulatory Matters

USCIS priorities/structural changes

1. Ensure that focus is returned to vetting, base eligibility of applicants,

and fraud detection.

2. Realign the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS)

to ensure agencywide consistency on implementation of fraud detection

and vetting policies.

3. Review and repeal any internal agency memo that is inconsistent with

the priorities described in this chapter.

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Department of Homeland Security

287(g) program. Issue a memo prohibiting any jurisdiction that applies

from being denied access to the program unless good cause is shown.

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) priorities. Issue Department

Management Directive (and ICE companion Directive) to refocus HSI

on immigration oenses and criminal oenses typically associated with

immigration (for example, human tracking). All criminal investigative

work without a clear nexus to the border or otherwise to Title 8 should be

turned over to the appropriate federal agency.

Blackie’s Warrants. ICE OPLA, ERO, and HSI should issue a joint internal

memo on operationalizing Blackie’s Warrants for immediate use on

worksite enforcement and other appropriate investigations and operations.

FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY (FEMA)

Needed Reforms

FEMA is the lead federal agency in preparing for and responding to disasters,

but it is overtasked, overcompensates for the lack of state and local preparedness

and response, and is regularly in deep debt. After passage of the 1988 Staord Act,

the number of declared federal disasters rose dramatically as most disaster costs

were shifted from states and local governments to the federal government. In

addition, state-friendly FEMA regulations, such as a “per capita indicator,” failed

to maintain the pace of inﬂation and made it easy to meet disaster declaration

thresholds. This combination has left FEMA unprepared in both readiness and

funding for the truly catastrophic disasters in which its services are most needed.

Reform of FEMA requires a greater emphasis on federalism and state and local

preparedness, leaving FEMA to focus on large, widespread disasters.

Under the Staord Act, FEMA has the authority to adjust the per capita indi-

cator for damages, which creates a threshold under which states and localities are

not eligible for public assistance. FEMA should raise the threshold because the per

capita indicator has not kept pace with inﬂation, and this over time has eectively

lowered the threshold for public assistance and caused FEMA’s resources to be

stretched perilously thin. Alternatively, applying a deductible could accomplish

a similar outcome while also incentivizing states to take a more proactive role in

their own preparedness and response capabilities. In addition, Congress should

change the cost-share arrangement so that the federal government covers 25 per-

cent of the costs for small disasters with the cost share reaching a maximum of 75

percent for truly catastrophic disasters.

FEMA is also responsible for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP),

nearly all of which is issued by the federal government. Washington provides

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

insurance at prices lower than the actuarially fair rate, thereby subsidizing ﬂood

insurance. Then, when ﬂood costs exceed NFIP’s revenue, FEMA seeks taxpay-

er-funded bailouts. Current NFIP debt is $20.5 billion, and in 2017, Congress

canceled $16 billion in debt when FEMA reached its borrowing authority limit.

These subsidies and bailouts only encourage more development in ﬂood zones,

increasing the potential losses to both NFIP and the taxpayer. The NFIP should

be wound down and replaced with private insurance starting with the least risky

areas currently identiﬁed by the program.

Budget Issues

FEMA manages all grants for DHS, and these grants have become pork for states,

localities, and special-interest groups. Since 2002, DHS/FEMA have provided

more than $56 billion in preparedness grants for state, local, tribal, and territorial

governments. For FY 2023, President Biden requested more than $3.5 billion for

federal assistance grants.

Funds provided under these programs do not provide

measurable gains for preparedness or resiliency. Rather, more than any objective

needs, political interests appear to direct the ﬂow of nondisaster funds.

The principles of federalism should be upheld; these indicate that states better

understand their unique needs and should bear the costs of their particularized

programs. FEMA employees in Washington, D.C., should not determine how bil-

lions of federal tax dollars should be awarded to train local law enforcement ocers

in Texas, harden cybersecurity infrastructure in Utah, or supplement migrant

shelters in Arizona. DHS should not be in the business of handing out federal tax

dollars: These grants should be terminated. Accomplishing this, however, will

require action by Members of Congress who repeatedly vote to fund grants for

political reasons. The transition should focus on building resilience and return

on investment in line with real threats.

Personnel

FEMA currently has four Senate-conﬁrmed positions. Only the Administrator

should be conﬁrmed by the Senate; other political leadership need not be con-

ﬁrmed by the Senate. Additionally, FEMA’s “springing Cabinet position” should be

eliminated, as this creates signiﬁcant unnecessary challenges to the functioning of

the whole of DHS at points in time when coordinated responses are most needed.

CYBERSECURITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY (CISA)

Needed Reforms

CISA is supposed to have two key roles: (1) protection of the federal civilian

government networks (.gov) while coordinating the execution of national cyber

defense and sharing information with non-federal and private-sector partners

— 155 —

Department of Homeland Security

and (2) national coordination of critical infrastructure security and resilience. Yet

CISA has rapidly expanded its scope into lanes where it does not belong, the most

recent and most glaring example being censorship of so-called misinformation

and disinformation.

CISA’s funding and resources should align narrowly with the foregoing two

mission requirements. The component’s emergency communications and Chem-

ical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) roles should be moved to FEMA;

its school security functions should be transferred to state homeland security

oces; and CISA should refrain from duplicating cybersecurity functions done

elsewhere at the Department of Defense, FBI, National Security Agency, and U.S.

Secret Service.

Of the utmost urgency is immediately ending CISA’s counter-mis/disinforma-

tion eorts. The federal government cannot be the arbiter of truth. CISA began

this work because of alleged Russian misinformation in the 2016 election, which

in fact turned out to be a Clinton campaign “dirty trick.” The Intelligence Commu

nity, including the NSA or DOD, should counter foreign actors. At the time of this

writing, release of the Twitter Files has demonstrated that CISA has devolved into

an unconstitutional censoring and election engineering apparatus of the political

Left. In any event, the entirety of the CISA Cybersecurity Advisory Committee

should be dismissed on Day One.

For election security, CISA should help states and localities assess whether

they have good cyber hygiene in their hardware and software in preparation for

an election—but nothing more. This is of value to smaller localities, particularly by

ﬂagging who is attacking their websites. CISA should not be signiﬁcantly involved

closer to an election. Nor should it participate in messaging or propaganda.

U.S. COAST GUARD (USCG)

Needed Reforms

The U.S. Coast Guard ﬂeet should be sized to the needs of great-power compe-

tition, speciﬁcally focusing eorts and investment on protecting U.S. waters, all

while seeking to ﬁnd (where feasible) more economical ways to perform USCG

missions. The scope of the Coast Guard’s mission needs to be focused on protecting

U.S. resources and interests in its home waters, speciﬁcally its Exclusive Economic

Zone (200 miles from shore). USCG’s budget should address the growing demand

for it to address the increasing threat from the Chinese ﬁshing ﬂeet in home waters

as well as narcotics and migrant ﬂows in the Caribbean and Eastern Paciﬁc. Doing

this will require reversing years of shortfalls in shipbuilding, maintenance, and

upgrades of shore facilities as well as seeking more cost-eective ship and facility

designs. In wartime, the USCG supports the Navy, but it has limited capability and

capacity to support wartime missions outside home waters.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

New Policies

The Coast Guard’s mission set should be scaled down to match congressio-

nal budgeting in the long term, with any increased funding going to acquisitions

based on an updated Fleet Mix Analysis. The current shipbuilding plan is insuf-

ﬁcient based on USCG analysis, and the necessary numbers of planned Oshore

Patrol Cutters and National Security Cutters are not supported by congressional

budgets. The Coast Guard should be required to submit to Congress a long-range

shipbuilding plan modeled on the Navy’s 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan. Ideally this

should become part of the Navy plan in a new comprehensive naval long-range

shipbuilding plan to ensure better coherency in the services’ requirements.

Outside of home waters, and following the Caribbean and Eastern Paciﬁc, the

Coast Guard should prioritize limited resources to the nation’s expansive Paciﬁc

waters to counter growing Chinese inﬂuence and encroachment. Expansion of

facilities in American Samoa and basing of cutters there is one clear step in this

direction and should be accelerated; looking to free association states (Palau, the

Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands) for

enhanced and persistent presence, assuming adequate congressional funding, is

another such step.

The Secretary of the Navy should convene a naval board to review and reset

requirements for Coast Guard wartime mission support. To inform and validate

these updated requirements, the Chief of Naval Operations and the Coast Guard

Commandant should execute dedicated annual joint wartime drills focused on

USCG’s wartime missions in the Paciﬁc (the money for these activities should be

allocated from DOD). An interagency maritime coordination oce focused on

developing and overseeing comprehensive eorts to advance the nation’s mari-

time interests and increase its military and commercial competitiveness should

be established.

Given the USCG’s history of underfunded missions, if the Coast Guard is to con-

tinue to maintain the Arctic mission, money to do so adequately will be required

over and above current funding levels. Consideration should be given to shifting

the Arctic mission to the Navy. Either way, the Arctic mission should be closely

coordinated with our Canadian, Danish, and other allies.

Personnel

USCG is facing recruitment challenges similar to those faced by the military

services. The Administration should stop the messaging on wokeness and diversity

and focus instead on attracting the best talent for USCG. Simultaneously, consis-

tent with the Department of Defense, USCG should also make a serious eort to

re-vet any promotions and hiring that occurred on the Biden Administration’s

watch while also re-onboarding any USCG personnel who were dismissed from

service for refusing to take the COVID-19 “vaccine,” with time in service credited

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Department of Homeland Security

to such returnees. These two steps could be foundational for any improvements

in the recruiting process.

U.S. SECRET SERVICE (USSS)

Needed Reforms

The U.S. Secret Service must be the world’s best protective agency. Currently, the

agency is distracted by its dual mission of protection and ﬁnancial investigations.

The result has been a long series of high-proﬁle embarrassments and security fail-

ures, perhaps most notably its allowing of then-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris

to be inside the Democratic National Committee oce on January 6, 2021, while

a pipe bomb was outside. Despite the great size and scope of the January 6 inves-

tigation, this high-proﬁle incident of danger to a protectee remains unresolved.

The failures of the USSS protective mission are too numerous to list here. A

December 2015 bipartisan report from the House Oversight Committee listed

dozens of such incidents as well as needed recommendations for reform.

This

chapter adopts those ﬁndings and recommendations in whole, especially the

ﬁnding that USSS’s dual-mission structure detracts from the agency’s protective

capabilities.

At the time of that report, USSS agents spent only one-third of their work hours

on protection-related activities as opposed to investigative activities. USSS was

established initially to investigate counterfeit currency, but its mission has evolved

over the decades to prioritize electronic ﬁnancial crimes. For example, as this chap-

ter was being written, all 15 of the USSS’s most wanted individuals were wanted

for ﬁnancial crimes, many of them international in nature.

Notably, the last head of the agency left not for a protection-related job, but to be

the Chief Security Ocer of social media company SnapChat. This is a pattern that

has developed over the years, with agents seeking to burnish their online ﬁnancial

crimes credentials to secure corporate security jobs. Coupled with some of the

lowest morale in the federal government, the agency has completely lost sight of

the primacy of its protective mission.

New Policies

USSS should transfer to the Department of Justice and Department of the

Treasury all investigations that are not related to its protective function. It should

begin the logistical operation of closing all ﬁeld oces throughout the country and

internationally to the extent they are not taken over by Treasury or Justice. USSS

agents stationed outside of Washington, D.C., should be transferred to work in

Immigration and Customs Enforcement ﬁeld oces where they would continue to

be the “boots on the ground” to follow up on threat reports throughout the country

and liaise with local law enforcement for visits by protectees.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

The only investigations not related to USSS’s protective function that agents

should pursue would be directed by HSI and relate to tracking the ﬁnancial crimes

associated with illegal immigration. This should include tracing remittances, any

funds that are used to pay coyotes or the cartels, and payments by businesses to

illegal aliens and all other crimes associated with illegal immigration.

USSS should keep visitor logs for all facilities where the President works or

resides. The Biden Administration has evaded such transparency with President

Biden spending a historic amount of time for a President at his Delaware residence.

This has left the American people in the dark as to who is inﬂuencing the highest

levels of their own government.

Budget

The suggested reforms would result in a signiﬁcant USSS budget reduction,

primarily because the agency would relinquish dozens of physical oces through-

out the U.S. and internationally. Some amount of savings should be used to ﬁx the

personnel problems and for recruitment initiatives aimed at individuals who are

inclined to join a protection-focused agency.

Personnel

As documented extensively in the above-referenced 2015 bipartisan congressio-

nal report, low morale and high turnover are key drivers of USSS problems. With

their mission focused on protection, agents would no longer spend the bulk of

their time developing unrelated skillsets. Instead, USSS agents could hone their

protection skills and pursue a protection career path in the agency rather than

quickly leaving USSS for high-paying corporate security jobs.

The Uniform Division (UD) of USSS requires a signiﬁcant stang increase.

As documented in the bipartisan report, understang results in unpredictable

and long hours, which in turn result in high turnover, which only compounds

the problem.

Another key issue is that UD ocers lack the ability to enforce criminal laws

outside the immediate vicinity of the White House. As the District of Columbia

is a federal jurisdiction and currently is beholden to the trend of progressive pro-

crime policies, UD ocers should enforce all applicable laws. The result would

be to allow UD ocers to gain more law enforcement experience—an attractive

credential that would improve morale.

TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION (TSA)

The TSA model is costly and unwisely makes TSA both the regulator and the

regulated organization responsible for screening operations. As part of an eort

to shrink federal bureaucracies and bring private-sector know-how to govern-

ment programs, TSA is ripe for reform. The U.S. should look to the Canadian and

— 159 —

Department of Homeland Security

European private models of providing aviation screening manpower to lower TSA

costs while maintaining security. Until it is privatized, TSA should be treated as a

national security provider, and its workforce should be deunionized immediately.

TSA could privatize the screening function by expanding the current Screening

Partnership Program (SPP) to all airports. TSA would turn screening operations

over to airports that would choose security contractors that meet TSA regulations

and would oversee and test airports for compliance. Alternatively, it could adopt

a Canadian-style system, turning over screening operations to a new government

corporation that contracts screening service to private contractors. Contractors

would bid to provide their services to a set of airports in a particular region, likely

with around 10 regions nationally. TSA would continue to set security regulations

and test airports for compliance, and the new corporation would establish any oper-

ating procedures or customer service standards. With either model, the intelligence

function for domestic travel patterns should remain with the U.S. government.

The federal government could expect to save 15 percent–20 percent from the

existing aviation screening budget, but savings could be signiﬁcantly larger. Service

to travelers should also improve.

MANAGEMENT DIRECTORATE (MGMT)

The Management Directorate is unnecessarily large because each individual

component also maintains its own respective management oce. Too much over-

lap and red tape exist between headquarters (HQ) and components with regard

to such functions as hiring, information technology, and procurement. Finance

is unique given that HQ needs to address reprogramming, and component bud-

gets need to roll up into all-department budgets. The Directorate requires intense

reform, the speciﬁcs of which should be further assessed given its expansive nature.

Front Oce (FO). Immediately place a small team of advisers with a deep

understanding of operational management—but who have some experience in

government because they will need to understand the nuance of Reduction in Force

(RIF), appropriations hurdles when dealing with U.S. government reorganization,

etc.—to sit in the MGMT FO (reporting to the Secretary, ultimately either S1 or S2).

One of these advisers should understand U.S. government employment law and

be prepared to relocate personnel and downsize oces accordingly. This includes

reverting to the original understanding of the function of individuals appointed

to the Senior Executive Service: competent managers who can work capably with

any subject matter and in any location.

Over the ﬁrst few months of the Administration, the advisers’ role should be

to assess what structural and procedural changes are appropriate. They should

dissect the current standing Management Directives and the approval processes

in place to implement and/or change them; Oce of the Chief Human Capital

Ocer’s processes and procedures; hurdles to the Oce of Chief Procurement

— 160 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Ocer’s procurement of innovative technology; and the facilities plan, including

the consolidation into the St. Elizabeth’s campus. They should also be prepared

to help implement any end to unionization of DHS components in response to an

executive order pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 7103.

Oce of the Chief Financial Ocer (OCFO). DHS responsibilities to work with

Congress have been split between the Oce of Legislative Aairs (OLA) and OCFO.

OLA deals with the authorizing committees on policy issues, and OCFO works with

the appropriations committees on budget planning, execution, and reprogramming.

This split creates communication and visibility issues within DHS and inconsistency in

answers to Congress. This is an issue not only within the HQ model, but also through-

out the components. Either appropriations personnel should be moved to OLA and

there should be a “dotted line” reporting structure to OCFO, or a policy that OLA per-

sonnel must be included on communications to Congress should be implemented.

To avoid “answer shopping” by congressional sta, particularly appropriations

sta, all budget communications from the OCFO, including from the CFO him/

herself, should ﬁrst be provided to the Director of OLA to ensure consistency of

information, messaging, and answers. This may be deemed awkward given that the

OCFO is a Senate-conﬁrmed position, but it is necessary to avoid inaccuracies and

inconsistencies in messaging.

Federal Protective Service (FPS). FPS needs federal agents to develop, share,

and receive operational information and maintain direct contact with the Secretary

in the midst of heightened threats. Before the summer 2020 civil unrest, position-

ing FPS under MGMT was justiﬁed, but given the current climate, they should not

be reporting through MGMT. This may be especially problematic if a Management

Directorate Under Secretary lacking law enforcement or military experience is in place

when a situation like summer 2020 arises. FPS should report to the Secretary as other

components (e.g., FLETC) do. This would add little to the Secretary’s current burden

unless or until civil unrest arises, at which point reporting to the Secretary creates a

direct line between the primary DHS decision-maker (S1 or S2) and the FPS Director.

Regarding operational communication, there should be information-sharing

mandates (MOAs)—which are applicable under speciﬁc circumstances where fed-

eral facilities are involved—between FPS and the U.S. Marshals, U.S. Park Police,

and FBI. Agreements with U.S. Capitol Police and Supreme Court Police should

also be considered, but it is noteworthy that those entities are jurisdictionally out-

side of the executive branch.

OFFICE OF STRATEGY, POLICY, AND PLANS (PLCY)

Department-Level Reforms. PLCY should perform a complete inventory,

analysis, and reevaluation of the department’s domestic terrorism lines of eort

to ensure that they are consistent with the President’s priorities, congressional

authorization, and Americans’ constitutional rights.

— 161 —

Department of Homeland Security

PLCY should likewise do a complete inventory, analysis, and evaluation of any

of the department’s work, in coordination with social media outlets, to censor or

otherwise change or aect Americans’ speech. PLCY should comprehensively

report on and publish this history in full so that the American people can know

the facts. The department should remove all personnel who participated in any

of this activity.

The department has signiﬁcant authority and budget to provide grants for var-

ious purposes. This eort is diused across components and lacks central policy

thought and coordination. PLCY should set a departmentwide policy that estab-

lishes how granting choices are to be made and is consistent with the President’s

priorities. PLCY should clear all granting decisions to ensure that they are con-

sistent with the new policy.

PLCY-Wide Reforms. PLCY should work with Congress to streamline the

department’s reporting requirements. Because there has not been a departmen-

tal reauthorization bill and these requirements have been added piecemeal over

two decades, they signiﬁcantly overlap and even conﬂict—wasting resources and

distracting from the department’s mission. PLCY should seek the elimination of

the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review.

Issue-Area Reforms. PLCY should bolster its Immigration Statistics program

and make it the one-stop shop for the timely production of all department immi-

gration statistics and analysis.

OFFICE OF INTELLIGENCE AND ANALYSIS (I&A)

The Oce of Intelligence and Analysis should be eliminated both because

it has not added value and because it has been weaponized for domestic politi-

cal purposes.

The Intelligence Community (IC) already provides raw intelligence to DHS

components. In addition, the FBI, National Counter Terrorism Center, and other

agencies where necessary already provide holistic threat assessment products to

federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as to private-sector

entities at both the classiﬁed and unclassiﬁed levels where appropriate. I&A’s work

as an interlocuter between the IC and DHS components’ individual intelligence

operations on the one hand and government and the private sector on the other,

as well as between the IC and the components, is at best duplicative. At worst, it

is used and discussed in the media as a political tool, resulting in more harm than

good to the U.S. government and IC writ large.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is not a member

of the IC, should create cyber intelligence products in a collaborative fashion with

the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command. Such eorts would lead

to timelier usable classiﬁed and unclassiﬁed products for stakeholders that exceed

the quality and capability of I&A’s eorts. This same principle applies to other

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

components as well: CBP, TSA, etc. all have their own intelligence operations and

are better situated with their subject-matter experts to make their own assessments.

The National Operations Center (NOC) within the Oce of Operations Coor-

dination (OPS) should absorb those select I&A functions and tactically proﬁcient

personnel that need to be maintained (for example, technical support to the

National Vetting Center). The remainder of I&A should be eliminated. The OPS

entity should maintain IC status, and the only intelligence mission set should be

to provide situational awareness and the dissemination of operational information

or raw intelligence (no analysis or products) at classiﬁed and unclassiﬁed levels to

executive leadership across the department, not outside of DHS.

OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL (OGC)

Needed Reforms

OGC should advise principals as to how DHS can execute its missions within

the law instead of advising principals as to why they cannot execute regulations,

policies, and programs.

Instead of each component’s chief counsel reporting to the Headquarters Gen-

eral Counsel (with a solid line) and indirectly to his or her component head (with

a dotted line), the accountability should be reversed. Due to the dierent missions

throughout the department, the components can better manage the legal issues

of their speciﬁc mission than headquarters can. Thus, the chief counsel (or equiv-

alent) of each component should report directly to the component head, report

indirectly to the DHS General Counsel, and be accountable to the component head.

The report to the General Counsel is to ensure consistency of advice across DHS.

OGC should hire signiﬁcantly more Schedule C/political appointees who in

turn supervise career sta and manage their output. DHS’s mission is politically

charged, and the legal function cannot be allowed to thwart the Administration’s

agenda by providing stilted or erroneous legal positions and decision-making.

OGC should serve as the center of the response to the legal challenges facing the

department to ensure a streamlined, consistent response to a litany of issues facing

the department. It is important to ensure consistency across all potential legal

positions taken by the department, including those arising in litigation, congressio-

nal oversight, and inquiries received from the Inspector General, U.S. Government

Accountability Oce (GAO), and Congressional Research Service and pursuant to

the Freedom of Information Act.

OGC should invest in e-discovery software and contract with a vendor to manage

the department’s e-discovery. This would be beneﬁcial both in litigation and in

responding to congressional oversight. Removing delays in e-discovery processing

would also reduce the issuance of subpoenas to the department and the generation

of negative press for the Administration that comes from delayed responses.

— 163 —

Department of Homeland Security

The old practice of relying on Executive Secretary taskings to pull documents for

congressional requests does not work: It is slow, the metrics for what documents

are gathered and how are unclear, and the components do not gather responsive

material in an ecient manner. Document gathering should come from the Oce

of the Chief Information Ocer or a relevant technological element within the

department that can pull responsive communications quickly.

OFFICE OF LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS (OLA); OFFICE

OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS (OPA); AND OFFICE OF

PARTNERSHIP AND ENGAGEMENT (OPE)

DHS’s external communications function should be consolidated and reformed

so that the President’s agenda can be implemented more eectively. The Oce of

Partnership and Engagement should be merged into the Oce of Public Aairs.

In many Cabinet agencies, outreach to companies and partner organizations is

similarly performed by the Oce of Public Aairs. This would also accomplish a

needed DHS organizational and management reform to decrease the number of

direct reports to the Secretary.

Both public and legislative aairs sta in the components should report directly

to their respective headquarters equivalent. This would help to avoid a failure by

the department to speak with one voice. It would also allow the component sta to

perform more eciently, overseen by expert managers in their trade. This would

also allow DHS to respond to crises eectively by shifting sta as needed to the

most pressing issues and better use underutilized sta at less active components.

Only political appointees in OLA should interact directly with congressional sta

on all inquiries, including budget and appropriations matters. To prevent congres-

sional sta from answer shopping among HQ OLA, the DHS OCFO, and components,

DHS legislative aairs appropriations sta should be moved from MGMT OCFO

into OLA. Regarding components, budget/appropriations sta should move from

component budget oces into component legislative aairs oces.

Because dozens of congressional committees and subcommittees either have or

claim to have jurisdiction over some DHS function, DHS sta from the Secretary

on down spend so much time responding to congressional hearing and brieﬁng

requests, letters, and questions for the record that they are left with little time

to do their assigned job of protecting the homeland. The next President should

reach an agreement with congressional leadership to limit committee jurisdiction

to one authorizing committee and one appropriations committee in each cham

ber. If congressional leadership will not limit their committees’ jurisdiction over

DHS, DHS should identify one authorizing and appropriations committee in each

chamber and answer only to it.

To focus more precisely on the DHS mission, OLA sta should also identify

outdated and needless congressional reporting requirements and notify Congress

— 164 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

that DHS will cease reporting on such matters. For other congressional reports,

OLA should implement a sunset date so that Congress must regularly demonstrate

the need for speciﬁc data.

In both OPA and OLA, a change in mission and culture is needed. The clients

of both components are the President and the Secretary, not the media, external

organizations, or Congress. OPA and OLA should change from being compliance

correspondents for outside entities airing grievances to serving as messengers and

advocates for the President and the Secretary.

OFFICE OF OPERATIONS COORDINATION (OPS)

OPS was originally conceived by then-Secretary Jeh Johnson as an entity tasked

with coordinating cross-DHS assets on an as-needed basis using a joint operations

approach. This role is particularly challenging because of the disparate nature of

mission sets across DHS.

OPS should absorb a very small number of tactical intelligence professionals from

I&A as the rest of I&A is shut down. Such intelligence ocers would be a subordinate

element within OPS placed within the National Operations Center. The intelligence

ocers would provide tactical intelligence support for upcoming or ongoing opera-

tions in addition to liaising with their agency/component counterparts. There would

be no strategic intelligence analysis done as part of OPS or its new I&A sub-element.

In addition to facilitating all-of-DHS coordination on a task-by-task basis, OPS

would be responsible for ongoing situational awareness for the Secretary and

Deputy Secretary.

In addition to long-term stang, OPS would have cycling billets from each of

the major agencies and components to facilitate its most eective working rela-

tionships across DHS.

OFFICE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

(CRCL) AND PRIVACY OFFICE (PRIV)

The Homeland Security Act established only an Ocer of CRCL, not an oce.

The only substantive function Congress then assigned to the ocer was to review

and assess information alleging abuses of civil rights. Since then, Congress and

CRCL itself have signiﬁcantly expanded CRCL’s scope and size well beyond its

original intent or helpful purpose. CRCL now operates and views itself as a quasi-

DHS Oce of Inspector General. This results in a considerable waste of limited

component resources, which are routinely tasked to address redundant, overly

burdensome, and uninformed demands from CRCL. It is therefore important to

recalibrate CRCL’s scope and reach.

The organizational structure of both CRCL and the Privacy Oce should be

changed to ensure proper alignment with the department’s mission. The Oce

of General Counsel should absorb both CRCL’s and PRIV’s necessary functions

— 165 —

Department of Homeland Security

and sta. Although the CRCL Ocer and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

Ocer/Privacy Ocer are statutory, their oces are not mandatory. CRCL and

PRIV Ocers and employees should report to a Deputy General Counsel, who

would be a political appointee.

The CRCL Ocer should focus on equal employment opportunity (EEO)

compliance and the civil liberties function and investigate matters only within

Headquarters or support components. Operational components’ civil liberties o-

cers should investigate incidents regarding their own agencies. The CRCL Ocer

should ensure that all civil liberties or civil rights complaints are sent to the Oce

of Inspector General (OIG) for review. If the OIG chooses not to investigate, the

CRCL Ocer should only provide supportive information on possible courses of

action for complainants.

The PRIV Ocer and FOIA Ocer should focus on FOIA, Privacy Compliance

Policy, and Privacy Incident Response. The Deputy General Counsel should provide

guidance to DHS leadership regarding Privacy Compliance and Privacy Incident

Response. To ensure that only U.S. persons and Lawful Permanent Residents are

provided protections as required by the Privacy Act, all DHS issuances should be

updated to reﬂect that DHS protects the privacy of individuals as required by the

Privacy Act (U.S. persons and lawful permanent residents);

the Judicial Redress

Act of 2015;

and any U.S.–European Union Data Protection and Privacy Agreement.

Because of the lack of public trust in the Oce of Intelligence and Analysis,

CRCL and PRIV sta should no longer review intelligence products or provide

guidance on any intelligence products or reports.

A consistent, clear, and singular message is necessary for DHS’s mission.

Therefore, all communications and/or meetings with any federal, state, local, or

nongovernment groups should be limited to the Deputy General Counsel. In addi-

tion, given the narrower scope of work, OGC should disband the outside advisory

boards and the more than 50 working groups in which CRCL and PRIV currently

participate. Finally, CRCL and PRIV should no longer issue bulletins or periodicals.

OFFICE OF THE IMMIGRATION DETENTION OMBUDSMAN

(OIDO) AND OFFICE OF THE CITIZENSHIP AND

IMMIGRATION SERVICES OMBUDSMAN (CISOMB)

OIDO. The Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman should be

eliminated. This requires a statutory change in Section 106 of the Consolidated

Appropriations Act of 2020.

OIDO was designed to create another impediment to detention through an

additional layer of so-called oversight. Several agencies already perform detention

oversight. ICE conducts internal audits of facilities and investigates complaints

against ICE agents through the Oce of Professional Responsibility. Similarly, CBP

accepts individual complaints regarding facilities through the Joint Intake Center

— 166 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

and manages complaints against agents through the OPR. In addition, CRCL, OIG,

GAO, and Congress all perform detention oversight. These multiple bodies place

unmanageable and unreasonable burdens on ICE to manage several sometimes

inconsistent audits/inspections at the same time.

If OIDO remains a DHS component, the Secretary should immediately issue a direc-

tive stripping CRCL of its immigration portfolio. OIDO is in a better position with

dedicated resources and immigration experts to perform this function than CRCL is.

Allowing both oces to conduct detention oversight is duplicative and wasteful.

The Secretary should conduct a thorough review of the eectiveness of Direc-

tive 0810.1,

which is widely interpreted as requiring a wholesale referral of cases

to OIG. In reality, OIG investigates only a small fraction of them and often sits on

cases for longer than the ﬁve-day window speciﬁed in the directive. Meanwhile,

the other agencies wait in limbo to execute their duties.

CISOMB. The Oce of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman

should be eliminated. The DHS bureaucracy is too large, and the Secretary has too

many direct reports. CISOMB’s policy functions can be performed (and sometimes

already are) by OIG and GAO. The specialized case work can be moved into USCIS

as a special unit, much like the IRS Taxpayer Advocate. This would require a stat-

utory change to Section 452 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

If CISOMB continues as a DHS component, a policy should be issued that

prohibits CISOMB from assisting illegal aliens to obtain beneﬁts. Currently,

approximately 15 percent–20 percent of CISOMB’s workload consists of helping

DACA applicants obtain and renew beneﬁts, including work authorization. This

is not the role of an ombudsman. In addition, the government should be a neutral

adjudicator, not an advocate for illegal aliens.

AGENCY RELATIONSHIPS

It is critical to the achievement of the President’s policy objectives that all agen-

cies and departments touching immigration policy work in sync with one another.

While there are numerous areas in which such cooperation is critical, immigration

has proven to be the most dicult. Accordingly, several objectives will be necessary

for each of the following departments.

Department of Health and Human Services: Agree to move the Oce

of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to DHS or, alternatively, implement an

aggressive and regular eort by the Secretary of HHS to ensure that ORR is

fully pursuing presidential objectives in support of DHS.

Department of Defense: Assist in aggressively building the border wall

system on America’s southern border. Additionally, explicitly acknowledge

and adjust personnel and priorities to participate actively in the defense

— 167 —

Department of Homeland Security

of America’s borders, including using military personnel and hardware to

prevent illegal crossings between ports of entry and channel all cross-border

trac to legal ports of entry.

Department of Justice: Agree to move the Executive Oce for

Immigration Review and the Oce of Immigration Litigation to DHS

and/or, alternatively, to treat the administrative law judges (immigration

judges and Board of Immigration Appeals) as national security personnel,

decertify their union, and move to increase hiring signiﬁcantly to enable the

processing of more immigration cases.

Department of State: Allow DHS to lead international engagement in

the Western Hemisphere on issues of security and migration. Additionally,

quickly and aggressively address recalcitrant countries’ failure to accept

deportees by imposing sti sanctions until deportees are in fact accepted for

return (not just promised to be taken).

Department of Housing and Urban Development: Ensure that only

U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents utilize or occupy federally

subsidized housing.

Department of Education: Deny loan access to those who are not U.S.

citizens or lawful permanent residents, and deny loan access to students at

schools that provide in-state tuition to illegal aliens.

Department of Labor: Eliminate the two (of four) lowest wage levels for

foreign workers.

Department of the Treasury: Implement all necessary regulations both to

equalize taxes between American citizens and working visa holders and to

provide DHS with all tax information of illegal aliens as expeditiously as possible.

Intelligence Community: Cooperate in the shrinking or elimination

of the I&A role in the IC while replacing it with CBP and HSI

representation to the IC.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I had the honor of coordinating the eorts of the experts listed as contributors to this

book, nearly all of whom have spent more time inside or interacting with the Department of Homeland Security

than myself. I wrote only a small portion of the chapter and relied on the contributors’ experience and expertise

to give the chapter both its depth and policy impact. No views expressed herein should be attributed to any

single contributor.

— 168 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

 H.R. 5005, Homeland Security Act of 2002, Public Law No. 107-296, 107th Congress, November 25, 2002, §

101(b)(1), https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ296/PLAW-107publ296.pdf (accessed March 14, 2023).

 See, for example, “Elon Musk Slams CISA Censorship Network as ‘Propaganda Platform,’” Kanekoa News,

December 28, 2022, https://kanekoa.substack.com/p/elon-musk-slams-cisa-censorship-network (accessed

March 14, 2023).

 H.R. 2680, An Act to Amend the Immigration and Nationality Act, and for Other Purposes, Public Law No.

89-236, 89th Congress, October 3, 1965, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-79/pdf/STATUTE-79-

Pg911.pdf (accessed March 14, 2023).

 Added to the Immigration and Nationality Act by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant

Responsibility Act of 1996. See H.R. 3610, Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act, 1997, Public Law No.

104-208, 104th Congress, September 30, 1996, Division C, https://www.congress.gov/104/plaws/publ208/

PLAW-104publ208.pdf (accessed March 14, 2023).

 8 U.S. Code, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8 (accessed March 14, 2023).

 18 U.S. Code, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18 (accessed March 14, 2023).

 5 U.S. Code §§ 551–559, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/part-I/chapter-5/subchapter-II (accessed

March 14, 2023).

 Table, “United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Budget Comparison and Adjustments

Appropriation and PPA Summary,” in U.S. Department of Homeland Security, United States Citizenship

and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security, United States Citizenship and Immigration

Services, Budget Overview, Fiscal Year 2023 Congressional Justiﬁcation, p. CIS-4, https://www.uscis.gov/

sites/default/ﬁles/document/reports/U.S._Citizenship_and_Immigration_Services%E2%80%99_Budget_

Overview_Document_for%20Fiscal_Year_2023.pdf#:~:text=The%20FY%202023%20Budget%20includes%20

%24913.6M%2C%204%2C001%20positions%3B,of%20%24444.1M%20above%20the%20FY%202022%20

President%E2%80%99s%20Budget (accessed March 14, 2023), and Table, “United States Citizenship and

Immigration Services Comparison of Budget Authority and Request,” in ibid., p. CIS-5.

 H.R. 7311, William Wilberforce Tracking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, Public Law No.

110-457, 110th Congress, December 23, 2008, § 235, https://www.congress.gov/110/plaws/publ457/PLAW-

110publ457.pdf (accessed March 15, 2023).

 Matter of A-B-, Respondent, 27 I&N Dec. 316 (A.G. 2018), https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/ﬁle/1070866/

download (accessed January 18, 2023).

 Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387 (2012), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/567/387/ (accessed

January 18, 2023).

 Robert T. Staord Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act [Public Law 93–288; Approved May 22, 1974]

[As Amended Through P.L. 117–328, Enacted December 29, 2022], https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/

COMPS-2977/pdf/COMPS-2977.pdf (accessed March 15, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Homeland

Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Budget Overview, Fiscal Year 2023 Congressional

Justiﬁcation, p. FEMA-24, https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/2022-03/Federal%20Emergency%20

Management%20Agency_Remediated.pdf (accessed March 15, 2023).

 Report, United States Secret Service: An Agency in Crisis, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,

U.S. House of Representatives, 114th Congress, December 9, 2015, https://republicans-oversight.house.gov/

wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Oversight-USSS-Report.pdf (accessed January 18, 2023).

 5 U.S. Code § 7103, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/7103 (accessed March 15, 2023).

 S. 3418, Privacy Act of 1974, Public Law No. 93-579, 93rd Congress, December 31, 1974, https://www.govinfo.

gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-88/pdf/STATUTE-88-Pg1896.pdf (accessed March 15, 2023).

 H.R. 1428, Judicial Redress Act of 2015, Public Law No. 114-126, 114th Congress, February 24, 2016, https://www.

congress.gov/114/plaws/publ126/PLAW-114publ126.pdf (accessed March 15, 2023).

 H.R. 1158, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020, Public Law No. 116-93, 116th Congress, December 20, 2019,

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1158 (accessed January 18, 2023).

— 169 —

Department of Homeland Security

 U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Oce of Inspector General, Management Directive No. 0810.1, June 10,

2004, https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/foia/mgmt_directive_0810_1_the_oce_of_inspector_general.

pdf (accessed March 15, 2023).

 H.R. 5005, Homeland Security Act of 2002, Public Law No. 107-296, 107th Congress, November 25, 2002,

https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/5005 (accessed January 18, 2023).

— 171 —

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Kiron K. Skinner

he U.S. Department of State’s mission is to bilaterally, multilaterally, and

regionally implement the President’s foreign policy priorities; to serve U.S.

citizens abroad; and to advance the economic, foreign policy, and national

security interests of the United States.

Since the U.S. Founding, the Department of State has been the American gov-

ernment’s designated tool of engagement with foreign governments and peoples

throughout the world. Country names, borders, leaders, technology, and people

have changed in the more than two centuries since the Founding, but the basics of

diplomacy remain the same. Although the Department has also evolved throughout

the years, at least in the modern era, there is one signiﬁcant problem that the next

President must address to be successful.

There are scores of ﬁne diplomats who serve the President’s agenda, often

helping to shape and interpret that agenda. At the same time, however, in all

Administrations, there is a tug-of-war between Presidents and bureaucracies—

and that resistance is much starker under conservative Presidents, due

largely to the fact that large swaths of the State Department’s workforce are

left-wing and predisposed to disagree with a conservative President’s policy

agenda and vision.

It should not and cannot be this way: The American people need and deserve

a diplomatic machine fully focused on the national interest as deﬁned through

the election of a President who sets the domestic and international agenda for

the nation. The next Administration must take swift and decisive steps to reforge

the department into a lean and functional diplomatic machine that serves the

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

President and, thereby, the American people. Below is the basic but essential road-

map for achieving these repairs.

HISTORY AND CONTEXT

Founded in 1789, the Department of State was one of the ﬁrst Cabinet-level

agencies in the new American government. The ﬁrst Secretary of State, Thomas

Jeerson, oversaw a small sta, diplomatic posts in London and Paris, and 10 con-

sular posts.

Today, the Department of State has almost 80,000 total employees

(including 13,517 foreign service employees and 11,683 civil service employees) in

275 embassies, consulates, and other posts around the world.

In theory, the State Department is the principal agency responsible for carrying

out the President’s foreign policy and representing the United States in other nations

and international organizations. To the extent consistent with presidential policy and

federal law, the department also supports U.S. citizens and businesses in other nations

and vets foreign nationals seeking temporary or permanent entrance to the United

States. The State Department also provides humanitarian, security, and other assistance

to non-U.S. populations in need, and otherwise advances and supports U.S. national

interests abroad. Properly led, the State Department can be instrumental for commu-

nicating and implementing a foreign policy vision that best serves American citizens.

As the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century (the Hart–Rudman

Commission) observed more than 20 years ago, the State Department is a “crip-

pled institution” suering from “an ineective organizational structure in which

regional and functional policies do not serve integrated goals, and in which sound

management, accountability, and leadership are lacking.”

Unfortunately, this

critique remains accurate.

The State Department’s failures are not due to a lack of resources. As one

expert has observed, the department “has signiﬁcantly more at its disposal than

was the case at the end of the Cold War, in the mid-1990s, and at the height of the

Iraq and Afghanistan wars.”

A major source, if not the major source, of the State

Department’s ineectiveness lies in its institutional belief that it is an independent

institution that knows what is best for the United States, sets its own foreign policy,

and does not need direction from an elected President.

The next President can make the State Department more eective by providing

a clear foreign policy vision, selecting political ocials and career diplomats that

will enthusiastically turn that vision into a policy agenda, and ﬁrmly supporting

the State Department as it makes the necessary institutional adjustments.

POLITICAL LEADERSHIP AND BUREAUCRATIC

LEADERSHIP AND SUPPORT

Focusing the State Department on the needs and goals of the next President

will require the President’s handpicked political leadership—as well as foreign

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Department of State

service and civil service personnel who share the President’s vision and policy

agendas—to run the department. This can be done by taking these steps at the

outset of the next Administration.

Exert Leverage During the Conﬁrmation Process. Notwithstanding the

challenges and slowness of the modern U.S. Senate conﬁrmation process, the next

President can exert leverage on the Senate if he or she is willing to place State

Department appointees directly into those roles, pending conﬁrmation. Doing so

would both ensure that the department has immediate senior political leadership

and would force the Senate to act on nominees’ appointments instead of being

allowed to engage in dilatory tactics that cripple the State Department’s function-

ality for weeks, months, or even years.

Assert Leadership in the Appointment Process. The next Administration

should assert leadership over, and guidance to, the State Department by placing

political appointees in positions that do not require Senate conﬁrmation, including

senior advisors, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretaries, and Deputy Assistant Sec-

retaries. Given the department’s size, the next Administration should also increase

the number of political appointees to manage it.

To the extent possible, all non-conﬁrmed senior appointees should be selected

by the President-elect’s transition team or the new President’s Oce of Presiden-

tial Personnel (depending on the timing of selection) and be in place the ﬁrst day

of the Administration. No one in a leadership position on the morning of January

20 should hold that position at the end of the day. These recommendations do not

imply that foreign service and civil service ocials should be excluded from key

roles: It is hard to imagine a scenario in which they are not immediately relevant to

the transition of power. The main suggestion here is that as many political appoin-

tees as possible should be in place at the start of a new Administration.

Support and Train Political Appointees. The Secretary of State should use

his or her oce and its resources to ensure regular coordination among all political

appointees, which should take the form of strategy meetings, trainings, and other

events. The secretary should also take reasonable steps to ensure that the State

Department’s political appointees are connected to other departments’ political

appointees, which is critical for cross-agency eectiveness and morale. The sec-

retary should capitalize on the more experienced political appointees by using

them as the foundation for a mentorship program for less experienced political

appointees. The interaction of political appointees must be routine and operational

rather than incidental or occasional, and it must be treated as a crucial dimension

for the next Administration’s success.

Maximize the Value of Career Ocials. Career foreign service and civil

service personnel can and must be leveraged for their expertise and commit-

ment to the President’s mission. Indeed, the State Department has thousands of

employees with unparalleled linguistic, cultural, policy, and administrative skills,

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

and large numbers of them have been an enormous resource to the Secretaries of

State under which they have served. The secretary must ﬁnd a way to make clear

to career ocials that despite prior history and modes of operation, they need

not be adversaries of a conservative President, Secretary of State, or the team of

political appointees.

Reboot Ambassadors Worldwide. All ambassadors are required to submit

letters of resignation at the start of a new Administration. Previous Republican

Administrations have accepted the resignations of only the political ambassadors

and allowed the foreign service ambassadors to retain their posts, sometimes for

months or years into a new Administration.

The next Administration must go

further: It should both accept the resignations of all political ambassadors and

quickly review and reassess all career ambassadors. This review should commence

well before the new Administration’s ﬁrst day.

Ambassadors in countries where U.S. policy or posture would substantially

change under the new Administration, as well as any who have evinced hostility

toward the incoming Administration or its agenda, should be recalled immediately.

The priority should be to put in place new ambassadors who support the Presi-

dent’s agenda among political appointees, foreign service ocers, and civil service

personnel, with no predetermined percentage among these categories. Political

ambassadors with strong personal relationships with the President should be pri-

oritized for key strategic posts such as Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the

United Nations, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

RIGHTING THE SHIP

Ensuring the State Department is accountable for serving American citi-

zens ﬁrst will require—at a minimum—that the following steps be implemented

immediately:

Review Retroactively. Before inauguration, the President-elect’s department

transition team should assess every aspect of State Department negotiations and

funding commitments. Upon inauguration, the Secretary of State should order an

immediate freeze on all eorts to implement unratiﬁed treaties and international

agreements, allocation of resources, foreign assistance disbursements, domestic

and international contracts and payments, hiring and recruiting decisions, etc.,

pending a political appointee-driven review to ensure that such eorts comport

with the new Administration’s policies. The quality of this review is more import-

ant than speed. The posture of the department during this review should be an

unwavering desire to prioritize the American people—including a recognition that

the federal government must be a diligent steward of taxpayer dollars.

Implement Repair. The State Department must change its handling of

international agreements to restore constitutional governance. Under prior

Administrations, unnecessary institutional factors in the department caused

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Department of State

numerous logistical challenges in negotiating, approving, and implementing trea-

ties and agreements. This is particularly true under the Biden Administration. For

example, under the Biden Administration, the State Department was considered

suciently unreliable in terms of alignment and eectiveness such that its political

leadership invoked its Circular 175 (C-175) authority to delegate its diplomatic

capacity to other agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security.

At time of publication, the State Department is negotiating (or seeking to nego

tiate) large-scale, sovereignty-eroding agreements that could come at considerable

economic and other costs to the American people. Although such agreements

should be evaluated and approved as are treaties, the Biden Administration is

likely to simply call them “agreements.” The Biden State Department not only

approves but also enforces treaties that have not been ratiﬁed by the U.S. Senate.

This practice must be thoroughly reviewed—and most likely jettisoned.

The next President should recalibrate how the State Department handles trea-

ties and agreements, primarily by restoring constitutionality to these processes.

He or she should direct the Secretary of State to freeze any ongoing treaty or inter-

national agreement negotiations and assess whether those eorts align with the

new President’s foreign policy direction. The next Administration should also

direct the secretary to order an immediate stand-down on enforcement of any

treaties that have not been ratiﬁed by the Senate, and order a thorough review of

the degree to which such enforcement has impacted the department’s functions,

policies, and use of resources.

The Secretary of State, in cooperation with the Oce of the Attorney General

and the White House Counsel’s Oce, should also conduct a review to identify

“agreements” that are really treaty commitments within the ordinary public mean-

ing of the Constitution,

and suspend compliance pending presidential transmittal

of those agreements to the Senate for advice and consent. The next Administration

should also move to withdraw from treaties that have been under Senate consider-

ation for 20 years or more, with the understanding that those treaties are unlikely

to be ratiﬁed. Under circumstances in which ratiﬁcation of a stale treaty before

the Senate still serves national interests, the treaty letter of transmittal and sub-

mission should be updated for current circumstances. The Secretary of State must

revoke most outstanding C-175 authorities that have been granted to other agen-

cies during previous Administrations, although such revocations should be closely

coordinated with the White House for logistical reasons.

Coordinate with Other Agencies. Interagency engagement in this new

environment must be similarly adjusted to mirror presidential direction. Indeed,

coordination among federal agencies is challenging even in the most well-oiled

Administrations. Although such coordination is inescapable and sometimes produc-

tive, agencies tend to leverage each other’s resources in ways that occasionally have

o-mission consequences for the agency or agencies with the resources. Ideally, the

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Secretary of State should work as part of an agile foreign policy team along with the

National Security Advisor, the Secretary of Defense, and other agency heads to ﬂesh

out and advance the President’s foreign policy. Bureaucratic stovepipes of the past

should be less important than commitment to, and achievement of, the President’s

foreign policy agenda. The State Department’s role in these interagency discussions

must reﬂect the President’s clear direction and disallow resources and tools to be

used in any way that detracts from the presidentially directed mission.

Coordinate with Congress. Congress has both the statutory and appropri-

ations authority to impact the State Department’s operations and has a strong

interest in key aspects of American foreign policy. The department must therefore

take particular care in its interaction with Congress, since poor interactions with

Congress, regardless of intentions, could trigger congressional pushback or have

other negative impacts on the President’s agenda.

This will require particularly strong leadership of the Department of State’s

Bureau of Legislative Aairs. The Secretary of State and political leadership should

ensure full coordination with the White House regarding congressional engage-

ment on any State Department responsibility. This may lead to, for example, the

President authorizing the State Department to engage with Members of Congress

and relevant committees on certain issues (including statutorily designated con-

gressional consultations), but to remain “radio silent” on volatile or designated

issues on which the White House wants to be the primary or only voice. All such

authorized department engagements with Congress must be driven and handled

by political appointees in conjunction with career ocials who have the relevant

expertise and are willing to work in concert with the President’s political appoin-

tees on particularly sensitive matters.

Respond Vigorously to the Chinese Threat. The State Department recently

opened the Oce of China Coordination, or “China House.” This oce is intended

to bring together experts inside and outside the State Department to coordinate

U.S. government relations with China “and advance our vision for an open, inclu-

sive international system.”

Whether China House will streamline U.S. government

communication, consensus, and action on China policy—given the presence of

other agencies with strong competing or adverse interests—remains to be seen.

The unit is dependent on adequate and competent sta being assigned by other

bureaus within the State Department.

Nonetheless, the concept is one a Republican Administration should support

mutatis mutandis. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been “at war” with

the U.S. for decades. Now that this reality has been accepted throughout the gov-

ernment, the State Department must be prepared to lead the U.S. diplomatic eort

accordingly. The centralization of eorts in one place is critical to this end.

Review Immigration and Domestic Security Requirements. Arguably, the

department’s most noteworthy challenge on the global stage has been its handling

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Department of State

of immigration and domestic security issues, which are inextricably related. The

State Department’s apparent posture toward these two issues, which are of para-

mount importance to the American people, has historically been that they are of

lesser importance than other issues and that they can be treated as concessions in

broader diplomatic engagements. In other instances in which access to the U.S. in

the form of immigrant (permanent) and nonimmigrant (temporary) visas could

potentially serve as diplomatic leverage, it is almost never used. To some degree,

the State Department and many of its personnel appear to view the U.S. immigra-

tion system less as a tool for strengthening the United States and more as a global

welfare program.

To ensure the safety, security, and prosperity of all Americans, this must change.

Below are several key areas in which the department’s formal and informal postures

must adjust to reﬂect the current immigration and domestic security environment:

Visa reciprocity. The United States should strictly enforce the doctrine

of reciprocity when issuing visas to all foreign nationals. For too long, the

U.S. has provided virtually unfettered access to foreign nationals from

countries that do not respond in kind—including countries that are actively

hostile to U.S. interests and nationals. Mandatory reciprocity will convey

the necessary reality that other countries do not have an unfettered right

to U.S. access and must reciprocally oer favorable visa-based access to U.S.

nationals. The State Department’s reaction time to other countries’ changes

in visa policies with respect to the U.S. must be streamlined to ensure it can

be updated in real time.

Section 243(d) visa sanctions. Visa sanctions under section 243(d) of

the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA),

enacted into law to motivate

countries to accept the return of any nationals who have been ordered

removed from the U.S., should be quickly and fully enforced. Recalcitrant

countries that do not accept receipt of their returned nationals will risk the

suspension of issuance of all immigrant visas, all nonimmigrant visas, or

all visas. These country-speciﬁc sanctions should remain in place until the

sanctioned country accepts the return of all its removal-pending nationals

and formally commits to future, regular acceptance of its nationals. Black-

letter implementation of this law will demonstrate a heretofore lacking

seriousness to the international community that other nations must respect

U.S. immigration laws and work with federal authorities to accept returning

nationals—or lose access to the United States.

Rightsizing refugee admissions. The Biden Administration has

engineered what is nothing short of a collapse of U.S. border security and

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

interior immigration enforcement. This Administration’s humanitarian

crisis—which is arguably the greatest humanitarian crisis in the modern

era, one which has harmed Americans and foreign nationals alike—will

take many years and billions of dollars to fully address. One casualty of the

Biden Administration’s behavior will be the current form of the U.S. Refugee

Admission Program (USRAP).

The federal government’s obligation to shift national security–essential

screening and vetting resources to the forged border crisis will necessitate

an indeﬁnite curtailment of the number of USRAP refugee admissions. The

State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, which

administers USRAP, must shift its resources to challenges stemming from

the current immigration situation until the crisis can be contained and

refugee-focused screening and vetting capacity can reasonably be restored.

Strengthening bilateral and multilateral immigration-focused

agreements. Restoration of both domestic security and the integrity of

the U.S. immigration system should start with rapid reactivation of several

key initiatives in eect at the conclusion of the Trump Administration.

Reimplementation of the Remain in Mexico policy, safe third-country

agreements, and other measures to address the inﬂux of non-Mexican

asylum applicants at the United States–Mexico border must be Day

One priorities. Although the State Department must rein in the C-175

authorities of other agencies, the Department of Homeland Security should

retain (or regain) C-175 authorities for negotiating bilateral and multilateral

security agreements.

Evaluation of national security–vulnerable visa programs. To protect

the American people, the State Department, in coordination with the White

House and other security-focused agencies, should evaluate several key

security-sensitive visa programs that it manages. Key programs include, but

should not be limited to, the Diversity Visa program, the F (student) visa

program, and J (exchange visitor) visa program. The State Department’s

evaluation must ensure that these programs are not only consistent with

White House immigration policy, but also align with its national security

obligations and resource limitations.

PIVOTING ABROAD

Personnel and management adjustments are crucial preludes to refocus the

State Department’s mission, which is implementing the President’s foreign policy

agenda and, in so doing, ensuring that the interests of American citizens are given

— 179 —

Department of State

priority. That said, the next President must signiﬁcantly reorient the U.S. govern-

ment’s posture toward friends and adversaries alike—which will include much

more honest assessments about who are friends and who are not. This reorien

tation could represent the most signiﬁcant shift in core foreign policy principles

and corresponding action since the end of the Cold War.

Although not every country or issue area can be discussed in this chapter, below

are examples of several areas in which a shift in U. S. foreign policy is not only import

ant, but arguably existential. The point is not to assert that everyone in the evolving

conservative movement, or, in some cases, the growing bipartisan consensus, will

agree with the details of this assessment. Rather, what is presented below demon-

strates the urgency of these issues and provides a general roadmap for analysis.

In a world on ﬁre, a handful of nations require heightened attention. Some rep-

resent existential threats to the safety and security of the American people; others

threaten to hurt the U.S. economy; and others are wild cards, whose full threat

scope is unknown but nevertheless unsettling. The ﬁve countries on which the next

Administration should focus its attention and energy are China, Iran, Venezuela,

Russia, and North Korea.

The People’s Republic of China

The designs of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Chinese Com-

munist Party, which runs the PRC, are serious and dangerous.

This tyrannical

country with a population of more than 1 billion people has the vision, resources,

and patience to achieve its objectives. Protecting the United States from the PRC’s

designs requires an unambiguous oensive-defensive mix, including protecting

American citizens and their interests, as well as U.S. allies, from PRC attacks and

abuse that undermine U.S. competitiveness, security, and prosperity.

The United States must have a cost-imposing strategic response to make Bei-

jing’s aggression unaordable, even as the American economy and U.S. power grow.

This stance will require real, sustained, near-unprecedented U.S. growth; stronger

partnerships; synchronized economic and security policies; and American energy

independence—but above all, it will require a very honest perspective about the

nature and designs of the PRC as more of a threat than a competitor.

The next

President should use the State Department and its array of resources to reassess

and lead this eort, just as it did during the Cold War. The U.S. government needs

an Article X for China,

and it should be a presidential mandate. Along with the

National Security Council, the State Department should draft an Article X, which

should be a deeply philosophical look at the China challenge.

Many foreign policy professionals and national leaders, both in government and

the private sector, are reluctant to take decisive action regarding China. Many are

vested in an unshakable faith in the international system and global norms. They

are so enamored with them they cannot brook any criticisms or reforms, let alone

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

acknowledge their potential for being abused by the PRC. Others refuse to acknowl-

edge Beijing’s malign activities and often pass o criticism as conspiracy theories.

For instance, many were quick to dismiss even the possibility that COVID-19

escaped from a Chinese research laboratory. The reality, however, is that the PRC’s

actions often do sound like conspiracy theories—because they are conspiracies. In

addition, some knowingly or not parrot the Communist line: Global leaders includ-

ing President Joe Biden, have tried to normalize or even laud Chinese behavior.

In some cases, these voices, like the global corporate giants BlackRock and Disney,

directly beneﬁt from doing business with Beijing.

On the other hand, others acknowledge the dangers posed by the PRC, but

believe in a moderating approach to accommodate its rise, a policy of “compete

where we must, but cooperate where we can,” including on issues like climate

change. This strategy has demonstrably failed.

As with all global struggles with Communist and other tyrannical regimes, the

issue should never be with the Chinese people but with the Communist dictator-

ship that oppresses them and threatens the well-being of nations across the globe.

That said, the nature of Chinese power today is the product of history, ideology,

and the institutions that have governed China during the course of ﬁve millennia,

inherited by the present Chinese leaders from the preceding generations of the

CCP.

In short, the PRC challenge is rooted in China’s strategic culture and not

just the Marxism–Leninism of the CCP, meaning that internal culture and civil

society will never deliver a more normative nation. The PRC’s aggressive behavior

can only be curbed through external pressure.

The Islamic Republic of Iran

The ongoing protests in the Islamic Republic of Iran (Iran), which are widely

viewed as a new revolution, have shown that the Islamic regime, which has been

in power since 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeini became the leader, is at its weakest

state in its history and is at odds not only with its own people but also its regional

neighbors. Iran is home to a proud and ancient culture, yet its people have strug-

gled to achieve democracy and have had to endure a hostile theocratic regime that

vehemently opposes freedom. The time may be right to press harder on the Iranian

theocracy, support the Iranian people, and take other steps to draw Iran into the

community of free and modern nations.

Unfortunately, the Obama and Biden Administrations have propped up the

brutal Islamist theocracy that has hurt the Iranian people and threatened nuclear

war. For example, the Obama Administration’s 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of

Action, commonly referred to as the Iran nuclear deal, gave the Islamic regime a

crucial monetary lifeline after the Green Movement protests in 2009, which, while

ultimately unsuccessful, did succeed in weakening the regime and showing the

world that younger Iranians want freedom.

— 181 —

Department of State

Instead of pressuring the Iranian theocracy to move toward democracy, the

Obama Administration threw the brutal regime an economic lifeline by giving

hundreds of billions of dollars to the Iranian government and providing other sanc-

tions relief. This economic relief did not moderate the regime, but emboldened its

brutality, its eorts to expand its nuclear weapons programs, and its support for

global terrorism. Former President Obama has admitted his lack of support for the

Green Movement during his Administration was an error and blamed it on poor

advisors—yet those same advisors are involved with the Biden Administration’s

insistence on reducing pressure on the theocracy and resurrecting a nuclear deal.

The next Administration should neither preserve nor repeat the mistakes of

the Obama and Biden Administrations. The correct future policy for Iran is one

that acknowledges that it is in U.S. national security interests, the Iranian people’s

human rights interests, and a broader global interest in peace and stability for the

Iranian people to have the democratic government they demand. This decision

to be free of the country’s abusive leaders must of course be made by the Iranian

people, but the United States can utilize its own and others’ economic and diplo-

matic tools to ease the path toward a free Iran and a renewed relationship with

the Iranian people.

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

Once a model of democracy and a true U.S. ally, the Bolivarian Republic of Ven-

ezuela (Venezuela) has all but collapsed under the Communist regimes of the late

Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro. In the 24 years since Hugo Chavez was ﬁrst

elected Venezuelan president in 1999, the country has violently cracked down on

pro-democracy citizens and organizations, shattered its once oil-rich economy,

empowered domestic criminal cartels, and helped fuel a hemispheric refugee crisis.

Venezuela has swung from being one of the most prosperous, if not the most

prosperous, country in South America to being one of the poorest. Its Communist

leadership has also drawn closer to some of the United States’ greatest interna-

tional foes, including the PRC and Iran, which have long sought a foothold in the

Americas. Indeed, Venezuela serves as a reminder of just how fragile democratic

institutions that are not maintained can be. To contain Venezuela’s Communism

and aid international partners, the next Administration must take important steps

to put Venezuela’s Communist abusers on notice while making strides to help the

Venezuelan people. The next Administration must work to unite the hemisphere

against this signiﬁcant but underestimated threat in the Southern Hemisphere.

Russia

One issue today that starkly divides conservatives is the Russia–Ukraine con-

ﬂict. The common ground seems to be recognition that presidential leadership

in 2025 must chart the course.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

One school of conservative thought holds that as Moscow’s illegal war of

aggression against Ukraine drags on, Russia presents major challenges to

U.S. interests, as well as to peace, stability, and the post-Cold War security

order in Europe. This viewpoint argues for continued U.S. involvement

including military aid, economic aid, and the presence of NATO and U.S.

troops if necessary. The end goal of the conﬂict must be the defeat of

Russian President Vladimir Putin and a return to pre-invasion border lines.

Another school of conservative thought denies that U.S. Ukrainian support

is in the national security interest of America at all. Ukraine is not a member

of the NATO alliance and is one of the most corrupt nations in the region.

European nations directly aected by the conﬂict should aid in the defense

of Ukraine, but the U.S. should not continue its involvement. This viewpoint

desires a swift end to the conﬂict through a negotiated settlement between

Ukraine and Russia.

The tension between these competing positions has given rise to a third

approach. This conservative viewpoint eschews both isolationism and

interventionism. Rather, each foreign policy decision must ﬁrst ask the

question: What is in the interest of the American people? U.S. military

engagement must clearly fall within U.S. interests; be ﬁscally responsible;

and protect American freedom, liberty, and sovereignty, all while recognizing

Communist China as the greatest threat to U.S. interests. Thus, with respect to

Ukraine, continued U.S. involvement must be fully paid for; limited to military

aid (while European allies address Ukraine’s economic needs); and have a

clearly deﬁned national security strategy that does not risk American lives.

Regardless of viewpoints, all sides agree that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine

is unjust and that the Ukrainian people have a right to defend their homeland.

Furthermore, the conﬂict has severely weakened Putin’s military strength and

provided a boost to NATO unity and its importance to European nations.

The next conservative President has a generational opportunity to bring res-

olution to the foreign policy tensions within the movement and chart a new path

forward that recognizes Communist China as the deﬁning threat to U.S. interests

in the 21st century.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

Peace and stability in Northeast Asia are vital interests of the United States. The

Republic of Korea (South Korea) and Japan are critical allies for ensuring a free

and open Indo–Paciﬁc. They are indispensable military, economic, diplomatic, and

technology partners. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North

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Department of State

Korea) must be deterred from military conﬂict. The United States cannot permit

the DPRK to remain a de facto nuclear power with the capacity to threaten the

United States or its allies. This interest is both critical to the defense of the Amer-

ican homeland and the future of global nonproliferation. The DPRK must not be

permitted to proﬁt from its blatant violations of international commitments or to

threaten other nations with nuclear blackmail. Both interests can only be served

if the U.S. disallows the DPRK’s rogue regime behavior.

OTHER INTERNATIONAL ENGAGEMENTS

Western Hemisphere

The United States has a vested interest in a relatively united and economically

prosperous Western Hemisphere. Nonetheless, the region now has an overwhelm-

ing number of socialist or progressive regimes, which are at odds with the freedom

and growth-oriented policies of the U.S. and other neighbors and who increasingly

pose hemispheric security threats. A new approach is therefore needed, one that

simultaneously allows the U.S. to re-posture in its best interests and helps regional

partners enter a new century of growth and opportunity.

The following core policies must be part of this new direction:

A “sovereign Mexico” policy. Mexico is currently a national security

disaster. Bluntly stated, Mexico can no longer qualify as a ﬁrst-world nation;

it has functionally lost its sovereignty to muscular criminal cartels that

eectively run the country. The current dynamic is not good for either

U.S. citizens or Mexicans, and the perfect storm created by this cartel state

has negative eects that are damaging the entire hemisphere. The next

Administration must both adopt a posture that calls for a fully sovereign

Mexico and take all steps at its disposal to support that result in as rapid a

fashion as possible.

A fentanyl-free frontier. The same cartels that parasitically run Mexico

are also working with the PRC to fuel the largest drug crisis in the history

of North America. These Mexican cartels are working closely with Chinese

fentanyl precursor chemical manufacturers, importing those precursor

chemicals into Mexico, manufacturing fentanyl on Mexican soil, and

shipping it into the United States and elsewhere. The highly potent narcotic

is having an unprecedented lethal impact on the American citizenry. The

next Administration must leverage its new insistence on a sovereign Mexico

and work with other Western Hemisphere partners to halt the fentanyl

crisis and put a decisive end to this unprecedented public health threat.

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A hemisphere-centered approach to industry and energy. The

next Administration has a golden opportunity to make key economic

changes that will not only provide tremendous economic opportunities

for Americans but will also serve as an economic boon to the entire

Western Hemisphere.

First, the United States must do everything possible, with both resources

and messaging, to shift global manufacturing and industry from more

distant points around the globe (especially from the increasingly hostile

and human rights-abusing PRC) to Central and South American countries.

“Re-hemisphering” manufacturing and industry closer to home will not only

eliminate some of the more recent supply-chain issues that damaged the U.S.

economy but will also represent a signiﬁcant economic improvement for

parts of the Americas in need of growth and stabilization.

Similarly, the United States must work with Mexico, Canada, and other

countries to develop a hemisphere-focused energy policy that will reduce

reliance on distant and manipulable sources of fossil fuels, restore the free

ﬂow of energy among the hemisphere’s largest producers, and work together

to increase energy production, including for nations that are looking for

dramatic economic expansion.

A “local” approach to security threats. Western Hemisphere nations,

including those in the Caribbean, arguably have stronger cultural and

historical ties to the United States than most other countries and regions

in the world. Yet Central and South America are moving rapidly into the

sphere of anti-American, external state actors, including the PRC, Iran, and

Russia. Speciﬁc countries in the Americas, such as Venezuela, Colombia,

Guyana, and Ecuador, are either increasingly regional security threats

in their own rights or are vulnerable to hostile extra-continental powers.

The U.S. has an opportunity to lead these democratic neighbors to ﬁght

against the external pressure of threats from abroad and address local

regional security concerns. This leadership and collaboration must span all

tools at the disposal of U.S. allies and partners, including security-focused

cooperation.

Middle East and North Africa

The next Administration must re-engage with Middle Eastern and North Afri-

can nations and not abandon the region. Without U.S. leadership, the region may

tumble further into chaos or fall prey to American adversaries. This recommen-

dation requires a multi-dimensional strategy.

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Department of State

First, the U.S. must prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear technology and

delivery capabilities and more broadly block Iranian ambitions. This means,

inter alia, reinstituting and expanding Trump Administration sanctions;

providing security assistance for regional partners; supporting, through

public diplomacy and otherwise, freedom-seeking Iranian people in

their revolt against the mullahs; and ensuring Israel has both the military

means and the political support and ﬂexibility to take what it deems to be

appropriate measures to defend itself against the Iranian regime and its

regional proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Second, the next Administration should build on the Trump

Administration’s diplomatic successes by encouraging other Arab states,

including Saudi Arabia, to enter the Abraham Accords. Related policies

should include reversing, as appropriate, the Biden Administration’s

degradation of the long-standing partnership with Saudi Arabia. The

Palestinian Authority should be defunded. A further key priority is keeping

Türkiye in the Western fold and a NATO ally. This includes a vigorous

outreach to Türkiye to dissuade it from “hedging” toward Russia or China,

which is likely to require a rethinking of U.S. support for YPG/PKK [People’s

Protection Units/Kurdistan Worker’s Party] Kurdish forces, which Ankara

believes are an existential threat to its security. For the foreseeable future—

and much longer than one new Administration—Middle Eastern oil will

play a key role in the world economy. Therefore, the U.S. must continue

to support its allies and compete with its economic adversaries, including

China. Relations with Saudi Arabia should be strengthened in a way that

seriously curtails Chinese inﬂuence in Riyadh.

Third, it is in the U.S. national interest to build a Middle East security

pact that includes Israel, Egypt, the Gulf states, and potentially India, as a

second “Quad” arrangement. Protecting freedom of navigation in the Gulf

and in the Red Sea/Suez Canal is vital to the world economy and therefore

to U.S. prosperity as well. In North Africa, security cooperation with

European allies, especially France, will be vital to limit growing Islamist

threats and the incursion of Russian inﬂuence through positionings of the

Wagner Group.

The U.S. cannot neglect a concern for human rights and minority rights,

which must be balanced with strategic and security considerations. Special

attention must be paid to challenges of religious freedom, especially the

status of Middle Eastern Christians and other religious minorities, as well as

the human tracking endemic to the region.

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Sub-Saharan Africa

Africa’s importance to U.S. foreign policy and strategic interests is rising and

will only continue to grow. Its explosive population growth, large reserves of

industry-dependent minerals, proximity to key maritime shipping routes, and its

collective diplomatic power ensure the continent’s global importance. Yet as Afri-

ca’s strategic signiﬁcance has grown, the U.S.’s relative inﬂuence there has declined.

Terrorist activity on the continent has increased, while America’s competitors are

making signiﬁcant gains for their own national interests. The PRC’s companies

dominate the African supply chain for certain minerals critical to emerging tech-

nologies. African nations comprise major country-bloc elements that shield the

PRC and Russia from international isolation for their human rights abuses—and

African nations staunchly support PRC foreign policy goals on issues such as Hong

Kong occupation, South China Seas dispute arbitration, and Taiwan.

The new Administration can correct this strategic failing of existing policy by

prioritizing Africa and by undertaking fundamental changes in how the United

States works with African nations.

At a bare minimum, the next Administration should:

Shift strategic focus from assistance to growth. Reorient the focus of

U.S. overseas development assistance away from stand-alone humanitarian

development aid and toward fostering free market systems in African

countries by incentivizing and facilitating U.S. private sector engagement

in these countries. Development aid alone does little to develop countries

and can fuel corruption and violent conﬂict. While the United States should

always be willing to oer emergency and humanitarian relief, both U.S. and

African long-term interests are better served by a free market-based, private

growth-focused strategy to Africa’s economic challenges.

Counter malign Chinese activity on the continent. This should include

the development of powerful public diplomacy eorts to counter Chinese

inﬂuence campaigns with commitments to freedom of speech and the free

ﬂow of information; the creation of a template “digital hygiene” program

that African countries can access to sanitize and protect their sensitive

communications networks from espionage by the PRC and other hostile

actors; the recognition of Somaliland statehood as a hedge against the U.S.’s

deteriorating position in Djibouti; and a focus on supporting American

companies involved in industries important to U.S. national interests or that

have a competitive advantage in Africa.

Counter the furtherance of terrorism. African country-based terrorist

groups like Boko Haram may currently lack the capability to attack the

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Department of State

United States, but at least some of them would eventually try if allowed to

consolidate their operations and plan such attacks. The immediate threat

they pose lies in their abilities and willingness to strike American targets in

their regions of operation or to harm U.S. interests in other ways. The U.S.

should support capable African military and security operations through

the State Department and other federal agencies responsible for granting

foreign military education, training, and security assistance.

Build a coalition of the cooperative. Rather than thinning limited federal

resources by spreading funds across all countries (including some that are

unsupportive or even hostile to the United States,) the next Administration

should focus on those countries with which the U.S. can expect a mutually

beneﬁcial relationship. After being designated focus countries by the

State Department, such nations should receive a full suite of American

engagement. That said, the next Administration should still maintain a

baseline level of contact even with those countries with which it has less-

than-fruitful relationships in order to encourage positive developments and

to be in position to seize unexpected diplomatic opportunities as they arise.

Focus on core diplomatic activities, and stop promoting policies

birthed in the American culture wars. African nations are particularly

(and reasonably) non-receptive to the U.S. social policies such as abortion

and pro-LGBT initiatives being imposed on them. The United States should

focus on core security, economic, and human rights engagement with

African partners and reject the promotion of divisive policies that hurt the

deepening of shared goals between the U.S. and its African partners.

Europe

American foreign policy has long beneﬁted from cooperation with the countries

of Europe (generally, the EU), and any conservative Administration should build

on this resource. Yet the transatlantic relationship is complex, with security, trade,

and political dimensions.

First, the Europe, Eurasia, and Russia region is made up of relatively wealthy

and technologically advanced societies that should be expected to bear a fair share

of both security needs and global security architecture: The United States cannot

be expected to provide a defense umbrella for countries unwilling to contribute

appropriately. At stake after 2024 will be examining the status of the Wales Pledge

of 2 percent of gross domestic product toward defense by NATO members. The

new Administration will also want to encourage nations to exceed that pledge.

Second, transatlantic trade is a signiﬁcant part of the global economy, and it is

in the U.S. national interest to amplify it, especially because this means weaning

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Europe of its dependence on China. However, there are also transatlantic trade

tensions that disturb the U.S.–EU relationship and that have been evident across

Administrations. The U.S. must undertake a comprehensive review of trade

arrangements between the EU and the United States to assure that U.S. businesses

are treated fairly and to build productive reciprocity. Outside the EU, trade with

the post-Brexit U.K. needs urgent development before London slips back into the

orbit of the EU.

Third, in the wake of Brexit, EU foreign policy now takes place without U.K.

input, which disadvantages the United States, given that the U.K. has historically

been aligned with many U.S. positions. Therefore, U.S. diplomacy must be more

attentive to inner-EU developments, while also developing new allies inside the

EU—especially the Central European countries on the eastern ﬂank of the EU,

which are most vulnerable to Russian aggression.

South and Central Asia

Many key American interests and responsibilities are found in South and

Central Asia. Speciﬁcally, continuing to advance the bilateral relationship with

India to mutual beneﬁt is a crucial objective for U.S. policy. India plays a crucial

role in countering the Chinese threat and securing a free and open Indo–Paciﬁc.

It is a critical security guarantor for the key routes of air and sea travel linking

East and West and an important emerging U.S. economic partner. For instance,

the 2019 Department of Defense Indo–Paciﬁc Strategy Report noted that the

Indian Ocean area “is at the nexus of global trade and commerce, with nearly

half of the world’s 90,000 commercial vessels and two thirds of global oil trade

traveling through its sea lanes. The region boasts some of the fastest-growing

economies on Earth.”

Meanwhile, the threat of transnational terrorism remains acute. The humiliat-

ing withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan after a 20-year military campaign

has created new challenges. It has provided an opportunity to reset the deeply

troubled U.S.–Pakistan relationship and reassess U.S. counterterrorism strategy

in the region. The long-standing India–Pakistan rivalry and tensions regarding the

disputed territory of Kashmir continue to pose risks to regional stability, especially

because both countries are nuclear powers.

The State Department’s role in strengthening the regional security and eco-

nomic framework linking the U.S and India is crucial. In addition, the department

has important functional responsibilities in dealing with a range of threats from

nuclear proliferation to transnational proliferation. While American statecraft

should also seek to improve bilateral relations throughout the region, U.S. policy

must be clear-eyed and realistic about the perﬁdiousness of the Taliban regime in

Afghanistan and the military–political rule in Pakistan. There can be no expecta-

tion of normal relations with either.

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Department of State

The priority for statecraft is advancing the U.S.–Indian role as a cornerstone

of the Quad, a cooperative framework including the U.S., India, Japan, and Aus-

tralia. The Quad is comprised of the key nations in coordinating eorts for a free

and open Indo–Paciﬁc. It is an overarching group that nests the key U.S. bilateral

and trilateral cooperative eorts that facilitate U.S. collaborative eorts across

the Indo–Paciﬁc. The State Department should also encourage the “Quad-Plus”

concept that allows other regional powers to participate in Quad coordination on

issues of mutual interest. Further, the State Department must support an inte-

grated federal eort to deliver a revamped regional strategy for South Asia, as well

as leading the execution of key tasks to implement the strategy.

The Arctic

Because of Alaska, the U.S. is an Arctic nation. The Arctic is a vast expanse of

land and sea rich in resources including ﬁsh, minerals, and energy. For example,

the region is estimated to contain 90 million barrels of oil and one-quarter of the

world’s undiscovered natural gas reserves.

The Arctic is lightly populated: Only

4 million people in the world live above the Arctic Circle, with more than half of

those living in Russia. Only around 68,000 people in Alaska live above the Arctic

Circle.

However, the sheer immensity of the Alaskan Arctic means its population

density is less than one person per square mile.

The United States has several strong interests in the Arctic region. The rate of

melting ice during summer months has led to increased interest not only from

shipping and tourism sectors, but also from America’s global competitors, who

are interested in exploiting the region’s strategic importance and accessing its

bounty of natural resources.

In the not-too-distant future, there will be a growing interest in the Arctic from

both state and non-state actors alike. China has been open about its interest in

the region, primarily as a highway for trade but also for its rich natural resources.

While the PRC’s increasing intervention in Arctic aairs is a bit strained because

it does not have an Arctic coastline, Russia does—and Russia has made no secret

of its view that the Arctic is vital for economic and military reasons. Russia has

invested heavily in new and refurbished Arctic bases and cold-weather equipment

and capabilities. The north star of U.S. Arctic policy should remain national sov-

ereignty, safeguarded through robust capabilities as well as through diplomatic,

economic, and legal attentiveness.

The next Administration should embrace the view that NATO must acknowl-

edge that it is, in part, an Arctic alliance. With the likely accession of Finland and

Sweden to NATO, every Arctic nation except for Russia will be a NATO member

state. NATO has been slow to appreciate that the Arctic is a theater that it must

defend, especially considering Russia’s brazen aggression against Ukraine. NATO

must develop and implement an Arctic strategy that recognizes the importance of

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

the region and ensures that Russian use of Arctic waters and resources does not

exceed a reasonable footprint.

The U.S. should unapologetically pursue American interests in the Arctic by

promoting economic freedom in the region. Economic freedom spurs prosperity,

innovation, respect for the rule of law, jobs, and sustainability. Most important,

economic freedom can help to keep the Arctic stable and secure.

The U.S. should work to ensure that shipping lanes in the Arctic remain avail-

able to all global commercial trac and free of onerous fees and burdensome

administrative, regulatory, and military requirements. While this should be the

next Administration’s policy with respect to all countries that might seek to block

free-ﬂowing commercial trac, the next Administration will clearly have to exert

substantial attention toward Russia.

Both the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy are vital tools to ensure an unmo-

nopolized Arctic. It is imperative that the Navy and Coast Guard continue to

expand their ﬂeets, including planned icebreaker acquisitions, to assure Arctic

access for the United States and other friendly actors. The remote and harsh con-

ditions of the Arctic also make unmanned system investment and use particularly

appealing for providing additional situational awareness, intelligence, surveillance,

and reconnaissance. The Coast Guard should also consider upgrading facilities,

such as its Barrow station, to reinforce its Arctic capabilities and demonstrate a

greater commitment to the region.

The People’s Republic of China has declared itself a “near-Arctic state,” which

is an imaginary term non-existent in international discourse. The United States

should work with like-minded Arctic nations, including Russia, to raise legitimate

concerns about the PRC’s so-called Polar Silk-Road ambitions.

Concerning Greenland, the opening of a U.S. consulate in Nuuk is welcome. A

formal year-round diplomatic presence is an eective way for the U.S. to better

understand local political and economic dynamics. Furthermore, given Green-

land’s geographic proximity and its rising potential as a commercial and tourist

location, the next Administration should pursue policies that enhance economic

ties between the U.S. and Greenland.

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

Defending and protecting the American people and advancing their interests

requires the United States to engage in a broad spectrum of bilateral and multilateral

relationships, including participating in international organizations. Working with

other governments through international organizations like the United Nations

(U.N.) can be tremendously useful—but membership in these organizations must

always be understood as a means to attain deﬁned goals rather than an end in itself.

Engagement with international organizations is one relatively easy way for the

U.S. to defend its interests and to seek to address problems in concert with other

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Department of State

nations, but it is not the only option—and American diplomats should be clear-

eyed about international organizations’ strengths and weaknesses. When such

institutions act against U.S. interests, the United States must be prepared to take

appropriate steps in response, up to and including withdrawal. The manifest failure

and corruption of the World Health Organization (WHO) during the COVID-19

pandemic is an example of the danger that international organizations pose to U.S.

citizens and interests.

The next Administration must end blind support for international organi-

zations. If an international organization is eective and advances American

interests, the United States should support it. If an international organization

is ineective or does not support American interests, the United States should

not support it. Those that are eective will still require constant pressure from

U.S. ocials to ensure that they remain eective. Serious consideration should

also be given to withdrawal from organizations that no longer have value, quietly

undermine U.S. interests or goals, or disproportionately rely on U.S. ﬁnancial con-

tributions to survive.

The Trump Administration’s “tough love” approach to international organiza-

tions served American interests. For example, the Trump Administration withdrew

from, or terminated funding for, the United Nations Human Rights Council, the

United Nations Educational, Scientiﬁc and Cultural Organization, the United

Nations Relief and Works Agency, and the WHO. The results were redeployment

of taxpayer dollars to better uses—and other organizations “getting the message”

that the United States will not allow itself and its money to be used to undermine

its own interests.

The Biden Administration reversed many of these decisions. Currently, U.S.

funding for international organizations is more than $16 billion in ﬁscal year

2021—a sharp increase from $10.8 billion in ﬁscal year 2015.

Millions of American

taxpayer dollars go to support policies and initiatives that hurt the United States

and American citizens.

The next Administration should direct the Secretary of State to initiate a

comprehensive cost-beneﬁt analysis of U.S. participation in all international

organizations. This review should take into account long-standing provisions in

federal law that prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars to promote abortion, popu-

lation control, and terrorist activities, as well as other applicable restrictions on

funding for international organizations and agencies with a view to withholding

U.S. funds in cases of abuses.

International organizations should not be used to promote radical social pol-

icies as if they were human rights priorities. Doing so undermines actual human

rights and weakens U.S. credibility abroad. The next Administration should use

its voice, inﬂuence, votes, and funding in international organizations to pro-

mote authentic human rights and respect for sovereignty based on the binding

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

international obligations contained in treaties that have been constitutionally

ratiﬁed by the U.S. government. It must promote a strict text-based interpreta-

tion of treaty obligations that does not consider human rights treaties as “living

instruments” both within the State Department and within international organi-

zations that receive U.S. funding, including by making respect for sovereignty and

authentic human rights a litmus test of personnel decisions and elections processes

within international organizations.

The U.S. Commission on Unalienable Human Rights focused on the primacy

of civil and political rights in its inaugural report, which remains an important

guidepost for bilateral and multilateral engagements on human rights. The com-

mission’s report is a roadmap for revamping and reenergizing U.S. human rights

policy and should be the basis for both structural and policy changes throughout

the State Department.

All U.S. multilateral engagements must be reevaluated

in light of the work of the commission, and initiatives that promote controversial

policies must be halted and rolled back.

It is paramount to create a healthy culture of respect for life, the family, sover-

eignty, and authentic human rights in international organizations and agencies. To

support this goal, the U.S. led an eort during the Trump Administration to forge a

consensus among like-minded countries in support of human life, women’s health,

support of the family as the basic unit of human society, and defense of national

sovereignty. The result was the Geneva Consensus Declaration on Women’s Health

and Protection of the Family.

All U.S. foreign policy engagements that were pro-

duced and expanded under the Obama and Biden Administrations must be aligned

with the Geneva Consensus Declaration and the work of the U.S. Commission on

Unalienable Human Rights.

The U.S. government should not and cannot promote or fund abortion in inter-

national programs or multilateral organizations. Technically, the United States can

prevent its international funding from going toward abortions, but the U.S. will

have a greater impact by including like-minded nations and building on the coali-

tion launched through the Geneva Consensus Declaration, with a view to shaping

the work of international agencies by functioning as a united front.

The COVID-19 pandemic made it painfully clear that both international organi-

zations—and some countries—are only too willing to trample human rights in the

name of public health. For example, the WHO was, and remains, willing to support

the suppression of basic human rights, partially because of its close relationship

with human rights abusers like the PRC.

The next Administration should unequivocally embrace the premise that

humanity and the international community can simultaneously tackle pandem-

ics and other emergent health threats without impeding the rights of people. It

must also become a vocal surrogate for people in countries where rights are being

suppressed in the name of health. This will likely require greater restrictions on

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Department of State

the supply of federal dollars to the WHO and other health-focused international

organizations pending adjustment of their policies.

The United States must return to treating international organizations as vehi-

cles for promoting American interests—or take steps to extract itself from those

organizations.

SHAPING THE FUTURE

Development of a grand foreign policy strategy is key to the next Administra-

tion’s success, but without addressing structural and related issues of the State

Department, this strategy will be at risk. The Hart–Rudman Commission called for

a signiﬁcant restructuring of the State Department speciﬁcally and foreign assis-

tance programs generally, stating that funding increases could only be justiﬁed if

there was greater conﬁdence that institutions would use their funding eectively.

Sadly, the exact opposite has occurred. The State Department has metastasized in

structure and resources, but neither the function of the department nor the use of

taxpayer dollars has improved. The next Administration can take steps to remedy

these deﬁciencies.

The State Department’s greatest problem is certainly not an absence of

resources. As noted, the department boasts tens of thousands of employees and

billions of dollars of funding—including signiﬁcant amounts of discretionary fund-

ing. It also exists among a broader array of federal agencies that are duplicative,

particularly when it comes to the provision of direct and indirect foreign assistance.

Realistically, meaningful reform of the State Department will require signiﬁcant

streamlining.

Below are some key structural and operational recommendations that will be

essential for the next Administration’s success, and which will lay crucial founda-

tions for other necessary reforms.

Develop a reorganization strategy. Despite periodic attempts by

previous Administrations (including the Trump Administration) to make

more than cosmetic changes to the State Department, its structure has

remained largely unchanged since the 20th century.

The State Department

will better serve future Administrations, regardless of party, if it were to

be meaningfully streamlined. The next Administration should develop

a complete hypothetical reorganization of the department—one which

would tighten accountability to political leadership, reduce overhead,

eliminate redundancy, waste fewer taxpayer resources, and recommend

additional personnel-related changes for improvement of function.

Such reorganization could be creative, but also carefully review speciﬁc

structure-related problems that have been documented over the years.

This reorganization eort would necessarily assess what oce closures

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

can be carried out with and without congressional approval. Timelines for

action on these fronts should be developed accordingly, but speed should

be a priority.

Consolidate foreign assistance authorities. Foreign assistance is a

critical foreign policy tool that is too often disconnected from the federal

government’s practice of foreign policy. Bureaucrats spend signiﬁcant

energy resisting the use of non-emergency foreign assistance to leverage

positive results for the United States, even though it is a perfectly

reasonable proposition. The coordination of foreign assistance dollars is

also dicult because the foreign assistance budget and foreign loan issuance

authorities are divided across numerous Cabinet departments, smaller

agencies, and other oces.

The next Administration should take steps to ensure that future foreign

assistance clearly and unambiguously supports the President’s foreign

policy agenda. For example, the next administrator of the U.S. Agency

for International Development, which is technically subordinate to the

State Department, should be authorized to take on the additional role

of Director of Foreign Assistance with the rank of Deputy Secretary and

oversee all foreign assistance. This role—which existed brieﬂy during

the George W. Bush Administration before it was eliminated by the

Obama Administration—would empower the dual-hatted ocial to better

align and coordinate with the manifold foreign assistance programs

across the federal government. The next Administration should also

evaluate whether these multiple sources of foreign assistance are in

the national interest and, if not, develop a plan to consolidate foreign

assistance authorities.

Make public diplomacy and international broadcasting serve

American interests. A key part of U.S. foreign policy is the ability to

communicate with not only governments but with the peoples of the world.

Indeed, in some ways, communicating directly with the public is more

important than communicating with governments, particularly in times of

governmental conﬂict or disagreement. Public diplomacy has historically

been, and remains, vital to American foreign policy success. Unfortunately,

U.S. public diplomacy, which largely relies on taxpayer-funded international

broadcasting outlets, has been deeply ineective in recent years.

The U.S. government’s ﬁrst foray into international broadcasting started

with the Voice of America radio broadcast in 1942, which was intended as

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Department of State

a tool to communicate directly with the people of Europe during World

War II. During the next half-century, America’s international broadcasting

eorts both expanded and increased in sophistication as the United States

shifted out of its “hot” war in Europe and into the Cold War with the

Soviet Union. U.S. international broadcasting prowess, and the conﬁdent

willingness to communicate the correctness of American ideals in the face

of global resistance, arguably hit its peak near the conclusion of the Cold

War in the late 1980s.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent collapse

of Soviet and Eastern Bloc Communism, factors including the false

appeal of a so-called peace dividend triggered a slide in the U.S. ability to

communicate a pro-freedom message to the rest of the world and in its

commitment to do so. Ironically, this slide accompanied the rise of the

Internet and mobile phone technologies, which arguably facilitated the

most signiﬁcant revolution in human communication since the invention of

the printing press.

The United States must reassert its public diplomacy obligations by

restoring its international broadcasting infrastructure as part of the broader

U.S. foreign policy framework, consolidating broadcasting resources and

recommitting to people-focused and pro-freedom messaging and content.

Engage in cyber diplomacy. Cyberspace has become an arena for

competition between the U.S. and nations that seek and export digital

authoritarianism. Cyberspace protection is critical to national security and

deserving of commensurate diplomatic resources. Deﬁned as “the use of

diplomatic tools to address issues arising in and through cyberspace,” cyber

diplomacy is a key part of the U.S. government’s toolkit for preventing and

addressing cyber threats.

The model for cyberspace that the U.S. espouses is based on democracy

and freedom of information. It is “an open, interoperable, secure, reliable,

market-drive, domain that reﬂects democratic values and protects privacy.”

Russia and China, meanwhile, are authoritarian regimes that use the

Internet to limit public opposition and control information. They have

created technological tools to enforce dominance over their peoples, and

at the U.N. and international organizations dealing with cyberspace, they

strive to push standards that assist their totalitarian eorts and undermine

Western nations.

— 196 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Simultaneously, Russia, China, and lesser adversaries exploit the more

open networks of countries like the U.S. to undermine democracy through

disinformation and propaganda. They have attempted to inﬂuence U.S.

elections; enabled or encouraged actors to exploit cyber vulnerabilities

to commit theft of real or intellectual property; and have challenged

U.S. governmental, military, and critical infrastructure networks with

targeted malware.

In short, the cyberspace era has gradually evolved from one of exploration,

innovation, and cooperation to one that retains these features but is also

marked by aggressive competition and persistent threats. To meet this

reality, the State Department must move beyond its traditional model of

attempting to establish non-binding, informal world standards of acceptable

cyberspace behavior. The State Department should work with allies to

establish a clear framework of enforceable norms for actions in cyberspace,

moving beyond the voluntary norms of the United Nations Group of

Governmental Experts.

The State Department should also assist the Department of Defense to go

“on oence” against adversaries. “Deterrence as a strategic approach has not

stemmed the onslaught of cyber aggression below the level of armed conﬂict.”

The traditional U.S. defensive approach based on deterrence followed by

reaction to crossed “red lines” is no longer eective. Adversaries can evade

this strategy through multiple tactical lines of action below the level of

armed conﬂict, and such actions have a cumulative strategic eect. The State

Department’s role should be to work with allies and engage with adversaries

when necessary to draw clear lines of unacceptable conduct. Global ﬁnancial

infrastructure, nuclear controls, and public health are particularly important

areas in which consensus may even be found across ideological lines.

These mission-essential institutional initiatives should be joined with others

to establish a presidentially directed and durable U.S. foreign policy.

CONCLUSION

The next conservative President has the opportunity and the duty to restructure

the creation and execution of U.S. foreign policy so that it is focused on his or her

vision for the nation's role in the world. The policy ideas and reform recommen-

dations outlined in this chapter provide guidance about how the State Department

can contribute to this objective.

In the main, this chapter refocuses attention away from the special interests

and social experiments that are used in some quarters to capture U.S. foreign policy.

— 197 —

Department of State

The ideas and recommendations herein are premised on the belief that a rigorous

adherence to the national interest is the most enduring foundation for U.S. grand

strategy in the 21st century.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Thanks to the entire State Department chapter team, the leaders and sta of the 2025

Presidential Transition Project, and my colleagues at The Heritage Foundation’s Davis Center. In particular, I would

like to acknowledge the following colleagues: Russell Berman, Sarah Calvis, James Carafano, Spencer Chretien,

Wesley Coopersmith, Paul Dans, Steven Groves, Simon Hankinson, Joseph Humire, Michael Pillsbury, Max Primorac,

Reed Rubenstein, Brett Schaefer, Je Smith, Hillary Tano, Erin Walsh, and John Zadrozny.

— 198 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

 U.S. Department of State, “About the U.S. Department of State: Our History,” https://www.state.gov/about/

(accessed March 9, 2023).

 The balance of employment is 2,149 eligible family members and 50,223 locally employed sta. U.S.

Department of State, “GTM Fact Sheet: Facts About Our Most Valuable Asset—Our People,” Global Talent

Management, December 31, 2022, https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/GTM_Factsheet1222.

pdf (accessed March 9, 2023).

 U.S. Commission on National Security, Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change, Phase III Report,

February 15, 2001, p. x, http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/nssg/PhaseIIIFR.pdf (accessed March 9, 2023).

 See Brett D. Schaefer, “How to Make the State Department More Eective at Implementing U.S. Foreign

Policy,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3115, April 20, 2016, https://www.heritage.org/political-

process/report/how-make-the-state-department-more-eective-implementing-us-foreign.

 Historically, roughly one-third of ambassadorial appointments have been political appointments, although

Republican Administrations have generally had a higher ratio of political appointments than Democratic

Administrations.

 U.S. Constitution, art. 2, sec. 2, cl. 2.

 News release, “Secretary Blinken Launches the Oce of China Coordination,” U.S. Department of State,

December 16, 2022, https://www.state.gov/secretary-blinken-launches-the-oce-of-china-coordination/

(accessed March 9, 2023).

 Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S. Code § 1101 et seq., § 1253.

 See Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace the United States as a

Global Superpower (NY: St. Martin’s Grin, 2016).

 For additional context regarding how countering China ﬁts in a more robust U.S. strategy, see James Jay

Carafano et al., “Foreign Policy: Strategy for a Post-Biden Era,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3715,

July 21, 2022, https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/foreign-policy-strategy-post-biden-era.

 The Article X for China would follow George Kennan’s Article X for U.S.–Soviet competition. See George F.

Kennan, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Aairs, July 1947, https://www.foreignaairs.com/articles/

russian-federation/1947-07-01/sources-soviet-conduct (accessed March 22, 2023).

 Dean Cheng et al., “Assessing Beijing’s Power: A Blueprint for the U.S. Response to China Over the Next

Decades,” Heritage Foundation Special Report No. 221, February 20, 2010, https://www.heritage.org/asia/

report/assessing-beijings-power-blueprint-the-us-response-china-over-the-next-decades.

 Eric W. Orts, “The Rule of Law in China,” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 34, No. 1 (January 2001),

https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1686&context=vjtl (accessed March 9, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Defense, Indo–Paciﬁc Strategy Report: Preparedness, Partnerships, and Promoting a

Networked Region, June 1, 2019, https://media.defense.gov/2019/Jul/01/2002152311/-1/-1/1/DEPARTMENT-OF-

DEFENSE-INDO-PACIFIC-STRATEGY-REPORT-2019.PDF (accessed July 28, 2022).

 See Je Smith, “South Asia: A New Strategy,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3721, August 29, 2022,

https://www.heritage.org/asia/report/south-asia-new-strategy.

 Emma Bryce, “Why Is There So Much Oil in the Arctic?” Live Science, August 3, 2019, https://www.livescience.

com/66008-why-oil-in-arctic.html (accessed February 9, 2023).

 “Changes in the Arctic: Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service Report for

Congress, updated January 26, 2021, p. 6, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R41153/177 (accessed

March 9, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology, “Snapshot: Overcoming the Tyranny of

Distance in the Arctic,” April 20, 2020, https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/news/2020/04/20/

snapshot-overcoming-tyranny-distance-arctic (accessed February 9, 2023).

 U.S. Department of State, “U.S. Contributions to International Organizations, 2021,” September 20, 2022,

https://www.state.gov/u-s-contributions-to-international-organizations-2021/ (accessed March 9, 2023), and

U.S. Department of State, “U.S. Contributions to International Organizations, 2015,” November 1, 2016, https://

www.state.gov/u-s-contributions-to-international-organizations-2015/ (accessed March 9, 2023).

 U.S. Department of State, Report on the Commission of Inalienable Rights, https://www.state.gov/wp-content/

uploads/2020/07/Draft-Report-of-the-Commission-on-Unalienable-Rights.pdf (accessed March 9, 2023).

— 199 —

Department of State

 “Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women’s Health and Strengthening the Family,” October

22, 2021, https://www.theiwh.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/GCD-Declaration-2021-2.pdf (accessed

March 13, 2023).

 U.S. Commission on National Security, Road Map for National Security.

 U.S. Department of State, “Organization Chart,” November 2004, https://2009-2017.state.gov/s/d/rm/rls/

perfrpt/2004/html/39764.htm (accessed March 9, 2023); U.S. Department of State, “Organization Chart,”

November 2016, https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/263637.pdf (accessed March 9, 2023);

U.S. Department of State, “Organization Chart,” February 2020, https://2017-2021.state.gov/wp-content/

uploads/2021/01/Dept-Org-Chart-Feb-2020-508.pdf (accessed March 9, 2023); U.S. Department of State,

“DOS Org Chart August 2021,” August 2021, https://www.state.gov/department-of-state-organization-chart/

dos-org-chart-august-2021/ (accessed March 9, 2023); and U.S. Department of State, “Organization Chart,”

May 2022, https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/DOS-Org-Chart-5052022-Non-Accessible.

pdf (accessed March 9, 2023).

 Emily O. Goldman, “Cyber Diplomacy for Strategic Competition: Fresh Thinking and New Approaches

Are Needed on Diplomacy’s Newest Frontier,” Foreign Service Journal, June 2021, http://afsa.org/cyber-

diplomacy-strategic-competition (accessed March 9, 2023).

 Emily Goldman, “From Reaction to Action: Adopting a Competitive Posture in Cyber Diplomacy,” Texas

National Security Review, Vol. 3, No. 4 (Fall 2020), https://tnsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/TNSR-Vol3-

Iss4-Goldman.pdf (accessed March 9, 2023).

 United Nations General Assembly, “Group of Government Experts on Advancing Responsible State Behaviour

in Cyberspace in the Context of International Security,” A/76/135, July 14, 2021, https://front.un-arm.org/wp-

content/uploads/2021/08/A_76_135-2104030E-1.pdf (accessed March 10, 2023).

 Goldman, “Cyber Diplomacy.”

— 201 —

INTELLIGENCE

COMMUNITY

Dustin J. Carmack

MISSION STATEMENT

To arm a future incoming conservative President with the knowledge and tools

necessary to fortify the United States Intelligence Community; to defend against

all foreign enemies and ensure the security and prosperity of our sovereign nation,

devoid of all political motivations; and to maintain constitutional civil liberties.

OVERVIEW

The United States Intelligence Community (IC) is a vast, intricate bureaucracy

spread throughout 18 independent and Cabinet subagencies.

According to the

Oce of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the IC’s mission is “to col-

lect, analyze, and deliver foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information

to America’s leaders so they can make sound decisions to protect our country.”

An incoming conservative President needs to use these intelligence authorities

aggressively to anticipate and thwart our adversaries, including Russia, Iran, North

Korea, and especially China, while maintaining counterterrorism tools that have

demonstrated their eectiveness. This means empowering the right personnel

to manage, build, and eectively execute actions dispersed throughout the IC to

deliver intelligence in an ever-challenging world. It also means removing redun-

dancies, mission creep, and IC inﬁghting that could prevent these collection tools

from providing objective, apolitical, and empirically backed intelligence to the IC’s

premier customer: the President of the United States.

Today, as Abraham Lincoln famously said, “The occasion is piled high with

diculty, and we must rise with the occasion…. [W]e must think anew, and act

— 202 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

anew.”

The Intelligence Community maintains an incredible capacity to achieve

its mission, but both the IC and the somewhat antiquated infrastructure that sup-

ports it often place too high a priority on yesterday’s threats and methodologies

instead of trying to identify possible future threats or the methodologies that

might be needed to combat them. The IC also often spends too much time over-

correcting for past mistakes. The unintended consequences include hesitancy,

groupthink, and an overly cautious approach that allows personal incentives to

drive preset courses.

The IC must be perceived as a depoliticized protector of America’s civil rights

and security. The American people are understandably frustrated by the fact that

those who abuse power are rarely held to account for their actions. This must

change, beginning with leadership that is both committed to ensuring that these

agencies faithfully execute the laws of the land under the Constitution and resolved

to punish and remove any ocials who have abused the public trust.

The IC must also start to look forward, not backward. A concerted, disciplined,

leadership-led initiative must be undertaken to refocus and shift IC prioritization,

funding, and authorities to new and emerging threats, technologies, and methodol

ogies if the United States is to prevail against its global adversaries.

Unfortunately,

America’s major strategic threat is a nation-state peer and possibly ahead of the

U.S. in strategic areas. An incoming President must understand that today’s intel-

ligence competition could well require analyzing technologies the U.S. does not

have or compartmentalizing certain information as was done during the Cold

War because of intelligence penetration. A future President’s ability to drive the

resources needed to defeat another nation-state giant should therefore be the

focus of near-term IC reforms.

OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE (ODNI)

The ODNI was established in the aftermath of the attacks on 9/11 and intelli-

gence failures leading up to the 2003 U.S. war in Iraq. The oce and its functions

stem from authorities established under executive orders promulgated by

President George W. Bush in 2004, followed by statutory authorizations in the

Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA).

Proponents of an ODNI hoped to establish reforms similar to the Goldwater–

Nichols Department of Defense (DOD) reforms of the 1980s, which identiﬁed

recurring problems within DOD’s command-and-control architecture and led to

uniﬁed Combatant Commands with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Sta as

the senior ranking member of the armed forces and principal military adviser to

the President. The ODNI was envisioned as a small but powerful IC coordinating

agency led by a Director of National Intelligence (DNI). As the President’s principal

intelligence adviser, the DNI would lead and provide oversight of the President’s

intelligence authorities while wielding a cudgel—budget and appointment

— 203 —

Intelligence Community

authorities—to break institutional silos that had caused past intelligence inte-

gration failures.

Originally envisioned by the 9/11 Commission as a strengthened, authoritative

position, the ﬁnal congressionally negotiated product signed by President Bush

has led to ambiguous and vague authorities that are dependent on who is selected

as DNI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director and their level of support

from the White House and National Security Council (NSC). 9/11 Commission

Executive Director Philip Zelikow warned in a 2004 hearing that creating a new

agency “lacking any existing institutional base…would require authorities at least

as strong as those we have proposed or else it would create a bureaucratic ﬁfth

wheel that would make the present situation even worse.”

The ODNI has become

that bureaucratic ﬁfth wheel about which Zelikow warned.

For example, under the Bush Administration’s initial legislative proposal, the

CIA Director would have been under the “authority, direction, and control” of the

DNI and no longer the head of an autonomous agency. Additional mechanisms

envisioned full budget authority for the DNI, including within DOD’s intelligence

components, as opposed to coordinating authority. Through arduous “sau-

sage-making” and relatively quick negotiations, lawmakers produced statutorily

vague authorities that traded away the DNI’s ability to direct budgetary authority

across the entire IC, including DOD, and left the CIA a subordinate but indepen-

dent agency with duties to report to the DNI without explicit directing authority.

These statutory developments were what led President Bush’s ﬁrst choice to

serve as DNI, Robert Gates, to turn down the position. In discussions with the

White House over the post, Gates noted that the “legislation weakened the lead-

ership of the community” and that “instead of a stronger person, you ended up

with a weaker person because the DNI had no troops and no additional powers

really on the budget, hiring, and ﬁring.”

Gates noted that success would require

the President to “make explicit publicly that the DNI is head of the Intelligence

Community, not some budgeter or coordinator,” and that “[t]he position’s only

prayer of success is for the president to say plainly…how he sees the job. Without

his explicit mandate…the endeavor is doomed to fail.”

One of the two DNIs conﬁrmed by the Senate during the Trump Administra-

tion, John Ratclie, acknowledged that Gates’s theoretical concerns became the

practical reality that he inherited:

Prior DNIs were the head of the IC only on paper and were routinely

accustomed to yielding IC actions and decisions to the preferences of the

CIA and other agencies. My ability to begin reversing that capitulation was

accomplished solely because President Trump made it repeatedly clear to the

entire national security apparatus that he expected all intelligence matters to

go through the DNI.

— 204 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

To help further the legislative intent behind IRTPA, DNI Ratclie advised

during the transition of incoming Biden DNI Avril Haines that the DNI should

be the only Cabinet-level intelligence ocial.

While his recommendation was

adopted and has corrected the previously allowed imbalance by making the DNI

the only Cabinet ocial and head of the IC at the table, the ODNI’s eectiveness

and direction leave much to be desired.

A conservative President must decide how to empower an individual to oversee

and manage the Intelligence Community eectively. To be successful, the DNI

and ODNI must be able to lead the IC and implement the President’s intelligence

priorities. This includes being able to exercise both budget and personnel authority

and being able to rely on timely, useful feedback from subordinate components of

the IC, many of which are located within other Cabinet agencies.

The ODNI needs to direct, not replicate in-house, the other IC agencies’ analytic,

operational, and management functions. Considerations like mismanagement

of human resources, joint-duty assignments, and accelerated growth in senior

personnel can cause a President to dictate to his incoming DNI a desire to slash

redundant positions and expenditures while simultaneously giving the DNI the

authority to drive necessary changes throughout the IC to deal with the nation’s

most compelling threats, including those emanating from China. As John Ratclie

has noted, “These are essential to the DNI having the abilities and authorities to

eectively direct, coordinate, and tackle the immense national security challenges

ahead for the Intelligence Community as intended under IRTPA.”

Otherwise, other Cabinet and subordinate IC agencies will continue to regard

the ODNI as an annoyance and not as a positive contributor to the National Intel-

ligence Program (NIP) budget. They will continue to work around or circumvent

ODNI leadership decisions with appropriators and the Oce of Management and

Budget (OMB) or seek to wait out an Administration or DNI to prevent a policy or

intelligence priority from reaching fruition.

Intelligence and interagency coordination has improved signiﬁcantly since

9/11. Nevertheless, interagency rivalries and festering issues continue to cause

duplication of eort on intelligence analysis and technology purchases as well as

overclassiﬁcation and ever-increasing compartmentalization. Additional issues

include the abuse of mandated onboarding approval and reciprocity timelines by

some agencies, recruitment and retention failures, and a lack of will to remove

underperforming or timely adjudicate the misconduct of senior managers and

other employees.

Finally, future IC leadership must address the widely promoted “woke” cul-

ture that has spread throughout the federal government with identity politics and

“social justice” advocacy replacing such traditional American values as patriotism,

colorblindness, and even workplace competence.

— 205 —

Intelligence Community

EXECUTIVE ORDER 12333

IRTPA was passed in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks against the homeland. It

was intended to improve the sharing of information among the elements of the

IC, recognizing that the nature of the threats we now face blurs the lines between

foreign and domestic intelligence in detecting and countering national security

threats against the homeland. An equally important objective in passing the most

signiﬁcant intelligence reform since the National Security Act of 1947

was cre-

ation of the position of DNI, charged with assuming two of the three principal roles

that formerly belonged to the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI): serving as

principal intelligence adviser to the President and leading the IC as an enterprise.

Nearly two decades later, the DNI’s record of eectiveness in improving the

sharing of information and operating the IC as an enterprise is mixed. Implemen-

tation of the DNI’s roles as leader of the IC and principal intelligence adviser to

the President has been challenging. However, despite ﬂaws in the legislation and

intelligence agencies’ bureaucratic jockeying that undermine the DNI, it is impos-

sible to know what would emerge if Congress were to revisit the act. Seeking a

legislative solution therefore might carry with it more risks than beneﬁts. Instead,

an incoming conservative President’s immediate focus should be on modifying

Executive Order 12333, the President’s direction for implementing IRTPA.

Executive Order 12333 was last amended on July 30, 2008, by President George

W. Bush.

The revisions were aligned with IRTPA with signiﬁcant emphasis on

having the IC address the threats to the homeland from international terrorism

and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. There is scant mention of

cyber threats and the evolving national security challenges posed by China, Russia,

and other U.S. adversaries. By extension, the revised order fell short of stipulat-

ing how the DNI would execute his authority to organize the IC in a manner that

improves the delivery of timely intelligence to a wide array of customers.

Executive Order 12333 should be amended to take account of the changing

landscape of threats and improve the functional aspects of America’s intelligence

enterprise. To that end, a revised order should:

Address the threats to the United States and its allies in cyberspace.

These threats range from cyberwarfare to information operations. The

amended order should clearly delineate the roles and responsibilities of

the various U.S. government cyber missions, including the recently created

National Cyber Director’s Oce and power centers at the NSC, while

protecting the privacy and civil liberties of U.S. citizens.

Under the DNI’s direction, the cyber mission should explicitly identify

how information in the cyber domain will be shared promptly with the

warﬁghters, from law enforcement agencies to the broader IC and state,

— 206 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

local, and tribal elements. The order should consider stipulating what to

do with DOD cyber agencies, most notably the NSA, in terms of strategic

(for example, the President and the DNI) vs. tactical support (for example,

support for the warﬁghter) in conjunction with ongoing congressionally

mandated reviews of the future dual-hatted relationship.

Enhance the DNI’s role in overseeing execution of the National

Intelligence Program budget under the President’s authority. This

should be done in a manner that is consistent with Congress’s intent as

embodied in IRTPA. Under the executive order as written today, the DNI

“shall oversee and direct the implementation of the National Intelligence

Program.” In practice, the DNI’s authority to oversee execution of the IC’s

budget remains constrained by an inability to address changing intelligence

priorities and mandate the implementation of appropriated NIP funding to

higher intelligence priorities.

The DNI should have the President’s direction to address emerging but

catastrophic threats such as those posed by bioweapons. Clarifying how

much budget authority the DNI has in conjunction (within the limits of

congressional appropriations) with OMB and IC-member Cabinet ocials

to move around money and personnel is crucial, but positions will not

always be fungible. It will probably be necessary to hold IC leadership

accountable at intransigent agencies and to restructure areas through

executive orders in close conjunction with OMB, as needed.

Clarify the DNI’s role as leader of the IC as an enterprise in building the

IC’s capabilities around its open-source collection and analytic missions.

The exponential growth in open-source information, often called OSINT, is not

disputed. In the IC, the use of publicly available information, notwithstanding

the authorities within IRTPA for the DNI to manage OSINT, remains

disaggregated. The explosion of private-sector intelligence products and

expertise should signal to IC leadership that duplicative eorts are unnecessary

and that limited resources should be focused on problematic collection tasks.

The IC should avoid duplication of what is already being done well in

the private sector and focus instead on complex questions that cannot

be answered by conventional and frequently increasing numbers of

commercial tools and capabilities. If necessary, for lack of results from the

National Open Source Committee, the DNI should appoint the Principal

Deputy Director of National Intelligence (PDDNI) as chairman to prioritize

and promote accountability for the IC’s 18 agencies toward this eort.

— 207 —

Intelligence Community

Prioritize security clearance reform. Security clearance reform has

made signiﬁcant progress under Trusted Workforce 2.0, a governmentwide

background investigation reform that was implemented beginning in 2018

with the goal of creating one system with reciprocity across organizations.

This included allowing movement from periodic reinvestigations toward

a Continuous Vetting (CV) program with automated records checks,

adjudication of ﬂags, the “mitigat[ion of] personnel security situations

before they become a larger problem,” or the suspension or revocation of

clearances.

However, human resources onboarding operations in major

agencies such as the CIA, FBI, and NSA remain to be resolved.

As executive agent for security clearances, the DNI must require results

from agencies that resist implementation, enforce the 48-hour reciprocity

guidance, and target human resources operations that fail to attract and

expediently onboard qualiﬁed personnel. Additional “carrots and sticks”

from executive order reform language, including moving the Security

Services Directorate from NCSC to ODNI with elevated status, may be

necessary. It is unacceptable for agencies to hinder opportunities for cross-

agency assignments, use public–private partnerships ineciently because

of constraints on the transferability of security clearances, and lose future

talent because of extraordinary delays in backend operations. Proper vetting

to speed the onboarding of personnel with much-needed expertise is vital to

the IC’s future.

Ensure the DNI’s authority. The DNI’s authority should be similar to an

orchestra conductor’s. An incoming conservative President will appoint

whomever he chooses as DNI, but there should be agreement between the

incoming DNI and President with advice and counsel from the Presidential

Personnel Oce on selecting positions overseen by the DNI throughout

subordinate agencies, as well as concurrence by relevant Cabinet ocials

and the CIA. This exists by executive order, but many Presidents, PPOs, and

Cabinet agency heads do not follow executive order guidance and necessary

norms. The importance of trust, character, and the ability to work together

to achieve a joint set of intelligence goals established by the President

cannot be overstated: It is a mission that can be accomplished only with the

conductor and his orchestra playing in sync.

Provide additional support for such economic and supply chain–

focused agencies as the Department of Commerce. Information sharing

and feedback can help subagencies like the Commerce Department’s

Bureau of Industry and Security to improve their understanding of the

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

threat from China and thereby counter it more eectively. They can also

aid the development of export control mechanisms and potential outbound

investment screening where necessary. Brief, speciﬁc governance language

should be considered that would apply counterterrorist authority models to

the broader functions of the U.S. government insofar as they are needed to

counter 21st century nation-state threats.

The success of any DNI rests with support from the President. Any revised

Executive Order 12333 must serve to express unequivocal support for the DNI in

executing the mandates that an amended order would provide.

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA)

The CIA is a foreign intelligence collection service tasked with collecting human

intelligence (HUMINT), providing all-source intelligence analysis and report-

ing, and conducting covert action when required to do so by the President. The

CIA has its roots in the Oce of Strategic Services (OSS), which the United States

established during World War II as a paramilitary and intelligence collection orga-

nization. After World War II, President Harry Truman disbanded the OSS, and the

CIA was established in law by the National Security Act of 1947.

As with every agency in government, the President's election sets a new agenda

for the country. Public servants must be mindful that they are required to help

the President implement that agenda while remaining apolitical, upholding the

Constitution and laws of the United States, and earning the public trust. The Pres-

ident requires a CIA that provides unbiased and apolitical foreign intelligence

information and, when necessary, can act capably and eectively on any covert

action ﬁndings.

Executing the Mission. The CIA’s success depends on ﬁrm direction from the

President and solid internal CIA Director–appointed leadership. Decisive senior

leaders must commit to carrying out the President’s agenda and be willing to take

calculated risks. Therefore:

The next President-Elect and incoming Presidential Personnel Oce

should identify a Director nominee who can foster a mission-driven culture

by making necessary personnel and structural changes.

The President-Elect should choose a Deputy Director who, without

needing Senate conﬁrmation, can immediately begin to implement the

President’s agenda. This includes halting all current hiring to prevent

the “burrowing in” of outgoing political personnel. Additional appointees

should be placed within the agency as needed to assist the Director in

supervising its functioning.

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Intelligence Community

The Director and Deputy Director should request brieﬁngs on all CIA

activities and presence overseas, as well as any CIA-controlled access

programs and existing covert action ﬁndings, without exception.

The Director and Deputy Director should meet with all directorates and

mission centers, prioritizing those that are aligned most closely with the

President’s priorities and calibrating collection and operations based on

the President’s intelligence requirements. This includes any areas where

the CIA might be conducting its own diplomacy parallel to ocial State

Department policy. It must be clear that the CIA’s liaison relationships

overseas must follow and not contradict those set at the policy level by the

President through the State Department.

The other principal oces responsible for executing the CIA’s mission include

the Directorate of Operations, Directorate of Analysis, Directorate of Science and

Technology, Directorate of Support, and Directorate of Digital Innovation. If senior

leadership ﬁnds any program or operation to be inconsistent with the President’s

agenda, the Director should immediately halt that program or operation.

Reining in Bureaucracy. The CIA’s bureaucracy continues to grow. Because

mid-level managers lack accountability, there are areas in which personnel are not

responsive to any authority, including the President. The President should instruct

the Director to hire or promote new individuals to lead the various directorates

and mission centers. This new crop of mid-level leaders should carry out clear

directives from senior CIA leadership, which means more accountability and new

ways of thinking to beneﬁt the mission.

In addition, the President should task the Director with signiﬁcantly broadening

recruitment, expediting onboarding practices, and shifting resources away from

headquarters, including terminal generalist GS-15s when OPM buyouts, forced

rotations, or up-and-out personnel policies are set for particular positions. The

CIA must ﬁnd creative ways to align mission requirements with hiring needs,

recruit diverse sets of individuals with unique backgrounds, and become more

open to hiring private-sector experts directly into senior positions. In addition,

the Director should break the cabal of bureaucrats in D.C. by permanently moving

various directorates, such as Support and Science and Technology, out of Virginia

and possibly open campuses outside of D.C. where analysts and other experts could

contribute virtually.

Redirecting Resources. Certain CIA employees and oces have focused on

promoting divisive ideological or cultural agendas and fostering a damaging cul-

ture of risk aversion and complacency. As soon as possible, the Director should

divert resources from any activities that promote unnecessary and distracting

social engineering. The Director should implement changes in promotion criteria

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that reward individuals for creative thinking and quality of recruitments and prod-

ucts rather than numeric metrics or the achievement of benchmarks that are not

essential to the mission.

Not all careers in espionage are created equal, and the Director should incentiv-

ize and reward applicants who are willing to accept high risks over those who are

climbing the ranks simply by doing business as usual. The Director should refocus

the CIA to an OSS-like culture and mandate that all CIA employees acquire, as a

condition of securing senior (GS-14+) rank, additional or enhanced language skills,

technical or cyber expertise, or ﬁeld training or serve in overseas assignments.

COVERT ACTION

Covert action can be a valuable tool in helping further the President’s foreign

policy agenda if implemented in concert with other forms of government power.

As codiﬁed in the U.S. Code, “the term ‘covert action’ means an activity or activities

of the United States Government to inﬂuence political, economic, or military con-

ditions abroad, where it is intended that the role of the United States Government

will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly….”

The President initiates a covert action with a written ﬁnding that explains why

“such an action is necessary to support identiﬁable foreign policy objectives of the

United States and is important to the national security of the United States.”

The

statute assumes the President will use the CIA as the principal action element to

achieve the objectives of covert action ﬁndings; however, the President need not

feel constrained to utilize only the CIA: “[E]ach ﬁnding shall specify each depart-

ment, agency, or entity of the United States Government authorized to fund or

otherwise participate in any signiﬁcant way in such action.”

For example, the Department of Defense maintains certain clandestine capa-

bilities under Title 10 authorities that may resemble but far exceed in scale similar

capabilities outside of DOD. Generally, such DOD capabilities can be employed

outside a combat theater only if they are determined to be traditional military

activities. In practical terms, this means that many DOD capabilities, including

those in the space and cyber domains, can be employed only after the initiation of

armed conﬂict.

Given the range of global threats the United States faces today,

the President should consider whether DOD’s complete set of capabilities should

be used to support potential covert actions.

The problem, unfortunately, is that certain elements in the State Department,

IC, and DOD trade on risk aversion or political bureaucracy to delay execution

of the President’s foreign policy goals. A future conservative President should

therefore identify individuals on the transition team who are familiar with the

implementation of covert action with a view to placing them in key NSC, CIA,

ODNI, and DOD positions. These knowledgeable teams can assist in any review

of current covert actions and, potentially, planning for new actions.

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Intelligence Community

Immediately after the inauguration, the President should task the NSC’s Senior

Director for Intelligence Programs with conducting a 60-day review of any current

covert action ﬁndings, including their eectiveness; evaluating new covert actions

that might be needed to implement the President’s foreign policy goals; and report-

ing back to the President. Such an assessment should be conducted independently

of the agencies responsible for the actions under review. As part of the review, the

Senior Director for Intelligence Programs should identify which departments or

agencies, such as the CIA or DOD, are best equipped to achieve the objectives set

out in new and existing ﬁndings.

After the 60-day review, the President should demand creative thinking and a

clear strategy as to how covert action ﬁts within the President’s broader foreign

policy strategy, to include possibly modifying or rescinding any current ﬁndings,

drafting new ﬁndings, and streamlining or eliminating needless bureaucracy, par-

ticularly at State, to facilitate more expeditious decisions on tactical covert action.

Careful thought should be given to the metrics by which the eectiveness of covert

action programs will be measured to ensure the appropriate use of government

resources and to guard against the possibility of covert action’s being used with

little scrutiny in ways that are inconsistent with overt foreign policy goals.

ODNI AND CIA ORGANIZATIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS

The ODNI and CIA operate under authority provided by the Central Intelli-

gence Agency Act of 1949,

which means they have greater latitude than the rest

of the federal government with respect to the hiring and ﬁring of personnel. Both

organizations and other areas of the IC have struggled from a human resources

and talent management standpoint to recruit, onboard, and maintain personnel

in a timely fashion to ﬁll the IC’s ever-changing needs. At a time when the Intelli-

gence Community needs signiﬁcantly more personnel with the proper technical,

language-capable, and diverse backgrounds, including applicants from elements

of the business community, the incoming Directors of both agencies need to make

this eort a top priority.

Past DNIs’ Chiefs of Sta and additional front-oce sta historically have come

from outside the IC, commonly under a misconstrued “sta-reserve” structure

that is intended to avoid a Schedule C designation within the IC. The Director

should handpick qualiﬁed, properly cleared personnel for front-oce and mana-

gerial leadership positions, such as the DNI’s Chief of Sta and heads of Legislative

Aairs and Strategic Communications, to oversee those divisions with career IC

sta reporting to them.

The incoming DNI and CIA Director should also consider changes in the Senior

National Intelligence Service (SNIS)/Senior Intelligence Services (SIS). Senior

ocers should be required to sign mobility agreements that allow ODNI and CIA

leadership to move them within the IC every two years if necessary. Many qualiﬁed

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

and distinguished senior ocers serve throughout the IC, but some long-serving

generalist ocers no longer perform at a high capacity, are management-driven,

do not serve the IC’s changing needs, and limit junior ocers’ prospects for growth

and advancement. An incoming Administration should consider studying and

implementing additional requirements as a condition for promotion to GS-15/

SNIS/SIS and explore concepts such as “Up and Out” beginning at the GS-14/15

levels and above for some ﬁelds.

The IC should evaluate areas of bloat and underperforming cadre and work

with OPM on authority for voluntary separation buyouts. Allowing ODNI and CIA

leadership to shrink size and reduce duplication of eort while promoting healthy

turnover within their senior ranks would encourage new ideas and perspectives

from mid-career ocers and, potentially, from employees hired from outside

their agencies. The ODNI and CIA should maximize their direct-hire and incen-

tive-building authorities to bring in talented and properly cleared individuals to

serve in positions requiring technical, language, and cyber expertise.

Finally, the human resources and talent management systems for onboarding

purposes at the ODNI, CIA, and some other elements of the IC are fundamentally

broken. For example, according to current CIA Director William Burns, it recently

took more than 600 days, on average, for a CIA applicant to receive his or her

necessary security clearance.

Although security clearance procedures have been

somewhat improved in recent years and Burns has committed CIA to reducing that

to no more than 180 days, degradation in other areas of the process has limited the

IC’s capacity to attract qualiﬁed and needed expertise.

PREVENTING THE ABUSE OF INTELLIGENCE

FOR PARTISAN PURPOSES

The intelligence function must be protected from bottom-up and top-down

politicization if it is to play its proper role in our national security decision-mak-

ing process. Unfortunately, both types of politicization have occurred recently to

the detriment of the Intelligence Community’s reputation and credibility. More

important, the politicization of intelligence risks contributing to policy fail-

ures (as we saw with the Iraq War) or even undermining our democratic system

here at home.

In particular, the IC must restore conﬁdence in its political neutrality to rectify

the damage done by the actions of former IC leaders and personnel regarding the

claims of Trump–Russia collusion following the 2016 election and the suppression

of the Hunter Biden laptop investigation and media revelations of its existence

during the 2020 election. But the problem is not conﬁned to the executive branch

struggle between the IC and policymakers; it also relates to the IC’s relationship

with Congress as evinced by DNI James Clapper’s failure to answer honestly in

response to congressional questions about government surveillance programs.

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Intelligence Community

The ODNI and CIA are undergoing a crisis of conﬁdence based on several factors.

First, President Barack Obama’s CIA Director, John Brennan, gravely damaged the

CIA by minimizing the Directorate of Operations and exploiting intelligence analy-

sis as a political weapon after he left oce. Brennan's role in the letter signed by 51

former intelligence ocials before the 2020 election is unclear, but in dismissing

the Hunter Biden laptop as “Russian disinformation,” the CIA was discredited, and

the shocking extent of politicization among some former IC ocials was revealed.

Restoring respect for the IC as an independent provider of information and

analysis while also ensuring that it is responsive to the legitimate needs of poli-

cymakers will require reinforcing essential norms and institutions. However, we

should also recognize that achieving the perfect balance that avoids the pathologies

of too much distance or too much closeness and responsiveness to policymakers

is not only dicult, but probably impossible.

Thus, given the very nature of the

business and the political process, much will depend on the promotion of certain

norms or virtues on both sides of the principal–agent relationship. Speciﬁcally:

The DNI and CIA Director should use their authority under the National

Security Act of 1947 to expedite the clearance of personnel to meet mission

needs and remove IC employees who have abused their positions of trust.

An area of particular concern is that personnel under investigation for

improprieties have been allowed to retire before internal investigations

have been completed. Directors of both agencies must instill further

conﬁdence in their workforces, Congress, and the American people that

they can and will deal eectively with personnel that fail to live up to their

oath to the Constitution, adhere to ethical and moral standards as expected

by America’s taxpayers, and faithfully execute the law.

The President should direct the DNI and the Attorney General, by direction

of the respective Inspectors General and IC Analytic Ombudsman, to

conduct a further audit of all IC equities of past politicization and abuses

of intelligence information. For example, a recent IC ombudsman analysis

during the 2020 election cycle noted, “If our political leaders in the White

House and Congress believe we are withholding intelligence because of

organizational turf wars or political considerations, the legitimacy of the

Intelligence Community’s work is lost.”

The President should immediately revoke the security clearances of any

former Directors, Deputy Directors, or other senior intelligence ocials

who discuss their work in the press or on social media without prior

clearance from the current Director. IC agencies, including the CIA, should

minimize their public presence and vigorously investigate any and all leaks

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

of information, classiﬁed or otherwise. The ODNI and CIA should ﬁre or

refer for prosecution any employee who is suspected of leaking information,

and penalties should include the removal of pension beneﬁts for those who

are found guilty. Additional tools are needed to prevent leaked intelligence

from being used as a weapon in policy debates by IC leaders or decision-

makers in the executive branch or Congress.

In addition, the Department of Justice should use all of the tools at its

disposal to investigate leaks and should rescind damaging guidance by

Attorney General Merrick Garland that limits investigators’ ability to

identify records of unauthorized disclosures of classiﬁed information to

the media. Personnel have sucient access to legitimate whistleblower

claims under protections provided by Inspectors General and Congress. The

Director and IC must prioritize hiring additional counterintelligence and

security personnel to assist in this eort.

Military and civilian IC training should include stronger emphasis

on the norm of political neutrality, including a mandatory course on

professionalism and repercussions for abuse in the execution of duties in all

degree programs at the National Intelligence University.

Intelligence leaders need to model norms of neutrality and respect for the

decision-making authority of the President, appointed ocials, and Congress.

This includes building trust with key decision-makers by not using their

positions and privileged access to information to inﬂuence policymaking

indirectly or directly in an inappropriate fashion (especially by engaging in

threat inﬂation). IC leaders should practice extreme restraint in engaging

with the public and the media. They should seek to work in the shadows

rather than in the limelight. Potential restrictions on such appearances could

supplement this norm, preventing political leaders from using IC ocials to

support an Administration position as they do with military leaders.

Retired IC leaders should similarly support the neutrality norm by not

becoming public ﬁgures.

Congress should not use IC leaders as pawns in policy struggles with the

President or the other party during their appearances before committees of

the House and Senate. While Congress has a proper oversight role, it should

distinguish between information that needs to be public and information

that should be discussed in private with members of the IC. A DNI should

call “balls and strikes” to those on both sides of the aisle on Capitol

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Intelligence Community

Hill who attempt to weaponize the use of selective intelligence to feed

political narratives.

Political leaders should avoid “manipulation-by-appointment,” a practice

by which intelligence leaders are selected for their policy views or political

loyalties instead of their skilled expertise.

Presidents should also avoid

public rebukes and pressure from the intelligence profession, which can

include intimidation and bullying, to shape IC analysis. This will be easier if

IC leaders live by the norms of neutrality and thus are not seen as political

actors, for whom political responses are deemed necessary.

Intelligence leaders and professionals should never “cook the books” for

Presidents or change or shape their analysis to preserve access or status.

FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT (FISA)

A future President should understand the importance of FISA

while also seek-

ing reforms and accountability for any abuses of its authorities. When discussing

FISA and what changes may need to be made, it is important to note and recognize

that there are stark dierences among the individual FISA authorities.

Section 702 of FISA, for example, allows the IC to target foreign terrorists, spies,

cyber hackers, and other bad actors (but only if they are non-U.S. persons) when

their communications pass through the United States. While this authority may

lapse if Congress does not resolve the issue by the end of 2023, Section 702 should

be understood as an essential tool in the ﬁght against terrorism, malicious cyber

actors, and Chinese espionage. These are two major national security priorities

for an incoming President, and it is imperative that the need to use properly main-

tained and accountable authorities to counter these challenges be recognized.

Section 702 is a vital program that often provides the lion’s share of intelligence

used in the President’s Daily Brief (PDB).

An independent review by the Privacy

and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) found that it was not abused. Nev-

ertheless, Congress should review the PCLOB’s upcoming 2023 report to help it

determine whether any reforms or codiﬁcation of recent administrative changes

in FISA processes are needed.

Other authorities in Title I and Title III, often referred to as “traditional” FISA,

have elicited valid concerns about the politicization of intelligence collection

authority in recent years. When seeking surveillance of Trump campaign adviser

Carter Page, for example, the FBI and the Department of Justice concealed vital

information from a specialized court and submitted applications that were riddled

with errors. An incoming conservative President should consider reforms designed

to prevent future partisan abuses of national security authority. A package of strong

provisions to protect against such partisanship might include:

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Stier penalties and mandatory investigations when intelligence leaks are

aimed at domestic political targets,

Tighter controls on otherwise lawful intercepts that also collect the

communications of domestic political ﬁgures,

An express prohibition on politically motivated use of intelligence

authorities, and

Reforms to improve the accountability of the Justice Department and the

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

To keep intelligence credentials from being used for partisan purposes, former

high-ranking intelligence ocials who retain a clearance should remain subject to

the Hatch Act after they leave government to deter them from tying their political

stands or activism to their continuing privilege of access to classiﬁed government

information. The IC should be prohibited from monitoring so-called domestic

disinformation. Such activity can easily slip into suppression of an opposition

party’s speech, is corrosive of First Amendment protections, and raises questions

about impartiality when the IC chooses not to act.

CHINA-FOCUSED CHANGES, REFORMS, AND RESOURCES

The term “whole of government” is all too frequently overused, but in

responding to the generational threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party,

that is exactly the approach that our national security apparatus should adopt.

CIA Director William Burns has formally established a China Mission Center

focused on these eorts, but it can be successful only if it is given the necessary

personnel, cross-community collaboration, and resources. That is uncertain at

this point, and just how seriously the organization is taking the stang of the

center is unclear.

A critical strategic question for an incoming Administration and IC lead-

ers will be: How, when, and with whom do we share our classiﬁed intelligence?

Understanding when to pass things to liaisons and for what purpose will be vital

to outmaneuvering China in the intelligence sphere. Questions for a President

will include:

What is our overarching conception of the adversarial relationship and

competition?

How does intelligence-sharing ﬁt into that conception?

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Intelligence Community

Some Members of Congress have said that intelligence relationships such as

the Five Eyes

should be expanded to include other allies in the Asia–Paciﬁc in, for

example, a “Nine Eyes” framework. This fails to take into account the fact that any

blanket expansion would necessarily involve protecting the sources and methods of

a larger and quite possibly more diverse group of member countries that might or

might not have congruent interests. That being said, however, a future conservative

President should consider what resources and information-sharing relationships

could be included in an ad hoc or quasi-formal intelligence expansion (for example,

with the Quad) among nations trying to counter the threat from China.

Signiﬁcant technology, language skills, and ﬁnancial intelligence resources

are needed to counter China’s capabilities.

The IC was caught ﬂat-footed by the

recent discovery of China’s successful test of a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile.

No longer can America’s information and technological dominance be assumed.

China’s gains and intense focus on emerging technologies have taken it in some

areas from being a near-peer competitor to probably being ahead of the United

States. China’s centralized government allocates endless resources (sometimes

ineciently) to its strategic “Made in China 2025” and military apparatuses, which

combine government, military, and private-sector activities on quantum infor-

mation sciences and technologies, artiﬁcial intelligence (AI), machine learning,

biotechnologies, and advanced robotics.

The IC must do more than understand these advancements: It must rally non-

government and allied partners and inspire uniﬁed action to counter them. In

addition, to combat China’s economic espionage, authorities and loopholes in the

Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)

will have to be examined and addressed

in conjunction with the Attorney General.

Many issues within the broader government can be tied back to a more general

congressional understanding of the threat due to the compartmentalization of

committee jurisdictions and the responsibilities of executive agencies to brief on

the nature of the threat. Broader committee jurisdictions should receive additional

intelligence from IC agencies as necessary to inform China’s unique and more com-

prehensive threat across layers of the U.S. government bureaucracy and economy.

Former DNI John Ratclie increased the intelligence budget as it related to

China by 20 percent. “When people ask me why I did that,” he explained in an

interview, “I say, ‘Because no one would let me increase it by 40%.’ I had an $85

billion combined annual budget for both the national intelligence program and

military intelligence program. My perspective was, ‘Whatever we’re spending on

countering China, it isn’t enough.’”

From an intelligence standpoint, the need

to understand Chinese motivations, capabilities, and intent will be of paramount

importance to a future conservative President. It is therefore also of paramount

importance that the “whole of government” be rowing together.

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NATIONAL COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY CENTER (NCSC)

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) has taken a keen inter-

est in possibly updating the codiﬁed language underpinning much of the nation’s

counterintelligence apparatus. “Spy vs. spy” threats continue to exist, but the rise

of China and (to an extent) Russia’s machinations move beyond the governmental

sphere to technological, economic, supply chain, cyber, academic, state, and local

espionage threats at a level our country has never seen. The asymmetric threat

includes cyber, nontraditional collection, and issues involving legitimate busi-

nesses serving as collection platforms.

Barring statutory changes that could occur before 2025, a future conserva-

tive President should further empower and resource the IC by executive order or

through suggested changes in the Counterintelligence Enhancement Act (CEA)

of 2002.

NCSC was given some authority for outreach eorts on behalf of the IC

for counterintelligence education, insider threats, and broader U.S. government

best practices, but there remain signiﬁcant deltas between Title 50 and non–Title

50 entities’ protections. Primary operational elements should remain at the FBI

and CIA, with the Bureau and NCSC collaborating on nongovernmental outreach.

While there is no need to create a separate agency, a future President and DNI

should amplify NCSC’s authorities and roles with respect to counterintelligence

strategy, policy, outreach, and governance, including supporting necessary Joint

Duty Assignments (JDA) for FBI and CIA personnel. At the same time, the FBI

requires signiﬁcant additional resources and legal authorities to fulﬁll its statu-

tory role as the lead operational counterintelligence agency in dealing with the

ever-growing threats posed by our adversaries. The CEA should be updated to

include foreign espionage eorts aimed at universities.

Corporate America, technology companies, research institutions, and academia

must be willing, educated partners in this generational ﬁght to protect our national

security interests, economic interests, national sovereignty, and intellectual prop-

erty as well as the broader rules-based order—all while avoiding the tendency

to cave to the left-wing activists and investors who ignore the China threat and

increasingly dominate the corporate world. Reinstitution of the National Security

Higher Education Advisory Board and the National Security Business Alliance

Council should be prioritized with leadership from the NCSC, the FBI, or a com-

bination of both entities.

When the CCP steals at least $400 billion–$600 billion in intellectual prop-

erty each year, it is time to devote some strategic thinking to exactly how and to

what degree counterintelligence eorts can help to protect America’s commercial

endeavors. If Chinese strategic technology gains are happening almost entirely in

transnational commercial space, for example, and the private sector is also gath-

ering and analyzing some critical intelligence, these essential data points should

assist in national-level counterintelligence eorts.

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Intelligence Community

The NCSC was created in the aftermath of 9/11 as the Terrorist Threat Integra-

tion Center (TTIC), which later became the National Counterterrorism Center

(NCTC) pursuant to President George W. Bush’s Executive Order 13354.

The

NCTC was an organization of approximately three dozen detainees from across

the U.S. government with a mandate to integrate counterterrorism intelligence

and missions, including terrorist screening. Eventually:

In November 2014 the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) established

NCSC by combining [the Oce of the National Counterintelligence

Executive] with the Center for Security Evaluation, the Special Security

Center and the National Insider Threat Task Force, to eectively integrate

and align counterintelligence and security mission areas under a single

organizational construct. The Director of NCSC serves in support of the DNI’s

role as Security Executive Agent (SecEA) to develop, implement, oversee and

integrate personnel security initiatives throughout the U.S. Government.

NCSC has added value in such areas as fusing cross-community intelligence for

terrorism watchlisting purposes and improving information sharing while carrying

roughly half of the overall cadre for the ODNI. An incoming Administration should

focus NCTC on integrative tasks, many of which cannot be carried out elsewhere

in the IC, but should not use personnel and resources for redundant analyses that

duplicate the work of such other IC entities as the FBI and CIA.

ADDITIONAL AREAS FOR REFORM

Analytical Integrity. The “tradecraft” of intelligence analysis is mostly a col-

lection of lessons learned over decades about what works and does not work in a

profession whose high-stakes work is performed by thousands but that also bears

little outside scrutiny and provides few metrics by which to gauge success or failure

on a regular basis. These lessons have accumulated from:

The perceived misuse of intelligence by consumers as was the case with

respect to war-related assessments in the Johnson and Bush Administrations;

Failures such as the failures to warn of the collapse of the Soviet Union and

the speciﬁc threat of 9/11;

Successes in piecing together tactical and often technical puzzles such as

estimates of Iranian nuclear program maturation; and

Strategic victories such as anticipating critical geopolitical developments

that have been years in the making.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Historically, this tradecraft has been passed on in the form of unwritten rules

learned on the job and in agency-speciﬁc training classes, but increasingly since the

intelligence reforms of 2004, they have been codiﬁed IC-wide under the direction

of the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Mission Integration.

A RAND study of U.S. intelligence tradecraft notes that the “vast majority of

intelligence analysts reside outside the Central Intelligence Agency and do work

that is tactical, operational, and current.”

The study goes on to note that the

Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has as many analysts as the CIA has and that

the National Security Agency (NSA) has several times as many analysts, as does

the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), indicating both the breadth

of the IC’s technical collection and its emphasis both on developing analysts who

can interpret secret human or technical intelligence in quick-turnaround pieces

and on countering tactical, asymmetric threats like terrorism.

During the Cold War, however, there was a more balanced analytic focus with

greater emphasis on strategic intelligence issues as a means of outcompeting the

Soviet Union. This kind of analysis deals not only in secrets, but also in myster-

ies—making well-founded but ultimately unknowable predictions about future

actions by a competitor or adversary. The tradecraft necessary to succeed in stra

tegic analysis requires substantive regional and topical expertise developed over

the years to supplement experience in the daily collection and understanding

of secrets. Institutionally, it also requires that agencies’ analytic processes be

open to discussion, debate, and dissent because analysts must work together to

describe a probable range of future outcomes and warn about unproven current

threats rather than using the collection to solve a single puzzle with a deﬁn-

itive answer.

Regarding its mission to follow longer-term issues, the IC is falling short in

resourcing and in openness to dissenting opinions, which (if taken seriously) can

help responsible ocials respond more eectively to threats and threat actors.

The IC Analytic Ombudsman has expressed concern that hyperpartisanship “has

threatened to undermine the foundations of our Republic, penetrating even into

the Intelligence Community.”

For example, the Ombudsman noted in a report on the IC’s handling of elec-

tion-threat analysis in 2020 that, in his view, CIA officials had deliberately

downplayed dissenting views and coordination comments expressed by experts

at the National Intelligence Council and elsewhere who felt there was evidence of

Beijing’s intent to exert at least some inﬂuence on the 2020 election as opposed

to the consensus view that Beijing did not interfere in U.S. elections. Senior CIA

analysts and leaders made it “dicult to have a healthy analytic conversation in

a confrontational environment” while violating multiple ocial IC tradecraft

standards. By not allowing dissents or considering alternatives, the CIA exercised

“undue inﬂuence on intelligence.”

Subsequent exposure of China-linked online

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Intelligence Community

inﬂuence and the FBI’s warnings about continued eorts through the 2022 mid-

terms highlight the folly of undue certainty without consideration of alternatives.

On election inﬂuence and other controversial issues, such as the origin of

COVID-19, analysts at the most powerful intelligence agencies have increasingly

tended to use the leeway they have been given to insert their political views into

their work in order to inﬂuence (if possibly even control) the analytic process. They

do this in ways that attempt to squash dissent and impair the creation of a culture

in which entrenched views are challenged and unpopular analytical lines can sur-

vive or not according to their merits.

To help the United States and its leaders to outcompete China across mul-

tifaceted societal, economic, military, and technological threats, the IC’s

capability to conduct strategic intelligence analysis that is relevant to policymak-

ers in both parties must be rebuilt and strengthened. Because Beijing may be a

peer or even exceed U.S. capabilities in some areas, the post-9/11 analytic focus

on quick-turnaround secrets is not good enough. Strategic planning—informed

by intelligence—must take place for the United States to stay ahead of whatever

new threats China may pose.

An incoming conservative President will have the opportunity to signal the

demand for such strategic products and prioritize their production through

communications to intelligence leaders and formal mechanisms such as shifting

priorities within the National Intelligence Priority Framework and structuring the

President’s Daily Brief. The incoming DNI should also emphasize implementing

the recommendations in the Ombudsman’s report, especially regarding objectiv-

ity, the inclusion of dissenting viewpoints, and more serious eorts to hold senior

leaders accountable for backchannel attempts to change or suppress analytic views.

Accounting for the long history of intelligence failures and surprises, an incom-

ing conservative President must appreciate the ambiguity, complexity, limits, and

assumptions inherent in intelligence assessments. Intelligence often deals with the

human dimension in complex decision systems within a foreign country or organi-

zation, and this makes consistently accurate predictions dicult if not impossible

to develop. Seeing something and understanding what you are seeing are two dif-

ferent things, so a President should consistently and patiently press the IC about

its potential biases, assumptions, methodology, and sourcing.

With regard to election-threat analysis and politically controversial topics,

agency leaders should take seriously the Ombudsman’s admonition that we need

to maintain tradecraft standards across all countries and topics by ensuring that

equitable standards apply across all foreign threat actors. Analysis should be put

forward without regard to the domestic political ramiﬁcations of intelligence

conclusions.

“Obligation to Share” and Real-Time Auditing Capability. The fed-

eral government has made admirable progress in recent years by being more

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

forward-leaning in sharing cyber threat intelligence with private-sector partners

and the public, emphasizing that the protective nature of such information is of

value only if put into the right hands at the right time. Since critical infrastructure

and services are overwhelmingly owned, managed, and defended by the private

sector in the United States, there has been an increasing emphasis on declassify

ing intelligence and sharing actionable information with private-sector partners,

often through industry-speciﬁc Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs);

regional meetings of government and private-sector experts called InfraGard, run

by the FBI; direct public notiﬁcation from the Department of Homeland Security,

the FBI, and (increasingly) the NSA; and more discreet one-on-one engagements

led by the collecting agencies.

These programs properly recognize the private sector’s role in providing cyber-

security for Americans; in practice, however, the intelligence shared by the U.S.

government through these venues is too often already known or no longer relevant

by the time it makes its way through the downgrade process for sharing. In addition,

government-shared information often needs to take advantage of the opportunity

to provide contexts, such as attribution, trends, and size of the observed cyber

problem. As warranted, additional context should be provided to the private sector

as a matter of routine.

To continue improving the U.S. government’s ability to defend the country’s

most vital networks, the IC must adopt an “obligation to share” policy process,

including the capacity for “write to release” intelligence products whereby

newly discovered technical indicators, targeting, and other intelligence relevant

to cyber defense are automatically provided either to the public or to targeted

entities within 48 hours of their collection—which is how counterterrorism intel-

ligence has been managed for years when it comes to a “duty to warn.” Under this

policy, agency heads should still have the ﬂexibility to withhold intelligence for

operational or counterintelligence reasons but would need to report regularly

to Congress on the number of and justiﬁcation for exceptions. This policy would

make sharing intelligence and defending networks the default, as it already is in

the rest of the cybersecurity community outside the IC, to improve the quantity,

relevance, and timeliness of defensive information while ensuring accountability

for top leaders when they must withhold this information.

One of the most signiﬁcant challenges within the IC is presented by the need to

share information promptly among the 18 elements of the intelligence enterprise.

The only long-term solution to the understandable tension between the need to

share information and the need to protect intelligence sources and methods is a

robust real-time auditing capability that electronically ﬂags unauthorized access.

Under an identity management system with real-time audit, even the most sensi-

tive information acquired by America’s intelligence agencies can be shared, and the

access to and use of that information are appropriately monitored. Establishing

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Intelligence Community

a real-time auditing capability is essential to decreasing the risk for the heads of

intelligence agencies in meeting their statutory requirements to ensure that they

protect sources and methods associated with the classiﬁed information their agen-

cies collect.

Overclassiﬁcation. There is broad consensus across the U.S. government and

among stakeholders that the system for classifying, declassifying, and otherwise

marking and handling sensitive information is at a crossroads. Exorbitant amounts

of classiﬁed data are created daily, and agency personnel often mistakenly choose

classiﬁcation as the default selection to ensure national security. At the same time,

the eectiveness of downgraded and carefully declassiﬁed information to support

foreign policy eorts has been borne out in, for example, alerting the broader world

of Russia’s buildup and likely plans for its invasion of Ukraine.

Two executive orders principally govern how the U.S. government handles clas-

siﬁed and sensitive information.

Executive Order 13526, “Classiﬁed National Security Information,”

issued in 2009,

prescribes the classiﬁcation levels and procedures for

declassiﬁcation.

Executive Order 13556, “Controlled Unclassiﬁed Information,” issued in

2010,

aimed to establish a uniform program for managing all unclassiﬁed

information that requires safeguarding or dissemination controls.

The current system for declassifying classiﬁed national security information

(CNSI) is extraordinarily analog, requiring experts’ review of individual records.

Declassiﬁcation policies are based on human review of paper and need to con-

template and handle the proliferation and volume of digital records created by

agencies. The U.S. government will soon reach the point at which manual review is

impossible. The declassiﬁcation of CNSI should support key U.S. national security

objectives, reﬂect mission priorities, and not serve solely as a necessary procedural

function. Reforms should include:

Tighter deﬁnitions and greater speciﬁcity for categories of information

requiring protection.

More stringent policies to eect signiﬁcant reductions in the number of

Original Classiﬁcation Authorities (OCAs).

Stricter accountability measures at the OCA level and more detailed

security classiﬁcation guides.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Enhanced metrics for accuracy of classiﬁcation.

A general simpliﬁcation of the overall system for the beneﬁt of users.

On the back end, an ODNI-run declassiﬁcation process that is faster, nimbler,

default-to-automated, and larger-scale should be a priority.

Additionally, investments in IT are required to deal with the growing volumes

of CNSI collected and produced in the digital age, along with many years’ worth of

existing analog and digital holdings that could provide valuable historical insights.

An incoming Administration needs to explore options to prioritize funding for

innovation in declassiﬁcation management: for example, by establishing a budget

line item speciﬁcally for the modernization of declassiﬁcation or designating fund-

ing for program classiﬁcation management as a special-interest item.

The Administration will also need to transition to using technology, including

tools and services for managing Big Data (which provide a robust electronic record

repository, making information within and across agencies easier to organize and

locate and facilitating more rapid review and release capabilities for records of

emerging interest); artiﬁcial intelligence/machine learning (which, when incor-

porated into existing business practices, enables machine interpretation of

unstructured text and data, applies decision support technology to enable more

consistent classiﬁcation decisions, and expedites reviews between agencies); and

expansion of Commercial Cloud services (which facilitate the rapid testing and

deployment of new tools and technologies).

However, technology is not a panacea; human expertise in information holdings

and routine validation of the technology will always be necessary. With or with-

out machine assistance, agencies will require more people and more varied skill

sets to improve their ability to meet the electronic records era’s classiﬁcation and

declassiﬁcation demands and serve an incoming Administration’s goals.

Broader U.S. Government and IC Intelligence Needs. Increasingly, con-

ﬂicts among U.S. adversaries such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are

conducted in the realms of technology and ﬁnance.

This challenge requires new

tools, authorities, and technological expertise across the U.S. government, par-

ticularly at the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS)

and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which

is housed at the Treasury Department.

An incoming conservative President should task his DNI and Secretary of

Commerce with increasing coordination, the resources needed for BIS and SCIF

capacity, and proper and necessary intelligence sharing to counter the activities of

multifaceted adversaries such as China. This would include additional work with

private-sector expertise, granting clearances to niche sector experts and United

States citizen commercial and ﬁnancial partners as needed.

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Intelligence Community

Cover in the Digital Age. Even in the public domain, it is becoming increas-

ingly clear that protecting the identities of undercover intelligence ocers is

dicult in the digital age.

The truth is that as our daily activities are conducted

predominantly in the digital domain, our antiquated system for providing cover to

undercover ocers has lagged woefully behind the threat from foreign adversaries.

The DIA, CIA, and FBI are increasingly aware of this threat and are devoting

resources to the problem. Their back-oce infrastructure, however, is such that

they are still using methods for providing cover from decades past that put valuable

intelligence ocers at unnecessary risk. How intelligence ocers and their fami-

lies are taught to use smartphones and social media, travel, conduct banking, and

take and share pictures—even how and when they are paid—can make it dicult

to protect identities.

Legends, fake backstories, and identities are often weak,

incomplete, and unable to stand up to a basic Google search.

Ocers operat-

ing under nonocial cover are oered even less protection and training to help

them succeed.

In addition, ubiquitous technical surveillance (UTS) techniques being reﬁned by

technologies emanating from the regimes in China and Russia will continue to be

highly challenging for intelligence ocers. An incoming Administration will need

to double down on resourcing and training so that members of the IC will have the

expertise they need to operate clandestinely (and successfully) against hard targets.

Privacy Shield. For many years, the European Union (EU) has tried to force U.S.

companies operating in Europe to follow its data privacy regulations. Misleading

claims in the 2013 Snowden leaks destroyed the initial Safe Harbor Framework

that allowed American companies to transfer data across the Atlantic; its succes-

sor, the Privacy Shield Framework,

was struck down by European courts on the

grounds that it provides insucient protections for EU citizens against hypothet-

ical U.S. government surveillance. Those same European courts exempted the

intelligence services of EU member states from the standards applied to the U.S.,

suggesting that trade protectionism may be the real motive behind data privacy

regulations.

In 2022, the Biden Administration negotiated a new agreement, the Trans-At-

lantic Data Privacy Framework,

intended to withstand European legal challenges.

Given the fate of its predecessors, it is not certain that it will survive. Executive

Order 14086, “Enhancing Safeguards for United States Signals Intelligence Activi-

ties,”

implements this new framework by attempting to align signals intelligence

collection practices with European privacy regulations. At most, the executive

order’s changes will be helpful support for the framework in future European

litigation; at worst, they could throw sand in the gears of important intelli-

gence programs.

An incoming conservative President should reset Europe’s expectations. Brus-

sels has always arbitraged the dierence between being a military ally against, for

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

example, Russia and conducting a full-blown trade conﬂict with the United States.

Restrictions on data exports have been part of the trade conﬂict, but now they could

seriously harm our military and intelligence capabilities. Moreover, restrictions

on U.S. intelligence collection hurt the Europeans themselves, especially as the

United States shares unprecedented amounts of intelligence on Russia’s invasion

of Ukraine with Europeans.

Europe is telling the United States to meet intelligence oversight standards

that no European country meets. At the same time, exports of data to China are

unexamined and (so far) free from legal challenges. That violates World Trade

Organization agreements as an arbitrary and discriminatory data protection stan-

dard. It is a betrayal by a nominally allied jurisdiction. European court rulings that

struck down prior data privacy frameworks were grounded not in constitutional

law but in a treaty among European nations. If the EU accepted an international

agreement that data may ﬂow to the United States under a more reasonable stan-

dard than the one adopted by the court, that interpretation would be binding, at

least as a gloss on the earlier treaty.

The United States has never seriously pushed back against the EU; now is the

time. An incoming President should ask for an immediate study of the implemen-

tation of Executive Order 14086 and suspend any provisions that unduly burden

intelligence collection. At the same time, in negotiations with the Europeans, the

United States should make clear that the continued sharing of intelligence with

EU member states depends on successful resolution of this issue within the ﬁrst

two years of a President’s term. It is time for a real solution, not the 30 years of

stopgaps imposed by Brussels.

President’s Daily Brief (PDB). An incoming conservative President should

make clear what the President’s Daily Brief is and is not. The PDB should be for

the President speciﬁcally, with a much narrower distribution and addressing areas

of strategic concern. During the transition, the future National Security Advisor,

along with the DNI, should conduct a review of current PDB recipients and deter-

mine which should remain recipients when the President’s term begins.

Instead of being used as the statement of record for the agencies, the PDB often

misses the areas of interest for Presidents and their senior advisers. The President

should want the PDB to focus on providing the information needed for the often

imperfect and complex decisions that a President needs to make, which should

always be based on the best intelligence that can be gathered. Where consensus

and agreement are possible, an IC-coordinated product is excellent, but insights

provided by properly channeled dissent can lead a President to ask relevant ques-

tions of his DNI and IC.

A future DNI determines the PDB briefer based on recommendations made by

the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Mission Integration (MI). His-

torically, briefers have come from the CIA, but a future President and DNI should

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Intelligence Community

consider a primary briefer or a rotation of briefers from other IC elements. Addi-

tionally, the entirety of the PDB sta and production should be located at ODNI.

National Intelligence Council (NIC). The National Intelligence Council is

the IC’s premier analytic organization and includes more than a dozen National

Intelligence Ocers (NIOs), each of whom leads the IC’s analysis within a regional

(China, Russia, Iran, etc.) or functional (cyber, counterproliferation, economics,

etc.) mission area. This includes authoring National Intelligence Estimates on

major strategic issues with the entire IC, overseeing and deconﬂicting the annual

analytic plans of each agency, and weighing in on day-to-day major analytical issues,

sometimes individually (for example, by writing the NIC’s strategic memos or pro-

viding detailed expert brieﬁngs to the President before major decisions).

Historically part of the CIA, the NIC was reorganized into the ODNI as was

the PDB. It retains the CIA’s objective analytic culture and is staed primarily

with CIA ocers; however, as many as 25 percent of its NIOs over the decades

have come from academia or the private sector, bringing in much-needed outside

expertise to collate and understand intelligence with perspective and skills that

are not necessarily nurtured within the IC. In recent years, there has been a greater

emphasis on encouraging ocers from other agencies—particularly the DIA, NSA,

and FBI—to serve as NIOs or as their deputies.

To encourage greater analytic independence and debate, the incoming Admin-

istration should require that non-CIA ocers comprise at least 50 percent of the

NIC’s membership and that the ﬁrst-among-equals NIC Chairman is an outsider

from one of the three major IC agencies with reporting responsibility to the PDDNI.

Opening these senior analytic roles to the best analysts regardless of agency would

also encourage the continued maturation of analytic cadres and tradecraft at those

agencies and give them an equal voice in interagency analytical disputes, which in

turn would give the President access to the best thinking and a variety of sources

and perspectives from across the entire IC rather than from the CIA alone.

IC Chief Information Ocer. The Intelligence Community Chief Informa-

tion Ocer (ICCIO) directs and oversees all aspects of the classiﬁed IT budget for

all of the IC’s 18 elements. As the DNI’s principal adviser for technology, the ICCIO

must be well-versed in technology, acquisitions, operations, and intra-agency coop-

eration to advance our technical prowess and simultaneously direct a bureaucracy

that, left unchecked, will serve each element’s own preferences. To ensure that

procured and implemented technology and policy reﬂect the Administration’s

agenda, the ICCIO must have the support of the DNI and possess the ability to

command cooperation between and promote interoperability across IC members.

Because of the unique responsibilities entrusted to this position, incumbency

has seesawed between political appointees and career civilians; due to its con-

gressionally capped salary, the position is often ﬁlled by an SES-level member

administratively detailed to support the DNI. At times, the ICCIO is incorrectly

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

referred to as the ODNI CIO. By law, and to secure unbiased execution across all of

the IC’s 18 elements, the same individual may not serve as ICCIO and ODNI CIO.

They are two distinct positions.

Critical areas and IC IT portfolio priorities for the ICCIO include but are

not limited to:

Transparent accounting and allocation of IT investments across the IC,

including commercial cloud computing and storage (C2E);

Recognized and uniform security access for people, systems, and capabilities

to enable interoperability across IC elements;

5G/6G data transmission and network interoperability, which is vital to IC

element operations;

Artiﬁcial intelligence and machine learning;

Quantum cryptography and post-quantum encryption (PQE); and

Cybersecurity infrastructure where Biden Administration changes have

realigned and reassigned management oversight and IT architecture

responsibilities to NSA and DHS/CISA, conﬂicting with ICCIO-

delineated roles.

An incoming Administration should appoint the ICCIO as a primary member

of the DNI sta along with the ODNI General Counsel, IC Chief Financial Ocer,

and ODNI Chief Operating Ocer.

The President-Elect should require immediate reviews of the progress in imple-

menting post-quantum encryption at a minimum for IC and Defense systems but

preferably throughout the government. The President’s National Security Memo-

randum specifying “the goal of mitigating as much of the quantum risk as is feasible

by 2035”

needs to be revised in light of the magnitude of the threat. Accounting

for the investment that will be needed to secure IT systems for national security

should be a top priority.

ODNI, CIA, and IC Technology Issues. In recent years, the IC has had a

mandate from multiple Administrations to advance technology needs for intelli-

gence—needs that have seen massive changes as a result of such threats as China’s

advancements in technology and data infrastructure. Many of the projects coming

out of ODNI and CIA’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) focus on expen-

sive, AI-driven open-source work, but there is likely duplication of eort in areas

where the private sector and entrepreneurs are already making progress.

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Intelligence Community

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) and S&T should

focus primarily on challenging technology problems. Avoiding duplication of what

is already being done well in the private sector in such areas as practical defense

cyber intelligence and artiﬁcial intelligence research would help to focus the agen-

cies on the complex shadow tasks at hand while simultaneously freeing limited

resources for advancement in other areas.

President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and PIAB Intelligence Oversight

Board. The President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) is charged with pro-

viding the President with an independent source of advice on the IC’s eectiveness

while oering insights into the IC’s future plans. The Board is meant to have access

to all information needed to perform its functions and to have direct access to the

President. The Intelligence Oversight Board is a standing committee within the

PIAB. These entities should be tasked with giving independent, informed advice

and opinion concerning major matters of national security focused on long-term,

enduring issues central to advancing and protecting American interests. This

should include taking a broader, deeper look at critical trends, developments, and

their implications for U.S. national and economic security relying on unclassiﬁed

and open-source information.

The Importance of Space. With China developing increasingly capable space

and counterspace technologies and Russia taking more aggressive action in space,

space has emerged as the latest warﬁghting domain. In response, the DNI cre-

ated the Oce of the Space Executive (OSX) in 2018 as an experiment to promote

greater integration of IC space activities without incurring excessive overhead.

The DNI mandated greater collaboration across the enterprise without adding

personnel, altering authorities, and increasing budgets.

The Space Executive’s design reﬂects the original design principles of the ODNI.

The ODNI was explicitly not designed to be a departmental headquarters with com-

mand and control of the 18 agencies’ vast bureaucracies. Rather, it was designed

to be small and lightweight with a mission to coordinate and integrate the criti-

cal activities of the IC’s 18 agencies without creating new bureaucracy. That goal

should remain in force, and calls by outside entities or Congress to add new centers

and layers should be rejected.

The Oce of the Space Executive has been recognized as an eective governance

model and has spawned similar eorts, including the Election Threats Executive,

Economic and Threat Finance Executive, and Cyber Executive. With this in mind,

the following initiatives should be pursued:

Expand collaboration with partners. For too many decades, the

IC and DOD have acquired and operated satellites independently. To

improve their ability to meet the threat posed by China and Russia, the IC

and DOD should:

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

1. Explore new methods for better integrating our space assets,

2. Examine the possibility of joint programs, and

3. Fully utilize unique Title 10 and Title 50 authorities to execute space

defense (and oense) strategies jointly.

Additionally, the IC should support building international alliances with

like-minded partners beyond the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing nations.

Increasingly, potential allied nations (and their commercial companies) are

developing innovative space capabilities to augment and strengthen the U.S.

space defense and intelligence posture.

Refocus space-related intelligence collection. The IC has developed a

space threats collection posture predicated on three assumptions:

1. The best information on developing space threats comes from collection

against the adversaries’ military institutions on Earth,

2. There should be a clear dividing line between DOD’s intelligence

activities and the IC’s, and

3. Only government-developed “exquisite” capabilities can inform threat

analysis and decision-making eectively.

Developments by our adversaries and the emergence of a vibrant

commercial space marketplace over the past decade have rendered all three

assumptions false and even dangerous. The IC must therefore refocus and

invest in methods that will enable it to characterize accurately the threats

that already exist in space, not just on the ground; break down barriers

to information sharing and collaboration with the DOD; and embrace

commercially derived capabilities that can be adapted to a national security

mission—all while emphasizing the need to protect critical supply chains

and the cybersecurity needs that result from an increasingly government–

commercial low Earth orbit.

Our nation’s economic and national security depends on being able to

advance America’s leadership position in space, which is eroding in the face

of increasing threats from adversaries and our own inaction.

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Intelligence Community

AN UNFINISHED EXPERIMENT

The Intelligence Community, including speciﬁcally the role of the DNI and

ODNI, is an unﬁnished experiment. The envisioned design principle was a conser-

vative one: a small, network-centric model for enterprise coordination as opposed

to a large monolithic bureaucracy like DHS. The ODNI, however, has reverted

in some ways to a bureaucratic and hierarchical model characterized by limited

eectiveness.

Historically, the CIA has undercut the DNI and maintains primacy in the IC

hierarchy, especially regarding the White House. An incoming conservative Pres-

ident can right the ship and return the IC governance model to ﬁrst principles

by using a limited but empowered leadership and coordination design to serve

the nation’s intelligence and national security needs while reclaiming the public

trust with ﬁscal responsibility, political neutrality, personnel accountability, tech-

nological prowess, and necessary human capital needed to counter the immense

nation-state and asymmetrical threats facing our country.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in

the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. No particular policy statement, reform recommendation, or other view

expressed herein should be attributed to any individual contributor or to the author.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

 “Two independent agencies—the Oce of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Central

Intelligence Agency (CIA); Nine Department of Defense elements—the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA),

the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the National

Reconnaissance Oce (NRO), and intelligence elements of the ﬁve DoD services; the Army, Navy, Marine

Corps, Air Force, and Space Force. Seven elements of other departments and agencies—the Department of

Energy’s Oce of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence; the Department of Homeland Security’s Oce of

Intelligence and Analysis and U.S. Coast Guard Intelligence; the Department of Justice’s Federal Bureau of

Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Agency’s Oce of National Security Intelligence; the Department of

State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research; and the Department of the Treasury’s Oce of Intelligence and

Analysis.” Oce of the Director of National Intelligence, “What We Do: Members of the IC,” https://www.dni.

gov/index.php/what-we-do/members-of-the-ic (accessed March 8, 2023).

 Oce of the Director of National Intelligence, “Mission,” https://www.intelligence.gov/mission#:~:text=The%20

Intelligence%20Community's%20mission%20is,law%20enforcement%2C%20and%20the%20military

(accessed February 24, 2023).

 Abraham Lincoln, Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/

documents/second-annual-message-9 (accessed March 6, 2023).

 Christopher Porter, “Seven Questions the Next President Will Need the Intelligence Community to Answer

to Win the Technology Competition with China,” LinkedIn, March 14, 2023, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/

seven-questions-next-president-need-intelligence-community-porter/?trackingId=Dl9RF5CnSwWnAO7r9gg

HiQ%3D%3D (accessed March 18, 2023).

 H.R. 2845, Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, Public Law No. 108-458, 108th Congress,

December 17, 2004, https://www.congress.gov/108/plaws/publ458/PLAW-108publ458.pdf (accessed

March 6, 2004).

 Testimony of Philip Zelikow, Executive Director, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United

States, in hearing, Assessing America’s Counterterrorism’s Capabilities, Committee on Governmental Aairs,

U.S. Senate, 108th Congress, 2d Session, August 3, 2004, p. 55, https://ia802906.us.archive.org/31/items/gov.

gpo.fdsys.CHRG-108shrg95506/CHRG-108shrg95506.pdf (accessed March 19, 2023).

 Michael Allen, Blinking Red: Crisis and Compromise in American Intelligence After 9/11 (Dulles, VA: Potomac

Books, 2013), p. 155; Interview with Robert Gates, April 19, 2012.

 Allen, Blinking Red, p. 154; Robert Gates e-mail to Andy Card, January 11, 2005; handwritten note from Robert

Gates, January 20, 2005.

 Interview with John Ratclie, December 15, 2022.

 Ibid.

 Ibid.

 S. 258, National Security Act of 1947, Public Law No. 80-253, 80th Congress, July 26, 1947, https://govtrackus.

s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/61/STATUTE-61-Pg495.pdf (accessed March 6, 2023).

 President Ronald Reagan, Executive Order 12333, “United States Intelligence Activities,” December 4, 1981, in

Federal Register, Vol. 46, No. 235 (December 8, 1981), pp. 59941–59954, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/

pkg/FR-1981-12-08/pdf/FR-1981-12-08.pdf (accessed March 6, 2023).

 President George W. Bush, Executive Order 13470, “Further Amendments to Executive Order 12333, United

States Intelligence Activities,” July 30, 2008, in Federal Register, Vol. 73, No. 150 (August 4, 2008), pp.

45325–45342, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2008-08-04/pdf/E8-17940.pdf (accessed March

6, 2023). See also President George W. Bush, Executive Order 13355, “Strengthened Management of

the Intelligence Community,” August 27, 2004, in Federal Register, Vol. 69, No. 169 (September 1, 2004),

pp. 53593–53597, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2004-09-01/pdf/04-20051.pdf (accessed

March 6, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, “Trusted Workforce 2.0 and

Continuous Vetting,” https://www.dcsa.mil/mc/pv/cv/ (accessed March 9, 2023).

 50 U.S. Code § 3093(e), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3093 (accessed February 24, 2023).

 50 U.S. Code § 3093(a).

 50 U.S. Code § 3093(a)(4).

— 233 —

Intelligence Community

 Michael E. DeVine, “Covert Action and Clandestine Activities of the Intelligence Community: Selected

Deﬁnitions,” Congressional Research Service Report for Members and Committees of Congress No. R45175,

updated November 29, 2022, https://sgp.fas.org/crs/intel/R45175.pdf (accessed February 24, 2023).

 H.R. 2663, Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, Public Law No. 81-110, 81st Congress, June 20, 1949, https://

govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/63/STATUTE-63-Pg208.pdf (accessed March 6, 2023).

 Nicole Ogrysko, “Intelligence Community Workforce Is More Diverse, but Still Struggles with Retention and

Promotion,” Federal News Network, October 27, 2021, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2021/10/

intelligence-community-workforce-is-more-diverse-but-still-struggles-with-retention-and-promotion/

(accessed March 18, 2023).

 See James J. Wirtz, “The Intelligence Policy Nexus,” in Loch K. Johnson, ed., Strategic Intelligence, Volume

1: Understanding the Hidden Side of Government (Westport, CT: Prager, 2007), and Richard K. Betts,

“Analysis, War, and Decision: Why Intelligence Failures Are Inevitable,” World Politics, Vol. 30, No. 1 (October

1978), pp. 61–89.

 Letter from Barry A. Zulauf, IC Analytic Ombudsman, Oce of the Director of National Intelligence, to

Senator Marco Rubio, Acting Chairman, and Senator Mark Warner, Vice Chairman, Select Committee on

Intelligence, U.S. Senate, “RE: SSCI #2020-3029,” January 6, 2021, https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/

ic-ombudsman-election-interference-with-responses/c50e548011fd6168/full.pdf (accessed March 14, 2023).

 Joshua Rovner, Fixing the Facts: National Security and the Politics of Intelligence (Ithaca, NY: Cornell

University Press, 2011), pp. 30–31.

 Joshua Rovner, “Is Politicization Ever a Good Thing?” Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 28, No. 1

(2013), p. 58.

 S. 1566, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, Public Law No. 95-511, 95th Congress, October

25, 1978, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-92/pdf/STATUTE-92-Pg1783.pdf (accessed

March 6, 2023).

 The Cipher Brief, “702 Reauthorization: Defending a Key Intelligence Tool,” remarks of Benjamin Powell,

former General Counsel to the Director of National Intelligence, stating that FISA 702 provides “between

40 and 60 percent” of the intelligence in the PDB, December 18, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=mRJ09GHVRFk&ab_channel=TheCipherBrief (accessed March 18, 2023).

 An intelligence alliance that includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United

States. Oce of the Director of National Intelligence, National Counterintelligence and Security Center, “Five

Eyes Intelligence Oversight and Review Council (FIORC),” https://www.dni.gov/index.php/ncsc-how-we-

work/217-about/organization/icig-pages/2660-icig-ﬁorc (accessed March 10, 2023).

 Porter, “Seven Questions the Next President Will Need the Intelligence Community to Answer to Win the

Technology Competition with China.”

 H.R. 1591, An Act to Require the Registration of Certain Persons Employed by Agencies to Disseminate

Propaganda in the United States and for Other Purposes, Public Law No. 75-583, 75th Congress, June 8, 1938,

https://govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/52/STATUTE-52-Pg631.pdf (accessed March 6, 2023).

 Kristina Wong, “Exclusive: Former DNI John Ratclie Pleased CIA Following His Lead on China Threat,”

Breitbart, October 13, 2021, https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/10/13/exclusive-john-ratclie-pleased-

cia-following-lead-china-threat/ (accessed March 11, 2023).

 H.R. 4628, Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003, Public Law No. 107-306, 107th Congress,

November 27, 2002, Title IX, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-116/pdf/STATUTE-116-Pg2383.pdf

(accessed March 6, 2023).

 President George W. Bush, Executive Order 13354, “National Counterterrorism Center,” August 27, 2004, in

Federal Register, Vol. 69, No. 169 (September 1, 2004), pp. 53589–53592, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/

pkg/FR-2004-09-01/pdf/04-20050.pdf (accessed March 6, 2023).

 Oce of the Director of National Intelligence, National Counterintelligence and Security Center, “Who

We Are: History of NCSC,” https://www.dni.gov/index.php/ncsc-who-we-are/ncsc-history (accessed

March 11, 2023).

 Gregory F. Treverton and C. Bryan Gabbard, Assessing the Tradecraft of Intelligence Analysis, RAND

Corporation, National Security Research Division Technical Report, 2008, p. 6, https://www.rand.org/pubs/

technical_reports/TR293.html (accessed March 1, 2023).

— 234 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 Letter from Barry A. Zulauf, IC Analytic Ombudsman, Oce of the Director of National Intelligence, to

Senator Marco Rubio, Acting Chairman, and Senator Mark Warner, Vice Chairman, Select Committee on

Intelligence, U.S. Senate, “RE: SSCI #2020-3029,” January 6, 2021, https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/

ic-ombudsman-election-interference-with-responses/c50e548011fd6168/full.pdf (accessed March 6, 2023).

 “Independent IC Analytic Ombudsman’s [Report] on Politicization of Intelligence,” attached to January 6,

2021, Zulauf letter.

 President Barack Obama, Executive Order 13526, “Classiﬁed National Security Information,” December 29,

2009, in Federal Register, Vol. 75, No. 2 (January 5, 2010), pp. 707–731, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/

FR-2010-01-05/pdf/E9-31418.pdf (accessed March 7, 2023).

 President Barack Obama, Executive Order 13556, “Controlled Classiﬁed Information,” November 4, 2010, in

Federal Register, Vol. 75, No. 216 (November 9, 2010), pp. 68675–68677, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/

pkg/FR-2010-11-09/pdf/2010-28360.pdf (accessed March 7, 2023).

 Agathe Demarais, “How the U.S.–Chinese Technology War Is Changing the World,” Foreign Policy, November

19, 2022, https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/11/19/demarais-backﬁre-sanctions-us-china-technology-war-

semiconductors-export-controls-biden/ (accessed February 28, 2023).

 Scott Stewart, “The Risk to Undercover Operatives in the Digital Age,” Stratfor Worldview, October 29, 2015,

https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/risk-undercover-operatives-digital-age (accessed February 24, 2023).

 Lauren Pitruzzello, “Human Intelligence: Former CIA Ocer Talks About Espionage in the Digital Age,

University of Delaware UDaily, March 22, 2012, https://www1.udel.edu/udaily/2012/mar/global-agenda-

grenier-032212.html (accessed February 24, 2023).

 Jenna McLaughlin and Zach Dorfman, “‘Shattered’: Inside the Secret Battle to Save America’s Undercover

Spies in the Digital Age,” Yahoo News, December 30, 2019, https://news.yahoo.com/shattered-inside-

the-secret-battle-to-save-americas-undercover-spies-in-the-digital-age-100029026.html (accessed

February 24, 2023).

 U.S. Federal Trade Commission, “U.S.–Safe Harbor Framework,” https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/

privacy-security/us-eu-safe-harbor-framework (accessed March 11, 2023).

 “Fact Sheet: Overview of the EU–U.S. Privacy Shield Network,” U.S. Department of Commerce,

https://2014-2017.commerce.gov/sites/commerce.gov/ﬁles/media/ﬁles/2016/eu-us_privacy_shield_fact_

sheet.pdf (accessed March 11, 2023).

 “Fact Sheet: United States and European Commission Announce Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework,” The

White House, March 25, 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/brieﬁng-room/statements-releases/2022/03/25/

fact-sheet-united-states-and-european-commission-announce-trans-atlantic-data-privacy-framework/

(accessed March 11, 2023).

 President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Executive Order 14086, “Enhancing Safeguards for United States Signals

Intelligence Activities,” October 7, 2022, in Federal Register, Vol. 87, No. 198 (October 14, 2022), pp. 62283–

62297, (accessed March 7, 2023).

 Warren P. Strobel, “Release of Ukraine Intelligence Represents New Front in U.S. Information War with Russia,”

The Wall Street Journal, updated April 4, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/release-of-secrets-represents-

new-front-in-u-s-information-war-with-russia-11649070001 (accessed February 24, 2023).

 President Joseph R. Biden Jr., “National Security Memorandum on Promoting United States Leadership in

Quantum Computing While Mitigating Risks to Vulnerable Cryptographic Systems,” The White House, May

4, 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/brieﬁng-room/statements-releases/2022/05/04/national-security-

memorandum-on-promoting-united-states-leadership-in-quantum-computing-while-mitigating-risks-

to-vulnerable-cryptographic-systems/#:~:text=To%20mitigate%20this%20risk%2C%20the%20United%20

States%20must,the%20quantum%20risk%20as%20is%20feasible%20by%202035 (accessed March 12, 2023).

See also President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Executive Order 14073, “Enhancing the National Quantum Initiative

Advisory Committee,” May 4, 2022, in Federal Register, Vol. 87, No. 89 (May 9, 2022), pp. 27909–27911, https://

www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-05-09/pdf/2022-10076.pdf (accessed March 12, 2023); and “Fact

Sheet: President Biden Announces Two Presidential Directives Advancing Quantum Technologies,” The White

House, May 4, 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/brieﬁng-room/statements-releases/2022/05/04/fact-

sheet-president-biden-announces-two-presidential-directives-advancing-quantum-technologies/ (accessed

March 12, 2023).

— 235 —

MEDIA AGENCIES

U.S. AGENCY FOR GLOBAL MEDIA

Mora Namdar

MISSION STATEMENT

The mission of United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) is to inform,

engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democ-

racy.

However, this mission statement does not reﬂect the current work of the

agency. The mission is noble, but the execution is lacking. To fulﬁll its mission,

USAGM should also aim to present the truth about America and American policy—

not parrot America’s adversaries’ propaganda and talking points.

OVERVIEW

Originally formed as the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) in 1994, the BBG

changed its name in 2018 to the United States Agency for Global Media. The USAGM is

a sub-Cabinet agency of the U.S. government with a budget of just under $1 billion. The

agency oversees two government broadcasting networks: the Voice of America (VOA)

and the Oce of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB). USAGM also oversees 100 percent of the

grant funding for several “independent” grantee organizations, including the Middle

East Broadcasting Network (MBN), Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio Free Europe/Radio

Liberty (RFE/RL), and the newly formed Open Technology Fund (OTF).

The Voice of America provides news and information in 48 languages to

a weekly audience of more than 326 million people worldwide. For more

— 236 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

than 80 years, VOA journalists have supplied news and information about

the U.S., audience-speciﬁc regions of interest and concern, and the world at

large. VOA radio and television signals are broadcast to approximately 3,500

aliates, and satellite transmissions reach countries where free speech is

banned or where civil society is under threat.

VOA uses digital, web, and mobile media as well, which, while sometimes

useful in propagating valuable information globally, has created speciﬁc

violations of the agency’s prohibition against broadcasting to the domestic

U.S. audience—particularly with regard to ﬂagrantly political content, as

has been the practice with recent and current VOA content directors and

managers.

The network once had a generally well-received brand value,

but it has deteriorated under decades of poor leadership and a loss of its

once-prized unbiased reporting. There are bright spots within VOA, but

mismanagement and declining production values have diluted its once-

great reputation as a singular voice in American news broadcasting abroad.

The Oce of Cuba Broadcasting oversees Radio and Television Martí, a

multimedia hub of news, information, and analysis that provides the people

of Cuba with programs through satellite television, radio, and digital media.

These programs present news and information about Cuba’s oppressive

government from the outside world that would otherwise be heavily

restricted.

The OCB remains a critical avenue of truth to the Cuban people

but has been threatened with crippling budget and operational constraints,

including empathetic attitudes toward Communist Cuban leadership

coupled with organizational hostility toward the OCB by certain elements

of USAGM leadership. During the Biden Administration, the OCB has been

threatened with closure, while also suering chilling reductions in force.

The Middle East Broadcasting Network is an Arabic-language news

organization with a weekly audience of 27.4 million people in 22 countries

in the Middle East and North Africa. The MBN consists of two television

networks, radio, websites, and social media platforms. Together, they deliver

news and analysis on the region, American policies, and Americana. The

MBN has correspondents throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a private, nonproﬁt, multimedia

broadcasting corporation that serves as a surrogate media source in 27

languages and 23 countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Russia,

and Ukraine.

— 237 —

Media Agencies: U.S. Agency for Global Media

Founded in the early days of the Cold War (Radio Free Europe in 1949

and Radio Liberty in 1953) and merged in 1976, Radio Free Europe and

Radio Liberty were intended to execute edgy and daring information

operations and unrestricted news reporting deep behind the Iron Curtain.

Unfortunately, like other broadcast organizations under USAGM, RFE/RL

has surrendered much of its rich history to an approach that favors political

trends as opposed to operations that support and represent America abroad.

While there are some bright spots within RFE/RL, much of the network has

redundant programming with certain VOA language services, often with

competing, counterproductive, or dissimilar messaging.

The recent addition of RFE/RL’s Hungarian-language service, Szabad

Európa, falls outside the intended scope of RFE/RL’s charter by targeting a

democratically elected, pro-American European and NATO ally.

Not least, RFE/RL has been plagued by several serious espionage-related

security risks within its ranks.

Radio Free Asia is a private, nonproﬁt multimedia news corporation that

brings news and uncensored content to people in six Asian countries that

restrict free speech, freedom of the press, and access to reliable information.

RFA also provides educational and cultural programming, as well as forums

for audiences to engage in open dialogue and freely express opinions. RFA

utilizes on-the-ground reporters and networks of in-country sources, citizen

journalists, and eyewitnesses who provide leads, tips, images, and video.

Several reports from the Oce of the Inspector General (OIG) were released

showing waste and self-dealing, including security vulnerabilities and RFA lead-

ership awarding insiders millions of dollars of grant funding.

For example, as

the OIG stated in one report, the then-president of RFA “established the Free-

dom2Connect Foundation (Foundation)” and thereafter “awarded two contracts,

totaling $1.2 million” to the foundation she herself founded.

Furthermore:

[The] OIG found that RFA did not comply with Federal procurement

requirements for grantees. OIG identiﬁed instances in which RFA and

its agents did not comply with OMB [Oce of Management and Budget]

conﬂict-of-interest procurement requirements for grantees. Speciﬁcally,

OIG found that RFA entered into 14 contracts, totaling $4.0 million

(51 percent of the amount of OTF FYs 2012 and 2013 project-related

contracts), with organizations that had some aliation with either RFA

ocials or members of OTF Advisory Council.

— 238 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

This same leadership proceeded to wastefully form the Open Technology

Fund as its own independent grantee with the help of USAGM senior

management prior to the tenure of Trump-appointed leadership.

The Open Technology Fund’s goal is to provide funding to support

the research, development, and implementation of Internet freedom

technologies that circumvent censorship. OTF was formed under dubious

circumstances by using consolidation rules to usurp the mission and

funding of USAGM’s pre-existing Oce of Internet Freedom (OIF), which

funded far more diverse technologies with much greater transparency. OTF,

however, operates with far less transparency and strictly restricts funding to

“open source” technology. OTF does not support any technology with even

partially “closed source” code, notwithstanding that such closed-source

code would provide more protection against hacking.

Although OTF touts large user numbers, this could not be substantiated

upon requests for information, and it was discovered by former senior

USAGM leadership that OTF makes extremely small, insubstantial

donations to much larger messaging applications and technology to bolster

its unsubstantiated claims.

Despite its vibrant self-lobbying and publicity

eorts, OTF remains a wasteful and redundant boondoggle. Its grantee

status was suspended by Trump-appointed USAGM leadership for a number

of reasons, including noncompliance with its grant terms and for actions

that resulted in several fraud and waste investigations.

The OIF, which predates OTF, was historically under USAGM’s Oce of

Chief Strategy Ocer and for years had been performing the same tasks as

OTF within USAGM headquarters for the beneﬁt of all USAGM broadcast

networks. With much greater transparency, OIF succeeded with fewer sta

while simultaneously ﬁelding more diverse and robust technologies. Absent

a meaningful organizational impact analysis to justify the wastefulness of

the decision-making process, OTF usurped the entire OIF budget and was

set up as a new grantee organization.

Exacerbating matters, OIF was shut down in order to provide massive

grants to the opaque activities of OTF and its founding leadership, who went

on a free-spending boondoggle for high-end Washington, D.C., oce space,

furnishings, and top salaries for its leadership team. Numerous career sta

whistleblowers came forward to sound the alarm about OTF to Trump-

appointed leadership, citing concerns about the OIG reports, wasteful

spending, and other substantive performance matters.

Nonetheless, the

— 239 —

Media Agencies: U.S. Agency for Global Media

Biden Administration reinstated OTF to full operational status and ceased

all investigations immediately after assuming oce.

ATTEMPTS AT REFORM

Late in the Trump Administration, following the long-delayed Senate conﬁrma-

tion of Michael Pack as USAGM Chief Executive Ocer (CEO),

agency leadership

rapidly initiated long-overdue and necessary reforms,

including security reforms

repeatedly requested by the Oce of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Oce

of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that had been ignored by USAGM

leadership.

Unfortunately, as was the case with the OTF, the Biden Administration

immediately reinstated personnel who had been ﬁred for gross security violations,

placing the agency back into its previously failed posture—one that poses a danger

to national security.

The Firewall Saga. The vital error in USAGM’s current organizational/cul-

tural calculus is the agency’s selective application of a journalistic “ﬁrewall.” The

amorphous interpretation of a ﬁrewall shifts, depending on which Administration

is in oce and who is asking questions.

Although a ﬁrewall should ensure journalistic independence, it has been used

without formal regulation for decades in order to shirk legitimate oversight of

everything from promoting adversaries’ propaganda to ignoring journalistic safety.

Often, the “ﬁrewall” is touted when journalists are either promoting anti-American

propaganda that parrots adversarial regime talking points or promoting politically

biased viewpoints in opposition to the VOA charter.

Such weak oversight, alien to any other large media network or news organi-

zation—particularly one derivative of U.S. foreign policy and national security

goals—was erroneously enshrined in a document known as the Firewall Regula-

tion.

The Firewall Regulation was entered into the Federal Register on the eve

of the Senate conﬁrmation of President Donald Trump’s USAGM CEO, Michael

Pack. It was the quintessential “midnight reg” designed to throttle the statutory

and executive authority of the agency head. It stipulated that agency management,

by standards unknown to most large broadcast companies, was forbidden from

engaging in oversight and direction of content in any way—even false content.

It ran counter to the law, including the Smith–Mundt Act,

and it was harmful

to the agency itself and to the foreign policy and national security goals of the

U.S. government.

Even content that went well beyond fair and accurate reporting on U.S. domestic

and political problems could not be reined in by front oce leadership under the

Firewall Regulation. Soon, VOA’s White House correspondent was posting content

highly critical of, and personally insulting to, the U.S. President—in contradiction

of VOA’s own journalistic standards, policies, and procedures. USAGM career o-

cials considered such content sacrosanct and bravely independent “journalistic”

— 240 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

content protected by the “spirit of” the Firewall Regulation—despite ample evi

dence to the contrary.

Late in the Trump Administration, USAGM political leadership, following an

intensive U.S. Department of Justice review, revoked the Firewall Regulation over

the protests of journalistic organizations—none more vociferous than VOA itself.

While the abuses of the Firewall Regulation are particularly disconcerting, they

encompass just a fraction of similar overreaches of the agency’s journalistic mission.

Current and former USAGM/VOA leadership who wanted to maintain virtually

zero accountability and oversight waged a campaign of interference, resistance, and

disinformation to stiﬂe change at the agency. Perhaps not coincidentally, various

media outlets with relationships to former and future USAGM leadership published

near-daily criticisms of Trump Administration appointees and also of grantee organi-

zation leaders who were appointed by CEO Pack to implement long-overdue reforms.

Agency Mission Failure. Currently, the USAGM, by and large, is not fulﬁlling

its mission, which remains so ill-deﬁned and ambiguous that it enables the organi-

zation to go about its business largely unguided with little to no oversight. Rather

than providing news and information in an accurate, reliable way that promotes

and supports freedom and democracy, the agency is mismanaged, disorganized,

ineective, and rife with waste and redundancy.

These shortfalls are either oriented toward, or directly contribute to, the agen-

cy’s media organizations joining the mainstream media’s anti-U.S. chorus and

denigrating the American story—all in the name of so-called journalistic inde-

pendence. Indeed, content during the Trump Administration was rife with typical

mainstream media talking points assailing the President and his sta. The few

bright spots within VOA and the OCB are often stiﬂed instead of supported. Top-

level talent often leaves the agency or is met with obstacles rather than support.

Opportunities for modernization and eective strategy are ignored, and wasteful

spending and misallocation of resources are the norm in an environment in which

nepotism is rampant and political gamesmanship protects bad actors.

Amanda Bennett

was conﬁrmed as USAGM CEO in 2022 after two years

of being blocked by several Members of Congress. Legal advocacy organization

America First Legal Foundation even wrote to President Joe Biden asking him to

withdraw her nomination,

citing several severe national security failures while

she was director of VOA.

Her tenure as director during the Obama Administration

(and her holdover into the beginning of the Trump Administration) was marred

with operational failures, security failures, and credibility failures. Those failures

are reportedly ongoing during her current tenure as CEO.

NECESSARY REFORMS

Security Issues. The Oce of Personnel Management

and the Oce of

the Director of National Intelligence ﬂagged severe security failures during four

— 241 —

Media Agencies: U.S. Agency for Global Media

extensive investigations of the USAGM, each conducted during a 10-year period

between 2010 and 2020.

Security personnel and former agency senior leadership

ignored these issues and allowed them to persist.

In brief, the USAGM is vulnerable to exploitation by foreign spies. During the

last six months of the Trump Administration, known foreign intelligence opera-

tives were removed from the OCB and RFE/RL. During the 10-year period between

2010 and 2020, both the OPM and the ODNI found that the USAGM’s Oce of

Security (under the Oce of Management) had grossly ignored and ﬂouted many

of the federal government’s most critical and long-standing information and per-

sonnel security protocols, regulations, and practices.

During the investigative period—in which the ﬁndings were largely, if not

wholly, ignored by agency senior leadership—over 1,500 USAGM personnel

(nearly 40 percent of its total workforce) were performing their Tier 3 and Tier 5

national-security-sensitive positions with falsiﬁed and/or unauthorized suitabil-

ity-for-employment determinations and with access to sensitive federal buildings

and information systems. In many cases, records (including Social Security num-

bers), were falsiﬁed or replaced with notional placeholders, and ﬁngerprints (in

many dozens of cases) were never submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation

for basic background investigations.

By the time these issues were addressed by members of the Trump Adminis-

tration, more than 500 personnel with unauthorized access and clearances had

left the USAGM and rolled into other federal agencies with reciprocal clearance

authorizations. Many others disappeared into U.S. society. As of January 2021, the

USAGM had not yet determined the whereabouts of these individuals.

The USAGM must never again be entrusted with delegated authority over its

personnel security programs and suitability determinations until such time as it

can prove that these failures will not happen again. These responsibilities must

remain with the Department of Defense and the Oce of Personnel Management,

to which they were transferred in the ﬁnal weeks of the Trump Administration.

Journalists’ Security. Agency journalists, both on and o American soil, have

faced danger,

yet their superiors have done little to protect them. Whistleblowers

and Trump Administration ocials found that protection of USAGM American

and foreign journalists employed by USAGM networks and grantee organizations

was severely lacking.

Against often-signiﬁcant resistance, political appointees forced action to

enable broadcasters (who were under veriﬁed threats) to broadcast from remote

locations while being protected by federal law enforcement ocers. Likewise,

political appointees met resistance from senior career ocials when insisting

that foreign-based journalists in high-risk countries make their locations known

to the agency in the event they required rescue, extraction, or safe housing. Such

safety measures, argued career ocials, would somehow represent a violation of

— 242 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

journalistic independence. With only rare exceptions, resistance to the most basic

journalist safety measures was the knee-jerk response from USAGM career ocials.

Wasting Taxpayer Dollars. The USAGM’S current operations, properly man-

aged, can be conducted on less than $700 million per year. Prior to the arrival of

President Donald Trump’s appointees in June 2020, budgeting, ﬁnancial responsi-

bility, and spending totaled over $800 million per year, with virtually no oversight

or supervision. Waste, unnecessary spending, nepotism for pet projects, redundant

programs, and unnecessary hiring abounded.

Consolidation and Reduction of Redundant Services. Currently, the USAGM

funds numerous redundant services through its own oces, through Voice of Amer-

ica and the Oce of Cuba Broadcasting, and through its grantees. For example, VOA

has a Mandarin-language service but also funds redundant services through Radio

Free Asia. VOA also has a Farsi-language service that duplicates one funded through

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Surplus services in the same languages are often

unnecessary and counterproductive. Fiscal responsibility and transparency should

return to the USAGM, with consolidation being a cornerstone of the strategy.

As noted previously, the Open Technology Fund duplicates activities that

already existed at the USAGM in the Oce of Internet Freedom. Numerous career

whistleblowers came forward to sound the alarm to President Trump’s USAGM

political team about OTF’s abuse and overreach.

Its opaque, expensive, and

unnecessary usurpation of an existing USAGM oce is an egregious example of

government waste and illustrates the general disdain for U.S. taxpayers that is rife

within this agency. Full reinstatement of OIF would allow full agency and congres-

sional oversight into how so-called “Internet freedom” money is being spent.

J-1 Visa Program Abuses. Rather than use the appropriate I visa

intended

for foreign journalists, the USAGM uses the J-1 “cultural exchange” visas to allow

foreign nationals to transition easily into jobs that American citizens with cul-

tural and linguistic expertise could satisfy. The J-1 visa is intended for cultural and

academic exchange programs, among others—none of which include journalism.

Additionally, J-1 visas are meant for non-immigrant temporary exchanges. The

USAGM’s J-1 visa holders often go on to apply for permanent residency, which

violates the intention of this visa.

Shortwave Transmission Upgrades and Improvements. Non-web-based

technologies that are proven and durable, such as shortwave radio transmission

stations, have been grossly deemphasized in budgeting in favor of newer web-

based technologies. This move is dangerously short-sighted and puts the U.S. at a

perilous strategic disadvantage in the event of a major conﬂict, particularly with

Russia or China.

There is great concern about the vulnerability of undersea cable trunks that

make up the Internet cloud. The vast majority of global Internet trac—95 per-

cent—is transmitted through these cables, including news transmissions and

— 243 —

Media Agencies: U.S. Agency for Global Media

web-based content produced by the USAGM’s broadcast networks. While the

robust and popular use of the Internet is ideal during peacetime, during times of

major conﬂict, widespread damage to the undersea cables that carry communi-

cations across the globe can reasonably be expected. Long-lasting power outages

are also likely, such as those Ukraine experienced in the aftermath of Russia’s

2022 invasion.

The USAGM’s responsibility for the only U.S. global shortwave radio capability is

of critical strategic importance if America is to carry its message to people seeking

information and freedom within conﬂict zones. Shortwave technologies also make

it possible to carry broadcasts in areas where Internet trac is severely restricted,

as it is in many authoritarian states today.

ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES

Personnel. Personnel is one of the biggest concerns for the USAGM and its

grantees. Attracting talented sta who will stay and letting go of poorly perform-

ing personnel are hurdles. Additionally, whistleblowers have come forward with

numerous credible allegations of illegal nepotism and improper hiring practic-

es.

Past agency leaders have ignored national security procedures when hiring

and have failed to adequately vet sta.

Government hiring policies and federal

law must be followed, and serious policy changes must be implemented to end

these practices.

Relevant Government Entities

The White House. As an executive branch agency, the USAGM ostensibly

should report to the President and coordinate activities with the

National Security Council (NSC)—especially given the direct and implied

national security aspects of the agency’s messaging globally. However,

there currently is no speciﬁc oce in the White House or NSC liaison

for the USAGM.

The original network, VOA, functioned under the Oce of Coordinator

of Information as early as 1941, the War Department’s Oce of War

Information from 1942 to 1945, the State Department from 1945 to 1953,

and the U.S. Information Agency from 1953 until the creation of the

independent Broadcasting Board of Governors in 1999. Although some

oversight and management functions of the agency are provided by the

State Department, the USAGM otherwise has little connectivity to larger

departments or agencies and even less to the White House. With the

dissolution of the U.S. Information Agency in 1999, the USAGM has virtually

been under its own supervision and guidance. The results have been dismal.

— 244 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

The State Department. VOA was most eective before and during the

Cold War when it was under the direct supervision and control of the War

and State Departments, respectively. If VOA is not put in the direct chain of

command under the NSC, serious consideration should be given to putting

VOA under the direct supervision of the Oce of Global Public Aairs at the

Department of State. The Oce of Global Public Aairs was formed during

the Trump Administration by consolidation of the State Department’s Bureau

of International Information Programs and Bureau of Global Public Aairs.

Ensuring that taxpayer-funded TV, radio, and messaging tells America’s

story is imperative and should be coordinated with the existing foreign-

language social media platforms at the State Department. Currently, VOA’s

foreign-language TV programming is unreliable in telling America’s story,

given its amorphous interpretation of its independence ﬁrewall and its

waning adherence to certain provisions of the Smith–Mundt Act depending

on which political party is in oce.

The VOA ﬁrewall is meant to protect broadcasters from government

interference with content; however, USAGM sta have abused the ﬁrewall

and used it as an oensive measure to block oversight. Additionally, the

Smith–Mundt Act stipulates that USAGM services are meant to tell the

American story abroad—never to domestic audiences—but the agency has

used its taxpayer funding to promote partisan messaging in the U.S. One of

the most egregious examples was when, in 2020, it bought ads on its foreign-

language social media sites to disseminate a Biden campaign ad and targeted

it to a major Muslim population in Michigan.

Moreover, VOA often airs

foreign adversaries’ propaganda, which is antithetical to its congressionally

mandated core mission. State Department oversight or “command” may be

one way to ensure that VOA and the rest of the USAGM returns and adheres

to its original mission.

Clear lines of command and communications between the USAGM and an

appropriate oce of the National Security Council are also sorely lacking,

as has been any reasonable accountability for USAGM senior leadership

and strategy. The State Department’s Assistant Secretary for Global Public

Aairs and Undersecretary for Diplomacy and Public Aairs should also

be in the accountability loop for agency actions. While the U.S. Secretary of

State technically has a seat on the board of the agency, it is a toothless seat

that is often deferred to the undersecretary and/or assistant secretaries

noted above. This position should be relevant and directive when U.S.

foreign policy and strategic communications are at stake.

— 245 —

Media Agencies: U.S. Agency for Global Media

For example, the years-long delay in conﬁrming the Trump-appointed

CEO left disastrous holdover leadership from the previous Administration.

Employing eective leadership, even in an acting capacity, while a new CEO is

awaiting Senate conﬁrmation is necessary to prevent a repeat of this behavior.

Congress. The USAGM receives its budget and mandates directly from

Congress. Often, changes in major functions at the agency happen because

of the lobbying eorts of a few connected individuals—often grantees

lobbying for more funds and less accountability. Those changes can and

do handcu leadership from any meaningful oversight. An overhaul of the

agency with review from Congress to modernize, streamline, and reduce

waste must be done with congressional support.

Key nongovernmental stakeholders, allies, and non-allies. These include

industry groups, nonproﬁts, trade associations, foundations, and activist

organizations, for example, America First Legal Foundation,

USAGM

Watch,

BBG-USAGM Watch,

and Whistleblower Protection Project.

CONCLUSION

The USAGM is a story of a lost opportunity both to help restore the world’s con-

ﬁdence in the promise and ideals of America and to set a high mark for journalistic

integrity and unbiased reporting. These two areas have suered severely under two

decades of USAGM mismanagement and lack of oversight. Finding solutions to

these problems and the restoration of the agency’s networks must be the priorities

of future agency leadership.

To accomplish this, the USAGM must be fully reformed top to bottom with

congressional and White House support. The possibility of consolidating not only

the agency’s subparts, but bringing the entire agency under the supervision of the

NSC, the State Department, or both would dramatically aid that reform.

If the de facto aim of the agency simply remains to compete in foreign markets

using anti-U.S. talking points that parrot America’s adversaries’ propaganda, then

this represents an unacceptable burden to the U.S. taxpayer and a negative return

on investment. In that case, the USAGM should be defunded and disestablished.

If, however, the agency can be reformed to become an eective tool, it would be

one of the greatest tools in America’s arsenal to tell America’s story and promote

freedom and democracy around the world.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective eort involving many individuals to

whom thanks is owed. These individuals include, but are not limited to, Victoria Coates, Michael Pack, Frank

Wuco, and several brave whistleblowers who prefer not to be named. Their eorts were integral to the chapter

and are greatly appreciated.

— 246 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING

Mike Gonzalez

very Republican President since Richard Nixon has tried to strip the Corpora-

tion for Public Broadcasting (CPB) of taxpayer funding. That is signiﬁcant not

just because it means that for half a century, Republican Presidents have failed to

accomplish what they set out to do, but also because Nixon was the ﬁrst President

in oce when National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service

(PBS), which the CPB funds, went on air.

In other words, all Republican Presidents have recognized that public funding

of domestic broadcasts is a mistake. As a 35-year-old lawyer in the Nixon White

House, one Antonin Scalia warned that conservatives were being “confronted with

a long-range problem of signiﬁcant social consequences—that is, the development

of a government-funded broadcast system similar to the BBC.”

All of which means that the next conservative President must finally get

this done and do it despite opposition from congressional members of his

own party if necessary. To stop public funding is good policy and good politics.

The reason is simple: President Lyndon Johnson may have pledged in 1967

that public broadcasting would become “a vital public resource to enrich our

homes, educate our families and to provide assistance to our classrooms,”

but public broadcasting immediately became a liberal forum for public affairs

and journalism.

Not only is the federal government trillions of dollars in debt and unable to

aord the more than half a billion dollars squandered on leftist opinion each year,

but the government should not be compelling the conservative half of the country

to pay for the suppression of its own views. As Thomas Jeerson put it, “To compel

a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagations of opinions which

he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.”

A DEMONSTRATED PATTERN OF BIAS

Conservatives will thus reward a President who eliminates this tyrannical sit-

uation. PBS and NPR do not even bother to run programming that would attract

conservatives. As Pew Research demonstrated in 2014, 25 percent of PBS’s audi-

ence is “mostly liberal,” and 35 percent is “consistently liberal.” That is 60 percent

liberal compared to 15 percent conservative (11 percent “mostly conservative” and

4 percent “consistently conservative”).

NPR’s audience is even to the Left of that, with 67 percent liberal (41 percent

“consistently liberal” and 26 percent “mostly liberal”), compared with 12 percent

conservative (3 percent and 9 percent “consistently conservative” and “mostly con-

servative,” respectively).

That may be an acceptable business model for MSNBC

or CNN, but not for a taxpayer-subsidized broadcaster.

— 247 —

Media Agencies: Corporation for Public Broadcasting

DEFUNDING THROUGH THE BUDGETARY PROCESS

Cutting o the CPB is logistically easy. The solution lies in the budgetary

process. In 2022, the CPB submitted to the Labor, Health and Human Services,

Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittees of the House and Senate Appro-

priations Committees its budget justiﬁcation for ﬁscal year (FY) 2023. In it, the

CPB requested that Congress give it a $565 million advance appropriation—a $40

million increase compared to its FY 2022 funding.

Unlike most other agencies,

the CPB receives advance appropriations that provide them with funding two years

ahead of time, which insulates the agency from Congress’s power of the purse and

oversight. This special budgetary treatment is unjustiﬁed and should be ended.

The 47th President can just tell the Congress—through the budget he proposes

and through personal contact—that he will not sign an appropriations spending bill

that contains a penny for the CPB. The President may have to use the bully pulpit,

as NPR and PBS have teams of lobbyists who have convinced enough Members of

Congress to save their bacon every time their taxpayer subsidies have been at risk

since the Nixon era.

Defunding CPB would by no means cause NPR or PBS—or other public broad-

casters that beneﬁt from CPB funding, including the even-further-to-the Left

Paciﬁca Radio and American Public Media—to ﬁle for bankruptcy. The mem-

bership model that the CPB uses, along with the funding from corporations and

foundations that it also receives, would allow these broadcasters to continue to

thrive. As George Will wrote, “If ‘Sesame Street’ programming were put up for

auction, the danger would be of getting trampled by the stampede of potential

bidders.”

Indeed, “Sesame Street” is on HBO now, which shows its potential as

a money earner.

PUBLIC INTEREST VS. PRIVILEGE

Stripping public funding would, of course, mean that NPR, PBS, Paciﬁca Radio,

and the other leftist broadcasters would be shorn of the presumption that they act

in the public interest and receive the privileges that often accompany so acting.

They should no longer, for example, be qualiﬁed as noncommercial education sta-

tions (NCE stations), which they clearly no longer are. NPR, Paciﬁca, and the other

radio ventures have zero claim on an educational function (the original purpose

for which they were created by President Johnson), and the percentage of on-air

programming that PBS devotes to educational endeavors such as “Sesame Street”

(programs that are themselves biased to the Left) is small.

Being an NCE comes with beneﬁts. The Federal Communications Commis-

sion, for example, reserves the 20 stations at the lower end of the radio frequency

(between 88 and 108 MHz on the FM band) for NCEs. The FCC says that “only

noncommercial educational radio stations are licensed in the 88–92 MHz ‘reserved’

band,” while both commercial and noncommercial educational stations may

— 248 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

operate in the “non-reserved” band.

This confers advantages, as lower-frequency

stations can be heard farther away and are easier to ﬁnd as they lie on the left end

of the radio dial (ﬁguratively as well as ideologically).

The FCC also exempts NCE stations from licensing fees. It says that “Noncom-

mercial educational (NCE) FM station licensees and full service NCE television

broadcast station licensees are exempt from paying regulatory fees, provided that

these stations operate solely on an NCE basis.”

NPR and PBS stations are in reality no longer noncommercial, as they run ads

in everything but name for their sponsors. They are also noneducational. The next

President should instruct the FCC to exclude the stations aliated with PBS and

NPR from the NCE denomination and the privileges that come with it.

— 249 —

Media Agencies

ENDNOTES

 U.S. Agency for Global Media, https://www.usagm.gov/ (accessed March 20, 2023).

 Ben Weingarten, “Security Failures USG Media Agency Prove Need to Hire Americans First,” Newsweek,

August 10, 2020, https://www.newsweek.com/security-failures-usg-media-Agency-prove-need-hire-

americans-ﬁrst-opinion-1523895 (accessed March 20, 2023).

 U.S. Agency for Global Media, “Who We Are,” https://www.usagm.gov/who-we-are/history/ (accessed

March 20, 2023).

 U.S. Agency for Global Media, “Voice of America,” https://www.usagm.gov/networks/voa/ (accessed

March 20, 2023).

 Daniel Lippman, “Deleted Biden Video Sets O a Crisis at Voice of America,” Politico July 30, 2020, https://

www.politico.com/news/2020/07/30/deleted-biden-video-sets-o-a-crisis-at-voice-of-america-388571

(accessed March 20, 2023).

 U.S. Agency for Global Media, “Oce of Cuba Broadcasting,” https://www.usagm.gov/networks/ocb/

(accessed March 20, 2023).

 Rafael Bernal, “Bipartisan Group Asks Oce of Cuba Broadcasting to Rescind Layos,” September 13, 2022,

The Hill, https://thehill.com/latino/3641445-bipartisan-group-asks-oce-of-cuba-broadcasting-to-rescind-

layos/ (accessed March 20, 2023).

 U.S. Agency for Global Media, “Middle East Broadcasting Networks,” https://www.usagm.gov/networks/mbn/

(accessed March 20, 2023).

 U.S. Agency for Global Media, Consolidation Report, p. 13, https://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/

FA00/20210930/114085/HMKP-117-FA00-20210930-SD002.pdf (accessed March 22, 2023).

 U.S. Agency for Global Media, “Radio Free Asia,” https://www.usagm.gov/networks/rfa/ (accessed

March 20, 2023).

 U.S. Department of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors, Oce of the Inspector General, Audit of

Radio Free Asia Expenditures, June 2015, https://www.stateoig.gov/uploads/report/report_pdf_ﬁle/aud-fm-

ib-15-24_1.pdf (accessed March 22, 2023).

 Ibid.

 Ibid., p. 16.

 Susan Crabtree, “‘Lax’ Internet Freedom Group Balks at New Pack Oversight,” https://www.realclearpolitics.

com/articles/2020/08/24/lax_internet_freedom_group_balks_at_new_pack_oversight_144043.html

(accessed March 22, 2023).

 Ibid.

 Ibid.

 Nomination of Michael Pack to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, 116th Cong., 2nd Sess. (2020), https://

www.congress.gov/nomination/116th-congress/1590 (accessed March 20, 2023).

 James Robbins, “More Rot at America’s Public Diplomacy Mouthpiece,” The Hill, November 7, 2020, https://

thehill.com/opinion/national-security/524924-more-rot-at-americas-public-diplomacy-mouthpiece/

(accessed March 20, 2023).

 U.S. Oce of Personnel Management, Suitability Agency Executive Programs, Follow Up Review of U.S.

Agency for Global Media, July 2020, https://bbgwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/OPM-SuitEA-

July-2020.pdf (accessed March 20, 203).

 If the agency were not an extension of U.S. foreign policy and national security goals, then its stang

positions would not be classiﬁed in their entirety as Tier 3 and Tier 5 national-security sensitive positions,

which they are. See U.S. Agency for Global Media, Consolidation Report, p. 13.

 Federal Register, Vol. 85, No. 115 (June 15, 2020), pp. 36150–36153.

 U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 (“Smith–Mundt Act”), Public Law 80–402.

 Jessica Jerreat, “USAGM CEO Criticized Over Move to Rescind Firewall Regulation,” October 28, 2020, https://

www.voanews.com/a/usa_usagm-ceo-criticized-over-move-rescind-ﬁrewall-regulation/6197671.html

(accessed March 20, 2023).

 Byron York, “America’s Lost Voice,” Washington Examiner, February 4, 2021, https://www.washingtonexaminer.

com/politics/americas-lost-voice (accessed March 20, 2023).

— 250 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 Sasha Gong, “VOA Problems: Racism, Xenophobia, Mediocrity, and Nepotism,” BBG-USAGM Watch, December

25, 2018, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20220105101300/https://bbgwatch.com/bbgwatch/voa-

problems-racism-xenophobia-mediocrity-and-nepotism/ (accessed March 20, 2023).

 U.S. Agency for Global Media Watch, “Big Mistake in Rewarding Failed Voice of America (VOA) Managers

U.S. Agency for Global Media Managers,” November 11, 2022, https://www.usagmwatch.com/big-mistake-

in-rewarding-failed-voice-of-america-voa-and-u-s-Agency-for-global-media-usagm-managers/ (accessed

March 20, 2023).

 America First Legal Foundation,“AFL Asks Biden Administration to Withdraw Nomination of Amanda

Bennett Citing National Security and Related Failures,” June 30, 2022, https://aﬂegal.org/aﬂ-asks-biden-

administration-to-withdraw-nomination-of-amanda-bennett-citing-national-security-and-related-failures/

(accessed March 20, 2023).

 U.S. Agency for Global Media, Consolidation Report, p. 13.

 U.S. Agency for Global Media Watch, “Extraordinary Leadership Dysfunction at USAGM Continues,” October 4,

2022, https://www.usagmwatch.com/extraordinary-leadership-dysfunction-at-usagm-continues/ (accessed

March 20, 2023).

 U.S. Oce of Personnel Management, Follow-Up Review of the U.S. Agency for Global Media

Suitability Program.

 Ibid.

 U.S. Agency for Global Media, Consolidation Report, p. 13.

 U.S. Oce of Personnel Management, Follow-Up Review of the U.S. Agency for Global Media

Suitability Program.

 Robbins, “More Rot at America’s Public Diplomacy Mouthpiece.”

 U.S. Department of Justice, “Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces Kidnapping Conspiracy Charges Against

an Iranian Intelligence Ocer And Members Of An Iranian Intelligence Network,” July 13, 2021, https://www.

justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/manhattan-us-attorney-announces-kidnapping-conspiracy-charges-against-iranian

(accessed March 20, 2023).

 James Robbins, “The Trouble with the Open Technology Fund,” Newsweek, August 9, 2020, https://www.

newsweek.com/trouble-open-technology-fund-opinion-1528998 (accessed March 20, 2023).

 Susan Crabtree, “Lax Internet Freedom Group Balks at New Pack Oversight,” Real Clear Politics, August 24,

2020, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/08/24/lax_internet_freedom_group_balks_at_new_

pack_oversight_144043.html (accessed March 20, 2023).

 U.S. Department of State, “Visas for Members of the Foreign Media, Press, and Radio,” https://travel.state.

gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/employment/visas-members-foreign-media-press-radio.html (accessed

March 20, 2023).

 Authorized positions for J-1 visas include: au pair, camp counselor, college/university student, government

visitor, intern, international visitor, physician, professor, research scholar, secondary school student, short-term

scholar, specialist, STEM initiatives, summer work travel, teacher, and trainee. See U.S. Department of State,

“Exchange Visitor Visa,” https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/study/exchange.html (accessed

March 20, 2023).

 News release, “McCaul Demands Answers on USAGM Personnel and Management,” Foreign Aairs

Committee, October 28, 2021, https://foreignaairs.house.gov/press-release/mccaul-demands-answers-on-

usagm-personnel-and-management/ (accessed March 20, 2023).

 U.S. Agency for Global Media Watch, “USAGM: Past Leaders Ignored National Security Procedures, Failed to

Adequately Vet Sta,” August 8, 2020, https://www.usagmwatch.com/usagm-past-agency-leaders-ignored-

national-security-procedures-failed-to-adequately-vet-sta/ (accessed March 20, 2023).

 U.S. Agency for Global Media, “CEO Pack Launches Investigation Into Pro-Biden VOA Content, U.S. Election

Interference,” July 30, 2020, https://www.usagm.gov/2020/07/30/ceo-pack-launches-investigation-into-pro-

biden-voa-content-u-s-election-interference/ (accessed March 22, 2023).

 America First Legal Foundation, “AFL Asks Biden Administration to Withdraw Nomination of Amanda

Bennet Citing National Security and Related Failures,” June 30, 2022, https://aﬂegal.org/aﬂ-asks-biden-

administration-to-withdraw-nomination-of-amanda-bennett-citing-national-security-and-related-failures/

(accessed March 20, 2023).

— 251 —

Media Agencies

 U.S. Agency for Global Media Watch, https://www.usagmwatch.com/ (accessed March 20, 2023).

 BBG-USAM Watch, https://bbgwatch.com/bbgwatch/ (accessed March 20, 2023).

 Whistleblower Protection Project, “Congress Releases Long-Awaited Investigative Report on Chronically

Mismanaged USAGM,” February 9, 2022, https://whipproj.org/congress-releases-long-awaited-usagm-

investigative-report-revealing-Agencys-chronic-mismanagement/ (accessed March 20, 2023).

 National Telecommunications and Information Administration, “Nixon Administration Public Broadcasting

Papers, Summary of 1971,” February 23, 1979, https://current.org/1979/02/nixon-administration-public-

broadcasting-papers-summary-of-1971/ (accessed March 21, 2023).

 President Lyndon B. Johnson, State of the Union Address, January 10, 1967, https://www.infoplease.com/

primary-sources/government/presidential-speeches/state-union-address-lyndon-b-johnson-january-10-1967

(accessed March 21, 2023).

 Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball, eds., Jeerson: Political Writings (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge

University Press, 1999), p. 390.

 Pew Research Center, “Where News Audiences Fit on the Political Spectrum,” October 21, 2014, http://www.

journalism.org/interactives/media-polarization/outlet/pbs/ (accessed March 21, 2023.

 Ibid.

 Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Corporation for Public Broadcasting Appropriation Request and

Justiﬁcation FY 2023/FY 2025, Submitted to the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related

Agencies Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee and the Labor, Health and Human Services,

Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, March 28, 2022,

p. 2, https://www.cpb.org/sites/default/ﬁles/appropriation/FY-2023-2025-CPB-Budget-Justiﬁcation.pdf

(accessed March 21, 2023).

 George F. Will, “Public Broadcasting’s Immortality Deﬁes Reason,” The Washington Post, June 2, 2017, https://

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/public-broadcastings-immortality-deﬁes-reason/2017/06/02/f5de02be-

46fe-11e7-a196-a1bb629f64cb_story.html?utm_term=.8df3a01f6ca6 (accessed March 21, 2023).

 Federal Communications Commission, “FM Radio,” https://www.fcc.gov/general/fm-radio (accessed

March 21, 2023).

 Federal Communications Commission, “Regulatory Fee Exemptions for FY 2021,” FCC Regulatory Fees

Factsheet No. DA-21-1142, September 10, 2021, p. 2.

— 253 —

AGENCY FOR

INTERNATIONAL

DEVELOPMENT

Max Primorac

MISSION

The U.S. Agency for International Development leads the U.S. government’s

international development and disaster assistance programs. USAID helps com-

munities to lead their own development journeys by reducing the impact of conﬂict;

preventing hunger and the spread of pandemic disease; and counteracting the driv-

ers of violence, instability, transnational crime, and other threats. In alignment

with U.S. national security interests, the agency promotes American prosperity

through initiatives that expand markets for U.S. exports; encourage innovation;

create a level playing ﬁeld for U.S. businesses; and support more stable, resilient,

and democratic societies that are less likely to act against American interests and

more likely to respect family, life, and religious liberty.

OVERVIEW

USAID was established during the presidency of John F. Kennedy pursuant

to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961

to promote the foreign policy, security, and

national interests of the United States. At the height of the Cold War with the

Soviet Union, it sought to halt the spread of Communism by assisting peoples in the

developing world in their eorts to advance economically, socially, and politically.

The agency helped to transition Central and Eastern Europe from socialism to

free market–based democracies. Today, USAID leads the U.S. government’s global

development and humanitarian disaster assistance responses.

Over the years, USAID expanded the number of countries assisted, the scope

and size of its activities, and especially its budget. The Trump Administration faced

— 254 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

an institution marred by bureaucratic inertia: programmatic incoherence; waste-

ful spending; and dependence on huge awards to a self-serving and politicized aid

industrial complex of United Nations agencies, international nongovernmental

organizations (NGOs), and for-proﬁt contractors. Once started, programs continue

almost indeﬁnitely—in many countries, for decades. USAID’s multibillion-dollar

humanitarian programs that were once 80 percent in response to natural disasters

are now 80 percent in response to violent, man-made crises and have become a

permanent and immiserating feature of the global landscape.

Under the Trump Administration, USAID focused on ending the need for for-

eign aid by placing countries onto a Journey to Self-Reliance.

The Administration

restructured the agency to reﬂect this strategic approach to development, stream-

lined procurement procedures to diversify its partner base, increased awards to

cost-eective local (including faith-based) organizations, and improved inter-

nal governance. It instituted pro-life and family-friendly policies. It promoted

international religious freedom as a pillar of the agency’s work and built up an

unprecedented genocide-response infrastructure.

The Biden Administration has deformed the agency by treating it as a global

platform to pursue overseas a divisive political and cultural agenda that promotes

abortion, climate extremism, gender radicalism, and interventions against perceived

systemic racism. It has dispensed with decades of bipartisan consensus on foreign

aid and pursued policies that contravene basic American values and have antago-

nized our partners in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It has decoupled U.S. assistance

from free-market reforms that are the keystone of economic and political stability

and has teamed with global institutions to impose central planning diktats on an

unprecedented scale. Wasteful budget increases requested by the Administration

and appropriated by Congress have outstripped USAID’s capacity to spend funds

responsibly, and U.S. foreign aid has been transformed into a massive and open-

ended global entitlement program captured by—and enriching—the progressive Left.

The next conservative Administration should scale back USAID’s global foot-

print by, at a minimum, returning to the agency’s 2019 pre–COVID-19 pandemic

budget level. It should deradicalize USAID’s programs and structures and build

on the conservative reforms instituted by the Trump Administration. This will

require working closely with the U.S. Congress to make deep cuts in the interna-

tional aairs “150 Account” while granting USAID greater ﬂexibility in spending

its appropriated funds to achieve better developmental outcomes.

KEY ISSUES

Aligning U.S. Foreign Aid to U.S. Foreign Policy. U.S. foreign aid is too often

disconnected from the strategy and practice of U.S. foreign policy. Its coordination

is made dicult as the aid budget is divided among approximately 20 oces, agen-

cies, and departments that provide some form of foreign assistance.

— 255 —

Agency for International Development

The USAID Administrator should be authorized to take on the additional role

of Director of Foreign Assistance (DFA) with the rank of Deputy Secretary at the

Department of State in charge of all U.S. foreign assistance. The DFA role would

empower this person to align and coordinate the countless foreign assistance

programs across the U.S. government and carry out the agenda of the next con-

servative President more eectively. A version of this role existed during the last

two years of the George W. Bush Administration, but the Obama Administration

eliminated it in 2009.

Countering China’s Development Challenge. Through its trillion-dollar

Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) has directed

billions of dollars in loans and investments to advance its geostrategic objective

of displacing the United States as the premier global power. The PRC leverages

its transactions—termed “debt traps” by many critics—to strengthen its global

inﬂuence, extract natural resources, isolate Taiwan, win political support at

international fora, and access ports and bases for its military. In Latin America,

25 of 29 countries participate in the BRI, and the PRC ranks as the region’s largest

trading partner. Since 2005, Chinese state-owned banks have issued $138 billion

in loans to Latin American countries, and other Chinese entities have invested

an additional $140 billion. In Africa, China has issued $160 billion in loans and

dominates the continent’s rare earth mining sector, which is critical to global

energy development.

The World Bank estimates that 60 percent of all BRI loans are in ﬁnancial

distress, leading many countries to seek emergency ﬁnancial help from Western

donors. Chinese-funded projects are known for employing substandard labor and

environmental practices, fueling corruption, promoting wasteful ﬁnancial deci-

sions by governments, advancing China’s geostrategic interests, and creating an

unequal trade relationship in which China secures raw materials from developing

countries and sells those countries manufacturing products. For example, Brazil,

a world leader in shoe production, saw its industry collapse under a ﬂood of cheap

Chinese imports. China’s mercantilist penetration of the developing world and

the negative consequences for developing countries’ healthy economic growth

have undercut U.S. strategic relationships in those countries and wasted billions

in U.S. foreign aid.

During the Trump Administration, USAID:

Inaugurated a robust counter-China response called Clear Choice

that contrasted America’s development approach based on liberty,

sovereignty, and free markets with China’s mercantilist authoritarianism

that pursued predatory ﬁnancing schemes and economic and political

subordination to Beijing.

— 256 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Launched its ﬁrst Digital Strategy

to promote safe 5G access in emerging

markets and combat Beijing’s eorts to equip regimes with tools to

stiﬂe democracy.

Struck bilateral development relationships with Japan, Israel, Kuwait, Qatar,

the United Arab Emirates, and Taiwan to support projects in sub-Saharan

Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Established an oce in Greenland to help counter China’s claims of being “a

near Arctic state” and reoriented its programming across Asia—including

establishing a USAID Mission to Central Asia—in line with America’s Indo-

Paciﬁc strategy.

Joined with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and National

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to help coastal countries

detect and halt illegal, unreported, and unregulated ﬁshing and confront

criminal activities practiced by state-run Chinese ﬁshing ﬂeets that violate

international norms, ravage ﬁshing industries in developing countries,

worsen food insecurity, rob vulnerable communities of their livelihoods,

and deplete maritime resources.

USAID built an organizational infrastructure to carry out its multiple lines of

counter-China operations. An agencywide Clear Choice Executive Council and

USAID–U.S. International Development Finance Corporation Working Group

reviewed all proposed assistance programs and proposals through a counter-China

lens. A senior executive–level Clear Choice Coordinator, reporting to the Adminis-

trator, advised the agency’s leadership on initiatives to counter China, supported

by a fully dedicated six-person Secretariat.

The Biden Administration discontinued these programs and allowed USAID’s

counter-China architecture to waste away, subordinating our national security

interests to progressive climate politics in which Communist China is viewed as

a global partner.

The next conservative Administration should restore and build on the Trump

Administration’s counter-China infrastructure at USAID, end the climate policy

fanaticism that advantages Beijing, and assess bilateral aid through the lens of

U.S. national security interests, rewarding those countries that resist China’s

debt diplomacy. It should ﬁnance programs designed to counter speciﬁc Chinese

eorts in strategically important countries and eliminate funding to any partner

that engages with Chinese entities directly or indirectly. USAID’s Bangkok-based

Regional Development Mission for Asia should focus its strategic attention on

supporting cross-border initiatives designed to counter Chinese inﬂuence.

— 257 —

Agency for International Development

Climate Change. Upon taking oce, President Biden issued executive orders

to “put the climate crisis at the center of U.S. foreign policy and national security”

and mitigate “the devastating inequalities that intersect with gender, race, ethnic-

ity, and economic security.”

USAID subsequently declared itself “a climate agency”

and redirected its private-sector engagement strategy—teaming with America’s

corporate sector to wean countries o foreign aid through private investment and

trade—to support the Administration’s global policy to “transition from fossil fuels

to renewable energy.”

The Administration has incorporated its radical climate policy into every

USAID initiative. It has joined or funded international partnerships dedicated to

advancing the aims of the Paris Climate Agreement and has supported the idea of

giving trillions of dollars more in aid transfers for “climate reparations.”

The Biden Administration’s extreme climate policies have worsened global

food insecurity and hunger. Its anti–fossil fuel agenda has led to a sharp spike in

global energy prices. Inﬂation has hit the poor the hardest as they expend a higher

proportion of income on food purchases. Farmers in poor countries can no longer

aord to buy expensive natural gas–based fertilizers that are key to achieving high

yields of food production. Under advice from climate radicals, the government of

Sri Lanka even banned chemical fertilizers entirely without having any replace-

ments in place. The result has been hunger and violent political instability.

The aid industry claims that climate change causes poverty, which is false.

Enduring conﬂict, government corruption, and bad economic policies are the

main drivers of global poverty. USAID’s response to man-made food insecurity

is to provide more billions of dollars in aid—a recipe that will keep scores of poor

countries underdeveloped and dependent on foreign aid for years to come.

The impact on Africa is especially acute. South Africa, for example, relies on

coal-powered plants to generate 80 percent of its power needs. It would need $26

billion in foreign aid to make the full transition away from coal. Multiplying this

amount by dozens of other countries on the continent, the ﬁnancial resources

needed to transition away from fossil fuels are unachievable. In Latin America,

countries that are global leaders in oil and gas production have sharply curtailed

their energy production in line with climate activists, upending the hemisphere’s

major source of export revenues and condemning it to years of economic and polit-

ical instability.

USAID should cease its war on fossil fuels in the developing world and support

the responsible management of oil and gas reserves as the quickest way to end

wrenching poverty and the need for open-ended foreign aid. The next conservative

Administration should rescind all climate policies from its foreign aid programs

(speciﬁcally USAID’s Climate Strategy 2022–2030

); shut down the agency’s oces,

programs, and directives designed to advance the Paris Climate Agreement; and

narrowly limit funding to traditional climate mitigation eorts. USAID resources

— 258 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

are best deployed to strengthen the resilience of countries that are most vulner-

able to climatic shifts. The agency should cease collaborating with and funding

progressive foundations, corporations, international institutions, and NGOs that

advocate on behalf of climate fanaticism.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Agenda. USAID installed advisers on

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committees “in all its Bureaus, Oces, and

[overseas] Missions” and created “an agency-wide dashboard and DEI scorecard

for all bureaus, oces, and missions” to track sta compliance with the Adminis-

tration’s DEI directives. A Chief DEI Ocer oversees this DEI infrastructure and

sits in the Administrator’s oce. DEI directives are now part of all agency policies

and are incorporated as standard clauses in all contract and grant awards. Those

seeking to do business with the agency must “describe the approaches they will

use to diversify their partner base.”

USAID often ties DEI to “gender and climate

equity,” corrupting every aspect of the agency’s overseas work.

The upshot has been to racialize the agency and create a hostile work environ-

ment for anyone who disagrees with the Biden Administration’s identity politics.

This pursuit of ideological purity threatens merit-based professional advancement

for sta who do not overtly conform, hyperpoliticizes what should be a nonpartisan

federal workplace environment, creates an institutionalized cadre of progressive

political commissars, corrupts the award process, and discourages potential con-

tractors and grantees that disagree with this radical agenda from applying for

USAID funding.

The next conservative Administration should dismantle USAID’s DEI apparatus

by eliminating the Chief Diversity Ocer position along with the DEI advisers and

committees; cancel the DEI scorecard and dashboard; remove DEI requirements

from contract and grant tenders and awards; issue a directive to cease promotion

of the DEI agenda, including the bullying LGBTQ+ agenda; and provide sta a

conﬁdential medium through which to adjudicate cases of political retaliation

that agency or implementing sta suered during the Biden Administration. It

should eliminate funding for partners that promote discriminatory DEI practices

and consider debarment in egregious cases.

As federal departments and agencies cannot play partisan politics, sta—irre-

spective of hiring mechanism—as well as implementers and grantees that engage

in ideological agitation on behalf of the DEI agenda should be dismissed, and enti-

ties should be debarred. The next conservative Administration should return the

authority over all civil rights issues at USAID to the agency’s Oce of Civil Rights,

which is the appropriate locus for ensuring that all Americans have guaranteed

equality of career opportunity at USAID.

Refocusing Gender Equality on Women, Children, and Families. Instead

of protecting women’s and children’s unalienable human rights and propelling

their ability to thrive in society, past Democrat Administrations have nearly erased

— 259 —

Agency for International Development

what females are and what femininity is through “gender” policies and practices.

For instance, these Administrations have diluted USAID’s focus on assisting vul-

nerable women, children, and families around the globe by adding protections for

and ideological advocacy on behalf of progressive special-interest groups. USAID

now aggressively promotes abortion on demand under the guise of “sexual and

reproductive health and reproductive rights,” “gender equality,” and “women’s

empowerment” and advocates for those who claim minority status or vulnerability.

Families are the basic unit of and foundation for a thriving society. Without

women, there are no children, and society cannot continue. As evidenced by the

conﬁrmation testimony of now-Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the

progressive Left has so misused and altered the deﬁnition of what a “woman” is

that one of our U.S. Supreme Court Justices was unable to delineate clearly the

fundamental biological and sexual traits that deﬁne the group of which she is a

part. USAID cannot advocate for and protect women when they have been erased

globally along with the values and traditional structures that have supported them.

The next conservative Administration should rename the USAID Oce of

Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) as the USAID Oce of

Women, Children, and Families; refocus and realign resources that currently

support programs in GEWE to the Oce of Women, Children, and Families; redes-

ignate the Senior Gender Coordinator as an unapologetically pro-life politically

appointed Senior Coordinator of the Oce of Women, Children, and Families; and

eliminate the “more than 180 gender advisors and points of contact…embedded in

Missions and Operating Units throughout the Agency.”

In addition, the next conservative Administration should rescind President

Biden’s 2022 Gender Policy and refocus it on Women, Children, and Families

and revise the agency’s regulation on “Integrating Gender Equality and Female

Empowerment in USAID’s Program Cycle.”

It should remove all references, exam-

ples, deﬁnitions, photos, and language on USAID websites, in agency publications

and policies, and in all agency contracts and grants that include the following

terms: “gender,” “gender equality,” “gender equity,” “gender diverse individu-

als,” “gender aware,” “gender sensitive,” etc. It should also remove references to

“abortion,” “reproductive health,” and “sexual and reproductive rights” and con-

troversial sexual education materials.

In the past, the word “gender” was a polite alternative to the word “sex” or term

“biological sex.” The Left has commandeered the term “gender,” which used to

mean either “male” or “female,” to include a spectrum of others who are seeking to

alter biological and societal sexual norms. The promotion of gender radicalism is

anathema to the traditional norms of many societies where USAID works, causes

resentment by tying lifesaving assistance to rejecting the aid recipient’s own ﬁrmly

held fundamental values regarding sexuality, and produces unnecessary conster-

nation and confusion among and even outright bias against men.

— 260 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

The next Administration should ensure that USAID’s goal in service of its

mission is to help protect and propel all members of society—women, children,

and men—from conception to natural death. To do so, USAID’s Oce of Women,

Children, and Families should strive to ensure that communities have their basic

human needs, without which they will be unable to thrive, met ﬁrst and foremost.

Basic human needs include equal and safe access to potable water, sanitation, food,

education, health care, houses of worship, justice, pregnancy and family resource

centers, working capital, electricity, technology, and business opportunities. The

Oce of Women, Children, and Families should implement the Geneva Consen-

sus Declaration on Women’s Health and Protection of the Family and prioritize

partnerships with local organizations, including faith-based organizations (FBOs).

Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance. Protecting life should be among the

core objectives of United States foreign assistance. Shortly after taking oce, how-

ever, President Biden issued a memorandum that reversed a myriad of pro-life

policies and revoked the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance (PLGHA)

policy, widely known as the Mexico City Policy. Biden also restored funding to

the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which supports and implements

China’s coercive abortion and sterilization regimen.

PLGHA requires foreign NGOs, as a condition of receiving assistance, to agree

not to perform or actively promote abortions as a method of family planning in

foreign countries. Previous pro-life Presidents beginning with Ronald Reagan

applied these conditions to family planning assistance, but President Trump for

the ﬁrst time expanded the Mexico City Policy to protect “global health assistance

furnished by all departments or agencies” (estimated to be $8.8 billion annually).

The Biden Administration restored abortion subsidies to pro-abortion NGOs

including Planned Parenthood International and MSI Reproductive Choices. In

reversing PLGHA, Biden declared a radical assault on the policy of protecting life,

choosing instead to promote abortion on demand around the world under the

guise of “sexual and reproductive health and rights.” USAID’s priority of funding

the global abortion industry negates programs that promote life, women’s health,

and the family.

Even under PLGHA, several loopholes allowed support for the global abortion

industry to continue. International NGOs that perform and promote abortions

overseas like Population Services International, Pathﬁnder, PATH, the Population

Council, EngenderHealth, and WomanCare Global International continued to

receive funding from USAID under PLGHA and now, under Biden, receive tens

of millions more in U.S. taxpayer dollars in foreign assistance annually without

any oversight. When the United Nations Secretariat promoted abortion and abor-

tion-inducing drugs under the umbrella of “sexual and reproductive health” as

an element of its COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Response Plan in May 2020,

the exemptions in PLGHA for humanitarian aid and multilateral organizations

— 261 —

Agency for International Development

illuminated another loophole in the policy’s eectiveness in safeguarding U.S. tax-

payer dollars from being used to promote abortion.

Pro-abortion groups also have received funds under other categories of foreign

aid that fall outside the scope of global health assistance, including women-related

and economic assistance programs. Members of Congress have advocated closing

these loopholes by extending PLGHA to all foreign assistance through the Protect-

ing Life in Foreign Assistance Act, sponsored by Senator Mike Lee (R–UT) and

Representative Virginia Foxx (R–NC).

Current law in the Foreign Assistance Act

gives the President broad authority to set “such terms and conditions as he may

determine” on foreign assistance, which legally empowers the next conservative

President to expand this pro-life policy.

To stop U.S. foreign aid from supporting the global abortion industry, the next

conservative Administration should issue an executive order that, at a minimum,

reinstates PLGHA and summarily blocks funding to UNFPA but also closes loop-

holes by applying the policy to all foreign assistance, including humanitarian aid,

and improving its enforcement. The executive order to reinstate PLGHA should

be drafted broadly to apply to all foreign assistance. It should simultaneously

rescind President Biden’s memorandum entitled “Protecting Women’s Health at

Home and Abroad,” issued on January 28, 2021.

The new pro-life executive order

should apply to foreign NGOs, including subgrantees and subcontractors, and

remove exemptions for U.S.-based NGOs, public international organizations, and

bilateral government-to-government agreements. All entities funded by USAID,

both directly and indirectly, should report their compliance with the PLGHA, and

USAID should institute penalties, including debarment from future federal funding,

for violations of it. The new executive order also should instruct the Administrator

of USAID to publish reports on implementation of the PLGHA by both prime and

sub-prime recipients.

In addition, the Helms Amendment should continue to be applied, as it has been

by both Republican and Democratic Administrations for more than 50 years, as a

complete ban on the use of taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions abroad.

International Religious Freedom. Conservatives believe international

religious freedom is central to USAID’s development eorts. President Trump’s

Executive Order 13926 on “Advancing International Religious Freedom”

instructed the Secretary of State, in consultation with the USAID Administrator,

to budget at least $50 million a year for programs that advance international reli-

gious freedom and “ensure that faith-based and religious entities, including eligible

entities in foreign countries, are not discriminated against on the basis of religious

identity or religious belief when competing for Federal funding.”

Under the Trump Administration, the agency set up a senior-level Chief Adviser

for International Religious Freedom who reported directly to the Administra-

tor with the task of coordinating a “whole-of-USAID” approach to achieving this

— 262 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

priority. It created a robust genocide-response capability. USAID armed the

agency’s partnerships with faith-based organizations through its rule on “Partic-

ipation by Religious Organizations in USAID Programs;”

“Partnership Guidance

and Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for Faith Based Organizations;”

and “Legal Guidance and Answers to FAQs for USAID Sta.”

Today, USAID ocials and their progressive partners have resisted eorts to

promote religious freedom, especially as it relates to abortion and gender ideology,

which are anathema to the traditional societies where USAID funds programs (in

addition to many U.S. taxpayers). U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken repudiated

his predecessor’s focus on religious freedom.

The next conservative Administration must champion the core American value

of religious freedom, which correlates signiﬁcantly with poverty reduction, eco-

nomic growth, and peace. It should train all USAID sta on the connection between

religious freedom and development; integrate it into all of the agency’s programs,

including the ﬁve-year Country Development and Coordination Strategies due

for updates in 2025; strengthen the missions’ relationships with local faith-based

leaders; and build on local programs that are serving the poor. Congress should

appropriate funding to USAID speciﬁcally to support persecuted religious minori-

ties in line with Executive Order 13926.

Streamlining Procurement and Localizing the Partner Base. USAID is a

grantmaking and contracting agency that disburses billions of dollars of federal

funding in developing countries through implementing partners, such as U.N. agen-

cies, international NGOs, for-proﬁt companies, and local nongovernmental entities.

In rare instances, such as in Jordan and Ukraine, the agency provides direct budget

support to ﬁnance the operations of host-country governments. USAID far more

often counts on expensive and ineective large contracts and grants to carry out

its programs. It justiﬁes these practices based on speed and a lower administrative

burden on its institutional capacity.

Partnering and procurement reform was a pillar of the Trump Administration’s

eort to secure better development results, cut costs, and advance the Journey to

Self-Reliance strategy of exiting countries from aid. In December 2018, USAID

launched its ﬁrst Acquisition and Assistance Strategy to streamline procurement

processes; introduce innovation into its programming; and diversify its partner

base away from large, expensive, and partisan implementers. The strategy counted

on local NGOs, including faith-based entities already on the ground, to provide

the agency with less costly and more eective alternatives to the aid giants. The

strategy also prioritized global partnerships with the private sector—corporations,

investors, diasporas, and private philanthropies—the source of real capital invest-

ment, innovation, and eciencies that can maximize the impact of taxpayer dollars.

Under the Biden Administration, despite rhetoric to the contrary, the aid industrial

complex has recaptured the agency and stiﬂed further reforms.

— 263 —

Agency for International Development

The next conservative Administration should immediately implement language

on key policy topics as standard provisions in all grants, cooperative agreements,

and contracts. These provisions should include language on implementing the

Policy on Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance, imposing conditions on funding

to multilateral organizations, and increasing accountability and transparency.

To ensure that USAID exercises its existing authorities to streamline procure-

ment processes, the next conservative Administration should name a political

appointee as the agency’s Senior Procurement Executive and Director of the agen-

cy’s Oce of Assistance and Acquisitions (OAA) in the Bureau of Management (M).

The head of M/OAA is one of the most important positions at USAID, as the oce is

ground zero for controlling the disbursement of U.S. foreign aid. The White House

should empower the Administrator and his or her designees to make determina-

tions concerning the scale and scope of awards and increase the transparency and

accountability of subawards, which can escape public scrutiny and promote pro-

gressive policies during conservative Administrations. USAID should use existing

authority to use program funds to expand its roster of contracting and agreement

ocers to accelerate the delivery of funds for disaster responses to a more diverse

collection of implementers.

Accomplishing the next conservative Administration’s policy goals at USAID

will require that political appointees have knowledge of, responsibility for, and

visibility into the design and awarding of grants, contracts, and cooperative

agreements. The Administration should restore the Senior Ocial Accountabil-

ity Review (SOAR) or create a similar process to ensure that proposed programs

above a certain dollar threshold in Total Estimated Cost/Total Estimated Amount

receive a close review by policymakers in each bureau and oce and, for large

awards, in the agency’s front oce.

“Localization” is a buzzword within the aid community but correctly assumes

that more funding through local organizations produces better aid outcomes. Shift-

ing from giant U.S.-based implementers has proved dicult to achieve, however,

given intense internal bureaucratic resistance; opposition from the aid industrial

complex; and foot-dragging from progressives, who view local NGOs—especially

faith-based NGOs prominent in Africa and Latin America—as obstacles to promot-

ing abortion, gender radicalism, climate extremism, and other woke ideas.

The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has shown that

localization at scale is possible within a short time span. Over the four years of the

Trump Administration, the multibillion-dollar program increased the amount

of funding disbursed to local entities from about 25 percent to nearly 70 percent

with positive overall results. This model should be replicated across all of USAID.

In addition, the next conservative Administration should expand use of the New

Partnership Initiative (NPI) to every bureau and oce; reset the requirements for

USAID’s overseas missions to craft and execute NPI action plans; and assign each

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

mission a minimum percentage of its portfolio that must go to new, underutilized,

and local partners. Crucial to the strategy will be increasing the use of open com-

petition that lowers barriers to entry and ﬁxed-amount awards that carry less of

a compliance burden along with eliminating cost-plus reimbursement contracts

that favor large companies. Before advancing a new program, the agency should

be required to assess existing local activities to avoid undercutting or duplicating

them. At every opportunity, USAID should build on existing local initiatives.

Global Health. The United States is the world’s largest funder of global health

initiatives. For more than 60 years, the American people have oered health assis-

tance to the world and saved millions of lives. The USAID Bureau for Global Health

(GH), the second largest within USAID, oversees a multibillion-dollar operation

to support maternal and child health; voluntary family planning; PEPFAR and

the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) (both started under President George W.

Bush); and other initiatives against other infectious and neglected tropical diseases.

Eective use of funds is essential to maximize care for the world’s neediest people.

Countries with strong health institutions and sound public health practices

responded quickly to and recovered more rapidly from the COVID-19 pandemic.

This demonstrates the importance of “localization,” by which USAID helps gov-

ernments and the private sector in developing countries to strengthen their

own ability to address needed training, services, accountability, and organiza-

tional capacity.

Unfortunately, many USAID-funded global health activities remain rooted in

patterns that began decades ago and measure improvements in terms of inputs—

money spent—instead of outcomes achieved. From the 1950s to 1970s, the major

recognized threats to human health were infectious diseases such as polio and

smallpox, and USAID funded programs “in” a country, not “with” a country. Mater-

nal and child health, food, water, and sanitation programs were often intermittent.

USAID consistently ﬁnanced population control, contraception, and abortion as

essential to “development.” Most programs focused on one disease or condition

but had little integration with other global health activities. Chronic diseases

were ignored.

Consequently, the next conservative Administration should focus on updating

the Global Health Bureau’s portfolio, emphasizing a comprehensive approach to

supporting women, children, and families; building host-country institutional

capacity; increasing awards to local and faith-based partners (expanding what

occurred during the Trump Administration with the NPI); and improving USAID’s

ability to coordinate with local partners.

Updating Funding Priorities. The Bureau should identify and eliminate out-

dated and ineective concepts and focus on funding innovation. A rigorous review

is necessary to ensure that current programs and funding streams avoid wasting

taxpayer dollars and prioritize what is needed now and what works.

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Agency for International Development

Focusing on Holistic Health Care and Support for Women, Children, and

Families. The continued high rate of maternal and infant mortality is a persistent

global tragedy. Contrary to current publicity, this problem is not solved by abortion.

Families genuinely cherish children. The next leadership at USAID must focus

attention on women and children’s health (including unborn children) as well

as health risks across life spans, including childhood infections, cervical cancer,

adolescent risks, and family stability, by utilizing a coordinated approach. The

Bureau should implement a “Request for Application for Resilient Families” that

harvests collaborative funds from siloed programs and makes individuals and the

family, not diseases or conditions, the true focus of intervention.

Increasing USAID Collaboration with Faith-Based Organizations. FBOs

historically have been much more successful in outreach to remote and vulnerable

populations, based on trust built through decades of service. The value of collab-

orating with FBOs was demonstrated in the October 2020 Evidence Summit on

Religious Engagement. In sub-Saharan Africa, FBOs often provide more than 80

percent of health care, especially to the extremely poor. In contrast, the Global

Health Bureau historically has provided 85 percent of its funding to large U.S. NGOs

with signiﬁcant overhead costs, as a result of which only 20 percent–30 percent of

funding reaches people in need.

Leveraging the Strength and Experience of Presidential Initiatives. Mil-

lions of people are alive today because of the American people’s investment in

PEPFAR and PMI. The training, laboratory, clinical intervention, health educa-

tion, data collection, and organizational platforms of these programs became the

bedrock for responding to the COVID pandemic. It is time for these programs to

become part of an integrated, strong, and sustainable network of health care and

public health in developing countries. A smooth transition to national ownership

and funding, however, will require better coordination of USAID’s own stovepiped

programs with PEPFAR and PMI.

Strengthening the Collection and Use of Data. Good decisions are based on

accurate data. For decades, global health programs have relied mostly on statis-

tical modeling (rather than actual data) or survey data (the weakest type of data).

Poor data quality undermines both the evaluation and improvement of desired

outcomes achieved by our global health programs. The Trump Administration

implemented critical updates of PEPFAR’s systems for the collection and reporting

of data to increase transparency and hold funded partners and overseas missions

accountable. The next conservative Administration should apply these reforms

to all of USAID’s global health programs.

Strengthening Private-Sector Engagement. The Bureau’s Center for Inno-

vation and Impact (CII) should be empowered to expand networks of private

and faith-based health organizations that can develop projects using develop-

ment-impact bonds, capital funds, and innovative technologies, including with the

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Millennium Challenge Corporation and the new U.S. International Development

Finance Corporation. More ﬂexible and agile CII funding will spur innovation

within the Bureau and help to enhance countries’ self-reliance in the provision

of health care.

Improving Bureau Hiring, Stang, and Recruitment Practices. The

Global Health Bureau should address its own management challenges by modifying

the high ratio of contractors to direct hires, holding career leadership accountable

for eective management, and building more ﬂexibility in emergency responses.

Bureau personnel suer from “mission drift,” burnout, and a lack of vision. New

directives, social agendas, and extra layers of review have obscured core activities

and caused talent to leave the agency. Conservative leadership must return the

focus to development and improved workforce morale and focus on global out-

comes and the ecient use of taxpayer dollars.

Holding the U.N., the World Health Organization (WHO), and Other Mul-

tilateral Organizations Accountable. Leadership should designate a political

appointee to help coordinate cross-agency eorts to hold the U.S. government’s

multilateral partners (U.N. and WHO agencies and other international organiza-

tions) to a higher level of ﬁnancial and programmatic accountability, including

assurances that language promoting abortion will be removed from U.N. docu-

ments, policy statements, and technical literature. The United States must have

more prominent representation in international technical committees and regu-

lation-setting organizations to ensure the proper execution of American resources,

the preservation of our values, the protection of innovation, and the vitality of our

biomedical sector.

Global Humanitarian Assistance. The U.S. government is the world’s largest

humanitarian actor, annually disbursing billions of dollars in lifesaving assistance—

food, water, shelter, emergency health care, and related protection support—to

tens of millions of vulnerable people. Funded by the U.S. Congress through the

International Disaster Assistance (IDA) account, USAID pays for nearly half of the

budget of the Nobel Prize–winning U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) as well

as dozens of simultaneous operations that range from responses to hurricanes in

Central America to tackling outbreaks of Ebola in Central Africa and caring for

millions of people displaced by ongoing conﬂicts.

USAID’s emergency responses once were focused primarily on natural cata-

clysms such as hurricanes, ﬂoods, and earthquakes. Today, the agency spends more

than 80 percent of its humanitarian budget on chronic man-made crises. Most of

these “emergency responses” began years ago and absorb billions of dollars annu-

ally with no end in sight. Every year sees ﬁnancial demands grow in response to

new conﬂicts, most recently Ukraine. The budget of the Bureau for Humanitarian

Assistance (BHA) has doubled compared to just a few years ago, and BHA can no

longer manage its funds responsibly. A politically powerful foreign aid industry that

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Agency for International Development

beneﬁts ﬁnancially from extending and expanding these large-scale programs for

years, even decades, ensures little scrutiny of these ever-increasing appropriations.

The massive growth in “emergency” aid distorts humanitarian responses, wors-

ens corruption in the countries we support, and exacerbates the misery of those

we intend to help. The permanence of this assistance, particularly in countries

where we have little to no in-country presence and must rely on U.N. agencies to

self-monitor, has morphed into a co-governance scheme in which the U.S. govern-

ment eectively ﬁnances the social services obligations of corrupt regimes that

threaten the United States. These governments can then redirect scarce budget

resources away from costly health and education toward ﬁnancing their wars, sup-

porting terrorism, repressing their citizens, and enriching themselves. Examples

of this abuse are spread throughout the world.

Over the past decade, the U.S. government has expended $14 billion in aid to

Syria where the bloody regime of Bashar al-Assad—a close ally of Iran and

Russia—skims nearly half of foreign aid through inﬂated ocial exchange

rates, the diversion of food baskets to its military units, and procurement

arrangements with compromised local contractors.

Yemen, once the breadbasket of the Arabian Peninsula, is now dependent

on billions of dollars of aid as formerly productive Yemeni farmers cannot

compete against “free food” while irrigation systems remain in disrepair,

leaving the country to suer from water shortages during long summer

droughts and ﬂooding during its rainy season. Iran-backed Houthi rebels

divert substantial amounts of aid to support their war eorts.

In Afghanistan, the aid infrastructure built over 20 years of American

military presence that three Presidents wanted to end collapsed with the

failure of U.S.-trained Afghan forces to repel the Taliban’s 2021 advances.

Yet the country has received nearly $1 billion more in U.S. humanitarian aid

since the Taliban’s takeover and absent a U.S. embassy to ensure that it is not

diverted to the Taliban and other terrorist groups.

In Burma, U.S. aid ﬁnances all of the food and medical care for hundreds of

thousands of persecuted Rohingya that the military regime forces to live in

open-air concentration camps.

In northern Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Yazidis—targeted for genocidal

extermination by ISIS—remain in miserable camps unable to return home

because of the Iraqi government’s refusal to clear out Iran-backed militias

occupying their homeland.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

In eect, humanitarian aid is sustaining war economies, creating ﬁnancial

incentives for warring parties to continue ﬁghting, discouraging governments

from reforming, and propping up malign regimes.

Nefarious actors reap billions of dollars in proﬁts from diversions of our human-

itarian assistance, but so do international organizations. The WFP charges 36

percent in overhead while Oxfam International’s overhead has reached 70 percent

in Yemen, reﬂecting the high costs of foreign sta, security, and logistics. With pow-

erful lobbies in Washington, D.C., and in leadership positions throughout USAID

and the Department of State, the aid industry adroitly exploits Congress’s dispo-

sition to increase funding year on year to assist those in dire need but provides no

evidence to justify the mounting budget requests.

In 2020, USAID’s leadership fused formerly bifurcated food and nonfood

emergency relief operations into a single Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance

to improve the management of the agency’s largest portfolio, but this reform was

not sucient to address the problem. The next Administration should resize and

repurpose USAID’s humanitarian aid portfolio to restore its original purpose of

providing emergency short-term relief, prepare vulnerable communities for tran-

sition, and do no harm in the following ways:

Work with Congress to make deep cuts in the IDA budget by ending

programs that do more harm than good in places controlled by malign

actors, such as in Yemen, Syria, and Afghanistan, where our aid is consumed

by fraud, diversion, and partner overhead costs.

Require USAID and the State Department to devise country-based exit

strategies that term-limit the duration of humanitarian responses and

transition funding from emergency to development projects. This will

require robust diplomacy to press host governments to integrate displaced

persons in lieu of keeping them in expensive and dehumanizing camps

ﬁnanced by the international community.

Transition from large awards to expensive, inecient, and corrupt U.N.

agencies, global NGOs, and contractors to local, especially faith-based,

entities that are already operating on the ground. This approach provides

a far less expensive and more eective alternative for aid delivery. Local

partners more ably navigate corrupt environments and are more likely

to steer vulnerable populations away from dependence on aid toward

self-suciency.

Require that BHA avail itself of existing IDA authorities that it fails to use,

including to dispense with the cost-reimbursement model that disqualiﬁes

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Agency for International Development

undercapitalized local NGOs; accept other donor vetting of local partners;

streamline the award-approval process; and expand the use of ﬁxed-amount

awards to rein in cost overruns.

Direct USAID’s Bureau for Management to hire more procurement ocers

for BHA to strengthen the Bureau’s award management capacity and reduce

the incentives to issue large awards to aid industry giants.

Allow BHA to manage the process of hiring Personal Services Contractors.

Require BHA’s partners to adopt stricter vetting procedures to prevent aid

from being diverted to terrorists.

Increase eorts to obtain greater contributions, not just pledges, for

humanitarian operations from other donors and make this a condition for

receiving additional U.S. aid.

Leveraging Foreign Aid to Unleash the Power of America’s Private Sector.

During the 1960s, when USAID was launched, 80 percent of ﬁnancial ﬂows from

the United States to the developing world was in the form of U.S. government

assistance. Today, that ﬁgure is under 10 percent, overtaken by private investment,

remittances, and private charities, all demonstrating the power of America’s pri-

vate sector to promote wealth-generating economic development in poor countries.

Leaders in the developing world routinely press U.S. ocials about their preference

for “trade and investment, not aid.”

Instead, the Biden Administration is leveraging private-sector ﬁnancing to

promote its climate and other progressive agendas worldwide. The next conser-

vative Administration must return USAID to a foreign aid model that leverages

its resources to promote private-sector solutions to the world’s true development

problems and end the need for future foreign aid. Private capital investment in

these markets is the greatest enabler of job creation and sustainable economic

growth throughout the developing world.

A key tool of American soft-power leadership is the U.S. Development Finance

Corporation (DFC). Launched in December 2019, DFC sought to unleash the power

of America’s private sector to advance our interests by providing emerging markets

with blended ﬁnancing opportunities to help end wretched poverty, create new

markets for U.S.-made products, strengthen bilateral partnerships in strategic

parts of the world, and oset China’s predatory loans and investments. The Trump

Administration launched a USAID–DFC Working Group to maximize development

outcomes and review individual investment projects through a counter-China lens

and ensure a cohesive interagency development response.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

As development agencies, USAID and DFC must do a better job of aligning

their respective activities and closely integrate both structurally and operation-

ally. The easiest way to foster this alignment is to “dual hat” the role of DFC’s

chief development ocer so that he or she serves simultaneously in both institu-

tions. Like all U.S. federal bodies, DFC should be restored to its original intent of

deploying its commercial risk-reducing ﬁnancial services instead of its current

misuse as another global vehicle to promote economy-killing climate programs,

meet irrelevant diversity objectives, and overfocus on low-impact or misguided

gender-based activities.

Branding. A deeply embedded culture within the foreign aid bureaucracy

views public recognition of U.S. assistance as secondary to a larger philanthropic

mission and is embarrassed by the American ﬂag. Citing vaguely deﬁned secu-

rity concerns, USAID’s implementers—U.N. agencies, international NGOs, and

contractors—often fail to credit the American people for the billions of dollars in

assistance they provide the rest of the world even as they engage in self-promoting

public relations to raise other donor funds. This approach has negative foreign

policy implications as China relentlessly promotes its own self-serving eorts to

gain inﬂuence and resources. Worst of all, malign actors sometimes appropriate

credit for unbranded U.S. assistance: Houthi terrorists, for example, claim to pro-

vide for the people under their occupation with anonymous U.S. humanitarian aid.

The United States is in a struggle for inﬂuence with China, Russia, and other

competitors, and American generosity must not go unacknowledged. The next

conservative Administration should build on the Trump Administration’s brand-

ing policy, which revamped ADS Chapter 320, to force the aid bureaucracy to fully

credit the American people for the aid they are providing. The Senior Advisor for

Brand Management in the Bureau for Legislative and Public Aairs (LPA) (dis-

cussed infra) should be a political appointee who is responsible for maximizing the

visibility of U.S. assistance by enforcing branding policy on every grant, coopera-

tive agreement, and contract. The LPA should liaise with counterparts at the U.S.

Agency for Global Media (USAGM) to ensure local media pickup of these activities.

OTHER OFFICES AND BUREAUS

Oce of Administrator. The next conservative Administration should leave

in place the current structure of two presidentially appointed, Senate-conﬁrmed

Deputy Administrators, one for Policy and one for Management. The Deputy

Administrators and the Chief of Sta must be individuals with extensive previous

service in the executive branch, ideally at foreign-aairs agencies, and be ﬂuent in

the language and practice of federal procurement.

Bureau for Foreign Assistance. As noted above, the next conservative

Administration should name the USAID Administrator as Director of Foreign

Assistance (F) at the Department of State with the rank of Deputy Secretary. It

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Agency for International Development

should reorient the bulk of F sta from focusing on the formulation of the annual

President’s budget proposal to the execution of already appropriated resources.

This should include eliminating the duplicative Mission and Bureau Resource

Requests; speeding up the availability of appropriations by delivering to Congress

within 60 days the report required by Section 653(a) of the Foreign Assistance Act

(FAA); and fast-tracking the approval of Congressional Notiﬁcations (CNs) and

other pre-obligation requirements.

Management Bureau. As indicated previously, the next conservative Admin-

istration should name a political appointee as USAID’s Senior Procurement

Executive and Director of the agency’s Oce of Acquisition and Assistance (M/

OAA). Political appointees with the appropriate credentials (including warrants)

should be placed within M/OAA, and the agency should exercise its authority to

engage qualiﬁed experts from other federal departments and agencies and outside

of government (if they are free of conﬂicts of interest) on the Technical Commit

tees that review applications for USAID’s contract and grant competitions. The

Administration should change the designation of USAID’s Competition Advocate

to an individual favorable to innovative types of contracts that can reduce the aid

oligopoly’s grip on the agency.

Oce of Human Capital and Talent Management. As soon as possible after

Inauguration Day, the next conservative Administration should name a political

appointee as USAID’s Chief Human Capital Ocer (CHCO) and Director of the

Oce of Human Capital and Talent Management. USAID’s White House Liaison

must be an individual with substantial experience with federal personnel sys-

tems. The White House Oce of Presidential Personnel should allow the USAID

Administrator to explore with counterparts at the Oce of Personnel Management

whether the agency could hire personnel under both the Administratively Deter-

mined authority and Schedule C of the Excepted Service of the Federal Civil Service.

USAID should be one of the agencies to pilot-test a reinstated Executive Order

13957,

which created a Schedule F within the Excepted Service, and should aggres-

sively recruit and place candidates into term-limited positions under Schedule A

of the Excepted Service (especially veterans). The new CHCO should examine how

the existing members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) at USAID should be

reworked throughout the agency and should institute an SES Mobility Program to

encourage the regular rotation of senior career leaders, including through details

to other departments and agencies.

Bureau for Policy, Planning, and Learning. The next conservative Admin-

istration should shift the policy functions of the Bureau for Policy, Planning, and

Learning (PPL) to the Oce of Budget and Resource Management (BRM), located

in the Oce of the Administrator. It should rename BRM the Oce of Budget,

Policy, and Resource Management (BPRM) and sta the policy team with political

appointees. The Administration should also move the responsibility for reviewing

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

and processing proposed changes in USAID’s policy bible, the Automated Direc-

tives System (ADS), from the Management Bureau to the new BPRM.

Even before these changes, the Assistant Administrator for PPL should decree

an immediate freeze on changes in the ADS and agencywide policy documents to

allow for the priority publication of amendments to reﬂect the new Administra-

tion’s viewpoint. All major agency policies should be reviewed and amended or

withdrawn within the new Administration’s ﬁrst calendar year in oce.

Bureau for Legislative and Public Aairs. The next conservative Admin-

istration should invest no more than 10 percent of USAID’s allocation of

Administratively Determined politically appointed positions in the Bureau for

Legislative and Public Aairs. A priority for these positions (combined with hires

under Schedule A) should be the review and editing of the agency’s public-facing

web pages and social media accounts to eliminate material that does not conform to

the new Administration’s policies. The agency should accelerate the review of Con-

gressional Notiﬁcations within LPA and publish all CNs and congressional reports.

To ensure consistency and clarity of public messaging, LPA should gain direct

authority over the communications sta scattered through USAID’s various

Bureaus and Oces. LPA should expand its public-facing eorts to include con-

servative allies that are active in global development and humanitarian aid work,

including industry groups, nonproﬁts, trade associations, foundations, and advo-

cacy organizations, and correspondingly reduce the aid industrial complex’s grip

on USAID’s corporate relationships.

Oce of General Counsel. Along with the Director of M/OAA, the General

Counsel is one of the two or three most important positions at USAID and should

be a priority for immediate appointments. Because proper legal interpretation

of executive orders and internal USAID policy is crucial, the next conservative

Administration should recruit and appoint a commanding team of Schedule C

attorneys in the Oce of the General Counsel (OGC). Within weeks of Inau-

guration Day, OGC should issue clear guidance on the eligibility of faith-based

organizations for USAID funding.

Office of Budget Resources and Management. The Director of Budget

Resources and Management should be a political appointee empowered as part of

the Administrator’s senior management team. BRM’s highest priorities should be

to prepare the report required by Section 653(a) according to the Administrator’s

guidance, institute a fast-track process for the submission of Congressional Notiﬁca-

tions, and identify already appropriated resources to reprogram immediately to fund

the new Administration’s priorities. The next conservative Administration should

consider prioritizing the placing of young political appointees in BRM over LPA.

Bureau for Democracy, Development, and Innovation. A key outcome of

the transformation of USAID undertaken during the Trump Administration, the

Bureau for Democracy, Development, and Innovation (DDI) is the home for most

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Agency for International Development

of the agency’s non-health, nonhumanitarian funding as well as almost all of its

sectoral appropriations directives, including those that reﬂect the pet projects of

individual Members of Congress. The Bureau is the policy and ﬁnancial nexus at

USAID for most of the Biden Administration’s radical priorities in foreign assis-

tance, including gender, climate change, and the promotion of identity-based

politics. On the positive side, DDI is also the Bureau in charge of areas that will

be crucial to a reorientation of USAID, including trade, economic growth, inno-

vation, partnerships with the private sector, and the agency’s relationship with

communities of faith.

The next conservative Administration should make the rapid stang of key DDI

positions a high priority. Besides the Senate-conﬁrmed Assistant Administrator,

the Directors of each of the Centers and Hubs in the Bureau will need political

leadership. Almost every one of the agencywide policies that cover DDI’s areas of

responsibility will need to be edited or rewritten entirely as soon as possible. The

next conservative Administration should harvest DDI’s central appropriations to

fund new priorities, especially working with ethnic and religious minorities and

faith-based organizations and joint ventures with the private sector in education

and energy. All DDI programs should issue funding opportunities restricted to

new and underutilized partners modeled on the NPI.

REGIONS

Asia. Asia is the most populous continent and ground zero in the battle against

Communist China’s eorts to exploit the development needs of poor countries for

geopolitical gain. America’s Indo-Paciﬁc Strategy should guide USAID’s approaches

to disbursing foreign aid in the region.

USAID should intensify its bilateral relationships with pro–free market Japan,

Australia, South Korea, and India so that they can jointly advance private-sector

solutions to secure ﬁnancing for power generation, infrastructure, digital con-

nectivity, investment and trade expansion, and other economic activities. USAID

enjoys a strong in-country presence in India, buttressed by recent coordination

on the global response to COVID-19 as India is a global leader in vaccine produc-

tion. Those ties should be expanded. So too should development cooperation with

Taiwan, which boasts eective pandemic response capacity that should be shared

with developing countries.

China’s island-hopping eorts to capture vulnerable Paciﬁc states is a direct

strategic threat to U.S. maritime supremacy and homeland security, and USAID

and its allied donors should neutralize these eorts through the deployment of

targeted assistance such as helping countries combat the eects of China’s ille-

gal ﬁshing. While China outpaces the ability of the democratic alliance to deploy

state-backed ﬁnancing to developing countries, it is unable to compete with our

collective private-sector capacity to deploy trillions of dollars of capital.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Pakistan is a prime example of foreign aid policies disconnected from U.S.

national interests. The country has been the recipient of more than $12 billion in

U.S. foreign aid since 2010, yet it remains intensely anti-American and corrupt, has

backed the Taliban continuously since 2001, jump-started North Korea’s nuclear

bomb program, brutalizes its religious minorities, and is a willing client of China

while taking on unrepayable loans from the U.S. taxpayer-funded International

Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Middle East. The Middle East is far more vulnerable today than it was in 2020

because the Biden Administration’s strategy for the region is adrift. Tunisia has

slid into autocracy, Iraq is plummeting further into Iran’s orbit, and U.S. soldiers

continue to risk their lives for unclear ends amid the ruins of Syria. Meanwhile,

billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid props up regimes allied with Iran.

President Trump’s Abraham Accords signaled the end of the centrality of the

Arab–Israeli conﬂict, which paralyzed U.S. approaches to the region, and focused

instead on Iran as the principal threat to America from this region. During the

Trump Administration, USAID’s allocations reﬂected the new opportunities

created by the Accords and sought to strengthen regional alliances against Iran

through expanded regional trade and investment and to promote genuine polit-

ical stability tethered to strong American leadership. USAID formally partnered

with the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Morocco, Qatar, and Kuwait to catalyze

regional partnerships in Africa. Under the Biden Administration, however, USAID

has returned to a model that deepens the region’s dependence on aid.

A new conservative President should reset USAID’s programming in the Middle

East in line with our national security interests and committed to the goal of ending

the need for foreign aid through development that is led by the private sector.

Speciﬁcally:

Foreign aid must advance the Abraham Accords. Increased trade and

investment between Israel and its Arab neighbors represent the most

eective path toward reducing poverty, fostering the emergence of a middle

class, and solidifying peace. USAID should therefore focus its development

assistance on countries such as Morocco and Sudan through joint

investment collaboration with the more economically advanced economies

such as the UAE and Israel.

USAID should consider cutting aid to states allied to Iran, limiting

assistance in these countries to the advancement of narrow strategic

priorities and support for basic American values, such as aid to persecuted

religious minorities. USAID continues to expend hundreds of millions of

dollars in nonhumanitarian aid to antagonistic regimes in Iraq, Lebanon,

and the Palestinian territories. After billions of dollars of aid and many

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Agency for International Development

years of eort, these countries remain hopelessly dysfunctional—a fact

that exposes the failure of a foreign aid model that is disconnected to our

national security and without exit strategies to promote self-reliance. We

must admit that USAID’s investments in the education sector, for example,

serve no other purpose than to subsidize corrupt, incompetent, and

hostile regimes.

USAID should undergo operational changes to secure better development

outcomes by reducing its missions’ footprints in the Middle East given that

most personnel in the region are unable to leave their highly protected and

expensive compounds and carry out their oversight functions. It should

redirect program funding away from expensive and poorly performing

international partners to more cost-eective local entities that require a

minimal USAID ﬁeld presence.

Africa. Since its inception, USAID has had a strong presence in Africa, saving

millions of lives through its pandemic and infectious disease responses, especially

for malaria and HIV-AIDS. It has led global eorts to provide lifesaving emergency

assistance to those who are ﬂeeing conﬂict and suering from devastating natural

disasters. American generosity knows no equal.

Yet the agency’s eorts to reduce poverty and hunger have failed as it spends

ever-higher amounts of aid partnering with a costly and ineective aid indus-

trial complex that has little interest in “working itself out of a job.” Long-term,

multibillion-dollar humanitarian responses lack exit strategies, while numer-

ous development projects lead neither to measurable results nor to government

reforms. Despite the tens of billions of dollars spent, the continent remains poor,

unstable, and riven with conﬂict, corruption, and Islamic terrorism. This situation

has also resulted in vast illegal migration from the continent.

Failure to generate wealth has provided opportunities for China to step in and

become the continent’s leader in trade, loans, and investment. As a result, Beijing

controls most of the continent’s strategic minerals that are critical to advanced

technology. Moreover, USAID is criticized by Africans for exporting cultural values

that are anathema to their traditional norms, further abetting Chinese continen-

tal supremacy.

The Biden Administration’s radical global climate policies have cut o billions

in investment to develop clean fossil fuels, denying Africa’s billion-plus people

access to cheap energy to further their own development and ﬁnance their own

social services in health, water, education, and agriculture, while increasing its

dependence on China’s renewables industry. It has exacerbated hunger by increas-

ing the costs of fertilizers to levels that many African farmers can no longer aord.

Poverty-inducing dependence on aid grows daily.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

USAID eorts in Africa require a rethink. In 2025, USAID will update its ﬁve-

year Country Development and Cooperation Strategies. This will give the next

Administration an opportunity to pursue a new development course for Africa

that promotes economic self-reliance, catalyzes private-sector solutions for job

creation through increased trade and investment, terminates legacy and nonper-

forming programs, and supports diversiﬁed energy approaches. Critically, it must

hold China accountable for its extractive investments that violate international

labor, environmental, and anticorruption norms and practices; undercut business

opportunities for U.S. companies; and sabotage Africa’s development.

USAID, in collaboration with the U.S. International Development Finance

Corporation, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of the Treasury,

and U.S. Department of Commerce’s Foreign Commercial Service, should

use its convening power, diplomatic heft, and risk-reducing instruments

to facilitate U.S.–African business relationships and expand Prosper Africa,

launched by the Trump Administration to “bring[] together services from

across the U.S. Government to help companies and investors do business in

U.S. and African markets.”

The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)

provides Africa duty-

free access to U.S. markets. The next Administration should extend AGOA

beyond its 2025 term but within a strategic framework that rewards good

governance and pro–free market economic policies. There is no point in

wasting massive sums of aid to countries whose governments fail to keep

their promises to reform.

USAID should build on, not compete with, private-sector initiatives

launched by global churches, corporate philanthropists, and diaspora

groups that have already invested billions of dollars in self-reliance–

based projects.

Japan has committed $30 billion in aid to Africa over three years to stem China’s

economic and political grip on the continent. Gulf-based sovereign funds also are

investing billions in African energy, infrastructure, mining, water, food production,

information and communications technology, and other strategic industries. Other

allied donors are promoting investment-based aid. There is no lack of funding to

support Africa’s economic rise. What is lacking is strategic direction among U.S.

government foreign aid agencies.

PEPFAR has saved countless lives over the years and constitutes America’s most

successful aid program. During the Trump Administration, PEPFAR increased the

share of funding to local entities from about 20 percent to nearly 70 percent with

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Agency for International Development

commensurate improvements that have had lasting impact. The next Administra-

tion should extend that localization model to all global health and humanitarian

assistance in view of how local African entities have strengthened their capacity for

direct management of U.S. programs. Correspondingly, USAID should aggressively

ramp down its partnerships with wasteful, costly, and politicized U.N. agencies,

international NGOs, and Beltway contractors. All new programs in Africa should

build on existing local initiatives that enjoy the support of the African people.

Latin America. U.S. foreign assistance throughout the Western Hemisphere

is designed to respond to national security threats that emanate from the region,

such as illicit drug and arms tracking; illegal immigration ﬂows; terrorism;

pandemics; and strategic threats from China, Russia, and Iran. Over the past

decade, the United States has provided billions of dollars in security, humani

tarian, and development assistance in Central America and the Andes, including

$1 billion in food and non-food emergency aid to millions of Venezuelan refu-

gees who have ﬂed the Maduro dictatorship. USAID is always ﬁrst to respond to

natural disasters in Central America and the Caribbean and employs a network

of dedicated experts in the region to deliver this assistance. During the COVID

pandemic, the United States provided millions of doses of vaccines and other

emergency health support.

Yet years of foreign aid have failed to bring peace, prosperity, and stability to

the hemisphere. Poverty, joblessness, and social unrest have led to leftist electoral

victories from Mexico to Chile. These regimes are hostile to American interests and

private enterprise, breed corruption, implement radical policies that will further

impoverish their people and threaten their democracies, and are more open to

striking partnerships with Communist China. Left-wing authoritarian kleptocra-

cies in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela deny their people basic freedoms, violently

and ruthlessly suppress any dissent, repress communities of faith, and generate

such misery that hundreds of thousands of their citizens have attempted to cross

our southern border over the past two years. No recent Administration has made

any progress in reducing the chaos and desperation in Haiti.

Conversely, Latin America is a major global source of energy and food, which

generates substantial income that can ﬁnance internal social and economic devel-

opment. The nations of the hemisphere share a natural and massive geographic

trade and investment advantage through their proximity to the United States,

supplemented by free-trade agreements. The United States remains the favored

destination for higher education and business opportunities for Latin Americans.

Successful diasporas in the United States serve as powerful economic, cultural,

and political bridges to every country in the region.

The Trump Administration focused on promoting trade and investment,

especially in infrastructure, through an interagency eort called América Crece

(America Grows), by which USAID played a key role in providing technical

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

assistance to create a more enabling environment to attract private investment.

The Biden Administration canceled the program.

The next conservative Administration should reassess all programs of U.S. for-

eign aid to Latin America and terminate those that have failed to achieve results

after years of eort. Instead, USAID should:

Focus its resources on strengthening the fundamentals of free markets, such

as clear property rights and a functioning judiciary, and on promoting labor

and pension reforms, lower taxes, and deregulation in order to increase

trade and investment within the region and with the United States as the

genuine path to economic and political stability.

Challenge the socialist ideas that have captured too many of the region’s

governments and their nations’ youth.

Fund partnerships with the private sector and support civil-society groups,

including university centers and think tanks that advocate for pro–free

market and democratic ideas.

Finally, Latin America is the perfect proving ground for reducing USAID’s reli-

ance on large U.S.-based implementers, and the agency should commit to shifting

all of its portfolio in the region to local organizations by 2030.

PERSONNEL

The Trump Administration agenda for USAID was undercut from the outset

both by recalcitrant career personnel and by inexperienced political personnel.

The next conservative Administration should implement personnel policies from

the beginning so that the agency can be eectively managed according to high stan-

dards. The rapid deployment of reforms will require key experienced personnel

installed quickly at USAID’s headquarters and missions. Delay will only impede

progress. In general, areas of focus should be appointing eective lawyers in key

positions, reforming career hiring/ﬁring mechanisms, and getting a grip on the

grantmaking process.

The Administration should sta the Oce of the General Counsel with at least

four politically appointed attorneys (besides the General Counsel). The General

Counsel should have two political deputies, one of whom should cover Human

Capital and Talent Management (HCTM) and the other the Oce of Acquisition

and Assistance (OAA).

The Administration should name a political appointee with long experience in

federal personnel systems as USAID’s Chief Human Capital Ocer and Director

of HCTM. This appointee would help to scope and shepherd position descriptions,

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Agency for International Development

clearances, and other components of the hiring process that are necessary for

immediate onboarding while coordinating with the White House to bring in new

appointees and make internal career employee changes. On Day One, USAID

should halt all agencywide training and replace it with training modules to advance

the President’s agenda.

The Administration should appoint a Senior Accountable Ocial (SAO) to

report on the agency’s adherence to Administration policy priorities, including on

Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance, critical race theory, climate change, gender,

and diversity and inclusion. It should also create a program to sta hard-to-ﬁll

positions overseas.

Finally, the Administration should create a recruiting program for veterans

and other groups to participate in career job opportunities at USAID. Former mis-

sionaries, veterans, members of diasporas, and faith community stakeholders with

overseas experience should be recruited to work at USAID on Schedule A appoint-

ments, as Institutional Services Contractors, as Personal Services Contractors, and

as Foreign Service Ocers.

CONCLUSION

The next conservative Administration will have a unique opportunity to realign

U.S. foreign assistance with American national interests and the principles of good

governance and more accurately reﬂect the U.S. taxpayer’s unmatched charita-

ble desire to help those in need. It can build on a strong baseline of conservative

reforms undertaken by the Trump Administration to counter Communist China’s

strategy of world domination. However, this will require that bold steps are taken

on Day One to undo the gross misuse of foreign aid by the current Administration

to promote a radical ideology that is politically divisive at home and harms our

global standing.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in

the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. All contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume,

but Dr. William Steiger, Bethany Kozma, and Dr. Alma Golden deserve special mention. The author assumes

full responsibility for the content of this chapter, and no views expressed therein should be attributed to any

other individual.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

 S. 1983, Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, Public Law No. 87-195, 87th Congress, September 4, 1961, https://www.

govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-75/pdf/STATUTE-75-Pg424-2.pdf (accessed January 19, 2023).

 U.S. Agency or International Development, “Journey to Self-Reliance Fact Sheet,” June 3, 2020,

https://2017-2020.usaid.gov/documents/1870/journey-self-reliance-fact-sheet#:~:text=WHAT%20

IS%20THE%20JOURNEY%20TO%20SELF-RELIANCE%3F%20USAID%20is,greater%20

developmentoutcomesandworktowardatimewhenforeignassistanceisnolongernecessary.%20

It%E2%80%99s%20called%20the%20Journey%20to%20Self-Reliance (accessed March 17, 2023).

 News release, “U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Mark Green’s Interview with

C-Span’s ‘Newsmakers’ Host Susan Swain and Washington Post’s Carl Morello and Wall Street Journal’s Ben

Kesling,” U.S. Agency for International Development, November 26, 2018, https://2017-2020.usaid.gov/news-

information/press-releases/nov-26-2018-administrator-mark-green-interview-cspan-newsmakers (accessed

March 17, 2023).

 U.S. Agency for International Development, Digital Strategy 2020–2024, https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/

ﬁles/2022-05/USAID_Digital_Strategy.pdf.pdf://www.usaid.gov/digital-development/usaid-digital-strategy

(accessed March 17, 2023).

 “U.S. Strategic Framework for the Indo-Paciﬁc,” declassiﬁed in part by Assistant to the President for

National Security Aairs Robert C. O’Brien, January 5, 2021, https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-

content/uploads/2021/01/IPS-Final-Declass.pdf (accessed March 18, 2023), and Robert C. O’Brien, Assistant

to the President for National Security Aairs, “A Free and Open Indo-Paciﬁc,” January 5, 2021, https://

trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/OBrien-Expanded-Statement.pdf (accessed

March 18, 2023).

 News Release, “Fact Sheet: Prioritizing Climate in Foreign Policy and National Security,” The White House,

October 21, 2021, https://www.whitehouse.gov/brieﬁng-room/statements-releases/2021/10/21/fact-sheet-

prioritizing-climate-in-foreign-policy-and-national-security/ (accessed January 28, 2023).

 U.S. Agency for International Development, Climate Strategy 2020–2030, April 2022, https://www.usaid.gov/

sites/default/ﬁles/2022-11/USAID-Climate-Strategy-2022-2030.pdf (accessed March 18, 2023).

 Adva Saldinger, “USAID Steps Up ‘Languishing’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Eort,” Devex.com, December

15, 2021, http://www.devex.com/news/usaid-steps-up-languishing-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-

eort-102316 (accessed January 28, 2021).

 U.S. Agency for International Development, “Gender Equity and Women Empowerment,” https://www.usaid.

gov/gender-equality-and-womens-empowerment (accessed January 30, 2023).

 U.S. Agency for International Development, “Integrating Gender Equality and Female Empowerment in

USAID’s Program Cycle,” ADS Chapter 25, partial revision date January 22, 2021, https://www.usaid.gov/sites/

default/ﬁles/2022-12/205.pdf (accessed March 18, 2023).

 S. 137, Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance Act, 117th Congress, introduced January 28, 2021, https://

www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/137#:~:text=Protecting%20Life%20in%20Foreign%20

Assistance%20Act.%20This%20bill,support%20for%20an%20entity%20that%20conducts%20

such%20activities (accessed January 20, 2023), and H.R. 534, Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance

Act, 117th Congress, introduced January 28, 2021, https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-

bill/534?s=1&r=450 (accessed January 20, 2023).

 President Joseph R. Biden Jr., “Memorandum on Protecting Women’s Health at Home and Abroad,”

Memorandum for the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Health and Human

Services, and the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, The White House,

January 28, 2021, https://www.whitehouse.gov/brieﬁng-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/28/memorandum-

on-protecting-womens-health-at-home-and-abroad/ (accessed March 18, 2023).

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13926, “Advancing International Religious Freedom,” June 2, 2020,

in Federal Register, Vol. 85, No. 109 (June 5, 2020), pp. 34951–34953, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/

FR-2020-06-05/pdf/2020-12430.pdf (accessed January 20, 2023).

 22 Code of Federal Regulations § 205.1, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-22/chapter-II/part-205 (accessed

March 18, 2023).

 Contributor’s notes from internal USAID meetings.

— 281 —

Agency for International Development

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13957, “Creating Schedule F in the Excepted Service,” October 21,

2020, in Federal Register, Vol. 85, No. 207 (October 26, 2020), pp. 67631–67635, https://www.govinfo.gov/

content/pkg/FR-2020-10-26/pdf/2020-23780.pdf (accessed March 18, 2023).

 Prosper Africa, “Increasing Trade & Investment Between the U.S. and African Countries,” https://www.

prosperafrica.gov/ (accessed March 18, 2023).

 H.R. 434, Trade and Development Act of 2000, Public Law 106-200, 106th Congress, May 18, 2000, Title I,

Subtitle A, https://agoa.info/images/documents/2385/AGOA_legal_text.pdf (accessed March 18, 2023).

— 283 —

hen our Founders wrote in the Constitution that the federal government

would “promote the general Welfare,” they could not have fathomed a

massive bureaucracy that would someday spend $3 trillion in a single

year—roughly the sum, combined, spent by the departments covered in this section

in 2022. Approximately half of that colossal sum was spent by the Department of

Health and Human Services (HHS) alone—the belly of the massive behemoth that

is the modern administrative state.

HHS is home to Medicare and Medicaid, the principal drivers of our $31 trillion

national debt. When Congress passed and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed

into law these programs, they were set on autopilot with no plan for how to pay

for them. The ﬁrst year that Medicare spending was visible on the books was 1967.

From that point on through 2020—according to the American Main Street Initia-

tive’s analysis of ocial federal tallies—Medicare and Medicaid combined cost $17.8

trillion, while our combined federal deﬁcits over that same span were $17.9 trillion.

In essence, our deﬁcit problem is a Medicare and Medicaid problem.

HHS is also home to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the duo most responsible—along

with President Joe Biden—for the irrational, destructive, un-American mask and

vaccine mandates that were imposed upon an ostensibly free people during the

COVID-19 pandemic. All along, it was clear from randomized controlled trials—

the gold standard of medical research—that masks provide little to no beneﬁt in

preventing the spread of viruses and might even be counterproductive. Yet the

CDC ignored these high-quality RCTs, cherry-picked from politically malleable

Section Three

THE GENERAL WELFARE

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

“observational studies,” and declared that everyone except children and infants

below the age of two should don masks. Under COVID, as former director of HHS’s

Oce of Civil Rights Roger Severino writes in Chapter 14, the CDC exposed itself

as “perhaps the most incompetent and arrogant agency in the federal government.”

Nor is the CDC the only villain in this play. Severino writes of the National

Institutes of Health, “Despite its popular image as a benign science agency, NIH

was responsible for paying for research in aborted baby body parts, human animal

chimera experiments”—in which the genes of humans and animals are mixed, “and

gain-of-function viral research that may have been responsible for COVID-19.”

Severino writes that “Anthony Fauci’s division of the NIH”—the National Institute

of Allergy and Infectious Diseases—“owns half the patent for the Moderna COVID-

19 vaccine,” and “several NIH employees” receive “up to $150,000 annually from

Moderna vaccine sales.” That would be the same experimental mRNA vaccine that

the CDC now wants to force on children, who are at little to no risk from COVID-19

but at great risk from public health ocials.

The incestuous relationship between the NIH, CDC, and vaccine makers—with

all of the conﬂict of interest it entails—cannot be allowed to continue, and the

revolving door between them must be locked. As Severino writes, “Funding for

scientiﬁc research should not be controlled by a small group of highly paid and

unaccountable insiders at the NIH, many of whom stay in power for decades. The

NIH monopoly on directing research should be broken.” What’s more, NIH has long

“been at the forefront in pushing junk gender science.” The next HHS secretary

should immediately put an end to the department’s foray into woke transgen-

der activism.

HHS also pushes abortion as a form of “health care,” skirting and sometimes

blatantly defying the Hyde Amendment in the process. Severino writes that the

“FDA should…reverse its approval of chemical abortion drugs because the polit-

icized approval process was illegal from the start.” In addition, HHS programs

often violate the spirit, and sometimes the letter, of conscience-protection laws.

Severino writes that the HHS “Secretary should pursue a robust agenda to pro-

tect the fundamental right to life, protect conscience rights, and uphold bodily

integrity rooted in biological realities, not ideology.” The next secretary should

also reverse the Biden Administration’s focus on “‘LGBTQ+ equity,’ subsidizing

single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage,” replacing

such policies with those encouraging marriage, work, motherhood, fatherhood,

and nuclear families.

If there is another department that has gone o the rails like HHS during the

Obama and Biden Administrations, it is the once proud Department of Justice

(DOJ). As former counselor to the attorney general Gene Hamilton writes in Chap-

ter 17, the department “has a long and noble history”—Edmund Randolph, the

ﬁrst attorney general, took oce the same year as President Washington—yet its

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Section 3: The General Welfare

longstanding reputation has been marred by the Biden Administration’s abuse of

the department’s powers for its own ends. Hamilton writes that the department’s

“unprecedented politicization and weaponization” under Biden and Attorney

General Merrick Garland, resulting in “politically motivated and viewpoint-based

prosecutions” of political enemies and indierence to the crimes of political allies,

has made the department “a threat to the Republic.” The most important thing for

the next attorney general to do is to refocus the department on its core functions of

“protecting public safety and defending the rule of law,” while restoring its “values

of independence, impartiality, honesty, integrity, respect, and excellence.”

This is especially true of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). A bloated,

arrogant, increasingly lawless organization, especially at the top, “the FBI views

itself as an independent agency” that is “on par with the Attorney General,” rather

than as an agency that is under the AG and fully accountable to him or her. To rein

in this “completely out of control” bureau and remind it of its place within—rather

than at the top of—the DOJ hierarchy, Hamilton writes that the FBI’s separate

Oce of General Counsel (with “approximately 300 attorneys”), separate Oce

of Legislative Aairs, and separate Oce of Public Aairs should all be abolished.

Requiring the FBI to get its legal advice from the wider department “would serve

as a crucial check on an agency that has recently pushed past legal boundary after

legal boundary.” Indeed, Hamilton writes, “[t]he next conservative Administra-

tion should eliminate any oces within the FBI that it has the power to eliminate

without any action from Congress.”

Elsewhere, DOJ should target violent and career criminals, not parents; work

to dismantle criminal organizations, partly by rigorously prosecuting interstate

drug activity; and restart the Trump Administration’s “China Initiative” (to address

Chinese espionage and theft of trade secrets), which the Biden Administration “ter-

minated…largely out of a concern for poor ‘optics.’” It should also enforce existing

federal law that prohibits mailing abortifacients, rather than harassing pro-life

demonstrators; respect the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of speech,

rather than trying to police speech on the internet; and enforce federal immigra-

tion laws, rather than pretending there is no border.

In contrast to DOJ’s long history, the Department of Education (the depart-

ment, or ED), discussed by Lindsey Burke in Chapter 11, is a creation of the Jimmy

Carter Administration. The department is a convenient one-stop shop for the woke

education cartel, which—as the COVID era showed—is not particularly concerned

with children’s education. Schools should be responsive to parents, rather than to

leftist advocates intent on indoctrination—and the more the federal government

is involved in education, the less responsive to parents the public schools will be.

This department is an example of federal intrusion into a traditionally state and

local realm. For the sake of American children, Congress should shutter it and

return control of education to the states.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Short of this, the Secretary of Education should insist that the department

serve parents and American ideals, not advocates whose message is that children

can choose their own sex, that America is “systemically racist,” that math itself

is racist, and that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ideal of a colorblind society should

be rejected in favor of reinstating a color-conscious society. The next head of

this department will have a lot to do—hopefully culminating in the department’s

closure and the salutary restoration of educational control to states, localities,

and parents.

The next Secretary of Energy will similarly have much work to do. Under the

next President, the Department of Energy should end the Biden Administration’s

unprovoked war on fossil fuels, restore America’s energy independence, oppose

eyesore windmills built at taxpayer expense, and respect the right of Americans

to buy and drive cars of their own choosing, rather than trying to force them

into electric vehicles and eventually out of the driver’s seat altogether in favor of

self-driving robots. As former commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory

Commission Bernard L. McNamee says in Chapter 12, “A conservative President

must be committed to unleashing all of America’s energy resources and making

the energy economy serve the American people, not special interests.”

In Chapter 10, Daren Bakst writes that the Biden Administration’s Department

of Agriculture claims to be “transforming the food system as we know it.” But the

government “does not need to transform the food system”; instead, “it should

respect American farmers, truckers,” and families. In Chapter 13, former chief of

sta at the Environmental Protection Agency Mandy Gunasekara writes that the

EPA’s “current activities and stang levels far exceed its congressional mandates

and purpose,” whereas its “initial success” in its “infancy” (in the 1970s) was a

product of “clear mandates, a streamlined structure, [and] recognition of the states’

prominent role.” Having since become a “coercive” agency, full of embedded activ-

ists, its “structure and mission should be greatly circumscribed.”

Former secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development Dr.

Benjamin S. Carson writes in Chapter 15 that HUD is beset with “mission creep”

and regularly crosses the line into exercising quasi-legislative powers. In the next

Administration, it should refocus on its core duties and keep “noncitizens…from

living in federally assisted housing,” provide enhanced “oversight of foreign own-

ership of [U.S.] real estate,” and “reinvigorate paths to upward economic mobility”

and economic “self-suciency.” In Chapter 18, former acting assistant secretary

of policy at the Department of Labor Jonathan Berry writes that the department

and related agencies should pursue pro-family, pro-worker policies to help “restore

the family-supporting job as the centerpiece of the American economy,” in lieu of

the current Administration’s “left-wing social-engineering agenda”—“the most

assertive” in history—which empowers race, gender, and climate-change activists

at the expense of American workers.

— 287 —

Section 3: The General Welfare

In Chapter 19, on the Department of Transportation (DOT), former DOT deputy

assistant director for research and technology Diana Furchtgott-Roth writes, “In

pursuit of an anti-fossil-fuel climate agenda never approved by Congress, the Biden

Administration has raised fuel economy requirements to levels that cannot real-

istically be met” by most gas-powered cars, thereby reducing Americans’ freedom

while increasing costs. Lastly, former acting chief of sta at the Department of

Veterans Aairs Brooks D. Tucker, echoing concerns expressed in other chapters,

writes in Chapter 20 that the Veterans Aairs (VA) must be “accountable to the

needs and problems of veterans, not subservient to the parochial preferences of

the bureaucracy.”

— 289 —

DEPARTMENT OF

AGRICULTURE

Daren Bakst

merican farmers eciently and safely produce food to meet the needs of

individuals around the globe. Because of the innovation and resilience

of the nation’s farmers, American agriculture is a model for the world. If

farmers are allowed to operate without unnecessary government intervention,

American agriculture will continue to ﬂourish, producing plentiful, safe, nutritious,

and aordable food.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) can and should play a limited role,

with much of its focus on removing governmental barriers that hinder food pro-

duction or otherwise undermine eorts to meet consumer demand. The USDA

should recognize what should be self-evident: Agricultural production should ﬁrst

and foremost be focused on eciently producing safe food.

This chapter provides important background on the USDA and identiﬁes many

of the USDA-speciﬁc issues that will be faced by an incoming Administration. It

provides speciﬁc recommendations for the next Administration about how to

address these issues and lays out a conservative vision for what the USDA should

look like in the future.

MISSION STATEMENT

The current mission statement as stated by the Biden Administration highlights

the broad scope of the USDA:

To serve all Americans by providing eective, innovative, science-based

public policy leadership in agriculture, food and nutrition, natural resource

— 290 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

protection and management, rural development, and related issues with a

commitment to delivering equitable and climate smart opportunities that

inspire and help America thrive.

The ﬁrst part of the mission statement regarding the issues covered is not new

to the Biden Administration; it reﬂects the overly broad nature of the USDA’s work.

However, the language bringing in equity and climate change is new to the Biden

Administration and part of the USDA’s express eort to transform agricultural

production.

The USDA’s new vision statement illuminates the focus of this eort:

An equitable and climate smart food and agriculture economy that protects and

improves the health, nutrition and quality of life of all Americans, yields healthy

land, forests and clean water, helps rural America thrive, and feeds the world.

This eort is one of a federal central plan to put climate change and envi-

ronmental issues ahead of the most important requirements of agriculture—to

eciently produce safe food. The USDA would apparently use its power to change

the very nature of the food and agriculture economy into one that is “equitable and

climate smart.” As an initial matter, the USDA should not try to control and shape

the economy, but should instead remove obstacles that hinder food production.

Further, it should not place ancillary issues, such as environmental issues, ahead

of agricultural production itself.

A Proper Mission Statement. Even before the Biden Administration’s rad-

ical eort to reshape the USDA’s work, the USDA’s mission was and is too broad,

including serving as a major welfare agency through implementation of programs

such as food stamps. This far-reaching mission is not the fault of the USDA, but of

Congress, which has given the department its extensive power.

Congress must limit the USDA’s role. A proper mission would clarify that the

department’s primary focus is on agriculture and that the USDA serves all Amer-

icans. The USDA’s “client” is the American people in general, not a subset of

interests, such as farmers, meatpackers, environmental groups, etc.

Within this agricultural focus, the USDA should develop and disseminate

information and research (the historical role of the USDA); identify and address

concrete threats to public health and safety arising directly from food and agri-

culture; remove unjustiﬁed foreign trade barriers blocking market access for

American agricultural goods; and generally remove government barriers that

undermine access to safe and aordable food across the food supply chain.

Core principles should be included within any mission statement, including

a recognition that farmers, and the food system in general, should be free from

unnecessary government intervention. Further, there should be clear statements

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about the importance of sound science to inform the USDA’s work and respect for

personal freedom and individual dietary choices, private property rights, and the

rule of law.

Taking these factors into account, below is a model USDA mission statement:

To develop and disseminate agricultural information and research, identify and

address concrete public health and safety threats directly connected to food and

agriculture, and remove both unjustiﬁed foreign trade barriers for U.S. goods

and domestic government barriers that undermine access to safe and aordable

food absent a compelling need—all based on the importance of sound science,

personal freedom, private property, the rule of law, and service to all Americans.

OVERVIEW

In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the legislation that created

the USDA.

The department had a very narrow mission focused on the dissemi-

nation of information connected to agriculture and “to procure, propagate and

distribute among the people new valuable seeds and plants.”

During the last 160

years, the scope of the USDA’s work has expanded well beyond that narrow mis

sion—and well beyond agriculture itself. In addition to being a distributor of farm

subsidies, the USDA runs the food stamp program and other food-related wel-

fare programs and covers issues including conservation, biofuels, forestry, and

rural programs.

Based on the USDA’s ﬁscal year (FY) 2023 budget summary, outlays are esti-

mated at $261 billion: $221 billion for mandatory programs and $39 billion for

discretionary programs.

These outlays are broken down as follows: nutrition assis-

tance (70 percent); farm, conservation, and commodity programs (14 percent); “all

other,” which includes rural development, research, food safety, marketing and

regulatory, and departmental management (11 percent); and forestry (5 percent).

The USDA has provided a summary of its size, explaining, “Today, USDA is com-

prised of 29 agencies organized under eight Mission Areas and 16 Sta Oces,

with nearly 100,000 employees serving the American people at more than 6,000

locations across the country and abroad.”

MAJOR PRIORITY ISSUES AND SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS

For an incoming Administration, there are numerous issues that should be

addressed at the USDA. This chapter identiﬁes and discusses many of the most

important issues. The initial issues discussed should be priority issues for the next

Administration:

Defend American Agriculture. It is deeply unfortunate that the ﬁrst issue

identiﬁed must be a willingness of the incoming Administration to defend Amer-

ican agriculture, but this is precisely what the top priority for that Administration

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

should be. As previously discussed, the Biden Administration is seeking to use

the federal government to transform the American food system.

The USDA web

site explains:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), alongside Biden–Harris

Administration leadership and the people of this great country, has embarked

on another historic journey: transforming the food system as we know it—

from farm to fork, and at every stage along the supply chain.

The federal government does not need to transform the food system or develop

a national plan to intervene across the supply chain. Instead, it should respect

American farmers, truckers, and everyone who makes the food supply chain so

resilient and successful. One of the important lessons learned during the COVID-

19 pandemic was how critical it is to remove barriers in the food supply chain—not

to increase them.

The Biden Administration’s centrally planned transformational eort mini-

mizes the importance of ecient agricultural production and instead places issues

such as climate change and equity front and center. The USDA’s Strategic Plan

Fiscal Years 2022–2026 identiﬁes six strategic goals, the ﬁrst three of which focus

on issues such as climate change, renewable energy, and systemic racism. In the

Secretary of Agriculture’s message, there is only one mention of aordable food—

and nothing about ecient production and the incredible innovation and respect

for the environment that already exists within the agricultural community.

The Biden Administration’s USDA strongly supported

the recent United

Nations (U.N.) Food Systems Summit. According to the USDA:

The stated goal of the Food Systems Summit was to transform the way the

world produces, consumes and thinks about foods within the context of the

2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to meet the challenges of

poverty, food security, malnutrition, population growth, climate change, and

natural resource degradation.

Not unlike those who oppose reliable and aordable energy production, there

is a disdain, especially by some on the Left, for American agriculture and the food

system.

The Biden Administration’s vision of a federal government developing

a plan that “ﬁxes” agriculture and focuses on issues secondary to food production

is very disturbing.

A recent USDA-created program captures both the disrespect for American

farmers and the Biden Administration’s eort to dictate agricultural practices.

The USDA explained that it was concerned with farmers not transitioning to

organic farming, and therefore announced that it will dedicate $300 million to

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induce farmers to adopt organic farming.

There was no recognition that farmers

know how to farm better than D.C. politicians

or a that organic food is expensive

and land-intensive.

The Biden Administration has also been pushing so-called

“climate-smart”

agricultural practices which received additional support in the

partisan Inﬂation Reduction Act.

American agriculture should not need defending. According to the USDA’s latest

data, farm output nearly tripled (a 175 percent increase) from 1948 to 2019, while

the amount of land farmed decreased. In fact, as farm output increased by 175

percent, all agricultural inputs increased by only 4 percent.

In 2021, despite high food prices—a major problem and regressive—Ameri-

can consumers spent an average of about 10 percent of their personal disposable

income on food, which is close to historic lows. For decades, this share has been in

decline.

America’s farmers eciently produce food using fewer resources, making

it possible for food to be aordable. This reality is not only something that should

be defended but also touted as a prime example of what makes American agricul-

ture so successful. The connection between eciency and aordability seems lost

in the Biden Administration’s eort to transform the food system.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Proactively Defend Agriculture. From the outset, the next Administration

should: Denounce eorts to place ancillary issues like climate change ahead of

food productivity and aordability when it comes to agriculture.

Remove the U.S. from any association with U.N. and other eorts to push

sustainable-development schemes connected to food production.

Defend American agriculture and advance the critical importance of

ecient and innovative food production, especially to advance safe and

aordable food.

Stress that ideal policy should remove obstacles imposed on American

farmers and individuals across the food supply chain so that they can meet

the food needs of Americans.

Clarify the critical importance of eciency to food aordability, and why a

failure to recognize this fact especially hurts low-income households who

spend a disproportionate share of after-tax income on food compared to

higher-income households.

To accomplish these objectives, a new Administration should announce its

principles through an executive order, the USDA should remove all references

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

to transforming the food system on its web site and other department-dis-

seminated material, and it should expressly and regularly communicate the

principles informing the objectives listed above, as well as promote these prin-

ciples through legislative eorts. The USDA should also carefully review existing

eorts that involve inappropriately imposing its preferred agricultural practices

onto farmers.

Address the Abuse of CCC Discretionary Authority. With the exception of

federal crop insurance, the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) is generally the

means by which agricultural-related farm bill programs are funded. The CCC is a

funding mechanism, which, in simple terms, has $30 billion a year at its disposal.

Section 5 of the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act (Charter Act)

gives the Secretary of Agriculture broad discretionary authority to spend “unused”

CCC money. However, in general, past Agriculture Secretaries have not used this

power to any meaningful extent. This changed dramatically during the Trump

Administration, when this discretionary authority was used to fund $28 billion

in “trade aid” to farmers, consisting primarily of the Market Facilitation Program.

In 2020, this authority was used for $20.5 billion in food purchases and income

subsidies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the time, critics warned that this use of the CCC, which in eect created a

USDA slush fund, would lead future Administrations to abuse the CCC, such as

by pushing climate-change policies.

Predictably, this is precisely what the Biden

Administration has done, using the discretionary authority to create programs

out of whole cloth, arguably without statutory authority,

for what it refers to as

climate-smart agricultural practices.

The merits of the various programs funded through the CCC discretionary

authority is not the focus of this discussion. The major problem is that the Secre-

tary of Agriculture is empowered to use a slush fund. Billions of dollars are being

used for programs that Congress never envisioned or intended.

Concern about this type of abuse is not new. In fact, from 2012 to 2017, Congress

expressly limited the Agriculture Secretary’s discretionary spending authority

under the Charter Act.

And this was before the recent massive discretionary CCC

spending occurred.

The use of the discretionary power is a separation of powers problem, with

Congress abrogating its spending power. This power is ripe for abuse—as could be

expected with any slush fund—and it is a possible way to get around the farm bill

process to achieve policy goals not secured during the legislative process.

The next Administration should:

Refrain from using section 5 discretionary authority. The USDA can

address this abuse on its own by following the lead of most Administrations

and not using this discretionary authority.

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Promote legislative ﬁxes to address abuse. Ideally, Congress would

repeal the Secretary’s discretionary authority under section 5 of the Charter

Act. There is no reason to maintain such authority. If Congress needs to

spend money to assist farmers, it has legislative tools, including the farm bill

and the annual appropriations process, to do so in a timely fashion. While

not an ideal solution, Congress could also amend the Charter Act to require

prior congressional approval through duly enacted legislation before any

money is spent.

At a minimum, Congress should amend the Charter Act to:

Limit spending to directly help farmers and ranchers address issues due

to unforeseen events not already covered by existing programs and that

constitute genuine emergencies that must be addressed immediately.

Prohibit the CCC from being used to assist parties beyond farmers and ranchers.

Clarify that spending is only to address problems that are temporary in

nature and ensure that funding is targeted to address such problems.

Tighten the discretion within section 5 and identify ways for improper

application of the Charter Act to be challenged in court.

Reform Farm Subsidies. Too often, agricultural policy becomes synonymous

with farm subsidy policy. This is unfortunate, because making them synony-

mous fails to recognize that agricultural policy covers a wide range of issues,

including issues that are outside the proper scope of the USDA, such as environ-

mental regulation.

However, there is no question that farm subsidies are an important issue

within agricultural policy that should be addressed by any incoming Adminis-

tration. There are several principles that even subsidy supporters would likely

agree upon, including the need to reduce market distortions. Subsidies should not

inﬂuence planting decisions, discourage proper risk management and innovation,

incentivize planting on environmentally sensitive land, or create barriers to entry

for new farmers. Farm subsidies can lead to these market distortions and there-

fore, it would hardly be controversial to ensure that any subsidy scheme should

be designed to avoid such problems.

The overall goal should be to eliminate subsidy dependence. Despite what

might be conventional wisdom, many farmers receive few to no subsidies,

with

most subsidies going to only a handful of commodities. According to the Congres-

sional Research Service (CRS), from 2014 to 2016, 94 percent of farm program

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

support went to just six commodities—corn, cotton, peanuts, rice, soybeans, and

wheat—that together account for only 28 percent of farm receipts.

Although many

farmers do not receive much in the way of subsidies, especially those in the areas

of livestock and specialty crops (fruit, vegetable, and nuts),

there are still a sig-

niﬁcant number of farmers growing row crops like corn and cotton that do receive

signiﬁcant farm subsidies.

The primary subsidy programs include the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC)

program,

the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) program,

and the federal crop insur-

ance program.

Farmers can participate on a crop-by-crop basis in the ARC

program or the PLC program. These programs cover about 20 dierent crops.

The

ARC program protects farmers from what are referred to as “shallow” losses, pro-

viding payments when their actual revenues fall below 86 percent of the expected

revenues for their crops.

The PLC program provides payments to farmers when

commodity prices fall below a ﬁxed, statutorily established reference price.

The federal crop insurance program is broader in scope than ARC and PLC,

and in crop year 2019 covered 124 commodities.

Farmers pay a portion of a

premium to participate in the program. Taxpayers on average pay about 60 per-

cent

of the premium. As explained by CRS, “Revenue Protection was the most

frequently purchased policy type in 2019, accounting for almost 70 [percent] of

policies purchased.”

While there are certainly other subsidy programs besides ARC, PLC, and federal

crop insurance, one program that deserves special mention is the federal sugar

program. This program, unlike most other subsidy programs, intentionally tries

to restrict supply

and thereby drives up prices. The program costs consumers as

much as $3.7 billion a year.

When it comes to reforming subsidy programs, the next Administration will

primarily have to look to legislative solutions. The next Administration should

champion legislation that would:

Repeal the federal sugar program. The federal government should

not be in the central planning business, and the sugar program is a prime

example of harmful central planning. Its very purpose is to limit the sugar

supply in order to increase prices. The program has a regressive eect, since

lower-income households spend more of their money to meet food needs

compared to higher income households.

Ideally, repeal the ARC and PLC programs. Farmers eligible to

participate in ARC or PLC are generally already able to purchase federal

crop insurance, policies that protect against shortfalls in expected revenue

whether caused by lower prices or smaller harvests. The ARC program is

especially egregious because farmers are being protected from shallow

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Department of Agriculture

losses, which is another way of saying minor dips in expected revenue.

This is hardly consistent with the concept of providing a safety net to help

farmers when they fall on hard times. The Congressional Budget Oce

(CBO), in one of its options to reduce the federal deﬁcit, has once again

identiﬁed repealing all Title I farm programs, including ARC, PLC, and the

federal sugar program.

Stop paying farmers twice for price and revenue losses during the

same year. Farmers can receive support from the ARC or PLC programs

and the federal crop insurance program to cover price declines and revenue

shortfalls during the same year. Congress should prohibit this duplication by

prohibiting farmers from receiving an ARC or PLC payment the same year

they receive a crop insurance indemnity.

Reduce the premium subsidy rate for crop insurance. On average,

taxpayers cover about 60 percent

of the premium cost for policies

purchased in the federal crop insurance program. One of the most widely

supported and bipartisan policy reforms is to reduce the premium subsidy

that taxpayers are forced to pay.

At a minimum, taxpayers should not pay

more than 50 percent of the premium. After all, taxpayers should not have

to pay more than the farmers who beneﬁt from the crop insurance policies.

CBO has found that reducing the premium subsidy to 47 percent would

save $8.1 billion over 10 years and have little impact on crop insurance

participation or on the number of covered acres.

In that analysis, there

would be a reduction in insured acres of just one-half of 1 percent, and

only 1.5 percent of acres would have lower coverage levels.

This reform

is basically all beneﬁt with little to no cost. In its recently released report

identifying options to reduce the federal deﬁcit, CBO found that reducing

the premium subsidy to 40 percent would save $20.9 billion over 10 years.

Beyond these legislative reforms, the next Administration should:

Communicate to Congress the necessity of transparency and a genuine

reform process. The White House and the USDA should make it very clear

that the farm bill process, including reform of farm subsidies, must be con-

ducted through an open process with time for mark-up and the opportunity

for changes to be made outside the Agriculture Committee process.

The farm bill too often is developed behind closed doors and without any

chance for real reform. The White House, given the power of the bully pulpit,

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

must demand a genuine reform process and express unwavering support

for a USDA that shapes a safety net that considers the interests of farmers,

while also remembering the interests of taxpayers and consumers. Any

safety net for farmers should be a true safety net—one that helps farmers

when they have experienced serious unforeseen losses (preferably when

there has been a disaster or unforeseen natural event causing damage) and

that exists to help them in unusual situations.

Separate the agricultural provisions of the farm bill from the

nutrition provisions. To have genuine reform and proper consideration

of the issues, agricultural programs should be considered in separate

legislation distinct from food stamps and the nutrition part of the farm bill,

and reauthorization of such programs should be ﬁxed on dierent timelines

to ensure this separation. Agricultural and nutritional programs, which are

distinct from each other, have been combined together for political reasons,

something which is readily admitted by proponents of this logrolling. When

it comes to American agriculture and welfare programs, they deserve sound

policy debates, not political tactics at the expense of thoughtful discourse.

Move the Work of the Food and Nutrition Service. The USDA implements

many means-tested federal support programs, including the largest food assis-

tance program, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also known

as food stamps), and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women,

Infants, and Children (WIC) Food Program. The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS)

oversees these programs and other food and nutrition programs, including the

Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion,

which handles the USDA’s work on

the “Dietary Guidelines for Americans” (Dietary Guidelines).

Food nutrition

programs include: SNAP; WIC; the National School Lunch Program (NSLP); the

School Breakfast Program (SBP); the Child and Adult Care Food Program; the

Nutrition Program for the Elderly; Nutrition Service Incentives; the Summer Food

Service Program; the Commodity Supplemental Food Program; the Temporary

Emergency Food Program; the Farmer’s Market Nutrition Program; and the Spe-

cial Milk Program.

The next Administration should:

Move the USDA food and nutrition programs to the Department of

Health and Human Services. There are more than 89 current means-

tested welfare programs, and total means-tested spending has been

estimated to surpass $1.2 trillion between federal and state resources.

Because means-tested federal programs are siloed and administered in

separate agencies, the eectiveness and size of the welfare state remains

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Department of Agriculture

largely hidden. There are means-tested food-support programs in the

USDA (specially FNS), whereas most means-tested programs are at the

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). All means-tested anti-

poverty programs should be overseen by one department—speciﬁcally HHS,

which handles most welfare programs.

Reform SNAP. Ostensibly, SNAP sends money through electronic-bene-

ﬁt-transfer (EBT) cards to help “low-income” individuals buy food. It is the largest

of the federal nutrition programs. Food stamps are designed to be supplemented by

other forms of income—whether through paid employment or nonproﬁt support.

SNAP serves 41.1 million individuals—an increase of 4.3 million people during the

Biden years.

In 2020, the food stamp program cost $79.1 billion. That number

continued to rise—by 2022, outlays hit $119.5 billion.

The next Administration should:

Re-implement work requirements. The statutory language covering

food stamps allows states to waive work requirements that otherwise

apply to work-capable individuals—that is, adult beneﬁciaries between the

ages 18 and 50 who are not disabled and do not have any children or other

dependents in the home.

Even in a strong economy, work expectations are fairly limited: Individuals

who are work-capable and without dependents are required to work or

prepare for work for 20 hours per week.

The work requirements are then

implemented unless the state requests a waiver from the USDA’s Food and

Nutrition Services.

Waivers from statutory work requirements can be

approved in two instances: an unemployment rate of more than 10 percent

or a lack of sucient jobs.

The Trump Administration bolstered USDA work expectations in the

food stamp program. In February 2019, FNS issued a modest regulatory

change that applied only to able-bodied individuals without dependents—

beneﬁciaries aged 18 to 49, not elderly or disabled, who did not have children

or other dependents in the home (ABAWD).

The FNS rule changed

when a state could receive a waiver from implementing the ABAWD work

requirement.

Under the new rule, in order to waive the work requirement, the state’s

unemployment rate had to be above 6 percent for more than 24 months.

The rule also deﬁned “area” in such a way that states would be unable to

combine non-contiguous counties in order to maximize their waivers.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

the more than 40 million food stamp beneﬁciaries, the Trump rule would

have applied only to 688,000 individuals in ﬁscal year 2021.

The Trump reform was scheduled to go into eect, but a D.C. district court

federal judge enjoined the rule.

The USDA ﬁled an appeal in late December

2020,

but the Biden Administration withdrew from defending the

challenge, and the rule was never implemented.

Beyond the able-bodied work requirement, FNS should implement better

regulation to clarify options for states to implement the general work

requirement. This requirement is an option states can apply to work-

capable beneﬁciaries aged 16 to 59. If beneﬁciaries’ work hours are below

30 hours a week, states can implement the general work requirements to

oblige beneﬁciaries to register for work or participate in SNAP Employment

and Training or workfare assigned by the state SNAP agency.

Increased

clarity for states would include items like states being required to oer

employment and training spots for those that request them—not simply

budgeting for every currently enrolled able-bodied adult.

Reform broad-based categorical eligibility. Federal law permits states

to enroll individuals in food stamps if they receive a beneﬁt from another

program, such as the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)

program. However, under an administrative option in TANF called broad-

based categorical eligibility (BBCE), ”beneﬁt” is deﬁned so broadly that it

includes simply receiving distributed pamphlets and 1–800 numbers.

This

deﬁnition, with its low threshold to trigger a “beneﬁt,” allows individuals to

bypass eligibility limits—particularly the asset requirement (how much the

applicant has in resources, such as bank accounts or property).

Adopting

the BBCE option has even allowed millionaires to enroll in the food

stamp program.

The Trump Administration proposed to close the loophole with a rule

to “increase program integrity and reduce fraud, waste, and abuse.”

The

regulation was not ﬁnalized before the end of the Trump Administration.

Re-evaluate the Thrifty Food Plan. In a dramatic overreach, the Biden

Administration unilaterally increased food stamp beneﬁts by at least 23

percent in October 2021.

Through an update to the Thrifty Food Plan, in

which the USDA analyzes a basket of foods intended to provide a nutritious

diet, the USDA increased food stamp outlays by between $250 billion and

$300 billion over 10 years.

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Department of Agriculture

Although the 2018 farm bill instructed FNS to update the Thrifty Food Plan

by 2023 and every ﬁve years thereafter, every previous Thrifty Food Plan

has been always cost-neutral (just an inﬂation update)—exactly what CBO

estimated as cost of the 2018 farm bill.

The Biden Administration may have skirted regulations and congressional

authority to increase the overall cost of the program. In fact, Senate and

House Republicans requested that the Government Accountability Oce

investigate the legal authorities and process that the USDA undertook to

arrive at such an unprecedented increase.

Eliminate the heat-and-eat loophole. States can artiﬁcially boost a

household’s food stamp beneﬁt by using the heat-and-eat loophole. The

amount of food stamps a household receives is based on its “countable”

income (income minus certain deductions). Households that receive

beneﬁts from the Low-Income Heat and Energy Assistance Program

(LIHEAP) are eligible for a larger utility deduction. In order to make

households eligible for the higher deduction, and thus for greater food

stamp beneﬁts, states have distributed LIHEAP checks for amounts as small

as $1 to food stamp recipients.

The 2014 farm bill tightened this loophole by requiring that a household must

receive more than $20 annually in LIHEAP payments to be eligible for the larger

utility deduction and subsequently higher food stamp beneﬁts.

Nonetheless,

states continue to inﬂate their standard utility allowances. Under the Trump

Administration, the USDA proposed a rule, which was not ﬁnalized, that would

have standardized the utility allowance.

Reform WIC. Turning to WIC, this program distributes money through EBT

cards to help low-income women, infants, and children under six purchase nutri-

tion-rich foods and nutrition education (including breastfeeding support). As of

August 2022, approximately 6.3 million people participated in WIC each month

to purchase food.

In 2021, WIC federal outlays were $5 billion.

The next Administration should:

Reform the state voucher system. State agencies control WIC costs

by approving only one brand of infant formula through competitive

bidding for infant formula rebate contracts. Because 50 percent of baby

formula is purchased through the federal WIC program, it is vital that

regulation for these competitive bidding contracts does not unintentionally

create monopolies.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Re-evaluate excessive regulation. As for baby formula regulations

generally, labeling regulations and regulations that unnecessarily delay the

manufacture and sale of baby formula should be re-evaluated.

During the

Biden Administration, there have been devastating baby formula shortages.

Return to the Original Purpose of School Meals. Federal meal programs for

K–12 students were created to provide food to children from low-income families

while at school.

Today, however, federal school meals increasingly resemble enti-

tlement programs that have strayed far from their original objective and represent

an example of the ever-expanding federal footprint in local school operations.

The NSLP and SBP are the two largest K–12 meal programs provided by federal

taxpayer money. The NSLP launched in 1946 and the SBP in 1966, both as options

speciﬁcally for children in poverty.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, federal

policymakers temporarily expanded access to school meal programs, but some

lawmakers and federal ocials have now proposed making this expansion per-

manent.

Yet even before the pandemic, research found that federal ocials had

already expanded these programs to serve children from upper-income homes,

and these programs are rife with improper payments and ineciencies.

Heritage Foundation research from 2019 found that after the enactment of

the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) in 2010, the share of students from

middle- and upper-income homes receiving free meals in states that participated in

CEP doubled, and in some cases tripled—all in a program meant for children from

families with incomes at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty line (Children

from homes at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty line are eligible for free

lunches, while students from families at or below 185 percent of poverty are eligible

for reduced-priced lunches).

Under CEP, if 40 percent of students in a school or school district are eligible for

federal meals, all students in that school or district can receive free meals. However,

the USDA has taken it even further, improperly interpreting the law

to allow a

subset of schools within a district to be grouped together to reach the 40 percent

threshold, As a result, a school with zero low-income students could be grouped

together with schools with high levels of low-income students, and as a result all

the students in the schools within that group (even schools without a single low-in-

come student) can receive free federal meals.

Schools can direct resources meant

for students in poverty to children from wealthier families.

Furthermore, the NSLP and SBP are among the most inaccurate federal

programs according to PaymentAccuracy.gov, a project of the U.S. Oce of Man

agement and Budget and the Oce of the Inspector General.

Before federal

auditors reduced the rigor of annual reporting requirements in 2018, the NSLP

had wasted nearly $2 billion in taxpayer resources through payments provided to

ineligible recipients.

Even after the auditing changes, which the U.S. Government

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Department of Agriculture

Accountability Oce said results in the USDA not “regularly assess[ing] the pro-

grams’ fraud risks,” the NSLP wasted nearly $500 million in FY 2021.

The SBP

now wastes nearly $200 million annually.

Despite the ongoing eort to expand school meals under CEP and the evidence

of waste and ineciency, left-of-center Members of Congress and President Biden’s

Administration have nonetheless proposed further expansions to extend federal

school meals to include every K–12 student—regardless of need.

The Administra-

tion recently proposed expanding federal school meal programs oered during the

school year to be oered during the summer as part of the “American Families Plan,”

and also proposed expanding CEP. Other federal ocials, including Senator Bernie

Sanders (I–VT), have, in recent years, proposed expanding the NSLP to all students.

To serve students in need and prevent the misuse of taxpayer money, the next

Administration should focus on students in need and reject eorts to transform

federal school meals into an entitlement program.

Speciﬁcally, the next Administration should:

Promulgate a rule properly interpreting CEP. The USDA should issue

a rule that clariﬁes that only an individual school or a school district as a

whole, not a subset of schools within a district, must meet the 40-percent

criteria to be eligible for CEP. Education ocials should be prohibited from

grouping schools together.

Work with lawmakers to eliminate CEP. The NSLP and SBP should be

directed to serve children in need, not become an entitlement for students

from middle- and upper-income homes. Congress should eliminate CEP.

Further, the USDA should not provide meals to students during the summer

unless students are taking summer-school classes. Currently, students can

get meals from schools even if they are not in summer school, which has, in

eect, turned school meals into a federal catering program.

Restore programs to their original intent and reject eorts to create

universal free school meals. The USDA should work with lawmakers

to restore NSLP and SBP to their original goal of providing food to K–12

students who otherwise would not have food to eat while at school.

Federal school meals should be focused on children in need, and any eorts

to expand student eligibility for federal school meals to include all K–12 students

should be soundly rejected. Such expansion would allow an inecient, wasteful

program to grow, magnifying the amount of wasted taxpayer resources.

Reform Conservation Programs. Farmers, in general, are excellent stewards

of the land, if not for moral or ethical considerations, then out of self-interest to

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

make sure their land and—by extension, their livelihoods—remain intact. Farmers

are often called the original conservationists.

When evaluating federal conservation programs, it is important to remember

the importance of the land to farmers. In terms of USDA federal conservation

programs, both the USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) and Natural Resources

Conservation Service (NRCS) oversee numerous programs.

As a general matter, the next Administration should ensure that these programs

address genuine and speciﬁc environmental concerns with a focus on currently

existing environmental problems, not those that are speculative in nature. These

conservation programs should have clearly identiﬁable goals, with the success or

failure of these programs being directly measurable. Any assistance to farmers to

take speciﬁc actions should not be provided unless the assistance will directly and

clearly help to address a speciﬁc environmental problem. Further, any assistance

to encourage farmers to engage in certain practices should only be provided if

farmers would not have adopted the practices in the ﬁrst place.

There are speciﬁc issues that the next Administration should address. The

Conservation Reserve Program,

which is run by FSA, pays farmers to not farm

some of their land. This program has recently received attention, as agricultural

groups rightfully seek to farm without penalty voluntarily idled land, in light of

the consequences to food prices of Russia invading Ukraine.

There is also a need to reform USDA’s conservation easements. These easements

are a powerful tool to incentivize long-term preservation of ecosystems while still

allowing farmers to beneﬁt economically. However, when farmers and ranchers

sign conservation easements with the USDA, they can be enforced in perpetuity.

Future generations, be they the descendants of the landowner or new residents,

are bound by those conditions.

Ecosystems and topography naturally change over time, but without legislative

change, easement requirements will not.

The next Administration should:

Champion the elimination of the Conservation Reserve Program.

Farmers should not be paid in such a sweeping way not to farm their land. If

there is a desire to ensure that extremely sensitive land is not farmed, this

should be addressed through targeted eorts that are clearly connected to

addressing a speciﬁc and concrete environmental harm. The USDA should

work with Congress to eliminate this overbroad program.

Reform NRCS wetlands and erodible land compliance and appeals.

Problematic NRCS overreach could be avoided entirely by removing its

authority to prescribe speciﬁc practices on a particular farm operation in

order to ensure continued eligibility to participate in USDA farm programs,

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Department of Agriculture

and to require instead that each farm (as a function of eligibility) must have

created a general best practices plan. Such a plan could be approved by the

local county Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD). The local SWCD

commissioners are elected by their peers in each respective county and are

better suited than the NRCS to provide guidance for farm operations in

their respective jurisdictions.

At a minimum, a new Administration should support legislation to divest

more power to the states (and possibly local SWCDs) regarding erodible

land and wetlands conservation.

Reform easements. The new Administration should, to the extent

authorized by law, limit the use of permanent easements and

collaborate with lawmakers to prohibit the USDA from creating new

permanent easements.

Other Major Issues and Speciﬁc Recommendations. Although the following

issues have not been listed as “priority,” these issues are still extremely important,

and the next Administration should address them.

Only meat and poultry from federally inspected facilities can be sold in inter-

state commerce.

100

Even meat and poultry from USDA-approved state-inspected

facilities may only be sold in intrastate commerce, with limited exceptions.

101

This is despite the fact that states with USDA-approved inspection programs

must meet and enforce requirements that are “at least equal to” those imposed

under the Federal Meat and Poultry Products Inspection Acts and the Humane

Methods of Slaughter Act of 1978.

102

This is an unnecessary regulatory barrier

that makes it dicult to get meat and poultry into interstate commerce to create

more options for consumers and farmers. Legislation entitled the New Mar-

kets for State-Inspected Meat and Poultry Act of 2021 would help to remove

this obstacle.

103

The next Administration should:

Promote legislation that would allow state-inspected meat to be sold

in interstate commerce. These barriers to the sale of meat and poultry

from USDA-approved state-inspected facilities should be removed.

Eliminate or Reform Marketing Orders and Checko Programs. Mar-

keting orders and checko programs for agricultural commodities are similar in

many ways. They both allow private actors within an industry to collaborate with

the federal government to compel other competitors within an industry to fund the

respective marketing order or checko program. There are currently 22 checko

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

programs,

104

and they focus on research and promotion of commodities such as beef

and eggs. Marketing orders cover research and promotion, but also cover issues

such as quality regulations and volume controls. The latter issue, volume controls,

is a means to restrict supply, which drives up prices for consumers. Fortunately,

there are few active volume controls.

105

Marketing orders and checko programs are some of the most egregious pro-

grams run by the USDA. They are, in eect, a tax—a means to compel speech—and

government-blessed cartels. Instead of getting private cooperation, they are tools

for industry actors to work with government to force cooperation.

The next Administration should:

Reduce the number and scope of marketing orders and checko

programs. The USDA should reject any new requests for marketing orders

and checko programs to the extent authorized by law and eliminate

existing programs when possible. While the programs work dierently,

there are often petition processes and other ways that make it dicult for

aected parties to get rid of the marketing orders and checko programs,

106

and the USDA itself may not even be required to honor requests to

terminate a program.

107

The USDA should make the process easier. Further,

the USDA should reject any eort to bring back volume controls to limit

supplies of commodities.

Work with Congress to eliminate marketing orders and checko

programs. These programs should be eliminated, and if industry actors

want to collaborate, they should do so through private means, not using the

government to compel cooperation.

Promote legislation that would require regular votes. There should

be regular voting for parties subject to checko programs and marketing

orders. For example, the voting should occur at least every ﬁve years, to

determine whether a marketing order or checko program should continue.

The USDA should be required to honor the results of such a vote. Through

regular voting, parties can demonstrate their support for a marketing order

or checko program and ensure that those administering them will be held

accountable.

Focus on Trade Policy, Not Trade Promotion. The USDA’s Foreign Agri-

cultural Service (FAS) covers numerous issues, including “trade policy,” which

is a reference to removing trade barriers, among other things, to ensure an envi-

ronment conducive to trade.

108

It also covers trade promotion.

109

This includes

programs like the Market Access Program

110

that subsidizes trade associations,

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Department of Agriculture

businesses, and other private entities to market and promote their products

overseas. FAS should play a proactive and leading role to help open upmarkets

for American farmers and ranchers. There are numerous barriers, such as sani-

tary and phytosanitary measures, blocking American agricultural products from

gaining access to foreign markets.

111

However, FAS should not help businesses and

industries promote their exports, something these businesses and industries can

and should do on their own.

The next Administration should:

Push legislation to repeal export promotion programs. The USDA

should work with Congress to repeal market development programs like the

Market Access Program and similar programs.

Remove Obstacles for Agricultural Biotechnology. Innovation is critical to

agricultural production and the ability to meet future food needs. The next Admin-

istration should embrace innovation and technology, not hinder its use—especially

because of scare tactics that ignore sound science. One of the key innovations in

agriculture is genetic engineering. According to the USDA, “[C]urrently, over 90

percent of U.S. corn, upland cotton, and soybeans are produced using GE [genet-

ically engineered] varieties.”

112

Despite the importance of agricultural biotechnology, in 2016, Congress passed

a federal mandate to label genetically engineered food.

113

This legislation was argu-

ably just a means to try to provide a negative connotation to GE food. There are

other challenges as well for agricultural biotechnology. For example, Mexico plans

to ban the importation of U.S. genetically modiﬁed yellow corn.

114

The next Administration should:

Counter scare tactics and remove obstacles. The USDA should strongly

counter scare tactics regarding agricultural biotechnology and adopt

policies to remove unnecessary barriers to approvals and the adoption of

biotechnology.

Repeal the federal labeling mandate. The USDA should work with

Congress to repeal the federal labeling law, while maintaining federal

preemption, and stress that voluntary labeling is allowed.

Use all tools available to remove improper trade barriers against

agricultural biotechnology. The USDA should work closely with the Oce

of the United States Trade Representative to remove improper barriers

imposed by other countries to block U.S. agricultural goods.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Reform Forest Service Wildﬁre Management. The United States Forest

Service is one of four federal government land management agencies that admin-

ister 606 million acres, or 95 percent of the 640 million acres of surface land area

managed by the federal government.

115

Located within the USDA, the Forest Service

manages the National Forest System, which is comprised of 193 million acres.

116

As explained by the USDA, “The USDA Forest Service’s mission is to sustain the

health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet

the needs of present and future generations.”

117

The Forest Service should focus on proactive management of the forests and

grasslands that does not depend heavily on burning. There should be resilient

forests and grasslands in the wake of management actions. Wildﬁres have become

a primary vegetation management regime for national forests and grasslands.

118

Recognizing the need for vegetation management, the Forest Service has adopted

“pyro-silviculture” using “unplanned” ﬁre,

119

such as unplanned human-caused ﬁres,

to otherwise accomplish vegetation management.

120

The Forest Service should instead be focusing on addressing the precipitous

annual amassing of biomass in the national forests that drive the behavior of

wildﬁres. By thinning trees, removing live fuels and deadwood, and taking other

preventive steps, the Forest Service can help to minimize the consequences

of wildﬁres.

Increasing timber sales could also play an important role in the eort to change

the behavior of wildﬁre because there would be less biomass. Timber sales and

timber harvested in public forests dropped precipitously in the early 1990s and

still remain very low. For example, in 1988, the volume of timber sold and harvested

by volume was about 11 billion and 12.6 billion board feet (BBF), respectively.

121

2021, timber sold was 2.8 BBF and timber harvested was 2.4 BBF.

In 2018, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13855 to, among

other things, promote active management of forests and reduce wildﬁre risks.

122

The executive order stated, “Active management of vegetation is needed to treat

these dangerous conditions on Federal lands but is often delayed due to challenges

associated with regulatory analysis and current consultation requirements.”

123

further explained the need to reduce regulatory obstacles to fuel reduction in

forests created by the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered

Species Act.

124

The next Administration should:

Champion executive action, consistent with law, and proactive

legislation to reduce wildﬁres. This would involve embracing Executive

Order 13855, building upon it, and working with lawmakers to promote

active management of vegetation, reduce regulatory obstacles to reducing

fuel buildup, and increase timber sales.

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Department of Agriculture

Eliminate or Reform the Dietary Guidelines. The USDA, in collaboration

with HHS, publishes the Dietary Guidelines every ﬁve years.

125

For more than 40

years, the federal government has been releasing Dietary Guidelines,

126

and during

this time, there has been constant controversy due to questionable recommenda-

tions and claims regarding the politicization of the process.

In the 2015 Dietary Guidelines process, the inﬂuential Dietary Guidelines Advi-

sory Committee veered o mission and attempted to persuade the USDA and HHS

to adopt nutritional advice that focused not just on human health, but the health

of the planet.

127

Issues such as climate change and sustainability inﬁltrated the

process. Fortunately, the 2020 process did not get diverted in this manner. How-

ever, the Dietary Guidelines remain a potential tool to inﬂuence dietary choices to

achieve objectives unrelated to the nutritional and dietary well-being of Americans.

There is no shortage of private sector dietary advice for the public, and nutrition

and dietary choices are best left to individuals to address their personal needs. This

includes working with their own health professionals. As it is, there is constantly

changing advice provided by the government, with insucient qualiﬁcations on

the advice, oversimpliﬁcation to the point of miscommunicating important points,

questionable use of science, and potential political inﬂuence.

The Dietary Guidelines have a major impact because they not only can inﬂuence

how private health providers oer nutritional advice, but they also inform federal

programs. School meals are required to be consistent with the guidelines.

128

The next Administration should:

Work with lawmakers to repeal the Dietary Guidelines. The USDA

should help lead an eort to repeal the Dietary Guidelines.

Minimally, the next Administration should reform the Dietary

Guidelines. The USDA, with HHS, should develop a more transparent

process that properly considers the underlying science and does not

overstate its ﬁndings. It should also ensure that the Dietary Guidelines

focus on nutritional issues and do not veer o-mission by focusing on

unrelated issues, such as the environment, that have nothing to do with

nutritional advice. In fact, if environmental concerns supersede or water

down recommendations for human nutritional advice, the public would

be receiving misleading health information. The USDA, working with

lawmakers, should codify these reforms into law.

ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES

Based on the recommended reforms identiﬁed as ideal solutions, the USDA

would look dierent in many respects. One of the biggest changes would be a USDA

that is not focused on welfare, given that means-tested welfare programs would

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

be moved to HHS. The Food and Nutrition Service that administers the food and

nutrition programs would be eliminated.

The Farm Service Agency, which administers many of the farm subsidy pro-

grams, would be signiﬁcantly smaller in size if the ideal farm subsidy reforms

were adopted.

Most important, a conservative USDA, as envisioned, would not be used as a

governmental tool to transform the nation’s food system, but instead would respect

the importance of ecient agricultural production and ensure that the government

does not hinder farmers and ranchers from producing an abundant supply of safe

and aordable food.

For a conservative USDA to become a reality, and for it to stay on course with

the mission as outlined, the White House must strongly support these reforms and

install strong USDA leaders. These individuals almost certainly will be faced with

opposition from some in the agricultural community who would ﬁght changing

subsidies in any fashion, although many of the reforms would likely be embraced

by those in agriculture.

There would be strong opposition from environmental groups and others who

want the federal government to transform American agriculture to meet their ideo-

logical objectives. Finally, there would be opposition from left-of-center groups

who do not want to reform SNAP and would expand welfare and dependency—such

as through universal free school meals—as opposed to reducing dependency.

Reducing the scope of government and promoting individual freedom may not

always be easy, but it is something that conservatives regularly should strive for.

The listed reforms to the U.S. Department of Agriculture would help to accom-

plish these objectives and are well worth ﬁghting for to achieve a freer and more

prosperous nation.

CONCLUSION

This chapter started with a discussion of the incredible success of American

farmers and American agriculture in general. This is how the chapter should close

as well. Americans are blessed with an agricultural sector, and a food system in

general, which are worthy of incredible respect. A conservative USDA should

appreciate this while recognizing that its role is to serve the interests of all Amer-

icans, not special interests. By being a champion of unleashing the potential of

American agriculture, a conservative USDA would help to ensure a future with

an abundant supply of safe and aordable food for individuals and families in the

United States and across the globe.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The author would like to thank all the contributors for their assistance, expertise, and insight

into the development of this chapter. In addition, special thanks are due to Rachael Wilfong, who was instrumental

in getting the chapter ready for submission.

— 311 —

Department of Agriculture

ENDNOTES

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Fiscal Year 2023 Budget Summary, p.1, https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/

ﬁles/documents/2023-usda-budget-summary.pdf (accessed December 14, 2022).

 See, for example, U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Transforming the U.S. Food System,” https://www.usda.

gov/fst (accessed December 14, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Fiscal Year 2023 Budget Summary, p.1.

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, “USDA Celebrates 150 Years,” https://www.usda.gov/our-agency/about-usda/

history (accessed December 16, 2022).

 The law stated, “[T]here is hereby established at the seat of government of the United States a Department

of Agriculture, the general designs and duties of which shall be to acquire and to diuse among the people

of the United States useful information on subjects connected with agriculture in the most general and

comprehensive sense of that word, and to procure, propagate, and distribute among the people new and

valuable seeds and plants.” Gladys L. Baker et al., Century of Service: The First 100 Years of the United States

Department of Agriculture, (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Oce, 1963) p. 13, https://babel.

hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4254098&view=1up&seq=33 (accessed December 16, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Fiscal Year 2023 Budget Summary, p. 2.

 Ibid., p. 2.

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Strategic Plan: Fiscal Years 2022–2026, p. 3, https://www.usda.gov/sites/

default/ﬁles/documents/usda-fy-2022-2026-strategic-plan.pdf (accessed December 14, 2022).

 News release, “USDA Announces Framework for Shoring Up the Food Supply Chain and Transforming the

Food System to Be Fairer, More Competitive, More Resilient,” U.S. Department of Agriculture, June 1, 2022,

https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2022/06/01/usda-announces-framework-shoring-food-supply-

chain-and-transforming (accessed December 14, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Transforming the U.S. Food System.”

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Strategic Plan: Fiscal Years 2022–2026, pp. 1–2.

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Background on the U.S. Approach to the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit,”

August 4, 2021, https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/documents/Background-on-US-approach-2021-UN-

Food-Systems-Summit.pdf (accessed December 14, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, “UN Food Systems Summit,” https://www.usda.gov/oce/sustainability/un-

summit (accessed December 14, 2022).

 Mark Bittman et al., “How a National Food Policy Could Save Millions of American Lives,” The Washington

Post, November 7, 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-a-national-food-policy-could-

save-millions-of-american-lives/2014/11/07/89c55e16-637f-11e4-836c-83bc4f26eb67_story.html (accessed

December 14, 2022); Daren Bakst and Gabriella Beaumont-Smith, “No, We Don’t Need to Transform the

American Food System,” The Daily Signal, February 26, 2021, https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/02/26/

no-we-dont-need-to-transform-the-american-food-system/ (accessed December 14, 2022); and Daren

Bakst, “Biden’s Food Conference Should Put People First, Not Environmental Extremism,” The Daily Signal,

September 22, 2022, https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/09/22/bidens-food-conference-should-put-people-

ﬁrst-not-environmental-extremism/ (accessed December 14, 2022).

 News release, “USDA to Invest Up to $300 Million in New Organic Transition Initiative,” U.S. Department of

Agriculture, August 22, 2022, https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2022/08/22/usda-invest-300-

million-new-organic-transition-initiative (accessed December 14, 2022).

 Gary Baise, “Sri Lanka’s Green New Deal Was a Disaster,” Farm Futures, November 14, 2022, https://www.

farmprogress.com/commentary/sri-lankas-green-new-deal-was-disaster (accessed December 16, 2022).



See, for example, Catherine Greene et al., “Growing Organic Demand Provides High-Value Opportunities for Many

Types of Producers,” Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, February 6, 2017, https://www.

ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2017/januaryfebruary/growing-organic-demand-provides-high-value-opportunities-

for-many-types-of-producers/#:~:text=ERS%20research%20shows%20that%20many,ﬂavor%20desired%20

by%20the%20consumer (accessed December 14, 2022), and Andrea Carlson, “Investigating Retail Price Premiums

for Organic Foods,” Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, May 24, 2016, https://www.ers.

usda.gov/amber-waves/2016/may/investigating-retail-price-premiums-for-organic-foods/ (accessed December

16, 2022). Further, there are many myths, such as those regarding the alleged health beneﬁt of organic food. One

— 312 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

meta study found that “[t]he published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are signiﬁcantly more

nutritious than conventional foods.” Crystal Smith-Spangler et al., “Are Organic Foods Safer or Healthier Than

Conventional Alternatives,” Annals of Internal Medicine, Vol. 157, No. 5 (September 4, 2012), pp. 348–366, https://

www.acpjournals.org/doi/epdf/10.7326/0003-4819-157-5-201209040-00007 (accessed December 16, 2022).

 Steve Savage, “USDA Data Conﬁrm Organic Yields Signiﬁcantly Lower Than With Conventional Farming,”

Genetic Literacy Project, February 16, 2018, https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2018/02/16/usda-data-conﬁrm-

organic-yields-dramatically-lower-conventional-farming/ (accessed December 16, 2022).

 See, for example, U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Notice: Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry

Partnership Program, Request for Comments,” USDA–2021–0010, October 21, 2021, https://www.regulations.

gov/document/USDA-2021-0010-0001 (accessed December 16, 2022).

 Inﬂation Reduction Act of 2022, Public Law 117–169.

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, “Productivity Growth in U.S. Agriculture

(1948–2019),” https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/agricultural-productivity-in-the-u-s/productivity-

growth-in-u-s-agriculture-1948-2019/ (accessed December 14, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, “Total Food Budget Share Increased from 9.4

Percent of Disposable Income to 10.3 Percent in 2021,” July 15, 2022, https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/

chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=76967 (accessed December 14, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Quintiles of Income Before Taxes: Annual Expenditure

Means, Shares, and Standard Errors, and Coecients of Variation, Consumer Expenditure Surveys,” 2021,

Table 1101, https://www.bls.gov/cex/tables/calendar-year/mean-item-share-average-standard-error/cu-

income-quintiles-before-taxes-2021.pdf (accessed December 16, 2022), and Daren Bakst and Patrick Tyrrell,

“Big Government Policies That Hurt the Poor and How to Address Them,” Heritage Foundation Special Report

No.176, April 5, 2017, p. 7, https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/ﬁles/2017-04/SR176.pdf.

 Daren Bakst and Joshua Sewell, “Congress Should Stop Abrogating Its Spending Power and Rein in the USDA

Slush Fund,” Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No. 6052, February 19, 2021, p. 2, https://www.heritage.org/

budget-and-spending/report/congress-should-stop-abrogating-its-spending-power-and-rein-the-usda.

 Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act of 1948, Public Law 80–806.

 Bakst and Sewall, “Congress Should Stop Abrogating Its Spending Power.”

 Ibid., p. 3.

 Daren Bakst, “Comment from Bakst, Darren” on “Notice: Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry Partnership

Program, Request for Comments,” USDA–2021–0010, October 21, 2021,” November 1, 2021, https://www.

regulations.gov/document/USDA-2021-0010-0001/comment?ﬁlter=bakst (accessed December 16, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Notice: Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry Partnership Program.”

 Megan Stubbs, “The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC),” Congressional Research Service Report for

Congress, updated January 14, 2021, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44606 (accessed

December 16, 2022).

 “Overall, 34 percent of all farms reported receiving some type of Government payment in 2021,” and “[o]verall,

14 percent of U.S. farms participated in Federal crop insurance programs.” Christine Whitt, Noah Miller, and

Ryan Olver, “America’s Farms and Ranches at a Glance: 2022 Edition,” U.S. Department of Agriculture,

Economic Research Service, pp. 24 and 26, https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/105388/eib-247.

pdf?v=527.4 (accessed March 18, 2023). This data, which apparently does not cover crop insurance, included

payments beyond just commodity payments, such as conservation payments.

 Randy Schnepf, “Farm Safety-Net Payments Under the 2014 Farm Bill: Comparison by Program Crop,”

Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, August 11, 2017, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44914.pdf

(accessed December 14, 2022).

 Although livestock and specialty crop producers do receive some subsidies, former American Farm Bureau

Federation President Bob Stallman captured the subsidy issue well. He “dismisse[d] outright the claim that

farmers couldn’t survive without subsidy money. ‘Why does the livestock industry survive without subsidies?’

he ask[ed]. ‘Why does the specialty crop [fruit and vegetable] industry survive?’” Tamar Haspel, “Why Do

Taxpayers Subsidize Rich Farmers?” The Washington Post, March 15, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.

com/lifestyle/food/why-do-taxpayers-subsidize-rich-farmers/2018/03/15/50e89906-27b6-11e8-b79d-

f3d931db7f68_story.html (accessed March 18, 2023).

— 313 —

Department of Agriculture

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Farm Service Agency, “ARC/PLC Program,” https://www.fsa.usda.gov/

programs-and-services/arcplc_program/index (accessed December 16, 2022).

 Ibid.

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, “Crop Insurance at a Glance,” May 31, 2022,

https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-practices-management/risk-management/crop-insurance-at-a-glance/

(accessed December 16, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Agriculture Risk Coverage (ALC) & Price Loss Coverage (PLC),” Farm

Service Agency Fact Sheet, August 2019, https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Assets/USDA-FSA-Public/usdaﬁles/

FactSheets/2019/arc-plc_overview_fact_sheet-aug_2019.pdf (accessed December 16, 2022).

 See, for example, U.S Department of Agriculture, Farm Service Agency, Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price

Loss Coverage Handbook, last amended October 5, 2020, https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA_File/1-

arcplc_r01_a10.pdf (accessed March 18, 2023); Mesbah Motamed, “Federal Commodity Programs Price Loss

Coverage and Agriculture Risk Coverage Address Price Yield Risks Faced by Producers,” U.S. Department

of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, August 6, 2018, https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2018/

august/federal-commodity-programs-price-loss-coverage-and-agriculture-risk-coverage-address-price-

and-yield-risks-faced-by-producers/ (accessed March 18, 2023); and Taxpayers for Common Sense, “Shallow

Loss Agriculture Programs 101,” https://www.taxpayer.net/agriculture/shallow-loss-agriculture-programs-101/

(accessed March 18, 2023).

 Ibid.

 Stephanie Rosch, “Federal Crop Insurance: A Primer,” Congressional Research Service Report for Congress,

February 18, 2021, p. 1, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46686 (December 14, 2021).

 Congressional Budget Oce, Options for Reducing the Deﬁcit, 2023 to 2032: Volume II; Smaller Reductions,

December 2022, p. 6, https://www.cbo.gov/system/ﬁles/2022-12/58163-budget-options-small-eects.pdf

(accessed December 14, 2022).

 Rosch, “Federal Crop Insurance: A Primer,” p. 17.

 “Farm Bill Primer: Sugar Program,” Congressional Research Service In Focus, updated May 15, 2018, https://

www.everycrsreport.com/ﬁles/2018-05-15_IF10689_42900e56be67f5cfa17e40953ad9acb54561d3db.pdf

(accessed December 16, 2022).

 See, for example, Agralytica, “Economic Eects of the Sugar Program Since the 2008 Farm Bill & Policy

Implications for the 2013 Farm Bill,” June 3, 2013, p. 1, https://fairsugarpolicy.org/wordpress/wp-content/

uploads/2018/03/AgralyticaEconomicEectsPaperJune2013.pdf (accessed December 16, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Labor, “Quintiles of Income Before Taxes,” and Bakst and Tyrrell, “Big Government Policies

That Hurt the Poor and How to Address Them.”

 Congressional Budget Oce, Options for Reducing the Deﬁcit, 2023 to 2032, p. 3. See also Congressional

Budget Oce, “Reduce Subsidies in the Crop Insurance Program,” in Congressional Budget Oce, “Options

for Reducing the Deﬁcit: 2021 to 2030,” December 9, 2020, https://www.cbo.gov/budget-options/56815

(accessed December 14, 2022).

 Congressional Budget Oce, Options for Reducing the Deﬁcit, 2023 to 2032, p. 6.

 “Reduce Premium Subsidies in the Federal Crop Insurance Program,” Budget Blueprint for Fiscal Year 2023,

https://www.heritage.org/budget/pages/recommendations/2.350.171.html.

 Congressional Budget Oce, “Reduce Subsidies in the Crop Insurance Program.”

 Ibid.

 Congressional Budget Oce, Options for Reducing the Deﬁcit, 2023 to 2032, p. 6.

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, “Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion

(CNPP),” https://www.fns.usda.gov/cnpp (accessed December 16, 2022), and U.S. Department of

Agriculture, “About CNPP,” Food and Nutrition Service, https://www.fns.usda.gov/about-cnpp (accessed

December 16, 2022).

 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, “Purpose of the Dietary Guidelines,” https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/

about-dietary-guidelines/purpose-dietary-guidelines (accessed December 16, 2022).

 Robert Rector and Vijay Menon, “Understanding the Hidden $1.1 Trillion Welfare System and How to Reform

It,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3294, April 5, 2018, https://www.heritage.org/welfare/report/

understanding-the-hidden-11-trillion-welfare-system-and-how-reform-it.

— 314 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, “SNAP Data Tables,” Food and Nutrition Service, December 9, 2022, https://

www.fns.usda.gov/pd/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap (accessed December 16, 2022).

 Ibid.

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, “SNAP Work Requirements,” May 2019, https://

www.fns.usda.gov/snap/work-requirements#:~:text=Work%20at%20least%2080%20hours,least%2080%20

hours%20a%20month (accessed December 16, 2022).

 7 U.S. Code § 2015, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/2015 (accessed December 16, 2022).

 Ibid.

 7 U.S. Code § 2015(o)(4). The USDA has approved nearly all waivers under the “lack of sucient jobs” option.

 Federal Register, Vol. 84, No. 234 (December 5, 2019) p. 66782, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-

2019-12-05/pdf/2019-26044.pdf (accessed December 14, 2022).

 Ibid., p. 66795.

 Ibid., pp. 66807–66810.

 District of Columbia, et al. v. U.S. Department of Agriculture, 496 F. Supp. 3d 213 (2020), https://oag.dc.gov/

sites/default/ﬁles/2020-10/SNAP-ABAWD-Opinion.pdf (accessed December 16, 2022).

 Ibid. On December 16, 2020, the Trump Administration appealed the District Court decision. See, for example,

News release “Fudge Slams Administration for Appealing ABAWD Ruling,” House Committee on Agriculture,

December 16, 2020, https://agriculture.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=2069 (accessed

December 16, 2022).

 News release, “Statement by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on D.C. Circuit Court’s Decision

Regarding ABAWDs Rule,” U.S. Department of Agriculture, March 24, 2021, https://www.usda.gov/media/

press-releases/2021/03/24/statement-agriculture-secretary-tom-vilsack-dc-circuit-courts (accessed

December 16, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, “SNAP Employment and Training Screening and Referral Guidance,” July 13,

2022, https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/et-screening-and-referral-guidance (accessed December 16, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, “Regulatory Reform at a Glance: Proposed Rule;

Revision of SNAP Categorical Eligibility,” July 2019, https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/documents/

BBCE_Fact_Sheet_%28FINAL%29_72219-PR.pdf (accessed December 14, 2022).

 7 Code of Federal Regulations § 273.8 (1978), https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/7/273.8 (accessed

December 16, 2022).

 Kristina Rasmussen, “How Millionaires Collect Food Stamps,” Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2018, https://

www.wsj.com/articles/how-millionaires-collect-food-stamps-1516044026 (accessed December 14, 2022).

 Federal Register, Vol. 84, No. 142 (July 24, 2019), pp. 35570–55581, https://www.federalregister.gov/

documents/2019/07/24/2019-15670/revision-of-categorical-eligibility-in-the-supplemental-nutrition-

assistance-program-snap (accessed December 14, 2022).

 News release, “USDA Modernizes the Thrifty Food Plan, Updates SNAP Beneﬁts,” U.S. Department of

Agriculture, August 16, 2021, https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2021/08/16/usda-modernizes-

thrifty-food-plan-updates-snap- (accessed December 14, 2022).

 Phillip L. Swagel, Director, Congressional Budget Oce, letter to Congressman Jason Smith, June 23, 2022, p.

2, https://www.cbo.gov/system/ﬁles/2022-06/58231-Smith.pdf (accessed December 14, 2022).

 Congressional Budget Oce, “H.R. 2, as Passed by the House of Representatives and as Passed by the Senate,”

July 24, 2018, https://www.cbo.gov/publication/54284 (accessed December 16, 2022).

 News release, “Republican AG Committee Leadership Urge GAO Review of USDA Thrifty Food Plan Scheme,”

U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, August 13, 2021, https://republicans-agriculture.house.gov/news/

documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=7013 (accessed December 14, 2022).

 “The 2014 Farm Bill: Changing the Tradition of LIHEAP Receipt in the Calculation of SNAP Beneﬁts,” updated

February 12, 2014, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress R42591, https://crsreports.congress.

gov/product/pdf/R/R42591/24 (accessed March 18, 2023).

 Federal Register, Vol. 84, No. 192 (October 3, 2019), pp. 52809–52815, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/

FR-2019-10-03/pdf/2019-21287.pdf (accessed December 16, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children

(WIC) Data Series, 2018 to 2022,” https://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/wic-program (accessed December 14, 2022).

— 315 —

Department of Agriculture

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, “WIC Data Tables,” December 9, 2022, https://

www.fns.usda.gov/pd/wic-program (accessed December 16, 2022).

 U.S. Food and Drug Administration, “Regulations and Information on the Manufacture and Distribution of

Infant Formula,” May 16, 2022, https://www.fda.gov/food/infant-formula-guidance-documents-regulatory-

information/regulations-and-information-manufacture-and-distribution-infant-formula (accessed

December 14, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, “History of the National School Lunch Program,”

January 17, 2008, https://www.fns.usda.gov/nslp/program-history (accessed December 14, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, “School Breakfast Program History,” July 24,

2013, https://www.fns.usda.gov/sbp/program-history (accessed December 14, 2022), and U.S. Department of

Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, “History of the National School Lunch Program.”

 Crystal FitzSimons, “Free School Meals for All Is the Key to Supporting Education and Health Outcomes,”

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Vol 41, No. 1 (2022), pp. 358–364, https://econpapers.repec.org/

article/wlyjpamgt/v_3a41_3ay_3a2022_3ai_3a1_3ap_3a358-364.htm (accessed December 14, 2022).

 Jonathan Butcher and Vijay Menon, “Returning to the Intent of Government School Meals: Helping Students

in Need,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3399, March 22, 2019, https://www.heritage.org/sites/

default/ﬁles/2019-03/BG3399.pdf.

 Daren Bakst and Jonathan Butcher, “A Critical Fix to the Federal Overreach on School Meals,” Heritage

Foundation Issue Brief No. 4976, July 11, 2019, https://www.heritage.org/hunger-and-food-programs/report/

critical-ﬁx-the-federal-overreach-school-meals.

 Ibid., and U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, “Community Eligibility Provision,” April

19, 2019, https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/community-eligibility-provision (accessed December 16, 2022).

 See Payment Accuracy, https://www.paymentaccuracy.gov/ (accessed December 16, 2022).

 Payment Accuracy, “Payment Integrity Scorecard,” https://www.cfo.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/Q3/

FNS%20National%20School%20Lunch%20Program%20(NSLP)%20Payments%20Integrity%20Scorecard%20

FY%202022%20Q3.pdf (accessed December 14, 2022).

 U.S. Government Accountability Oce, “School Meals Programs: USDA Has Reported Taking Some Steps to

Reduce Improper Payments But Should Comprehensively Assess Fraud Risks,” GAO–19–389, May 21, 2022,

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-19-389 (accessed December 14, 2022).

 Payment Accuracy, “Payment Integrity Scorecard.”

 White House, “Fact Sheet: The American Families Plan,” April 28, 2021, https://www.whitehouse.gov/

brieﬁng-room/statements-releases/2021/04/28/fact-sheet-the-american-families-plan/ (accessed

December 14, 2022).

 Universal School Meals Program Act of 2021, S. 1530, 117th Cong., 1st Sess., https://www.congress.gov/

bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/1530 (accessed December 14, 2022).

 See, for example, U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Find Meals for Kids When Schools Are Closed,” Food and

Nutrition Service, September 22, 2022, https://www.fns.usda.gov/meals4kids (accessed December 16, 2022),

and U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, “Seamless Summer and Other Options for

School,” July 16, 2013, https://www.fns.usda.gov/sfsp/seamless-summer-and-other-options-schools (accessed

December 16, 2022).

 Tom Driscoll, “From the Field: Farmers Are the Original Conservationists,” National Farmers Union, August

30, 2017, https://nfu.org/2017/08/30/from-the-ﬁeld-farmers-are-the-original-conservationists/ (accessed

December 16, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Farm Service Agency, “Conservation Programs,” https://www.fsa.usda.gov/

programs-and-services/conservation-programs/index (accessed December 16, 2022), and U.S. Department of

Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, “Programs and Initiatives,” https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/

programs-initiatives (accessed December 16, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Farm Service Agency, “Conservation Reserve Program: About the

Conservation Reserve Program (CRP),” https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/conservation-

programs/conservation-reserve-program/ (accessed December 16, 2022).

— 316 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise



American Bakers Association et al., letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, March 23,

2022, https://www.dropbox.com/s/yfyv04ilkom11zd/USDA%20Letter%20to%20Secretary%20Vilsack%20on%20

Tools%20to%20Address%20Global%20Commodity%20Supply%20Challenges%203.23.22_.pdf?dl=0 (accessed

December 15, 2022). It is also necessary to increase food production to mitigate high food inﬂation. Approximately

25 percent of idled land is considered prime farmland. Therefore, one-quarter of idled land is merely idling,

not producing food—and this does not include other land that may viably be used for food production. The

Conservation Reserve Program should be eliminated. There are also two issues connected to property rights and

fairness that should be addressed: challenging NRCS determinations and problems with USDA easements. To be

eligible for many USDA programs, farmers must comply with certain conservation provisions enforced by NRCS.

Conservation compliance of wetlands and highly erodible lands consist of federal restrictions that prevent farmers

from using parts of their property. If farmers plant crops or modify the areas federal ocials deem protected,

farmers can lose all access to USDA programs and support. For farmers, there are real, practical concerns to

challenging NRCS determinations, including the time and costs of challenging the federal bureaucracy. NRCS is

empowered to declare areas wetlands and highly erodible areas, which are therefore o limits for farming. If these

wetland-or-erodible-declared areas are used in a manner deemed unacceptable by federal ocials, NRCS may

revoke access to federal resources and subsidies by making technical determinations that carry potential penalties.

There must be a fair and reasonable process for farmers to challenge such actions. See Daren Bakst, “Food Price

Inﬂation Continues to Worsen. Here’s What Should Be Done About It,” The Daily Signal, April 25, 2022, https://

www.dailysignal.com/2022/04/25/food-price-inﬂation-continuing-to-worsen-heres-what-should-be-done-

about-it/ (accessed December 15, 2022); American Bakers Association et.al., letter to Vilsack; U.S. Department of

Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, “Conservation Compliance Appeals Process,” https://www.

nrcs.usda.gov/getting-assistance/compliance/conservation-compliance-appeals-process (accessed December 15,

2022); and Chris Bennett, “Regulatory Hell: Farmer and Veteran Wins 10-Year Wetlands Fight With Government,”

AG Web, August 30, 2021, https://www.agweb.com/news/crops/crop-production/regulatory-hell-farmer-and-

veteran-wins-10-year-wetlands-ﬁght (accessed December 15, 2022).



Fortunately, there are already resources available to help states establish their own wetlands conservation

programs. One particular example, the American Legislative Exchange Council’s Wetlands Mapping and

Protection Act model policy, is available for states to deﬁne the procedures, guidelines, and administration of

wetlands programs. American Legislative Exchange Council, “Wetlands Mapping and Protection Act,” November

16, 2017, https://alec.org/model-policy/wetlands-mapping-and-protection-act/ (accessed December 16, 2022). The

new Administration should focus on best practices instead of imposing prescriptive federal practices. It should

support the policies contained within the “NRCS Wetland Compliance and Appeals Reform Act” and modify NRCS

compliance rules to protect farmers and ranchers by adding protections against regulatory overreach—such as

banning the practice of re-engaging farmers in new technical determinations appeals processes for the same

areas of their farms. See NRCS Wetland Compliance and Appeals Reform Act, S. 4931, 117th Cong., 2nd Sess.,

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/4931?s=1&r=8 (accessed December 15, 2022).

 Ibid

 See, for example, Daren Bakst and Jeremy Dalrymple, “Reducing Federal Barriers for the Sale of Meat,”

Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No. 5078, June 1, 2020, https://www.heritage.org/agriculture/report/

reducing-federal-barriers-the-sale-meat, and U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection

Service, “State Inspection Programs,” updated January 12, 2023, https://www.fsis.usda.gov/inspection/state-

inspection-programs (accessed December 15, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service, “Cooperative Interstate Shipping

Program,” September 7, 2022, https://www.fsis.usda.gov/inspection/state-inspection-programs/cooperative-

interstate-shipping-program (accessed December 15, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, “State Inspection Programs.”

 The Senate bill removes obstacles for both meat and poultry. The House version does not appear to cover

poultry. New Markets for State-Inspected Meat and Poultry Act of 2021, S. 107, 117th Cong., 1st Sess., https://

www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/107#:~:text=This%20bill%20allows%20meat%20and,be%20

sold%20in%20interstate%20commerce (accessed December 15, 2022), and Expanding Markets for State-

Inspected Meat Processors Act of 2021, H.R. 1998, 117th Cong., 1st Sess., https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-

congress/house-bill/1998 (accessed December 15, 2022).

— 317 —

Department of Agriculture

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service, “Specialty Crops Marketing Orders &

Agreements,” https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/moa/fv (accessed December 15, 2022).

 See, for example, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service, “Commodities Covered

by Marketing Orders,” https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/moa/commodities (accessed March

18, 2023), and Elayne Allen and Darren Bakst, “How the Government Is Mandating Food Waste,” August 19,

2016, https://www.dailysignal.com/2016/08/19/how-the-government-is-mandating-food-waste/ (accessed

March 18, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service, “Frequently Asked Questions Regarding the

Beef Checko Program Petition Process,” https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/research-promotion/

beef/petition (accessed December 16, 2022); “Beef Producers: Do You Want to Vote on the Checko?” Beef

Magazine, July 28, 2020, https://www.beefmagazine.com/marketing/beef-producers-do-you-want-vote-

checko (accessed December 16, 2022); and Steve White, “Group Seeking Beef Checko Referendum Asks for

Access to Producer Database,” Nebraska TV, May 4, 2021, https://nebraska.tv/news/ntvs-grow/group-seeking-

beef-checko-referendum-asks-for-access-to-producer-database (accessed December 16, 2022). As reported,

“There has not been a referendum of the mandatory National Beef Checko Program in 35 years.”

 See, for example, Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 213 (November 8, 2021), p. 61718, https://www.govinfo.gov/

content/pkg/FR-2021-11-08/pdf/2021-24301.pdf (accessed December 16, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service, “Topics,” https://www.fas.usda.gov/topics

(accessed December 15, 2022).

 Ibid.

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service, “Market Access Program (MAP),” https://www.fas.

usda.gov/programs/market-access-program-map (accessed December 16, 2022).

 To learn about trade barriers for food and agricultural products, see, for example, News release, “USTR

Releases 2022 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers,” Oce of the U.S. Trade

Representative, March 31, 2022, https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-oces/press-oce/press-releases/2022/

march/ustr-releases-2022-national-trade-estimate-report-foreign-trade-barriers (accessed

December 16, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, “Recent Trends in GE Adoption,” September 14,

2022, https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/adoption-of-genetically-engineered-crops-in-the-u-s/recent-

trends-in-ge-adoption/ (accessed December 15, 2022).

 National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard, Public Law 114–216.

 Noi Mahoney, “Trade Dispute Arising Over Mexico’s Plan to Block Imports of Genetically Modiﬁed Corn,”

Freight Waves, November 22, 2022, https://www.freightwaves.com/news/trade-dispute-arising-over-

mexicos-plan-to-block-imports-of-gm-corn (accessed December 15, 2022), and News release, “Grassley, Ernst,

Urge USTR to Intervene In Mexico’s Ban on American Corn,” Oce of Chuck Grassley, November 14, 2022,

https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-ernst-urge-ustr-to-intervene-in-mexicos-ban-

on-american-corn (accessed December 15, 2022).

 “The Federal Land Management Agencies,” Congressional Research Service In Focus, updated February 16,

2021, https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF10585.pdf (accessed December 16, 2022).

 Ibid.

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service, Fiscal Year 2023: Budget Justiﬁcation, March 2022, p. 1,

https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/documents/30a-2023-FS.pdf (accessed December 16, 2022).

 Forests and Rangelands, The National Strategy: The Final Phase in the Development of the National Cohesive

Wildland Fire Management Strategy, April 2014, https://www.forestsandrangelands.gov/documents/strategy/

strategy/CSPhaseIIINationalStrategyApr2014.pdf (accessed December 16, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service, “Unplanned Fires,” https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/inyo/

landmanagement/resourcemanagement/?cid=stelprd3804071 (accessed December 16, 2022).

 See, for example, Sherry Devlin, “A Conversation with Jim Hubbard: Unplanned Wildﬁres Rule West’s

Forests,” TreeSource, March 28, 2017, https://treesource.org/news/lands/jim-hubbard-forest-service-wildﬁres/

(accessed December 16, 2022).

— 318 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service, “FY 1905–2021 National Summary Cut and Sold Data

Graphs,” https://www.fs.usda.gov/forestmanagement/documents/sold-harvest/documents/1905-2021_Natl_

Summary_Graph_wHarvestAcres.pdf (accessed December 16, 2022), and U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S.

Forest Service, “Forest Products Cut and Sold from the National Forests and Grasslands,” https://www.fs.usda.

gov/forestmanagement/products/cut-sold/index.shtml (accessed December 16, 2022).

 Donald J. Trump, “Promoting Active Management of America’s Forests, Rangelands, and Other Federal Lands

to Improve Conditions and Reduce Wildﬁre Risk,” Executive Order 13855, December 21, 2018, https://www.

govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-201800866/pdf/DCPD-201800866.pdf (accessed December 16, 2022).

 Ibid.

 Ibid.

 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/ (accessed December 16, 2022).

 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, “History of the Dietary Guidelines,” https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/

about-dietary-guidelines/history-dietary-guidelines (accessed December 16, 2022).

 Daren Bakst, “Extreme Environmental Agenda Hijacks Dietary Guidelines: Comment to the Advisory

Committee,” The Daily Signal, July 17, 2014, https://www.dailysignal.com/2014/07/17/extreme-environmental-

agenda-hijacks-dietary-guidelines-comment-advisory-committee/ (accessed December 16, 2022).

 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, S. 3307, 111th Cong., 2nd Sess., https://www.congress.gov/bill/111th-

congress/senate-bill/3307/text (accessed December 16, 2022), and Dietary Guidelines for Americans, “Current

Dietary Guidelines,” https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/usda-hhs-development-dietary-guidelines (accessed

December 16, 2022).

— 319 —

DEPARTMENT OF

EDUCATION

Lindsey M. Burke

MISSION

Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Depart-

ment of Education should be eliminated. When power is exercised, it should

empower students and families, not government. In our pluralistic society, fami-

lies and students should be free to choose from a diverse set of school options and

learning environments that best ﬁt their needs. Our postsecondary institutions

should also reﬂect such diversity, with room for not only “traditional” liberal arts

colleges and research universities but also faith-based institutions, career schools,

military academies, and lifelong learning programs.

Elementary and secondary education policy should follow the path outlined

by Milton Friedman in 1955, wherein education is publicly funded but education

decisions are made by families. Ultimately, every parent should have the option

to direct his or her child’s share of education funding through an education sav-

ings account (ESA), funded overwhelmingly by state and local taxpayers, which

would empower parents to choose a set of education options that meet their child's

unique needs.

States are eager to lead in K–12 education. For decades, they have acted inde-

pendently of the federal government to pioneer a variety of constructive reforms

and school choice programs. For example, in 2011, Arizona ﬁrst piloted ESAs, which

provide families roughly 90 percent of what the state would have spent on that

child in public school to be used instead on education options such as private school

tuition, online courses, and tutoring. In 2022, Arizona expanded the program to

be available to all families.

— 320 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

The future of education freedom and reform in the states is bright and will

shine brighter when regulations and red tape from Washington are eliminated.

Federal money is inevitably accompanied by rules and regulations that keep the

inﬂux of funds from having much, if any, impact on student outcomes. It raises the

cost of education without raising student achievement. To the extent that federal

taxpayer dollars are used to fund education programs, those funds should be block-

granted to states without strings, eliminating the need for many federal and state

bureaucrats. Eventually, policymaking and funding should take place at the state

and local level, closest to the aected families.

Although student loans and grants should ultimately be restored to the private

sector (or, at the very least, the federal government should revisit its role as a guarantor,

rather than direct lender) federal postsecondary education investments should bolster

economic growth, and recipient institutions should nourish academic freedom and

embrace intellectual diversity. That has not, however, been the track record of federal

higher education policy or of the many institutions of higher education that are hostile

to free expression, open academic inquiry, and American exceptionalism. Federal post-

secondary policy should be more than massive, inecient, and open-ended subsidies

to “traditional” colleges and universities. It should be rebalanced to focus far more on

bolstering the workforce skills of Americans who have no interest in pursuing a four-

year academic degree. It should reﬂect a fuller picture of learning after high school,

placing apprenticeship programs of all types and career and technical education on an

even playing ﬁeld with degrees from colleges and universities. Rather than continuing

to buttress a higher education establishment captured by woke “diversicrats” and a

de facto monopoly enforced by the federal accreditation cartel, federal postsecondary

education policy should prepare students for jobs in the dynamic economy, nurture

institutional diversity, and expose schools to greater market forces.

OVERVIEW

For most of our history, the federal government played a minor role in education.

Then, over a 14-month period beginning in 1964, Congress planted the seeds for

what would become the U.S. Department of Education (ED or the department).

In July of that year, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights

Act of 1964, after Congress reached a consensus that the mistreatment of black

Americans was no longer tolerable and merited a federal response. In the case

of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA)

and the Higher

Education Act of 1965 (HEA),

Congress sought to improve educational outcomes

for disadvantaged students by providing additional compensatory funding for

low-income children and lower-income college students.

Spending on ESEA and the HEA—part of Johnson’s “War on Poverty”—grew

exponentially in the years that followed. By Fiscal Year 2022, ESEA programs

received $27.7 billion in appropriations, in addition to $190 billion that came

— 321 —

Department of Education

through the pandemic’s Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief

(ESSER) Funds,

which relied on ESEA formulas. The same year, the department

spent more than $2 billion just to administer Title IV of the HEA, which authorizes

federal student loans and Pell grants. It provided $22.5 billion in Pell grants, and

it oversaw outlays of close to $100 billion in direct student loans.

Since 1965, Congress has continued to layer on dozens of new laws and pro-

grams as federal “solutions” to myriad education problems. In 1973, it passed the

Rehabilitation Act,

and, in 1975, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

(IDEA)

to address educational neglect of students with disabilities. In 2002, it cre-

ated the Institute for Education Sciences to consolidate education data collection

and fund research. Congress has also enacted a series of Carl D. Perkins Career and

Technical Education Acts, including Perkins V in 2018.

Congress could have, and once did, distribute management of federal education

programs outside of a single department. But for those interested in expanding

federal funding and inﬂuence in education, this unconsolidated approach was less

than ideal, because a single, captive agency would allow them to promote their

agenda more eectively across Administrations. Eventually, the National Educa-

tion Association made a deal and backed the right presidential candidate— Jimmy

Carter—who successfully lobbied for and delivered the Cabinet-level agency.

When it was established in 1979—becoming operational in 1980—the agency

was supposed to act as a “corralling” mechanism. Carter signed the Department

of Education Organization Act

into law in 1979, believing in part that it would

reduce administrative costs and improve eciency by housing most of the federal

education programs that had proliferated in the wake of Johnson’s War on Poverty

under one roof.

It has had the opposite eect. Instead, special interest groups like the National

Education Association (NEA), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the

higher education lobby have leveraged the agency to continuously expand federal

expenditures—a desirable funding stream from their vantage point because federal

budgets are not constrained like state and local budgets that must be balanced each

year. By FY 2022, the department’s discretionary and mandatory appropriation

topped $80 billion, not including student loan outlays. Each of its programs has

attendant federal strings and red tape.

One recent example is the Biden Administration’s requirement that state educa-

tion agencies and school districts submit “equity” plans as a condition of receiving

COVID recovery ESSER funds in the American Rescue Plan (ARP).

This exercise

led to the hiring of numerous new government employees as the rules were pro-

mulgated, plans were created after collecting public feedback, and those plans

were eventually deemed satisfactory.

The next Administration will need a plan to redistribute the various congres-

sionally approved federal education programs across the government, eliminate

— 322 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

those that are ineective or duplicative, and then eliminate the unproductive red

tape and rules by entrusting states and districts with ﬂexible, formula-driven block

grants. This chapter details that plan.

As the next Administration executes its work, it should be guided by a few core

principles, including:

Advancing education freedom. Empowering families to choose among

a diverse set of education options is key to reform and improved outcomes,

and it can be achieved without establishing a new federal program. For

example, portability of existing federal education spending to fund families

directly or allowing federal tax credits to encourage voluntary contributions

to K–12 education savings accounts managed by charitable nonproﬁts, could

signiﬁcantly advance education choice.

Providing education choice for “federal” children. Congress has a

special responsibility to children who are connected to military families,

who live in the District of Columbia, or who are members of sovereign tribes.

Responsibility for serving these students should be housed in agencies that

are already serving these families.

Restoring state and local control over education funding. As

Washington begins to downsize its intervention in education, existing

funding should be sent to states as grants over which they have full control,

enabling states to put federal funding toward any lawful education purpose

under state law.

Treating taxpayers like investors in federal student aid. Taxpayers

should expect their investments in higher education to generate economic

productivity. When the federal government lends money to individuals for a

postsecondary education, taxpayers should expect those borrowers to repay.

Protecting the federal student loan portfolio from predatory

politicians. The new Administration must end the practice of acting like

the federal student loan portfolio is a campaign fund to curry political

support and votes. The new Administration must end abuses in the loan

forgiveness programs. Borrowers should be expected to repay their loans.

Safeguarding civil rights. Enforcement of civil rights should be based on

a proper understanding of those laws, rejecting gender ideology and critical

race theory.

— 323 —

Department of Education

Stopping executive overreach. Congress should set policy—not

Presidents through pen-and-phone executive orders, and not agencies

through regulations and guidance. National emergency declarations should

expire absent express congressional authorization within 60 days after the

date of the declaration.

Bolstered by an ever-growing cabal of special interests that thrive o federal

largesse, the infrastructure that supports America’s costly federal intervention

in education from early childhood through graduate school has entrenched itself.

But, unlike the public sector bureaucracies, public employee unions, and the higher

education lobby, families and students do not need a Department of Education

to learn, grow, and improve their lives. It is critical that the next Administration

tackle this entrenched infrastructure.

NEEDED REFORMS

Federal intervention in education has failed to promote student achievement.

After trillions spent since 1965 on the collective programs now housed within

the walls of the department, student academic outcomes remain stagnant. On

the main National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), reading out-

comes on the 2022 administration have remained unchanged over the past 30

years. Declines in math performance are even more concerning than students’

lack of progress on reading outcomes. Fourth- and eighth-grade math scores

saw the largest decline since the assessments were ﬁrst administered in 1990.

Average fourth-grade math scores declined ﬁve points, and average eighth-grade

math scores declined eight points. Just one-third of eighth graders nationally

are proﬁcient in reading and math. Just 27 percent of eighth graders were pro-

ﬁcient in math in 2022, and just 31 percent of eighth graders scored proﬁcient

in reading in 2022.

The NAEP Long-term Trend Assessment shows academic stagnation since the

1970s, with particular stagnation in the reading scores of 13-year-old students since

1971, when the assessment was ﬁrst administered. Math scores, though modestly

improved, are still lackluster.

Additionally, the department has created a “shadow” department of education

operating in states across the country. Federal mandates, programs, and proclama-

tions have spurred a hiring spree among state education agencies, with more than

48,000 employees currently on sta in state agencies across the country. Those

employees are more than 10 times the number of employees (4,400)

at the federal

Department of Education, and their jobs largely entail reporting back to Washing-

ton. Research conducted by The Heritage Foundation’s Jonathan Butcher ﬁnds

that the federal government funds 41 percent of the salary costs of state educa-

tion agencies.

— 324 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

A heritage.org

SOURCES: The Nation’s Report Card, “National Average Scores,” Grade 4, https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/

reading/nation/scores/?grade=4 (accessed March 17, 2023), and The Nation’s Report Card, “National Average

Scores,” Grade 8, https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading/nation/scores/?grade=4 (accessed March 17, 2023).

FOURTH-GRADE READING, AVERAGE SCORES

CHART 1

Trends in Fourth- and Eighth-Grade Reading

210

215

220

225

202220192017201520132011200920072005’03’022000199819941992

EIGHTH-GRADE READING, AVERAGE SCORES

255

260

265

270

202220192017201520132011200920072005’03’02199819941992

217

220

260

263

— 325 —

Department of Education

This bloat has persisted for decades. In 1998, a commission led by Repre-

sentative Pete Hoekstra released a critical report based on extensive ﬁeldwork,

interviews, and analysis of the Department of Education. The report, Education

at a Crossroads: What Works and What’s Wasted in Education Today, detailed the

suocating bureaucratic red tape Carter’s agency had wrapped around states.

The

commission estimated that states completed nearly 50 million hours of paperwork

just to get their federal education spending, which at that time, they estimated,

resulted in just 65 cents to 70 cents of each federal taxpayer dollar making its way

to the classroom. The situation has only worsened since the Hoekstra report. More

recent evidence of Washington’s bureaucratic paperwork burden can be found

in the growing number of non-teaching sta in public schools across the country,

which doubled relative to growth in student enrollment from 1992 to 2015.

The labyrinthian nature of federal education programs—convoluted funding

formulas, competitive grant applications, reporting requirements, etc.—has likely

contributed to the considerable bureaucratic bloat in state and local school districts

across the country and is one of the key areas of needed reform. Streamlining exist-

ing programs and funding so that dollars are sent to states through straightforward

per-pupil allocations or in the form of grants that states can put toward any lawful edu-

cation purpose under state law would bring a needed easing of the federal compliance

burden. The federal government should conﬁne its involvement in education policy

to that of a statistics-gathering agency that disseminates information to the states.

To improve educational opportunities for all Americans, the next Administra-

tion should work with Congress to pass a Department of Education Reorganization

Act to reform, eliminate, or move the department’s programs and oces to appro-

priate agencies. The following is an overview of what should happen within each

of the oces and to each of the programs currently operated by the department.

PROGRAM AND OFFICE PRIORITIZATION WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT

Oce of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE)

The OESE is comprised of 36 programs, ranging from Title I, Part A, of the

Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Impact Aid, to programs for Native

American students and the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.

Reduce the number of programs managed by OESE, and transfer

some remaining programs to other federal agencies.

Transfer Title I, Part A, which provides federal funding for lower-

income school districts, to the Department of Health and Human

Services, speciﬁcally the Administration for Children and Families. It

should be administered as a no-strings-attached formula block grant.

— 326 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Restore revenue responsibility for Title I funding to the states over a

10-year period.

OESE also currently manages the federal Impact Aid program, which provides fund-

ing to school districts to compensate for reductions in property tax revenue due to the

presence of federal property (such as that associated with a military base or tribal lands).

Eliminate Impact Aid not tied to students.

Move student-driven Impact Aid programs to the Department

of Defense Education Authority (DoDEA) or the Department of

Interior’s Bureau of Indian Education.

Transfer all Indian education programs to the Bureau of

Indian Education.

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which provides vouchers

to low-income children living in the nation’s capital—appropriate as

D.C. is under the jurisdiction of Congress—should be expanded into a

universal program, formula-funded, and moved to the Department of

Health and Human Services.

All other programs at OESE should be block-granted or eliminated.

Oce of Career, Technical, and Adult Education

Transfer the Oce of Career, Technical, and Adult Education’s few

programs to the Department of Labor, but

Move the Tribally Controlled Postsecondary Career and Technical

Education Program to the Bureau of Indian Education.

Oce of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS)

The Oce of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) houses

nearly two dozen programs, ranging from funding for the Individuals with Dis-

abilities Education Act (IDEA) and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf

to Special Olympics Funding and the American Printing House for the Blind.

Most IDEA funding should be converted into a no-strings formula

block grant targeted at students with disabilities and distributed

directly to local education agencies by Health and Human Service’s

Administration for Community Living.

— 327 —

Department of Education

Transfer the Vocational Rehabilitation Grants for Native American

students to the Bureau of Indian Education.

Phase out earmarks for a variety of special institutions, as

originally envisioned.

To the extent that OSERS supports federal eorts to enforce our laws

against discrimination of individuals with disabilities, those assets

should be moved to the Department of Justice (DOJ) along with the

Oce for Civil Rights (OCR).

Oce for Postsecondary Education (OPE)

The next Administration should work with Congress to eliminate or

move OPE programs to ETA at the Department of Labor.

Funding to institutions should be block-granted and narrowed to

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and tribally

controlled colleges.

Move programs deemed important to our national security interests

to the Department of State.

Institute of Education Sciences (IES)

Move ED’s statistical oce, the National Commission for Education

Statistics (NCES), to the Department of Commerce’s Census

Bureau. If Congress believes the federal government can play a valuable

research role, those research centers can be moved to the National Science

Foundation. If Congress decides to maintain IES as an independent agency,

it needs to address major governance and management issues that keep

it from being a productive contributor to the knowledge base related to

teaching and learning.

Oce of Federal Student Aid (FSA)

The next Administration should completely reverse the student loan

federalization of 2010 and work with Congress to spin o FSA and

its student loan obligations to a new government corporation with

professional governance and management.

With a statutory charge that it preserve the federal student loan portfolio for

the beneﬁt of the taxpayers and students, this new entity would be (1) profession-

ally governed by an agency head and board of trustees appointed by the President

— 328 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

A heritage.org

SOURCES: The Nation’s Report Card, “National Average Scores,” Grade 4, https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/

mathematics/nation/scores/?grade=4 (accessed March 17, 2023), and The Nation’s Report Card, “National Average

Scores,” Grade 8, https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/mathematics/nation/scores/?grade=4 (accessed March 17, 2023).

FOURTH-GRADE MATH, AVERAGE SCORES

CHART 2

Trends in Fourth- and Eighth-Grade Mathematics

210

220

230

240

250

20222019201720152013201120092007200520032000199619921990

EIGHTH-GRADE MATH, AVERAGE SCORES

260

270

280

290

300

20222019201720152013201120092007200520032000199619921990

236

241

274

282

— 329 —

Department of Education

A heritage.org

SOURCE: The Nation’s Report Card, “NAEP Data Explorer,” https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?

n=PET&s=WCSSTUS1&f=W (accessed March 17, 2023).

READING, AVERAGE SCORES

CHART 3

Long-Term Trends for Nine– and 13–Year-Olds













’’’’’

MATH, AVERAGE SCORES













’’’’

13–YEAR-OLDS

NINE–YEAR-OLDS

260

263

280

285

220

221

241

244

— 330 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

with the advice and consent of the Senate; (2) funded with annual appropriations

from Congress; and (3) operated by professional managers. Federal loans would

be assigned directly to the Treasury Department, which would manage collections

and defaults. The new federal student loan authority would manage the loan port-

folio, handle borrower relations, administer loan applications and disbursements,

monitor institutional participation and accountability issues, and issue regulations.

Oce for Civil Rights (OCR)

OCR should move to the Department of Justice. The federal government

has an essential responsibility to enforce civil rights protections, but

Washington should do so through the Department of Justice and federal

courts. The OCR at DOJ should be able to enforce only through litigation.

Additional Bureaus and Oces

For those attorneys, accountants, experts, and specialists in the department's

remaining oces subject to closure whose positions might nevertheless be a key

component of serving the mission—positions that might include the Oce of the

Secretary/Deputy Secretary, Oce of the Undersecretary, Oce of the General

Counsel, Oce of the Inspector General, Oce of Finance and Operations, Oce of

the Chief Information Ocer, Oce of Communications and Outreach, and Oce

of Legislative and Congressional Aairs—the opportunity to join other agencies

based on their expertise and the needs of other agencies should be made available.

For example, OGC higher education lawyers would join the newly independent

Federal Student Aid Oce or the Department of Labor, and OGC civil rights attor-

neys would join DOJ. These positions must ﬁrst be determined to serve a continued

mission need prior to being transferred.

Attorneys, accountants, experts, and specialists in the department’s

remaining oces subject to closure, and whose positions are

indispensable to serving the mission, should have the opportunity to

join other agencies.

Current Laws Relating to the Department of

Education That Require Repeal

In order to fully wind down the Department of Education, Congress must pass

and the President must sign into law a Department of Education Reorganization

Act (or Liquidating Authority Act) to direct the executive branch on how to devolve

the agency as a stand-alone Cabinet-level department.

Congress should pass and the next President should sign a

Department of Education Reorganization Act.

— 331 —

Department of Education

Current Regulations Promulgated by or Relevant to the

Agency That Should Be Rolled Back or Eliminated

While the next Administration works to distribute department programs

across the federal government, it will need to thoroughly review the many educa-

tion-related regulations promulgated by the Biden Administration. There are ﬁve

primary regulatory targets (as of December 2022) that require the next Adminis-

tration’s attention: regulations on (1) Charter School Grant Program Priorities; (2)

Civil Rights Data Collection; (3) Student Assistance General Provisions, Federal

Perkins Loan Program, and William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program Final

Regulations; (4) Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or

Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance (Title IX); and (5) Assistance

to States for the Education of Children with Disabilities, Preschool Grants for

Children with Disabilities (Equity in IDEA). The next Administration should also

review regulatory changes to the school meals program (under the Department of

Agriculture) and changes to the Income-Driven student loan program. Additional

Biden Administration regulations on (1) gainful employment, administrative capa-

bility, and ﬁnancial responsibility for institutions that participate in the federal

student loans and grant programs; (2) Title VI, (3) accreditation of postsecondary

institutions, and (4) female athletics are expected in to be released in 2023.

Thoroughly review the many education-related regulations

promulgated by the Biden Administration, as well as the school meals

program and the Income-Driven student loan program.

Charter School Grant Programs

Congress ﬁrst authorized the Charter School Program (CSP) in 1994 [Title X,

Part C of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended,

20 U.S.C. § 8061 et seq. (1994)]. It most recently reauthorized the program in 2015

as part of the Every Student Succeeds Act.

On March 14, 2022, the department

published a notice concerning proposed priorities, requirements, deﬁnitions, and

grant selection criteria relating to the award of federal grants to applicants in CSP.

This proposal increases the federal footprint in the charter school sector by ignor-

ing statute and adding to the list of requirements imposed on charter schools.

The new Administration must take immediate steps to rescind

the new requirements and lessen the federal restrictions on

charter schools.

Civil Rights Data Collection

On December 13, 2021, OCR published a notice concerning proposed revisions

to OCR’s Mandatory Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) in which it proposed

— 332 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

to create and collect data on a new “nonbinary” sex category (in addition to the

current “male” or “female” sex categories) and to retire data collection that indi-

cates the number of (1) high school–level interscholastic athletics sports in which

only male and female students participate, (2) high school–level athletics teams

in which only male or female students participate, and (3) participants on high

school–level interscholastic athletics sports teams in which only male or only

female students participate. These poorly conceived changes are contrary to law,

fail to take account of student privacy interests and statutory protections favoring

parental rights under the Protection of Pupils Rights Amendment, and jettison

longstanding data collections that assist in the enforcement of Title IX.

The new Administration must quickly move to rescind these changes,

which add a new “nonbinary” sex category to OCR’S data collection

and issue a new CRDC that will collect data directly relevant to OCR’s

statutory enforcement authority.

Student Assistance General Provisions, Federal Perkins Loan Program,

and William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program Final Regulations

Eective July 1, 2023, the department promulgated ﬁnal regulations addressing

loan forgiveness under the HEA’s provisions for borrower defense to repayment

(“BDR”), closed school loan discharge (“CSLD”), and public service loan forgive-

ness (“PSLF”). The regulations also included prohibitions against pre-dispute

arbitration agreements and class action waivers for students enrolling in institu-

tions participating in Title IV student loan programs. Acting outside of statutory

authority, the current Administration has drastically expanded BDR, CSLD, and

PSLF loan forgiveness without clear congressional authorization at a tremendous

cost to the taxpayers, with estimates ranging from $85.1 to $120 billion.

The new Administration must quickly commence negotiated

rulemaking and propose that the department rescind these regulations.

The next Administration should also rescind Dear Colleague Letter

(DCL) GEN 22-11 and DCL GEN 22-10 and its letters to accreditation

agencies dated July 19, 2022, which are attempts to undercut Florida’s

SB 7044, providing universities more ﬂexibility on accreditation.

Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or

Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance (Title IX)

With its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published on July 12, 2022, the Biden

Education Department seeks to gut the hard-earned rights of women with its

changes to the department’s regulations implementing Title IX, which prohibits

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discrimination on the basis of sex in educational programs and activities. Instead,

the Biden Administration has sought to trample women’s and girls’ athletic oppor-

tunities and due process on campus, threaten free speech and religious liberty, and

erode parental rights in elementary and secondary education regarding sensitive

issues of sex. The new Administration should take the following steps:

Work with Congress to use the earliest available legislative vehicle

to prohibit the department from using any appropriations or from

otherwise enforcing any ﬁnal regulations under Title IX promulgated

by the department during the prior Administration.

Commence a new agency rulemaking process to rescind the

current Administration’s Title IX regulations; restore the Title IX

regulations promulgated by then-Secretary Betsy DeVos on May 19,

2020; and deﬁne “sex” under Title IX to mean only biological sex

recognized at birth.

Work with Congress to amend Title IX to include due process

requirements; deﬁne “sex” under Title IX to mean only biological

sex recognized at birth; and strengthen protections for faith-based

educational institutions, programs, and activities.

The Trump Administration’s 2020 Title IX regulation protected the founda-

tional right to due process for those who are accused of sexual misconduct. The

Biden Administration’s proposed change to the interpretation of Title IX disposes

of these rights.

The next Administration should move quickly to restore the rights

of women and girls and restore due process protections for accused

individuals.

At the same time, there is no scientiﬁc or legal basis for redeﬁning “sex” to

“sexual orientation and gender identity” in Title IX. Such a change misrepresents

the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Bostock, threatens the American system of

federalism, removes important due process protections for students in higher

education, and puts girls and women in danger of physical harm. Facilitating social

gender transition without parental consent increases the likelihood that children

will seek hormone treatments, such as puberty blockers, which are experimental

medical interventions. Research has not demonstrated positive eects and long-

term outcomes of these treatments, and the unintended side eects are still not

fully understood.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

The next Administration should abandon this change redeﬁning

“sex” to mean “sexual orientation and gender identity” in Title IX

immediately across all departments.

On its ﬁrst day in oce, the next Administration should signal

its intent to enter the rulemaking process to restore the Trump

Administration’s Title IX regulation, with the additional insistence

that “sex” is properly understood as a ﬁxed biological fact. Ocial

notice-and-comment should be posted immediately.

At the same time, the political appointees in the Oce for Civil

Rights should begin a full review of all Title IX investigations that

were conducted on the understanding that “sex” referred to gender

identity and/or sexual orientation.

All ongoing investigations should be dropped, and all school districts

aected should be given notice that they are free to drop any policy

changes pursued under pressure from the Biden Administration.

The OCR Assistant Secretary should prepare a report of OCR’s actions

for the new Secretary of Education, who should—by speech or letter—

publicize the nature of the overreach engaged in by his predecessor.

The Secretary should make it clear that FERPA allows parents full

access to their children’s educational records, so any practice of

paperwork obfuscation on this front violates federal law.

Title VI—School Discipline and Disparate Impact

Assuring a safe and orderly school environment should be a primary consid-

eration for school leaders and district administrators. Unfortunately, federal

overreach has pushed many school leaders to prioritize the pursuit of racial parity

in school discipline indicators—such as detentions, suspensions, and expulsions—

over student safety. In 2014, the Obama Administration issued a Dear Colleague

Letter that muddied the standard for civil rights enforcement under Title VI for

student discipline cases. Before the DCL, a school would be in violation of federal

law for treating black and white students dierently for the same oense (dispa-

rate treatment); under the Obama Administration schools were at risk of losing

federal funding if they treated black and white students equally but had aggregate

dierences in the rates of school discipline by race (disparate impact).

OCR leveraged federal civil rights investigations as policy enforcement tools;

these investigations could only end when school districts agreed to adopt lenient

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discipline policies, commonly known as “restorative justice.” Academic studies,

as well as student and teacher surveys, suggest that academics and school climate

have been harmed substantially by this push.

The Trump Administration rescinded the Obama Administration’s guidance

on school discipline and corrected the Obama Administration’s overreach in Title

VI enforcement.

The next Administration should continue the policy of the Trump

Administration in this area and direct the department to conduct a

comprehensive review of all Title VI cases to ascertain to what extent

these cases include allegations of disparate impact.

OCR should also review all resolution agreements with school

districts to conform with this policy.

As part of this eort, the new Administration should also direct the

department and DOJ jointly to issue enforcement guidance stating

that the agencies will no longer investigate Title VI cases that

exclusively rest on allegations of disparate impact.

To the extent that the Biden Administration publishes guidance

or promulgates a regulation on this topic, the next Administration

should rescind the guidance and commence rulemaking to rescind

the regulation.

Getting the federal government out of the business of dictating school discipline

policy is a good start. But if the next conservative Department of Education simply

rescinds the Biden-era regulation, it could very easily be enforced again on Day

One through a Dear Colleague Letter by another leftist Administration.

In addition to rescinding the policy and any related guidance, the next

Secretary should work with the next Attorney General on a regulation

that would clarify current regulations to state that Title VI of the

Civil Rights Act does not include a disparate impact standard.

As law professor Gail Heriot has noted, the alleged existence of a disparate

impact standard under Title VI makes everything presumed illegal unless given

special dispensation by the federal government.

Although it would require political capital from the White House,

given that mainstream news outlets are sure to frame it as an attack

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

on civil rights, the next conservative Administration should take

sweeping action to assure that the purpose of the Civil Rights Act is

not inverted through a disparate impact standard to provide a pretext

for theoretically endless federal meddling.

Assistance to States for the Education of Children with Disabilities;

Preschool Grants for Children with Disabilities (Equity in IDEA)

Eective January 18, 2017, the department issued ﬁnal regulations

under Part B of IDEA that require states to consider race and ethnicity

in the identiﬁcation, placement, and discipline of students with

disabilities. The new Administration should rescind this regulation.

Students should never be denied access to special education services because of

their race or ethnicity, but this is happening in school districts across the country

thanks to the Obama Administration’s Equity in IDEA regulation. This was not the

intent of the regulation, but it is an inevitable byproduct of its ﬂawed assumptions.

The Obama Administration looked at the racial statistics on special education

assignment and made two assumptions: that African American students were dis-

proportionately overrepresented, and that this overrepresentation constituted a

harm that required federal pressure to ameliorate.

School districts deemed to overrepresent minority students in special education

assignment, or in discipline amongst special education students, are tagged by

their state education agencies as engaging in “signiﬁcant disproportionality,” and

are required to reallocate 15 percent of their IDEA Part B money into coordinated

early intervening services that are intended to address the “root causes of dispro-

portionality.” In practice, this can mean raiding special education funding to pay

for CRT-inspired “equity” consultants and professional development.

This is especially problematic given that both of the assumptions behind Equity

in IDEA are ﬂawed. Special education services provide extra assistance to students;

they do not harm them. And according to the most rigorous research on the subject,

conducted by Penn State’s Paul Morgan, black students are actually underrep-

resented in special education once adequate statistical controls are made. That

means that this regulation eectively further depresses the provision of valuable

services to an already underserved group.

The next Administration should immediately commence rulemaking

to rescind the Equity in IDEA regulation. No replacement regulation

is required.

The Oce of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS)

should prepare a digest of the best research on this subject and share

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Department of Education

it directly with state superintendents and state special education

leaders across the country, who have been led by this regulation to

believe a false problem diagnosis. Every eort should be made to dissuade

states from continuing to operate on the assumption that overrepresentation

requires state intervention after the federal pressure is rescinded.

Provide School Meals to Children in Need; Do Not Use

Federal Meals to Support Radical Ideology

In May 2022, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) tried to advance a

radical political agenda using the federal school meal program. Nearly a century

ago, federal lawmakers adopted the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and

School Breakfast Program (SBP) and other services that provide meals for K–12

students to give children from low-income families access to food while at school.

Since the 1940s, federal lawmakers have greatly expanded these meal programs,

creating an entitlement for nearly all students, regardless of family income levels,

and have turned the meal programs into some of the most wasteful federal pro-

grams in Washington. Now, the USDA is threatening to withhold federal taxpayer

spending for these meals from schools that do not implement Title IX of the

Education Amendments of 1972 so that the term “sex” is replaced with “sexual

orientation and gender identity” (SOGI).

The next Administration should prohibit the USDA or any other

federal agency from withholding services from federal or state

agencies—including but not limited to K–12 schools—that choose not to

replace “sex” with “SOGI” in that agency’s administration of Title IX.

The Administration will have signiﬁcant support for this policy change among

state ocials and Members of Congress. Twenty-two state attorneys general ﬁled

a lawsuit after the USDA’s announcement that the agency intended to withhold

spending from schools that do not replace sex with SOGI. Members of Congress

also introduced legislation in 2022 that would prohibit the agency from carrying

out its intentions regarding Title IX.

Phase Out Existing Income-Driven Repayment Plans

While income-driven repayment (IDR) of student loans is a superior approach

relative to ﬁxed payment plans, the number of IDR plans has proliferated beyond

reason. And recent IDR plans are so generous that they require no or only token

repayment from many students.

The Secretary should phase out all existing IDR plans by making new

loans (including consolidation loans) ineligible and should implement

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

a new IDR plan. The new plan should have an income exemption equal to

the poverty line and require payments of 10 percent of income above the

exemption. If new legislation is possible, there should be no loan forgiveness,

but if not, existing law would require forgiving any remaining balance

after 25 years.

President Biden has proposed a new income-driven repayment program that

would be extremely generous to borrowers, requiring only nominal payments from

most students. It would turn every policy lever to the most generous setting on

record (e.g., lowering the percentage of income owed from 10 percent to 25 per-

cent under existing plans to 5 percent, lowering the number of years of payment

required from 20 or 25 years to 10 years, and increasing income exemption from

150 percent to 225 percent of the poverty line). The median borrower who earns an

associate degree would owe only $15 a month, regardless of how much he or she had

borrowed. The median bachelor’s degree borrower would owe only $68 a month.

This plan essentially converts these student loans into delayed grant programs.

OTHER STRUCTURAL REFORMS THAT THE

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION REQUIRES

Reform Federal Education Data Collection

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and other data col-

lections currently release data by race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, English

language proﬁciency, disability, and sex. However, one of the most important—if

not the most important—factor inﬂuencing student educational achievement and

attainment is family structure. As education scholar Ian Rowe has noted, NAEP

already collects data on students’ family structure; it just does not make those

data publicly available.

The Department of Education (or whichever agency collects such

data long term) should make student data available by family

structure to the public, including as part of its Data Explorer tool.

As discussed above, data collection eorts should be consolidated

under the Census Bureau.

Data collection eorts in higher education should also be improved

by housing higher education data at the Department of Labor. This

would provide more transparency in evaluating postsecondary education

and workforce training program outcomes; contextualize those results

based on trends observed more generally; enable the adjusting of real

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Department of Education

wages to account for regional dierences in earnings and cost of living; and

develop a reliable methodology for risk adjusting institutional and program

outcomes to more accurately reﬂect the value added of education programs

(as opposed to their admissions selectivity).

Currently the Department of Education relies on graduation rates and average

earnings as proxies for educational quality. Both of those outcomes, however, are

highly dependent upon a student’s socioeconomic background, sex, family status,

and other factors. Colleges and universities with selective admissions policies post

the strongest outcomes, primarily because they admit mostly low-risk, traditional

students. Open enrollment institutions post the weakest outcomes, largely because

life is challenging and complicated for low-income and non-traditional students,

who may be forced to drop out when a work schedule changes, a child needs more

attention, or an unexpected repair or medical bill makes continuing impossible.

Such confounding factors make it dicult to isolate the impact of educational qual-

ity versus socioeconomic factors on student outcomes. The Department of Health

and Human Services faced similar challenges in trying to evaluate healthcare out-

comes since social determinants of health result in worse health outcomes among

those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, have low educational attainment

levels, have struggled with addiction, or have poor diet and exercise habits. Without

risk adjustment of outcomes, hospitals treating wealthy patients will always appear

to be delivering good care, and hospitals treating low-income patients will appear

to be delivering poor care. Higher education outcomes data should be similarly

“risk adjusted” to more carefully isolate the impact of educational quality versus

socioeconomic status and other factors on college outcomes.

Reform the Negotiated Rulemaking Process at ED

The U.S. Department of Education is required by statute

to engage in nego-

tiated rulemaking prior to promulgating new regulations under Subchapter 1 of

the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as well as Subchapters II (Teacher

Quality Enhancements) and IV of the Higher Education Act of 1964 (Student

Assistance). The purpose of negotiated rulemaking is to engage a committee of

stakeholders early in the drafting of proposed regulations to ensure that the reg-

ulation can be implemented as written, to understand any potential unintended

consequences, and to seek suggestions from stakeholders on alternative solutions.

The goal is for the negotiators to reach a consensus, thus smoothing the way to

promulgate a new rule.

Although it is helpful for the department to receive stakeholder input, the

negotiated rulemaking process has become an expensive and time-consuming

undertaking. Consensus is only rarely reached, enabling the department to pursue

its own path. The department’s master calendar (which requires ﬁnal rules to be

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

published by October 1 if they are to be implemented by July 1st of the subsequent

year) compounds the problem, making it unduly challenging to update regulations

as needed to keep pace with changes in education, ﬁnance, accounting, pedagogy,

and student assessment.

In recent decades, negotiated rulemaking has become a veritable three-ring

circus, replete with negotiators who use their Twitter accounts and other social

media feeds during negotiations to denigrate the process and their peer negoti-

ators in real time. A few Members of Congress use the public comment process

to deliver political speeches, apparently to raise their own proﬁles but without

adding any new information to the process. Some advocacy groups have latched

onto the process for fundraising purposes, sometimes misrepresenting negotiation

language to agitate followers and supporters and encourage them to make ﬁnancial

contributions. At times, the department itself has appeared to sabotage consensus,

which enables them to write the regulation as they wish and without regard to the

concerns raised by negotiators.

The Department of Education should work with Congress to amend

the HEA to eliminate the negotiated rulemaking requirement. At

a minimum, Congress should allow the department to use public

hearings rather than negotiated rulemaking sessions.

Reform the Oce of Federal Student Aid

This proposal urges the new Administration to end the abuse of FSA’s loan for-

giveness programs, to manage the federal student loan portfolio in a professional

way, and to work with Congress for a long-term overhaul of the program for the

beneﬁt of students and taxpayers.

The new Administration must end the prior Administration’s abuse

of the agency’s payment pause and HEA loan forgiveness programs,

including borrower defense to repayment, closed school discharge,

and Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

The new Administration should also take immediate steps to

commence the rulemaking process to rescind or substantially modify

the prior Administration’s HEA regulations.

The federal government does not have the proper incentives to

make sound lending decisions, so the new Administration should

consider returning to a system in which private lenders, backed

by government guarantees, would compete to oer student loans,

including subsidized and unsubsidized, loans. This would allow for

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Department of Education

market prices and signals to inﬂuence educational borrowing, introducing

consumer-driven accountability into higher education. Pell grants should

retain their current voucher-like structure.

If Congress is unwilling to reform federal student aid, then the next Adminis-

tration should consider the following reforms:

Switch to fair-value accounting from FCRA accounting, and

Consolidate all federal loan programs into one new program that

1. Utilizes income-driven repayment,

2. Includes no interest rate subsidies or loan forgiveness,

3. Includes annual and aggregate limits on borrowing, and

4. Requires “skin in the game” from colleges to help hold them

accountable for loan repayment.

The Biden Administration has mercilessly pillaged the student loan portfolio

for crass political purposes without regard to the needs of current taxpayers or

future students. This must never happen again.

As detailed in Section III, the next Administration should work

with Congress to spin o federal student aid into a new government

corporation with professional governance and management.

NEW POLICY PRIORITIES FOR 2025 AND BEYOND

New Legislation That Should Be Prioritized

For nearly 250 years, Congress has incorporated public and private institutions,

including banks, the District of Columbia’s city government, and other organiza

tions that federal ocials deem to be conducting operations in the public interest.

Such charters oer a certain status to organizations, often viewed as a “seal of

approval” according to one Congressional Research Service report, which can help

these organizations in their fundraising and other advocacy eorts.

When the nation’s largest teacher association, the National Education Associ-

ation (NEA), cites its federal charter, it lends the NEA a level of signiﬁcance and

suggests an eectiveness that is not supported by evidence. In fact, the NEA and

the nation’s other large teacher union, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT),

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

use litigation and other eorts to block school choice and advocate for additional

taxpayer spending in education. They also lobbied to keep schools closed during

the pandemic. All of these positions run contrary to robust research evidence

showing positive outcomes for students from education choice policies; there is

no conclusive evidence that more taxpayer spending on schools improves student

outcomes; and evidence ﬁnds that keeping schools closed to in-person learning

resulted in negative emotional and academic outcomes for students. Furthermore,

the union promotes radical racial and gender ideologies in schools that parents

oppose according to nationally representative surveys.

Congress should rescind the National Education Association’s

congressional charter and remove the false impression that

federal taxpayers support the political activities of this special

interest group.

This move would not be unprecedented, as Congress has rescinded the federal

charters of other organizations over the past century. The NEA is a demonstrably

radical special interest group that overwhelmingly supports left-of-center policies

and policymakers.

Members should conduct hearings to determine how much federal

taxpayer money the NEA has used for radical causes favoring a single

political party.

Parental Rights in Education and Safeguarding Students

Federal ocials should protect educators and students in

jurisdictions under federal control from racial discrimination by

reinforcing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and prohibiting compelled

speech. Speciﬁcally, no teacher or student in Washington, D.C., public

schools, Bureau of Indian Education schools, or Department of Defense

schools should be compelled to believe, profess, or adhere to any idea, but

especially ideas that violate state and federal civil rights laws.

By its very design, critical race theory has an “applied” dimension, as its found-

ers state in their essays that deﬁne the theory. Those who subscribe to the theory

believe that racism (in this case, treating individuals dierently based on race) is

appropriate—necessary, even—making the theory more than merely an analyti-

cal tool to describe race in public and private life. The theory disrupts America’s

Founding ideals of freedom and opportunity. So, when critical race theory is used

as part of school activities such as mandatory anity groups, teacher training

programs in which educators are required to confess their privilege, or school

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Department of Education

assignments in which students must defend the false idea that America is sys-

temically racist, the theory is actively disrupting the values that hold communities

together such as equality under the law and colorblindness.

As such, lawmakers should design legislation that prevents the theory

from spreading discrimination.

For K–12 systems under their jurisdiction, federal lawmakers should

adopt proposals that say no individual should receive punishment or

beneﬁts based on the color of their skin.

Furthermore, school ocials should not require students or teachers

to believe that individuals are guilty or responsible for the actions of

others based on race or ethnicity.

Educators should not be forced to discuss contemporary political issues but

neither should they refrain from discussing certain subjects in an attempt to pro-

tect students from ideas with which they disagree. Proposals such as this should

result in robust classroom discussions, not censorship. At the state level, states

should require schools to post classroom materials online to provide maximum

transparency to parents.

Again, speciﬁcally for K–12 systems under federal authority,

Congress and the next Administration should support existing state

and federal civil rights laws and add to such laws a prohibition on

compelled speech.

Advancing Legal Protections for Parental Rights in Education

While the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts have consistently rec-

ognized that parents have the right and duty to direct the care and upbringing of

their children, they have not always treated parental rights as co-equal to other

fundamental rights—like free speech or the free exercise of religion. As a result,

some courts treat parental rights as a “second-tier” right and do not properly safe-

guard these rights against government infringement. The courts vary greatly over

which species of constitutional review (rational basis, intermediate scrutiny, and

strict scrutiny) to apply to parental rights cases.

This uncertainty has emboldened federal agencies to promote rules and poli-

cies that infringe parental rights. For example, under the Biden Administration’s

proposed Title IX regulations, schools could be required to assist a child with a

social or medical gender transition without parental consent or to withhold infor-

mation from parents about a child’s social transition (e.g., changing their names or

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

pronouns). The federal government could demand that schools include curriculum

or lessons regarding critical race or gender theory in a way that violates parental

rights, especially if it requires minors to disclose information about their religious

beliefs, or beliefs about race or gender in violation of the Protection of Pupil Rights

Amendment (20 USC Sec. 1232h).

To remedy the lack of clear and robust protection for parental rights, the next

Administration should:

Work to pass a federal Parents’ Bill of Rights that restores parental

rights to a “top-tier” right. Such legislation would give families a fair

hearing in court when the federal government enforces any policy against

parents in a way that undermines their right and responsibility to raise,

educate, and care for their children. The law would require the government

to satisfy “strict scrutiny”—the highest standard of judicial review—when

the government infringes parental rights.

Further ensure that any regulations that could impact parental

rights contain similar protections and require federal agencies to

demonstrate that their action meets strict scrutiny before a ﬁnal rule

is promulgated.

At the same time, Congress should also consider equipping parents with a

private right of action. Two federal laws provide certain privacy protections for

students attending educational institutions or programs funded by the department.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protects the privacy of

student education records and allows parents and students over the age of 18 to

inspect and review the student’s education records maintained by the school and

to request corrections to those records. FERPA also authorizes a number of excep-

tions to this records privacy protection that allow schools to disclose the student’s

education records without the consent or knowledge of the parent or student. The

Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) requires schools to obtain paren-

tal consent before asking questions, including surveys, about political aliations

or beliefs; mental or psychological issues; sexual behaviors or attitudes; critical

appraisals of family members; illegal or self-incriminating behavior; religious prac-

tices or beliefs; privileged relationships, as with doctors and clergy; and family

income, unless for program eligibility.

The diculty for parents is that FERPA and PPRA do not authorize a private

right of action. If a school refuses to comply with either statute, the only remedy is

for the parent or student (if over the age of 18) to ﬁle an administrative complaint

with the U.S. Department of Education, which must then work with the school

to obtain compliance before taking any action to suspend or terminate federal

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Department of Education

ﬁnancial assistance. Investigations can take months if not years. The department

has never suspended or terminated the funding for an educational institution or

agency for violating FERPA or PPRA. In essence, Congress has granted parents

and students important statutory rights without an eective remedy to assert

those rights.

The next Administration should work with Congress to amend

FERPA and PPRA to provide parents and students over the age of 18

years with a private right of action to seek injunctive and declaratory

relief, together with attorneys’ fees and costs if a prevailing party,

against educational institutions and agencies that violate rights

enshrined in these statutes. This will empower parents and students,

level the playing ﬁeld between families and education bureaucracies, and

encourage institutional compliance with these statutory requirements.

Protect Parental Rights in Policy

In addition to strengthening legal protections for parents, the next Adminis-

tration should:

Prioritize legislation advancing such rights. Promising ideas have

appeared in bills introduced in the 117th Congress such as H.R.8767, the

Empowering Parents Act,

sponsored by Representative Bob Good (R-VA);

H.R. 6056, the Parents’ Bill of Rights Act,

sponsored by Representative

Julia Letlow (R-LA); and H.J.Res. 99,

proposing an amendment to the

Constitution relating to parental rights, sponsored by Representative

Debbie Lesko (R-AZ).

These congressional actions should be carefully reviewed to make

sure they complement state Parents' Bills of Rights, such as those

passed in Georgia (2022), Florida (2021), Montana (2021), Wyoming

(2017), Idaho (2015), Oklahoma (2014), Virginia (2013), and

Arizona (2010).

As documented by writers such as Abigail Shrier and others, the American

Society of Plastic Surgeons documented a four-fold increase in the number of

biological girls seeking gender surgery between 2016 and 2017. Larger increases

were found in the U.K. from 2009 to 2019 and 2017 to 2018. These statistics and

others point to a social contagion in which minor children, especially girls, are

attempting to make life-altering decisions using puberty blockers and other hor-

mone treatments and even surgeries to remove or alter vital body parts. Heritage

Foundation research ﬁnds that providing easier access to such treatments and

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

surgeries without parental involvement does not reduce the suicidality of these

young people and may even increase suicide rates.

The next Administration should take particular note of how radical

gender ideology is having a devastating eect on school-aged children

today—especially young girls.

School ocials in some states are requiring teachers and other school employ-

ees to accept a minor child’s decision to assume a dierent “gender” while at

school—without notifying parents. In California, New Jersey, and certain districts

in Kansas and elsewhere, educators are prohibited from informing parents about

children’s confusion over their sex if the children do not want their parents to know.

Such policies allow schools to drive a wedge between parents and children. The

next Administration should work with Congress to provide an example to state

lawmakers by requiring K–12 districts under federal jurisdiction, including Wash-

ington, D.C., public schools, Bureau of Indian Education schools, and Department

of Defense schools, with legislation stating that:

No public education employee or contractor shall use a name to

address a student other than the name listed on a student’s birth

certiﬁcate, without the written permission of a student’s parents

or guardians.

No public education employee or contractor shall use a pronoun

in addressing a student that is dierent from that student’s

biological sex without the written permission of a student’s parents

or guardians.

No public institution may require an education employee or

contractor to use a pronoun that does not match a person’s

biological sex if contrary to the employee’s or contractor’s religious

or moral convictions.

State lawmakers should use this model and adopt similar provisions for public

schools within their borders. Federal lawmakers should not allow public school

employees to keep secrets about a child from that child’s parents.

Advance School Choice Policies

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, a voucher program providing

scholarships to children from low-income families living in the nation’s capital to

attend a private school of choice, is capped at $20 million annually and limited to

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Department of Education

students at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty line. The maximum schol-

arship amount is $9,401 for students in kindergarten through eighth grade and

$14,102 for students in grades nine through 12. The average scholarship amount

is around $10,000, or less than half of the current per-student funding amount in

D.C. Public Schools.

Congress should expand eligibility to all students, regardless of

income or background, and raise the scholarship amount closer to

the funding students receive in D.C. Public Schools (spending per

student in 2020 was $22,856).

All families should be able to take their children’s taxpayer-funded

education dollars to the education providers of their choosing—

whether it be a public school or a private school.

Congress should additionally deregulate the program by removing

the requirement of private schools to administer the D.C. Public

Schools assessment and allowing private schools to control their

admissions processes.

Provide Education Choice for Populations

Under the Jurisdiction of Congress

The federal government oversees three school systems that Washington should

transform into examples of quality learning environments for every child in those

systems: students attending schools in Washington, D.C.; students in active-duty

military families, including students attending schools operated by the U.S. Depart-

ment of Defense; and students attending schools on tribal lands, which include

schools under the Bureau of Indian Education. In each of these systems, federal

lawmakers should allow every student the option of using an education savings

account so that parents can select dierent education products and services to

meet their child’s needs.

Nearly 50,000 students attended public schools in the District of Columbia in

the 2021–2022 school year. In 2022, fourth grade math students scored 11 points

lower than fourth graders in 2019, which means District children lost an entire

year of learning over the course of the pandemic. Eighth graders also lost an entire

year of learning in math.

Federal lawmakers should oer District students the opportunity to

use education savings accounts. A portion of a child’s federal education

spending should be deposited in a private spending account that parents can

use to pay for personal tutors, education therapists, books and curricular

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

materials, private school tuition, transportation and more—accounts

modeled after the accounts in Arizona, Florida, West Virginia, and seven

other states.

Members of Congress should design the same account system

for students in active-duty military families, including students

attending schools that receive funding under the National Defense

Authorization Act (NDAA).

Heritage Foundation research found that if even 10 percent of the students eli-

gible for accounts under such a proposal transferred from an assigned school to an

education savings account, the change for the sending district would be 0.1 percent

of that school district’s K–12 budget. Even in heavily impacted districts (districts

with a large number of students receiving Impact Aid), the budgetary eect would

be less than 2 percent. Yet these children would then have the chance to receive a

customized education that meets their unique needs. As with state ESA programs,

families who are homeschooling are distinct in statute from families who use an

ESA to customize an education at home.

Furthermore, research from the Claremont Institute used documents pro-

vided by a whistleblower demonstrating how educators at Department of Defense

schools around the world are using radical gender theory and critical race theory

in their lessons. This instructional material discards biology in favor of political

indoctrination and applies critical race theory’s core tenets advocating for more

racial discrimination. Such ideas are highly unpopular among parents, accord-

ing to nationally representative surveys, and the course material attempts to

indoctrinate students with radical ideas about race and the ambiguous concept

of “gender.”

Finally, schools on tribal lands and under the auspices of the Bureau of Indian

Education (BIE) are among the worst-performing public schools in the country.

Research from Rep. Burgess Owens’ oce reports that the graduation rate for BIE

students is 53 percent, lower than the average for Native American students in

public schools around the country, and nearly 30 percentage points lower than the

national average for all students. In 2015, Arizona lawmakers expanded the state’s

education savings account program to include children living on tribal lands, and

by 2021, nearly 400 Native American children were using the accounts.

Federal ocials should design a federal education savings account

option for all children attending BIE schools.

The next Administration should make the K–12 systems under federal juris-

diction examples of quality learning opportunities and education freedom.

— 349 —

Department of Education

Washington should convert some of the lowest-performing public school systems

in the country into areas deﬁned by choices, creating rigorous learning options for

all children and from all backgrounds, income levels, and ethnicities.

Expand Education Choice Through Portability of Existing Federal Funds

Setting education policy on the right track long term would require sunsetting

the U.S. Department of Education altogether. Doing so would not result in fewer

resources and less assistance for children with special needs or from low-income

families. Rather, closing the federal behemoth would better target existing taxpayer

resources already set aside for these students by shifting oversight responsibilities

to federal and state agencies that have more expertise in helping these populations.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is the federal law gov-

erning taxpayer spending on K–12 students with special needs. The law stipulates

that students have a right to a “free and appropriate education,” and 95 percent of

children with special needs attend assigned public schools. The education is not

always appropriate, however: Special education is fraught with legal battles. Some

argue that the education of children with special needs is the most litigated area

of K–12 education. Thus, despite a nearly 50-year-old federal law that sees regular

revision and reauthorization and approximately $13.5 billion per year in federal

taxpayer spending, parents still struggle to establish intervention plans for their

students with public school district ocials regarding the physical and educational

requirements for their children with special needs.

State-level education options often exclusively serve children with special needs

for these very reasons. Florida, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Mississippi, South Carolina,

and North Carolina, to name a few states, all have education savings accounts or

K–12 private school scholarship options for children with special needs.

Federal lawmakers should move IDEA oversight and implementation

to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Ocials should then consider revising IDEA to require that a

child’s portion of the federal taxpayer spending under the law be

made available to families so parents can choose how and where a

child learns.

IDEA already allows families to choose a private school under

certain conditions, but federal ocials should update the law so that

families can use their child’s IDEA spending for textbooks, education

therapies, personal tutors, and other learning expenses, similar to

the way in which parents use education savings accounts in states

such as Arizona and Florida. These micro-education savings accounts

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

would give the families of children with special needs approximately $1,800

per child to help meet a child’s unique learning needs.

Members of Congress and the White House should consider a similar

update to Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act

(ESEA). Title I is the largest portion of federal taxpayer spending under

this federal education law, and the section provides additional taxpayer

resources to schools or groups of schools in lower income areas. Federal

taxpayers committed $16.3 billion to Title I in FY 2019, spending that is

dedicated to students in low-income areas of the U.S. Per student, this

spending amounts to more than $1,400 for a child in a large city and

approximately $1,300 for a student in a remote, rural area.

Research ﬁnds, though, that this enormous investment has not produced positive

results for children in need. The achievement gap between children from the highest

and lowest income deciles has not improved over the past 50 years. And recent, dismal

outcomes on the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed declines for

all students, with math scores registering declines for the ﬁrst time in history.

Initially, the responsibilities for administering and overseeing Title I

should be moved to HHS, along with IDEA.

Students attending schools that receive Title I spending should also

have access to micro-education savings accounts that allow families to

choose how and where their children learn according to their needs.

Parents should be allowed to use their child’s Title I resources to

help pay for private learning options including tutoring services and

curricular materials.

Over a 10-year period, the federal spending should be phased out and

states should assume decision-making control over how to provide a

quality education to children from low-income families.

Additional School Choice Options

House Republicans included school choice in their “Commitment to

America” agenda.

Though actions by state lawmakers are essential and any federal

policies should be strictly designed so they do not conﬂict with state

activities, Congress could consider school choice legislation such

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Department of Education

as the Educational Choice for Children Act. This bill would create a

federal scholarship tax credit that would incentivize donors to contribute to

nonproﬁt scholarship granting organizations (SGOs). Eligible families could

then use that funding from the SGOs for their children’s education expenses

including private school tuition, tutoring, and instructional materials.

ADDITIONAL K–12 REFORMS

Allowing States to Opt Out of Federal Education Programs. States should

be able to opt out of federal education programs such as the Academic Partnerships

Lead Us to Success (APLUS) Act. Much of the red tape and regulations that hinder

local school districts are handed down from Washington. This regulatory burden

far exceeds the federal government’s less than 10 percent ﬁnancing share of K–12

education. In the most recent ﬁscal year (FY 2022), states and localities ﬁnanced

93 percent of K–12 education costs, and the federal government just 7 percent.

That 7 percent share should not allow the federal government to dictate state and

local education policy.

To restore state and local control of education and reduce the

bureaucratic and compliance burden, Congress should allow states to

opt out of the dozens of federal K–12 education programs authorized

under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and instead

allow states to put their share of federal funding toward any lawful

education purpose under state law. This policy has been advanced over

the years via a proposal known as the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to

Success (APLUS) Act.

HIGHER EDUCATION REFORM

HEA: Accreditation Reform

Congress established two primary responsibilities for the U.S. Department

of Education in the HEA: 1) to ensure the “administrative capacity and ﬁnancial

responsibility” of colleges and universities that accept Title IV funds; and 2) to

ensure the quality of those institutions. Congress did not endow the Department

of Education with the authority to involve itself in academic quality issues relating

to colleges and universities that participate in the Title IV student aid program;

the HEA allows the agency only to recognize accreditors, which are then supposed

to provide quality assurance measures.

Unfortunately, the Biden Administration has followed closely in the footsteps

of the Obama Administration by engaging in a politically motivated and incon-

sistent administration of the accrediting agency recognition process. As a result,

accreditors have transformed into de facto government agents. Despite claims by

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

the department and accreditation agencies that accreditation is voluntary, the

fact that Americans are denied access to an otherwise widely available entitle-

ment beneﬁt if the institution “elects” to not be accredited makes accreditation

anything but voluntary. Today, accreditation determines whether Americans can

access federal student aid beneﬁts, transfer academic credits, enroll in higher-level

degree programs, and even qualify for federal employment.

Unnecessarily focused on schools in a speciﬁc geographic region, institutional

accreditation reviews have also become wildly expensive audits by academic “peers”

that stiﬂe innovation and discourage new institutions of higher education. Of par-

ticular concern are eorts by many accreditation agencies to leverage their Title IV

(student loans and grants) gatekeeper roles to force institutions to adopt policies

that have nothing to do with academic quality assurance and student outcomes.

One egregious example of this is the extent to which accreditors have forced col-

leges and universities, many of them faith-based institutions, to adopt diversity,

equity, and inclusion policies that conﬂict with federal civil rights laws, state laws,

and the institutional mission and culture of the schools. Perhaps more distress-

ingly, accreditors, while professing support for academic freedom and campus

free speech, have presided over a precipitous decline in both over the past decade.

Despite maintaining criteria that demand such policies, accreditors have done

nothing to dampen the illiberal chill that has swept across American campuses

over the past decade.

The current system is not working. A radical overhaul of the HEA’s accreditation

requirements is thus in order. The next Administration should work with Congress

to amend the HEA and should consider the following reforms:

Prohibit accreditation agencies from leveraging their Title IV

gatekeeper role to mandate that educational institutions adopt

diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.

Protect the sovereignty of states to decide governance and

leadership issues for their state-supported colleges and universities

by prohibiting accreditation agencies from intruding upon the

governance of state-supported educational institutions.

Protect faith-based institutions by prohibiting accreditation

agencies from:

1. Requiring standards and criteria that undermine the religious

beliefs of, or require policies or conduct that conﬂict with, the

religious mission or religious beliefs of the institution; and

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Department of Education

2. Intruding on the governance of colleges and universities

controlled by a religious organization.

Revamp the system for recognizing accreditation agencies for Title

IV purposes by removing the department’s monopoly on recognition

by (1) authorizing states to recognize accreditation agencies for

Title IV gatekeeping purposes and/or (2) authorizing state agencies

to act as accreditation agencies for institutions throughout the

United States.

The next Administration and Congress might also consider amending the HEA

to remove accreditors from the program triad entirely to allow accreditation

to return to its original role of voluntary quality assurance. This would permit

accreditors to put some “teeth” back into their standards without creating high-

stakes disasters, such as institutional loss of Title IV access through paperwork

submission errors, a state exercising its constitutional authority to administer its

public colleges and universities, or an institution freely exercising the religious

beliefs of its founders. With this option, neither the department nor the states

would oversee or recognize accrediting agencies. The department’s role would

be limited to evaluating the institution’s compliance with federal accounting

requirements pursuant to evaluations conducted by appropriately credentialed

auditors who have no conﬂicts of interest in performing the review paid for by

the federal agency charged with overseeing compliance—not the institutions

being reviewed.

HEA: Student Loans

Beyond immediate policy moves and rulemaking to end the current

Administration’s abuse of the department’s payment pause and

HEA loan forgiveness programs, the department should work with

Congress to overhaul the federal student loan program for the beneﬁt

of taxpayers and students.

The federal government does not have the proper incentives to make sound

lending decisions. The new Administration should consider:

Privatizing all lending programs, including subsidized, unsubsidized,

and PLUS loans (both Grad and Parent). This would allow for market

prices and signals to inﬂuence educational borrowing, introducing

consumer-driven accountability into higher education. Pell grants should

retain their current voucher-like structure.

— 354 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

If privatizing student lending is not feasible, then the next Administration

should consider the following reforms:

Switch to fair-value accounting from FCRA accounting.

Consolidate all federal loan programs into one new program that

a) utilizes income-driven repayment, b) includes no interest rate

subsidies or loan forgiveness, c) includes annual and aggregate

limits on borrowing, and d) includes skin in the game to hold

colleges accountable.

Eliminate Grad PLUS loans (for graduate students) and Parent PLUS

loans (for parents of undergraduates).

Graduate students are already eligible for unsubsidized Staord student loans;

Grad PLUS loans are redundant. They also lack some of the safeguards of Staord

loans, such as annual and aggregate borrowing limits. Parent PLUS loans are also

redundant because there are many privately provided alternatives available.

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which prioritizes

government and public sector work over private sector employment,

should be terminated.

Whatever Congress chooses to do with future loans, there is still the question of

the government’s responsible stewardship of the existing student loan portfolio—a

substantial taxpayer asset. The current Administration has recklessly engaged in

the policy fetish of forgiving and canceling student loans with abandon.

The next Administration should work with Congress to amend the

HEA to ensure that no Administration engages in this kind of abuse

in the future.

Speciﬁcally, the new Administration should urge the Congress to

amend the HEA to abrogate, or substantially reduce, the power of the

Secretary to cancel, compromise, discharge, or forgive the principal

balances of Title IV student loans, as well as to modify in any material

way the repayment amounts or terms of Title IV student loans.

Further, the next Administration should propose that Congress

amend the HEA to remove the department’s authority to forgive loans

based on borrower defense to repayment; instead, the department

— 355 —

Department of Education

should be authorized to discharge loans only in instances where clear

and convincing evidence exists to demonstrate that an educational

institution engaged in fraud toward a borrower in connection with

his or her enrollment in the institution and the student’s educational

program or activity at the institution.

Cap indirect costs at universities. Currently, the federal government pays a por-

tion of the overhead expenses associated with university-based research. Known

as “indirect costs,” these reimbursements cross-subsidize leftist agendas and the

research of billion-dollar organizations such as Google and the Ford Foundation.

Universities also use this inﬂux of cash to pay for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

(DEI) eorts. To correct course,

Congress should cap the indirect cost rate paid to universities so

that it does not exceed the lowest rate a university accepts from

a private organization to fund research eorts. This market-

based reform would help reduce federal taxpayer subsidization of

leftist agendas.

NEW REGULATIONS

Attacking the Accreditation Cartel

For a college to participate in federal ﬁnancial aid programs, it must be accred-

ited, but accreditors have been abusing their quasi-regulatory power to impose

non-educational requirements and ideological preferences on colleges.

The Secretary of Education should refuse to recognize all accreditors

that abuse their power.

New accreditors should also be encouraged to start up.

Confronting the Chinese Communist Party’s Inﬂuence on Higher Education

According to media reports, more than 100 universities in the U.S. received

nearly $100 billion in gifts and grants from China-based sources between 2013

and 2020. Much of this money derives from the Chinese Communist Party and

its proxies. The next Administration must

Reverse the Biden Administration’s refusal to enforce Section

117 of the HEA, which directs colleges and universities to report

gifts from, and contracts with, sources outside the U.S. worth

$250,000 or more.

— 356 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Investigate postsecondary institutions that fail to honor their

Section 117 obligations and make appropriate referrals to DOJ.

Work with Congress to amend the HEA to tie the HEA’s foreign

source reporting requirements to an institution's ability to receive

federal ﬁnancial assistance, particularly participation in programs

funded under Titles IV and VI of the HEA.

Allowing Competency-Based Education to Flourish

Competency-based education is a promising approach that could provide

a high-quality and aordable education to many students. Since the credit

hour, which measures the time in the classroom, is inappropriate for such

programs, the direct assessment method was introduced to allow competen-

cy-based programs to participate in the federal ﬁnancial aid programs. However,

overregulation has hampered the usage of direct assessment, with the lead-

ing competency-based university choosing to instead convert their courses

into credit hours for compliance purposes. One of the leading obstacles is the

requirement that courses include “regular and substantive” interaction between

faculty and students.

New regulations should clarify the deﬁnition and requirements of

regular and substantive interaction for competency-based education,

as well as for online programs.

Reforming “Area Studies” Funding

Congress should wind down so-called “area studies” programs at

universities (Title VI of the HEA), which, although intended to serve

American interests, sometimes fund programs that run counter to

those interests.

In the meantime, the next Administration should promulgate

a new regulation to require the Secretary of Education to

allocate at least 40 percent of funding to international business

programs that teach about free markets and economics and

require institutions, faculty, and fellowship recipients to certify

that they intend to further the stated statutory goals of serving

American interests.

— 357 —

Department of Education

NEW EXECUTIVE ORDERS THAT THE PRESIDENT SHOULD ISSUE

Guidance Documents

The President should immediately reinstate and reissue Executive

Order 13891: Promoting the Rule of Law Through Improved

Agency Guidance Documents, 84 Fed. Reg. 55235 (Oct. 9, 2019),

and Executive Order 13892: Promoting the Rule of Law Through

Transparency and Fairness in Civil Administrative Enforcement and

Adjudication (Oct. 15, 2019).

These executive orders required all federal agencies to treat guidance documents

as non-binding in law and practice and also forbade federal agencies from imposing

new standards of conduct on persons outside the executive branch through guid-

ance documents. They required all federal agencies to apply regulations and statutes

instead of guidance documents in any enforcement action. President Biden revoked

these executive orders on January 20, 2021, demonstrating that these executive

orders eectively restrained the abuses of an expansive administrative state.

Require APA notice and comment. The President should issue an

executive order requiring the Oce for Civil Rights’ Case Processing

Manual to go through APA (Administrative Procedures Act) notice

and comment.

Protect the First Amendment. The President should issue an

executive order requiring grant applications (SF-424 series) to contain

assurances that the applicant will uphold the First Amendment in funded

programs and work.

Minimize bachelor’s degree requirements. The President should issue

an executive order stating that a college degree shall not be required for any

federal job unless the requirements of the job speciﬁcally demand it.

Eliminate the “list of shame.” Educational institutions can claim a

religious exemption with the Oce for Civil Rights at the Department

of Education from the strictures of Title IX. In 2016, the Obama

Administration published on the Department of Education’s website a

list of colleges that had applied for the exemption. This “list of shame” of

faith-based colleges, as it came to be known, has since been archived on ED’s

website, still publicly available. The President should issue an executive

order removing the archived list and preventing such a list from being

published in the future.

— 358 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

NEW AGENCY POLICIES THAT DON’T REQUIRE NEW

LEGISLATION OR REGULATIONS TO ENACT

Transparency of FERPA and PPRA Complaints

The Department of Education should be transparent about

complaints ﬁled on behalf of families regarding the Family

Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of

Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA).

At the same time, the Department of Education should develop

a portal and resources for parents on their rights under FERPA

and PPRA. This portal should also contain an explanation of the Health

Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) and public school

procedures to demonstrate that the law does not deprive parents of their

right to access any school health records.

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program

In 2011, Congress added new requirements to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship

Program stating that participating private schools must submit to site visits by the

program administrator, inform prospective students about the school’s accreditation

status, mandate that teachers of core subjects have bachelor’s degrees, and require

participating students to take some form of nationally norm-referenced test. Notably,

the 2011 reauthorization also required, for the ﬁrst time, that participating private

schools be accredited or be on a path to accreditation. The 2017 reauthorization went

further, requiring that each participating school supply a certiﬁcate of accreditation

to the administering entity upon program entry, demonstrating that the school is

fully accredited before being allowed to participate. The list of approved accreditors

is entirely too small to serve the mission of the diverse schools in the nation’s capital.

Although the accreditation regulations should be removed entirely

by Congress, in the meantime, the next President should issue an

executive order expanding the list of allowable accreditors.

Transparency Around Program Performance and DEI Inﬂuence

The next President should issue a series of executive orders requiring:

An accounting of how federal programs/grants spread DEI/CRT/

gender ideology,

A review of outcomes for GEAR UP and the 21st Century

grants programs,

— 359 —

Department of Education

The reissuing of the report on school safety from 2018 with updated

information,

The release of a report to Congress on how to consolidate the

department and trim nonessential employees,

A report on the negative inﬂuence of action civics on students’

understanding of history and civics and their disposition toward the

United States,

An update of the Coleman report to show the impact of family

structure on student achievement,

A full accounting of CARES Act education expenditures, and

A report on how many dollars make their way to the classroom in

every federal education grant and program.

Pursue Antitrust Against Accreditors

The President should issue an executive order pursuing antitrust

against college accreditors, especially the American Bar

Association (ABA).

NEW POLICIES/REGULATIONS THAT REQUIRE COORDINATION

WITH OTHER AGENCIES AND/OR THE WHITE HOUSE

The department must coordinate any rulemaking with the White House, the

Oce of Management and Budget (OMB), DOJ, and other agencies that share

responsibility with the department in the administration or enforcement of stat-

ute, such as Titles VI and IX. Moreover, regarding regulations arising under civil

rights laws administered by the department, Executive Order 12550 requires the

Attorney General to approve ﬁnal regulations; the Assistant Attorney General for

Civil Rights must approve notices of proposed rulemaking.

Organizational Issues

Historical Budget Information. Congressional appropriations for the U.S.

Department of Education have risen from $14 billion in 1980 to $95.5 billion in

2021, an astounding increase, especially in light of the lack of improvements in

student outcomes.

Recommend Budget Cuts, Shifts, and Augmentations, If Any. Transferring

most of the programs at the U.S. Department of Education to other agencies and

eliminating duplicative and ineective programs would yield signiﬁcant taxpayer

— 360 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

savings. The proposal would immediately save more than $17 billion annually in

various programs. Savings over a decade would be far more robust, as the revenue

responsibility for many formula grant programs would be returned to the states.

Some highlights include:

Eliminate competitive grant programs and reduce spending on

formula grant programs. Competitive grant programs operated by the

Department of Education should be eliminated, and federal spending

should be reduced to reﬂect remaining formula grant programs authorized

under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)

and the handful of other programs that do not fall under the competitive/

project grant category. Remaining programs managed by the Department

CHART 4

U.S. Department of Education, Total Appropriations

IN BILLIONS OF DOLLARS

$20

$40

$60

$80

$100

$120

202020152010200520001995199019851980

A heritage.org

NOTE: Totals include mandatory and discretionary appropriations.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, “Budget History Tables,” Education Department Budget History Table,

https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/history/index.html (accessed March 17, 2023).

$95.5

$14

— 361 —

Department of Education

of Education, such as large formula grant programs for K–12 education,

should be reduced by 10 percent. This would cut approximately 29 programs,

most of which are discretionary spending. In total, this would generate

approximately $8.8 billion in savings.

Eliminate the PLUS loan program. As mentioned above, the PLUS loan

program, which provides graduate student loans and loans to the parents

of undergraduate students, should be eliminated. This would generate an

estimated $2.3 billion in savings.

End time-based and occupation-based student loan forgiveness. A low

estimate suggests ending current student loan forgiveness schemes would

save taxpayers $370 billion.

Eliminate GEAR-UP. It is not the responsibility of the federal government

to provide taxpayer dollars to create a pipeline from high school to college.

GEAR UP should be eliminated, and its functions should instead be handled

privately or at the state and local levels, where policymakers are better

equipped to increase college preparedness within their school districts.

Personnel

The Department of Education currently employs approximately 4,400 indi-

viduals. As programs are eliminated or transferred to other agencies, those

employees whose positions are determined to be essential to the mission would

move with their constituent programs. Current salaries and expenses at ED total

$2.2 billion annually.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in the

2025 Presidential Transition Project. All contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume, but

Jonathan Butcher, Bob Eitel, Jim Blew, Diane Auer Jones, Erin Valdez, Andrew Gillen, and Max Eden deserve special

mention. The author alone assumes responsibility for the content of this chapter, and no views expressed herein

should be attributed to any other individual.

— 362 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

 Milton Friedman, The Role of Government in Education (1955), https://la.utexas.edu/users/

hcleaver/330T/350kPEEFriedmanRoleOfGovttable.pdf (accessed February 28, 2023).

 Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, Public Law 89-10.

 Higher Education Act of 1965, Public Law 89-329.

 Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief Funds.

 Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Public Law 93-112.

 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Public Law 94-142.

 Perkins Career and Technical Education Acts, Perkins IV, Public Law 109-270.

 S. 510, Department of Education Organization Act, Public Law 96-88.

 Ambassador Susan Rice, Gene Sperling, and Clarence Wardell III, Advancing Equity through the American

Rescue Plan, pg. 26. May 2022, at https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/ADVANCING-

EQUITY-THROUGH-THE-AMERICAN-RESCUE-PLAN.pdf (accessed February 28, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Education, Overview and Mission Statement, https://www2.ed.gov/about/landing.

jhtml#:~:text=ED's%20mission%20is%20to%20promote,oces%20from%20several%20federal%20agencies

(accessed February 28, 2023).

 Jonathan Butcher, “Who Signs Your Paycheck?” Education Next, https://www.educationnext.org/who-signs-

your-paycheck-federal-inﬂuence-state-education-agencies/#_edn1 (last updated, April 9, 2018).

 Education at a Crossroads: What Works and What’s Wasted in Education Today, Subcommittee on Oversight

and Investigations, Committee on Education and the Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives, 105th Cong.,

2nd Sess., July 17, 1998, pp. xiii and xiv.

 Every Student Succeeds Act, 20 U.S.C. § 6301 et seq. (2015).

 20 U.S.C. §6571. Under subchapter I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (Improving the

Academic Achievement of the Disadvantaged) and Section 20 U.S.C. §1022f; 20 U.S.C. §1098a. Under Title

20, Section 1098a, of the U.S. Code, the Secretary is authorized to waive the requirement for negotiated

rulemaking if he or she “determines that applying such a requirement with respect to given regulations is

impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest (within the meaning of section 553(b)(3)(B) of

[the APA]), and publishes the basis for such determination in the Federal Register at the same time as the

proposed regulations in question are ﬁrst published.” 20 U.S.C. §1098a(b)(2). Congressional Research Service,

“Negotiated Rulemaking: In Brief,” April 12, 2021, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46756

(accessed March 13, 2023).

 H.R. 8767, Empowering Parents Act, 117th Congress.

 H.R. 5, Parents Bill of Rights Act.

 H.J.Res. 99, Public Law 115-30.

 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022.

 National Center for Education Statistics, “Fast Facts: Title I,” https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=158

(accessed February 28, 2023).

— 363 —

AMERICAN ENERGY AND SCIENCE DOMINANCE

The next conservative Administration should prioritize energy and science

dominance to ensure that Americans have abundant, aordable, and reliable

energy; create good-paying jobs; support domestic manufacturing and technology

leadership; and strengthen national security. Achieving these goals will require

bold policy action and reforms that involve the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE);

the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC); and the Nuclear Regulatory

Commission (NRC).

American Energy Dominance. Access to aordable, reliable, and abundant

energy is vital to America’s economy, national security, and quality of life. Yet

ideologically driven government policies have thrust the United States into a new

energy crisis just a few short years after America’s energy renaissance, which began

in the ﬁrst decade of the 2000s, transformed the United States from a net energy

importer (oil and natural gas) to energy independence and then energy dominance.

Americans now face energy scarcity, an electric grid that is less reliable, and arti-

ﬁcial shortages of natural gas and oil despite massive reserves within the United

States—all of which has led to higher prices that burden both the American people

and the economy.

The new energy crisis is caused not by a lack of resources, but by extreme “green”

policies. Under the rubrics of “combating climate change” and “ESG” (environmen-

tal, social, and governance), the Biden Administration, Congress, and various states,

as well as Wall Street investors, international corporations, and progressive spe-

cial-interest groups, are changing America’s energy landscape. These ideologically

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

AND RELATED COMMISSIONS

Bernard L. McNamee

— 364 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

driven policies are also directing huge amounts of money to favored interests and

making America dependent on adversaries like China for energy. In the name of

combating climate change, policies have been used to create an artiﬁcial energy

scarcity that will require trillions of dollars in new investment, supported with

taxpayer subsidies, to address a “problem” that government and special interests

themselves created. The result has been increased energy costs that:

Hurt individuals and families, especially low-income Americans and seniors

on ﬁxed incomes;

Make businesses that create the jobs that drive our economy and quality of

life less competitive; and

Make America less energy secure.

Moreover, increased energy scarcity will allow government, either directly

or through access to banks and Wall Street investors, to decide who is “worthy”

to receive funding for energy projects. In the end, government control of energy

is control of people and the economy. This is one reason why the trend toward

nationalization of our energy industry through government mandates, bans on

the production and use of oil and natural gas, and nationalization of the electric

grid is so dangerous.

At the same time, adversaries like China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and

non-state actors are constantly engaged in cyberattacks against our energy infra-

structure. We have already seen what supposedly “minor” attacks, such as the

cyberattack on the Colonial Oil Pipeline

or the physical attack on electric infra-

structure in North Carolina,

can do. A coordinated cyber and physical attack on

natural gas pipelines and the electric grid during an extended cold spell could be

catastrophic. Yet the current Administration’s ﬁrst concern is plowing taxpayer

dollars into intermittent wind and solar projects and ending the use of reliable

fossil fuels.

A conservative President must be committed to unleashing all of America’s

energy resources and making the energy economy serve the American people, not

special interests. This means that the next conservative Administration should:

Promote American energy security by ensuring access to abundant, reliable,

and aordable energy.

Arm an “all of the above” energy policy through which the best attributes

of every resource can be harnessed for the beneﬁt of the American people.

— 365 —

Department of Energy and Related Commissions

Support repeal of massive spending bills like the Infrastructure Investment

and Jobs Act (IIJA)

and Inﬂation Reduction Act (IRA),

which established

new programs and are providing hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies

to renewable energy developers, their investors, and special interests, and

support the rescinding of all funds not already spent by these programs.

Unleash private-sector energy innovation by ending government

interference in energy decisions.

Stop the war on oil and natural gas.

Allow individuals, families, and business to use the energy resources they

want to use and that will best serve their needs.

Secure and protect energy infrastructure from cyber and physical attacks.

Refocus the Department of Energy on energy security, accelerated

remediation, and advanced science.

Promote U.S. energy resources as a means to assist our allies and diminish

our strategic adversaries.

Refocus FERC on ensuring that customers have aordable and reliable

electricity, natural gas, and oil and no longer allow it to favor special

interests and progressive causes.

Ensure that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission facilitates rather than

hampers private-sector nuclear energy innovation and deployment.

American Science Dominance. Ever since the age of Benjamin Franklin, the

United States has been at the forefront of scientiﬁc discovery and technological

advancement. Beginning with the groundbreaking science of the Manhattan Proj-

ect, the U.S. has developed 17 National Laboratories that conduct fundamental and

advanced scientiﬁc research. The National Labs have been critical in supporting

national defense and ensuring that the United States leads on scientiﬁc discoveries

with transformative applications that beneﬁt America and the world.

In recent years, however, U.S. science has been under threat. Externally,

adversaries like the Chinese military have been engaged in scientiﬁc espionage,

inﬁltrating taxpayer-funded scientiﬁc research projects, and funding their own

science research. In addition, the National Labs have been too focused on climate

change and renewable technologies.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

American science dominance is critical to U.S. national security and economic

strength. The next conservative President therefore needs to recommit the United

States to ensuring this dominance.

MISSION STATEMENT FOR A REFORMED DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

The Department of Energy should be renamed and refocused as the Department

of Energy Security and Advanced Science (DESAS). DESAS would refocus on DOE’s

ﬁve existing core missions:

Providing leadership and coordination on energy security and related

national security issues,

Promoting U.S. energy economic interests abroad,

Leading the nation and the world in cutting-edge fundamental

advanced science,

Remediating former Manhattan Project and Cold War nuclear

material sites, and

Developing new nuclear weapons and naval nuclear reactors.

These missions work together by using advanced science to promote national

security while getting the government out of the business of picking winners and

losers in energy resources. Reform is needed because DOE, instead of focusing on

core energy and security issues, has been spending billions of taxpayer dollars to

subsidize renewable energy developers and investors, thereby making Americans

less energy secure and distorting energy markets.

OVERVIEW

DOE was created by the Department of Energy Organization Act of 1977

response to the 1970s oil crisis, consolidating various energy programs that pre-

viously had operated without coordination throughout the federal government in

a single department. In addition to addressing energy issues, DOE is tasked with:

Engaging in basic and fundamental science and research through the 17

National Laboratories;

Cleaning up the Manhattan Project and Cold War nuclear material and

weapons sites;

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Department of Energy and Related Commissions

Developing sites for the storing of civilian nuclear waste; and

Developing new nuclear weapons and naval reactors through the

semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA).

Beyond these core responsibilities, DOE currently administers billions of

dollars that support research and commercialization of energy technology,

provides loans to the private sector for energy infrastructure and technology

commercialization, and issues energy eciency standards for appliances. More

recently, DOE has focused its work and taxpayers’ money on renewable energy

and climate change.

It is one thing for government to engage in fundamental scientiﬁc research

that the private sector would not perform, particularly because advancements in

science promote national security through technological prowess. Government,

however, should not be picking winners and losers in dealing with energy resources

or commercial technology. Such government favoritism can crowd out new innova-

tion, devolve into cronyism, and raise energy prices for consumers and businesses.

It is time for the United States to use all of its energy resources again for the beneﬁt

of the American people.

New Policies: Energy

To ensure that the American people have access to abundant, aordable, and

reliable energy, DESAS’s energy role should be focused on:

Working with the energy industry and networks to ensure energy

infrastructure security through science and coordination with the

private sector.

Assessing international energy issues that constitute threats to U.S.

national security.

Promoting U.S. energy resources as a means to assist our allies, diminish our

strategic adversaries, and ensure the existence of markets that will support

domestic energy production.

Pursuing early and advanced science, including materials science, that is

related to energy and national security.

Developing the leadership necessary for the disposal of commercial and

government spent nuclear fuel.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

National Energy Security. Protecting American infrastructure from cyber

and physical threats, both natural and human, is vital to national security, the

economy, and the well-being of the American people. Protecting and advanc-

ing these national security interests is a proper role for the federal government.

DESAS should:

Focus on studying threats to the electric grid, natural gas, and oil

infrastructure; sharing such information with the energy industry;

promoting the reliability and security of energy resources and

infrastructure; and developing strategies and technologies to combat

threats by working with the National Labs. The following oces would

report to the DESAS Undersecretary of Energy Security:

1. Oce of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response

(CESER), elevated to an Assistant Secretary. CESER would work with

the existing or reconstituted versions (as described in more detail

below) of the Oce of Electricity (OE); Oce of Nuclear Energy (NE);

Oce of Fossil Energy (FE), currently the Oce of Fossil Energy

and Carbon Management (FECM); Oce of Energy Eciency and

Renewable Energy (EERE); and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR)

to identify and address threats to energy infrastructure.

Instead of

trying to decarbonize the American economy and allocating taxpayer

dollars for commercialization of energy technologies, these oces

would focus on energy security by identifying threats to energy supplies

and infrastructure, developing strategies to address those threats, and

funding fundamental science and technology where appropriate.

2. Oce of Electricity (Assistant Secretary).

3. Oce of Nuclear Energy (Assistant Secretary).

4. Oce of Fossil Energy (Assistant Secretary, with Carbon Management

deleted from its title and purpose.

5. Oce of Energy Eciency and Renewable Energy (Assistant Secretary).

6. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (stand-alone or part of CESER).

Eliminate special-interest funding programs. Many DOE energy

funding programs are not targeted on fundamental science and technology;

instead, they focus more on commercialization and act as subsidies to the

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Department of Energy and Related Commissions

private sector for government-favored resources. The DOE Oce of Clean

Energy Demonstrations (OCED); Oce of State and Community Energy

Programs; ARPA-E; Oce of Grid Deployment (OGD); and DOE Loan

Program should be eliminated or reformed. If they continue to exist, FECM,

NE, OE, and EERE should focus on fundamental science and technology

issues, particularly in relation to cyber and physical threats to energy

security, rather than subsidizing and commercializing energy resources.

Eliminate political and climate-change interference in DOE

approvals of liqueﬁed natural gas (LNG) exports. In addition, Congress

should reform the Natural Gas Act

to expand required approvals from

merely nations with free trade agreements to all of our allies, such as

NATO countries.

Focus the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) on ensuring

that government buildings and operations have reliable and cost-

eective energy. FEMP should stop using taxpayer dollars to force the

purchase of more expensive and less reliable energy resources in the name

of combating climate change.

Ensure that information provided by the U.S. Energy Information

Agency (EIA), a data and statistical organization, is data-neutral.

Focus FERC on its statutory obligation to ensure access to reliable

energy at just, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory rates. FERC is a

ﬁve-member commission created under the DOE Organization Act that

regulates the wholesale sales and transmission of electricity, promotes

electric reliability through standards, permits natural gas pipelines and

LNG export facilities, sets natural gas pipeline shipping rates, and sets oil

pipeline shipping rates. It is an economic regulator and should not make

itself a climate regulator.

Streamline the nuclear regulatory requirements and licensing

process. Such changes would help to lower costs and accelerate the

development and deployment of civilian nuclear, such as advanced

nuclear reactors (including small modular nuclear reactors). The Nuclear

Regulatory Commission (NRC) is commission tasked with the licensing

of civilian nuclear reactors and power plants and regulating other uses of

nuclear materials, such as nuclear medicine. Although it is not a DOE agency,

its jurisdiction over nuclear reactor, fuel, safety, and trade issues often

relates to or impinges on DOE’s jurisdiction.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Focus on energy and science issues, not politicized social programs.

The next Administration should stop using energy policy to advance

politicized social agendas. Programs that sound innocuous, such as “energy

justice,”

Justice40,

and DEI,

can be transformed to promote politicized

agendas. DOE should focus on providing all Americans with access to

abundant, aordable, reliable, and secure energy, and DOE should manage

its employees so that everyone is treated fairly based on his or her talent,

skills, and hard work.

New Policies: International Energy Security

To help the President and policymakers understand and apply U.S. energy inter-

ests in international aairs more eectively, various DOE programs oces need

to be reformed.

Promote American energy interests. The next Administration should make

U.S. energy dominance a key component of its foreign policy while ensuring

that domestic and international goals are aligned. American energy dominance

will allow the United States to secure energy for its citizens, markets for its

energy exports, and access to new energy natural resources and will provide

tools for U.S. policymakers to assist our allies and deter our adversaries. DESAS

should analyze U.S. international energy security interests and develop a

National Energy Security Strategy (NESS). This strategy would take account

of the energy landscape across the globe to inform the President in his foreign

policy and defense roles, but it should not be a tool for U.S. industrial policy,

although it might highlight how current domestic industrial and climate

policies threaten U.S. energy and national security.

Strengthen the role of the new Department of Energy Security and

Advanced Science. There are frequent turf battles on energy issues between

the Department of State and DOE. Although the State Department clearly has

the policymaking authority under the DOE Organization Act, it tends to ignore

the expertise and perspectives that DOE provides. The existing Assistant

Secretary for International Aairs should provide the principal support for

the DOE Secretary and Deputy Secretary on National Security Council (NSC)

activities and should interface with colleagues at the Departments of Defense,

State, Treasury, and Commerce, as well as the Intelligence Community (IC).

New Policies: Advanced Science

To ensure that America continues to lead the world in fundamental science, the

National Labs should be refocused, and national science policy should be reviewed

and coordinated.

— 371 —

Department of Energy and Related Commissions

Refocus the National Labs on fundamental and advanced science.

DOE currently oversees 17 National Laboratories. The three National Labs

run by DOE’s NNSA should continue to focus on national security issues.

The remaining 14 science and energy labs should focus on basic research

projects; demonstration and deployment of technology should be left to

the private sector. This goal can be achieved by realigning the labs to limit

duplication and mission creep and to maximize potential.

Conduct a whole-of-government assessment and consolidation of

science. Before the start of a new Administration, there should be a review of

all the federal science agencies.

This should include a review of the ill-advised

attempt to expand the National Science Foundation’s mission from supporting

university research to supporting an all-encompassing technology transition.

Speciﬁc to DOE, there should be a review to measure, prioritize, and consolidate

DOE programs based on a range of beneﬁcial factors, including degree of

relationship to national security; furtherance of energy security (cyber but also

international aspects); and importance to scientiﬁc discovery/advancement.

New Policies: Remediation of Nuclear Weapons

Development Programs and Civilian Nuclear Waste

Cleaning up the radioactive waste produced in support of the Manhattan Project

and the Cold War at America’s nuclear development sites is a massive and com-

plicated process led by DOE’s Oce of Environmental Management. Projected

liabilities and costs to be borne by America’s taxpayers, according to DOE’s FY

2023 budget request, total $887,205 billion.

In addition, the federal government is

required by law to dispose of nuclear waste produced by the private sector, includ-

ing spent fuel rods from nuclear power plants. The new DESAS should:

Continue DOE’s remediation of radioactive waste created by the

nuclear weapons projects from the Manhattan Project and Cold

War. Strong leadership focused on accelerating the cleanup, coupled with

technical and administrative innovation, will be needed to reduce the

federal government’s third largest liability.

Develop a new approach that increases the level of private-sector

responsibility for the disposal of nuclear waste. Disposing of civilian

nuclear waste is an important national issue that requires strong scientiﬁc

study. According to an independent audit conducted by the public

accounting ﬁrm of KPMG, the Nuclear Waste Fund holds $46 billion in

payments by utilities and their ratepayers, plus interest, for a permanent

waste disposal site for spent nuclear fuel and other nuclear waste.

The

— 372 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

licensing process for Yucca Mountain as a permanent repository for spent

nuclear fuel is on hold. Without storage sites, spent nuclear fuel remains

temporarily stored at nuclear plants. In addition to permanent storage, low-

level nuclear waste facilities are needed.

New Policies: NNSA

The U.S. nuclear arsenal needs to be updated and reinvigorated if we are to be

able to deal eectively with threats from China, Russia, and other adversaries. As a

semi-autonomous agency, the NNSA has the primary responsibility for researching

and designing new nuclear warheads and for ensuring that the existing nuclear

arsenal is still potent. These eorts require signiﬁcant funding and scientiﬁc know-

how. In addition, NNSA develops and designs nuclear propulsion reactors for the

U.S. Navy. NNSA also plays a role in preventing nuclear proliferation. With strong

leadership by the Secretary of DESAS, the next Administration should:

Fund the design, development, and deployment of new nuclear

warheads, including the production of plutonium pits in quantity.

Expand the U.S. Navy and develop new nuclear naval reactors to

ensure that the Navy has the nuclear propulsion it needs to secure

America’s strategic interests.

End ineective and counterproductive nonproliferation activities

like those involving Iran and the United Nations.

Budget

DOE’s total FY 2023 budget request (which does not include IIJA, IRA, and CHIPS

and Science Act funding) was for $48,183,451,000.

Many DOE activities are required

by various authorization and appropriations bills. To implement many of the policies

contained in these proposals, several laws will need to be amended, including the

Department of Energy Organization Act, IIJA, IRA, and possibly portions of the

CHIPS (Creating Healthy Incentives to Produce Semiconductors) and Science Act.

Ending taxpayer subsidies will promote an “all of the above” energy policy, lead to

more energy resources, reduce costs, and save taxpayers billions of dollars.

OFFICE OF CYBERSECURITY, ENERGY SECURITY,

AND EMERGENCY RESPONSE (CESER)

Mission/Overview

CESER’s mission is to “enhance the security and resilience of U.S. critical energy

infrastructure to all hazards,” to “mitigate the impacts of disruptive events and risk

— 373 —

Department of Energy and Related Commissions

to the sector overall through preparedness and innovation,” and to “respond to and

facilitate recovery from energy disruptions in collaboration with other Federal

agencies, the private sector, and State, local, tribal, and territory governments.”

Needed Reforms

The threats to U.S. energy infrastructure are real and persistent, and CESER’s

role—working to support national security by working with the private sector to

ensure energy security—is a proper one for government. Though CESER is properly

focused on the threat to the grid from inverter-based resources like wind and solar, it

needs to focus on the entire energy system, including the interdependence between

natural gas and electric generation and cybersecurity. A good ﬁrst step would be to

reinstate an iteration of the Trump Administration’s Executive Order 13920, “Secur-

ing the United States Bulk-Power System.”

The Biden Administration also placed

the Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) and DOE’s Federal Power Act 202(c) author-

ity

under the CESER oce, which should continue in the next Administration.

New Policies

CESER should be refocused to prioritize the cybersecurity, physical security,

and resilience of critical infrastructure. Through research and development, tech-

nical assistance to states and industry, and emergency exercises, CESER can make

a dierence in our energy security posture.

Budget

CESER received $177 million for FY 2022 under the Energy and Water Develop-

ment and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, 2022,

and $550 million through

the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

The FY 2023 budget request is for

$202 million.

In addition, the White House has sent a letter to Congress request-

ing additional appropriations of $500 million to modernize the SPR.

OFFICE OF ELECTRICITY (OE)

Mission/Overview

OE was created after the 2003 blackouts to improve grid reliability and energy

assurance.

OE works to defend and promote the reliability and resiliency of the

electric grid through power grid modeling and analytics, cyber resilience programs,

and coordination with private-sector electricity providers. It also works to identify

Defense Critical Electric Infrastructure.

Needed Reforms

Focus more intently on grid reliability. There are signiﬁcant cyber,

physical, and reliability threats to the electric grid, and it is important

— 374 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

that a government agency with access to national security information

develops data and plans to address threats to the grid and assist the private

sector in securing it. Although OE does not stand out as a problematic

oce, additional focus and priority could be given to its original mission

of working on grid reliability and resilience. OE could be combined

with CESER (as well as what is left of the Grid Deployment Oce if it is

eliminated).

Eliminate applied programs. OE administers grant programs for things

like energy storage and the testing of grid-enhancing technologies (GETs).

These programs should be eliminated. The next Administration should work

with Congress to eliminate all DOE applied energy programs including OE

(except perhaps those related to basic science for new energy technology).

New Policies

Prioritize grid security. OE (along with CESER if they are combined)

should focus on the security of critical infrastructure equipment used

in the bulk power system as envisioned in President Trump’s May 2020

Executive Order 13920 and a related December 2020 Prohibition Order,

which was revoked in April 2021 by President Biden.

In addition,

CESER/OE should:

1. Focus on the interdependence of and threats to electric generation and

natural gas pipelines.

2. Continue to focus on Defense Critical Electric Infrastructure.

3. Work with FERC and the North American Electric Reliability

Corporation (NERC) to ensure that there is sucient dispatchable

on-demand generation available to generate the electricity the grid

needs when intermittent generation like wind and solar is not available.

End funding of programs for commercial technology and deployment.

The next Administration should work with Congress to eliminate

nonessential funding of commercial technology and deployment. These

activities can be conducted by the private sector.

Budget

OE’s FY 2021 enacted budget was $211,720,000, and DOE has requested

$297,386,000 for FY 2023.

— 375 —

Department of Energy and Related Commissions

OFFICE OF NUCLEAR ENERGY (NE)

Mission/Overview

The Oce of Nuclear Energy’s “mission is to advance nuclear energy science

and technology to meet U.S. energy, environmental, and economic needs.” It has

ﬁve stated goals: “Enable continued operation of existing U.S. nuclear reactors,”

“Enable deployment of advanced nuclear reactors,” “Develop advanced nuclear

fuel cycles,” “Maintain U.S. leadership in nuclear energy technology,” and “Enable

a high-performing organization.”

Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act,

the Oce

of Nuclear Energy “has also been responsible for the DOE’s statutory requirements

to collect and dispose of spent nuclear fuel…since the Obama Administration’s

dissolution of the Oce of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.”

Needed Reforms

NE is too inﬂuential in driving the business decisions of commercial nuclear

energy ﬁrms. Instead of focusing on a limited set of basic research and devel-

opment activities that solve foundational technical issues that apply broadly to

energy production, NE intervenes in nearly all aspects of the commercial nuclear

energy industry. Absent wholesale reforms that restructure the federal energy and

science bureaucracy to eliminate such functional energy oces, the next Admin-

istration should:

Substantially limit NE’s size and scope.

Adopt broader regulatory and energy policy reforms that reduce

regulatory obstacles, allow all energy sources to compete fairly in the

marketplace, and establish a predictable policy environment. This will

avoid unfair bias against the nuclear industry.

New Policies

NE should transition to a more limited scope of responsibilities that focuses on

basic research, solving broadly applicable technology challenges, and solving the

nuclear waste management issue as it relates to the development and deployment

of advanced next-generation reactors, which can include small modular reactors

(SMR). While respecting existing contractual obligations, NE should not initi-

ate any new civilian reactor demonstration and commercialization projects. NE

also should:

Focus on overcoming technical barriers that are preventing

commercial reactor demonstration projects from moving forward.

Any activities in support of existing nuclear plants and any other projects

— 376 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

directed toward commercialization, including licensing support, should be

shouldered by the private sector.

Reorganize its remaining activities into three basic lines of

responsibility: nuclear fuels across the fuel cycle, reactor technology,

and civilian radioactive waste.

Budget

The above reforms would cost substantially less than the $1,675,060,000

requested for FY 2023.

Legislation such as the IIJA placed additional funding for

new reactor demonstration projects outside of NE. These responsibilities and their

associated funds should be moved to NE as appropriate. NE should not simply add

or subtract programs, as some programs may help to support NE’s new priorities.

The better approach would be to build a new budget and program strategy that

accounts for related DOE programs and submit a new budget request reﬂecting

NE’s new priorities.

OFFICE OF FOSSIL ENERGY AND CARBON MANAGEMENT (FECM)

Mission/Overview

DOE is authorized by law to increase the conversion eciency of all forms of

fossil energy, reduce costs, improve environmental performance, and increase the

energy security of the United States.

In recent years, the Oce of Fossil Energy

(FE) has been transformed from its statutory role of improving fossil energy pro-

duction to one that is focused primarily on reducing the carbon dioxide emissions

from fossil fuel extraction, transport, and combustion. This change is reﬂected in

the oce’s new name, the Oce of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM),

eective as of July 2021, and FECM’s mission: “to minimize the environmental

impacts of fossil fuels while working towards net-zero emissions.”

Needed Reforms

Eliminate carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) programs.

Despite the recent expansion of the 45Q tax credit for carbon capture

utilization and storage (CCUS) to $87 per ton, most carbon capture

technology remains economically unviable, although private-sector

innovations are on the horizon. CCUS programs should be left to the private

sector to develop.

If the oce continues any CCUS research, that research

should be focused more on innovative utilization.

Pursue the processing of critical minerals. Development of domestic

critical material sources is important for national security, as the vast

— 377 —

Department of Energy and Related Commissions

majority of critical materials are mined or processed (or both) in Russia and

China.

The processing of critical materials from fossil fuel waste products

(primarily coal) has shown some potential and, in view of our vast domestic

reserves of coal and abundant waste from coal mining and combustion,

should be pursued.

New Policies

Eliminate FECM. The next Administration should work with Congress to

eliminate all of DOE’s applied energy programs, including those in FECM

(with the possible exception of those that are related to basic science for

new energy technology). Taxpayer dollars should not be used to subsidize

preferred businesses and energy resources, thereby distorting the market

and undermining energy reliability.

Rename FECM (if it cannot be eliminated) under its original

designation as the Oce of Fossil Energy and with its original

mission: increasing energy security and supply through fossil fuels.

Focus on energy security and supply. Absent elimination of FECM,

Congress should direct FECM appropriations toward increasing energy

security and supply. Congress has already directed these goals (including

the reduction of costs).

Ensure that LNG export approvals are reviewed and processed in a

timely manner. In particular:

1. Ensure that LNG export applications are reviewed and approved

expeditiously.

2. Maintain the categorical exclusion from the National Environmental

Policy Act (NEPA)

for LNG exports that was established by the Trump

Administration

or (if it is revoked by the Biden Administration)

reinstate it.

3. Work with Congress to expand automatic approvals to include allies such

as NATO as well as nations that have free trade agreements with the U.S.

Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The Biden Administration moved

responsibility for the SPR to CESER. Regardless of where the responsibility

lies, the new DESAS should ensure that the SPR is maintained for national

strategic purposes and not misused for political gain.

— 378 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Budget

The FY 2023 budget request for FECM was approximately $893.2 million.

FECM’s requested appropriation can be compared to the more than $4.0 billion

requested for the Oce of Energy Eciency and Renewable Energy.

The disparity

in funding demonstrates how DOE’s research activities and substantial portions

of its organizational structure are now focused entirely on the reduction of CO2

emissions rather than energy access or energy security.

OFFICE OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND RENEWABLE ENERGY (EERE)

Mission/Overview

The Oce of Energy Eciency and Renewable Energy traces its roots to the

Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975,

but most of its programs today

are rooted in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Under the Biden Administration,

EERE’s mission is “to accelerate the research, development, demonstration, and

deployment of technologies and solutions to equitably transition America to net-

zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions economy-wide by no later than 2050” and

“ensure [that] the clean energy economy beneﬁts all Americans.”

The oce is

made up of three “pillars”: energy eciency, renewable energy, and sustainable

transportation.

Needed Reforms

End the focus on climate change and green subsidies. Under the Biden

Administration, EERE is a conduit for taxpayer dollars to fund progressive

policies, including decarbonization of the economy and renewable

resources. EERE has focused on reducing carbon dioxide emissions to

the exclusion of other statutorily deﬁned requirements such as energy

security and cost. For example, EERE’s ﬁve programmatic priorities

during the Biden Administration are all focused on decarbonization of the

electricity sector, the industrial sector, transportation, buildings, and the

agricultural sector.

Eliminate energy eciency standards for appliances. Pursuant to

the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 as amended, the agency

is required to set and periodically tighten energy and/or water eciency

standards for nearly all kinds of commercial and household appliances,

including air conditioners, furnaces, water heaters, stoves, clothes washers

and dryers, refrigerators, dishwashers, light bulbs, and showerheads.

Current law and regulations reduce consumer choice, drive up costs for

consumer appliances, and emphasize energy eciency to the exclusion of

other important factors such as cycle time and reparability.

— 379 —

Department of Energy and Related Commissions

New Policies

Eliminate EERE. The next Administration should work with Congress to

eliminate all of DOE’s applied energy programs, including those in EERE

(with the possible exception of those that are related to basic science for

new energy technology). Taxpayer dollars should not be used to subsidize

preferred businesses and energy resources, thereby distorting the market

and undermining energy reliability.

Reduce EERE funding. If EERE cannot be eliminated, then the

Administration should engage with Congress and the House and Senate

Appropriations Committees on EERE’s budget. EERE’s budget was

around $1.5 billion a year when the advances were made that led to

dramatic cost decreases in wind, solar, and battery technology. In recent

years, Congress has appropriated many billions of dollars in excess of

EERE’s normal budget (DOE requested more than $4.0 billion for FY

2023).

It should rescind these excess monies so that DOE is not required

to spend them. If funding cannot be reduced, then it should be reallocated

to more fundamental research and less toward commercialization

and deployment.

Focus on fundamental science and research. If EERE cannot be

eliminated, then the Administration should focus on broader and

more fundamental energy research, consistent with law. The Biden

Administration is too focused on deploying technologies instead of

relying on the private sector. Moreover, under the Biden Administration,

EERE is too focused on decarbonization and not at all on the

cost of energy.

Eliminate energy eciency standards for appliances. The next

Administration should work with Congress to modify or repeal the law

mandating energy eciency standards. Before (or in lieu of) repealing the

law, there are steps the agency can take to refocus on the consumer by giving

full force to the provisions already in the law that serve to limit regulatory

overreach and protect against excessively stringent standards. For example,

the Trump DOE prioritized the relatively few appliance regulations that

were likely to save consumers the most energy and refrained from those

whose modest beneﬁts are unlikely to justify the costs. It also took steps

to ensure that any new standards do not compromise product quality or

eliminate any features. These and other consumer protections are in the

statute but have often been ignored.

— 380 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Budget

EERE was funded at slightly more than $2.8 billion in FY 2021, and DOE

requested slightly more than $4.0 billion for FY 2023.

Congress needs to rescind

the appropriated monies that EERE has not spent and begin fresh with new

appropriations.

GRID DEPLOYMENT OFFICE (GDO)

Mission/Overview

The Grid Deployment Oce was established to implement parts of the Infra-

structure Investment and Jobs Act. Pursuant to the IIJA, GDO administers funds

appropriated by Congress to support transmission expansion and low/zero carbon

resources. In addition, GDO is developing studies of the electric grid to address

congestion, enhance reliability and resilience, and promote “clean” energy.

Needed Reforms

End grid planning and focus instead on reliability. FERC and NERC

have the primary responsibility for addressing reliability, states have the

primary authority to site and permit transmission lines, and regional

transmission organizations assist in planning regional transmission needs

for parts of the country, but Congress granted some grid planning and siting

authority to FERC and DOE through the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and

IIJA, as well as grid funding through the Inﬂation Reduction Act. Instead

of focusing on grid expansion for the beneﬁt of renewable resources or

supporting low/carbon generation, GDO should be incorporated into the

reformed Oce of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response,

which would work to enhance the grid’s reliability and resilience. To the

extent that they remain in eect, the funding programs that GDO oversees

and administers should emphasize grid reliability, not renewables expansion.

Consider whether to defund the civil nuclear tax credit program and

hydroelectric power eciency and production incentives established

in the IIJA and administered through GDO. If subsidies for renewable

resources are not repealed, it may be necessary to continue subsidies for

nuclear and hydro to ensure grid reliability.

New Policies

Eliminate GDO and assign necessary activities to the reformed

CESER. It appears that GDO’s current purpose is to promote the

integration of low/zero carbon resources onto the grid by supporting

subsidies for such resources and building new transmission facilities at

— 381 —

Department of Energy and Related Commissions

a cost that poses a barrier to renewable generation expansion. However,

some of the grants that it administers under the IIJA appear to be properly

focused on enhancing the reliability and security of the electric grid. They

should be reassigned to the reformed and expanded CESER.

End DOE/GDO’s role in grid planning for the beneﬁt of renewable

developers. Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and IIJA, DOE is to

perform grid congestion studies and has authority to identify National

Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETC). Under the Biden

Administration, GDO is working on a National Transmission Planning

Study and is administering $2.5 billion to support “nationally signiﬁcant

transmission lines, increase resilience by connecting regions of the country,

and improve access to cheaper clean energy sources.”

Defund most GDO programs. GDO oversees nearly $20 billion in new

appropriations created by the IIJA, including a grid modernization grant

program, the transmission facilitation program, and the civil nuclear

credit program, among others. Congress should rescind any money not

already spent.

Budget

Congress appropriated $10 million for GDO in FY 2021, and DOE has requested

$90.2 million for FY 2023.

OFFICE OF CLEAN ENERGY DEMONSTRATION (OCED)

Mission/Overview

The OCED was established in December 2021 to implement the IIJA. Its mis-

sion is “[to] deliver clean energy demonstration projects at scale in partnership

with the private sector to accelerate deployment, market adoption, and the equi-

table transition to a decarbonized energy system.”

Needed Reforms

End market distortions and stop shifting technology and

development risks to taxpayers. The OCED is distorting energy

markets and shifting the risk of new technology deployment from the

private sector to taxpayers. The IIJA provided more than $20 billion in

government subsidies to help the private sector deploy and market clean

energy and decarbonizing resources. Government should not be picking

winners and losers and should not be subsidizing the private sector to bring

resources to market.

— 382 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

New Policies

Eliminate OCED. The next Administration should work with Congress

to eliminate all DOE energy demonstration programs, including those

in OCED. Taxpayer dollars should not be used to subsidize preferred

businesses and energy resources, thereby distorting the market and

undermining energy reliability.

Refocus on resources that will support reliability. To the extent that

the various energy research and development funding authorities cannot

be repealed, funded projects should be consistent with the programmatic

goals of the next Administration. For example, the already awarded

Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program should help to move SMRs

from pilot scale to commercialization and in the process address material,

fuel, and regulatory issues that would pose deployment risk to utilities and

Wall Street.

Budget

DOE’s FY 2023 budget request includes $214 million “to initiate a new $150

million competition to support demonstrations that address integration issues of

renewable energy into the U.S. transmission and distribution grids.”

Overall, the

“$21.5 billion provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law”

supports several

OCED programs:

Advanced Reactor Demonstration Projects ($2.5 billion).

Carbon Capture Large-Scale Pilot Projects ($937 million).

Carbon Capture Demonstration Projects Program ($2.5 billion).

Clean Energy Demonstration Program on Current and Former Mine Land

($500 million).

Energy Improvements in Rural or Remote Areas ($1 billion).

Industrial Demonstrations Program ($6.3 billion).

Long Duration Energy Storage Demonstrations ($505 million).

Regional Clean Energy Hubs ($8 billion).

Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs ($3.5 billion).

— 383 —

Department of Energy and Related Commissions

Personnel

By drawing resources from across the DOE, the OCED has already grown to 70

personnel in six months. If OCED is eliminated, those positions can be eliminated.

If OCED is reduced, its personnel can be reduced to ﬁt its scope.

LOAN PROGRAM OFFICE (LPO)

Mission/Overview

“LPO’s mission is to ﬁnance next-generation U.S. energy infrastructure,”

serve “as a bridge to bankability for breakthrough projects and technologies,”

and “de-risk[] them at early stages of investment so they can be developed at

commercial scale and achieve market acceptance.”

The Biden Administration

directed the program to subsidize the Administration’s “net zero” energy tran-

sition away from conventional fuels by 2050 and to promote union jobs and

domestic supply chains.

The LPO coordinates with the U.S. Treasury Federal Financing Bank and is

organized into seven divisions: Outreach and Business Development, Origination,

Portfolio Management, Risk Management, Technical and Project Management,

Legal, and Management and Operation. Its loan programs were originally designed

as temporary programs but have since been amended and expanded. Speciﬁcally:

The IRA expanded the authority in [LPO’s] existing programs, 1703, ATVM,

and Tribal Energy Finance, by $100B. IRA also created the Energy

Infrastructure Reinvestment (EIR) Financing Program (1706) which

can support up to $250B in loan authority. The CO2 Infrastructure

Finance and Innovation Act (CIFIA)—authorized by the [bipartisan

infrastructure law], appropriates $2.1B to support approximately $25B in

ﬂexible, low-interest loans. This new legislation will create jobs and wealth,

address environmental justice and equity priorities and strengthen our

energy security and supply chains.

Needed Reforms

Taxpayers should not be backing risky business ventures or politically pre-

ferred commercial enterprises. To save tax dollars and reduce current risk, the

new Administration:

Should not back any new loans or loan guarantees.

Should seek to sunset DOE’s loan authority through Congress and

eventually eliminate the Loan Program Oce.

— 384 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

DOE-backed loans and loan guarantees put taxpayers at undue risk, distort

private-sector investment decisions, shift private money toward projects with

political support, and create additional barriers to entry for companies that are

outside of the government’s deﬁnition of “innovative” or for companies that choose

not to participate.

New Policies

To the extent that DOE loan programs cannot be repealed, the new Adminis-

tration should:

Strengthen due diligence and increase transparency in DOE

loan programs.

Limit the use of new loan or loan guarantee authority to projects

that will promote the reliability and resilience of the electric

grid and other energy infrastructure and support national

security objectives.

Establish clear mandatory qualiﬁcations requiring applicants to

comply with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act58 and to

certify that they are not ﬁnanced with any other local, state, or

federal taxpayer-backed loan, loan guarantee, or bond (such as a

state “green bank”).

ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY–ENERGY (ARPA–E)

Mission/Overview

ARPA–E was created in 2007 as part of the America Competes (Creating Oppor-

tunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology Education) Act.

Its

statutory goals are “to enhance the economic and energy security of the United

States through the development of energy technologies” that reduce “imports of

energy from foreign sources;” reduce “energy-related emissions, including green-

house gases;” improve “the energy eciency of all economic sectors;” and “ensure

that the United States maintains a technological lead in developing and deploying

advanced energy technologies.”

Some in Congress see ARPA–E as beneﬁcial because the COMPETES Act pro-

vides it with more bureaucratic ﬂexibility than other federal programs are allowed.

Its goals are essentially the same as those of DOE’s applied energy oces, but its

structure is dierent, and it is focused around individual programs instead of

around oces with longer-term agendas.

— 385 —

Department of Energy and Related Commissions

Needed Reforms

Stop risking taxpayer dollars as venture capital for the private

sector. ARPA–E tends to see its mission as bringing technology from

idea to commercialization. Often called the investment trough, ARPA–E

is eectively funding projects that the private sector is unwilling to fund.

Taxpayers should not in eect be picking winners and losers—and having

their dollars at risk but not gaining the economic rewards of success.

End duplicative eorts. Another problem is that ARPA–E’s mission is

similar to the missions of DOE’s applied energy oces. If DOE’s applied

energy oces are doing their jobs correctly, they will use Funding

Opportunities Announcements, prizes, lab calls, and other funding

mechanisms that are needed to accomplish a speciﬁc goal. In other words,

ARPA–E is at best duplicating the work done by other DOE oces.

New Policies

Eliminate ARPA-E. The next Administration should work with Congress

to eliminate ARPA–E. The agency is unnecessary, risks taxpayer dollars,

and interferes with risk-beneﬁt decisions that should be made by the

private sector.

Budget

Congress appropriated $427 million for ARPA–E in FY 2021, and slightly more

than $700 million has been requested for FY 2023.

FEDERAL ENERGY MANAGEMENT PROGRAM (FEMP)

Mission/Overview

The Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) describes its mission

as working with “other federal agencies to meet energy-related goals, identify

aordable solutions, facilitate public–private partnerships, and provide energy

leadership to the country by identifying government best practices.”

Congress has

created a number of energy and energy eciency requirements and guidelines for

federal agencies,

and FEMP works with those agencies to help them meet their

congressionally mandated goals.

Needed Reforms

As the world’s largest single energy consumer, the federal government should

use energy eciently and cost-eectively—especially because the taxpayer is

paying the energy bills. The Obama Administration required the federal govern-

ment to set extrastatutory and aggressive goals regarding the use of renewable

— 386 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

energy. The Trump Administration took a less aggressive approach in Executive

Order 13834, which speciﬁed that “each agency shall prioritize actions that reduce

waste, cut costs, enhance the resilience of Federal infrastructure and operations,

and enable more eective accomplishment of its mission.”

New Policies

A conservative Administration should follow the language of Executive Order

13834 and direct federal agencies to “reduce waste, cut costs, enhance the resilience

of Federal infrastructure and operations, and enable more eective accomplish-

ment of its mission.” For FEMP, this means focusing on helping federal agencies

to follow the law and use energy eciently and cost-eectively.

Budget

FEMP was funded at $40 million in FY 2022,

and slightly less than $170 mil-

lion is requested for FY 2023.

If it is focused on helping the federal government

to carry out its statutorily based energy goal, much less money is needed.

CLEAN ENERGY CORPS

Mission/Overview

Under the IIJA, “the Clean Energy Corps is charged with investing more than

$62 billion to deliver a more equitable clean energy future for the American peo-

ple[.]”

The Corps says that it will “focus on deploying next generation clean energy

technology” to “help America meet its goals of a carbon-free power sector in 2035

and a decarbonized economy in 2050.”

Needed Reforms

The Clean Energy Corps is a taxpayer-funded program to create new govern-

ment jobs for employees “who will work together to research, develop, demonstrate,

and deploy solutions to climate change.” DOE anticipates recruiting “an additional

1,000 employees using a special hiring authority included in the Bipartisan Infra-

structure Law.”

Taxpayers should not have to fund a cadre of federal employees

to promote a partisan political agenda.

New Policies

Eliminate the Clean Energy Corps by revoking funding and eliminating all posi-

tions and personnel hired under the program.

Budget

Funding for Clean Energy Corps employees is not clearly deﬁned in the FY 2023

DOE budget request.

— 387 —

Department of Energy and Related Commissions

ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION (EIA)

Mission/Overview

The U.S. Energy Information Administration “collects, analyzes, and dis-

seminates independent and impartial energy information to promote sound

policymaking, ecient markets, and public understanding of energy and its inter-

action with the economy and the environment.”

Needed Reforms

EIA is not an inherently problematic agency and historically has provided inde-

pendent and impartial analysis. Requests for EIA analyses can be made by the

Administration or from Members of Congress or congressional committees. EIA

needs to be committed to providing unbiased forecasting and data so that poli-

cymakers, industry, and the public can have a clear understanding of our energy

resources and energy economy. Strong leadership will be needed to ensure that

data and reporting are not misused to promote a politicized “energy transition.”

New Policies

Clarify levelized cost of electricity. “Levelized cost of electricity (LCOE)

refers to the estimated revenue required to build and operate a generator

over a speciﬁed cost recovery period.”

It is used in the National Energy

Modeling System (NEMS) to compare the cost of technologies to determine

which technologies are expected to be constructed in the future. Although it

is useful in comparing the costs of resources over time, LCOE can also mask

the massive amounts of capital needed to deploy new generation. Moreover,

in the case of intermittent resources such as wind and solar, LCOE does not

include the cost for backup or ﬁrming power from dispatchable resources.

EIA should ensure that its reporting provides an accurate assessment of

generation costs. The cost of backup power for when wind and solar resources

are not available should be included when comparing the technologies and

reported as a separate component in the modeling documents.

Revise reserve margins. EIA, in conjunction with FERC, NERC, regional

transmission organizations (RTOs), and the electric industry, should

change how electric grid reserve margins are deﬁned and calculated. In the

past, reserve margins have looked at the amount of nameplate capacity on

the grid to serve peak load plus a reserve. With the increasing number of

intermittent, nondispatchable resources like wind and solar, peak load and

reserve margins need to be reevaluated. Reserve margins need to be timed to

load changes throughout the day and consider the availability of dispatchable

on-demand resources to meet load when renewables may not be available.

— 388 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Update reports on the impacts of federal ﬁnancial interventions and

subsidies. EIA’s most recent report on federal ﬁnancial interventions and

subsidies was issued in April 2018.

This is an important analysis because it

clearly shows the level of the federal government’s intervention in each area

of the energy system for a given ﬁscal year. In the past, EIA performed the

analysis pursuant to a request from Congress or the Administration. This

report should become a project that is performed annually or every other

year as part of EIA’s base program.

Ensure the objectivity of the International Energy Outlook (IEO).

In the past, EIA published the IEO every year. It is now published every

two years. IEO forecasts are important because the International Energy

Agency’s forecasts in its annual World Energy Outlook are becoming

unrealistic and politically oriented to push Europe’s climate goals. EIA

forecasts should be based on current laws and regulations and should not be

used to promote favored policies.

Assess the case for privatization. There are some who think that EIA

should be privatized. The cost savings to taxpayers should be considered. On

the other hand, EIA has generally demonstrated neutral data presentation

that is helpful to policymakers and the private sector.

Budget

Congress appropriated $126.8 million for EIA in FY 2021, and the FY 2023

budget request is for approximately $144.5 million.

OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS (IA)

Mission/Overview

“The Oce of International Aairs has primary responsibility for addressing

international energy issues that have a direct impact on research, development,

utilization, supply, and conservation of energy aecting the United States.”

“focuses on enhancing global energy security through countering malign inﬂuence,

diversifying supplies, and increasing energy access” and “is committed to increas-

ing U.S. energy exports and trade to enhance growth.”

Needed Reforms

Expand IA’s role and focus its activities on U.S. international energy

security interests. International energy activities should be consolidated

under IA (and the Department of State’s Bureau of Energy Resources

should be eliminated) to ensure a proper understanding of domestic energy

— 389 —

Department of Energy and Related Commissions

policy and how it aects foreign policy, as well as the international energy

landscape and how it aects U.S. national and economic security.

Develop a strategy for identifying and accessing resources and

advancing U.S. economic interests. America has recently become a

net energy exporter, but it still imports large amounts of essential energy

resources such as oil and natural gas as well as such materials as uranium

(including yellowcake), lithium, certain rare earth minerals, and energy

generation and transmission components and technology. The United

States needs a clear understanding of its global energy and economic

interests and a strategy for protecting them.

Oppose “climate reparations.” During the November 2022 United

Nations climate conference in Egypt, the Biden Administration and other

“developed” countries agreed to provide “climate reparations” to developing

countries for the harm allegedly caused by the developed countries’

use of fossil fuel.

A reparations slush fund administered by a non-U.S.

organization provides no assurance that U.S. interests will be protected and

should not be supported in any form.

New Policies

Identify U.S. energy security interests and promote American energy

dominance. To this end, IA should work closely with the DESAS Oce of

Policy on the National Energy Security Strategy.

Strengthen the new DESAS vis-à-vis the Department of State. The

State Department’s Bureau of Energy Resources has generally excluded IA

from serious discussions of international aairs to the detriment of DOE

and broader interagency policy development. In addition, DOE embassy

representatives are generally excluded from giving policy advice to senior

diplomats and are used merely as sources of information instead of being

active advocates for the Secretary’s priorities. The Secretary of Energy is

a senior member of the President’s National Security Council and should

function as such. The DOE’s Deputy Secretaries, Under Secretaries, and

Assistant Secretaries should be guaranteed representation at all Deputies

and Policy Coordination Committee meetings. In addition, senior political

and career sta should hold positions on the NSC sta equivalent to their

counterparts at State, Defense, Treasury, and the Intelligence Community

(IC). DESAS billets should replace State Department Bureau of Energy

Resources billets at the relevant posts worldwide.

— 390 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Stop “climate reparations.” The President should refuse to provide

climate reparations under an unratiﬁed treaty, and IA should encourage

other countries to reconsider their desire to provide reparations.

ARCTIC ENERGY OFFICE (AE)

Mission/Overview

AE was established during the Trump Administration to create a central oce

overseeing U.S. Arctic interests in Alaska and the other Arctic nations in response

to the growing strategic sensitivity of this geographic region and the natural

resources it contains. It “serves as the principal advisor to the Under Secretary

on all domestic Arctic issues, including energy, science, and national security.”

Needed Reforms

In October 2022, the Biden Administration released its National Strategy

for the Arctic Region.

Although recognizing national security threats in the

Artic, it also focuses heavily on climate change, sustainability, and international

cooperation. The United States must establish a strategic plan to promote its

national security, energy, and economic interests in the Arctic. An analysis and

plan to support the responsible development of Alaska’s energy assets should

be a priority.

New Policies

Defend American interests in the Artic Circle. The next Administration

needs to deﬁne American strategic and economic interests in the Arctic

Circle. AE should help to identify those interests, as well as threats posed by

countries like Russia and China, and develop appropriate policy options for

the President’s consideration.

Ensure that AE is clearly focused. In particular, this means identifying

U.S. energy interests in the Arctic Circle, identifying foreign government

and commercial interests and activity in the region, and ensuring that

the United States does not forgo important energy and national security

interests in the Arctic.

Expand AE’s operations in Alaska. AE’s operations in Alaska should be

expanded to encompass broader national energy security interests in the

region including rare earths, oil, and natural gas. AE should also be the lead

for DOE Antarctic operations as a counter to growing Russian and Chinese

interest in Antarctic resources.

— 391 —

Department of Energy and Related Commissions

Personnel

AE should provide a senior Arctic Energy ocial to the U.S. Arctic Council del-

egation in recognition of the key role that energy plays in Arctic development.

OFFICE OF INTELLIGENCE AND

COUNTERINTELLIGENCE (IAC)

Mission/Overview

DOE’s Oce of Intelligence and Counterintelligence “is responsible for all intel-

ligence and counterintelligence activities throughout the DOE complex, including

nearly thirty intelligence and counterintelligence oces nationwide.” It “lever-

age[s] the Energy Department’s unmatched scientiﬁc and technological expertise

in support of policymakers as well as national security missions in defense, home-

land security, cyber security, intelligence, and energy security” and “is a member

of the U.S. Intelligence Community.”

Needed Reforms

Robust security protocols are necessary to protect DOE technology and innova-

tions from foreign penetration and espionage. In addition, DOE’s general isolation

from the rest of the Intelligence Community prevents appropriately cleared senior

sta from getting the thorough issue brieﬁngs that their colleagues elsewhere in

the national security realm receive.

New Policies

Improve accountability and utilization. IAC should be led by a qualiﬁed

appointee and report directly to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary. IAC

will require strong political leadership, which means ﬁnding an appointee

with an IC background. In addition, upgrading the new DESAS’s general

security posture would require the Secretary’s direct intervention to

improve protocols and access the necessary resources from the rest of the

IC. This would not be achievable at a lower level.

OFFICE OF POLICY (OP)

Mission/Overview

OP has taken various roles over dierent Administrations. During the Obama

Administration, OP was a large oce and was tasked with drafting the Quadrennial

Energy Review (QER). The Trump Administration shut down the QER and gave

OP a leaner research and advisory role. Under the Biden DOE, OP appears to be

focused on preparing reports on climate change and renewables.

— 392 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Needed Reforms

Help to develop policy. Because the appointees running DOE’s various

program oces are properly focused on managing their programs, not

enough thought is given to identifying future challenges and developing

potential solutions to beneﬁt the American people.

Help to ensure that policies are properly implemented. Policy

initiatives from the Secretary are often understood or implemented

inconsistently by program oces. OP can help the Secretary to ensure

that important policy initiatives are implemented, particularly when they

involve multiple program oces.

New Policies

Develop a National Energy Security Strategy. OP could be tasked with

developing a National Energy Security Strategy for the Secretary. This strategy

could be prepared in conjunction with the White House National Security

Strategy and the DOD National Defense Strategy to convey these priorities

to Congress and design policy initiatives for their implementation. Such a

strategy could summarize cyber and physical threats to energy infrastructure,

challenges involved in obtaining rare earth minerals to support domestic

energy production and consumption, and foreign actions that threaten U.S.

energy security and dominance. However, it would be important to guard

against attempts to transform the strategy into a government-led industrial

policy or, in a progressive Administration, an economy-wide climate policy.

OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY TRANSITIONS (OTT)

Mission/Overview

The Secretary of Energy authorized the creation of this oce in 2015. Its mis-

sion “is to expand the public impact of the department’s research, development,

demonstration, and deployment (RDD&D) portfolio to advance the economic,

energy and national security interests of the nation.” OTT serves as “the front door

to U.S. Department of Energy’s…products, facilities and expertise” and “integrates

‘market pull’ into its planning to ensure the greatest return on investment from

DOE’s RDD&D activities to the taxpayer.”

Needed Reforms

OTT should ensure that the best emerging technologies from DOE and the

National Labs are properly supported and protected. Because America’s techno

logical edge is a key national security asset, and in view of China’s predatory thefts

of intellectual property, OTT should:

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Department of Energy and Related Commissions

Ensure that R&D funds are used for projects that protect and

advance that edge.

Ensure that successful advances, with a focus on new natural

resource development technologies, artiﬁcial intelligence,

cybersecurity, and space, are transferred swiftly to American

interests in the private sector.

New Policies

Focus on beneﬁts to Americans. OTT’s operations should be based on

the recognition that the new technologies generated by American taxpayers’

investment in DOE are a signiﬁcant national security asset rather than some

neutral scientiﬁc gift to humanity.

Increase oversight and coordination. OTT needs to be vigilant in

overseeing and coordinating OTT oces associated with each National

Lab. For security and economic espionage reasons, the work funded by the

American people needs to be protected, and when commercialized, it needs

to go to American businesses.

OFFICE OF SCIENCE (SC)

Mission/Overview

The Oce of Science (SC) supports and oversees research facilities and pro-

grams that cover basic science through its application to the demonstration and

deployment of energy technologies. SC oversees 10 of the 17 DOE National Labs

and 28 major federal research user facilities. Its mission is to preserve U.S. leader-

ship in science, fund and perform basic research, and provide the scientiﬁc facilities

that the private sector is unable or unwilling to provide. New initiatives include

quantum information sciences and artiﬁcial intelligence. SC is led by a Senate-con-

ﬁrmed Director at the Assistant Secretary level and has eight program oces.

Needed Reforms

The next conservative President should commit the United States to scientiﬁc

dominance to support national and economic security, especially in light of similar

eorts by China. To aid in this eort, the Oce of Science should:

Return to its primary mission: nonpartisan and basic science. SC’s

mission should be international leadership in basic and early applied science

and provision of world-leading facilities for this work. The Infrastructure

Investment and Jobs Act and Inﬂation Reduction Act mark the major

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

reorientation of DOE primarily from defense applications in the NNSA and

basic and early applied science across SC and the applied oces to a massive

federal research, development, demonstration, and commercialization body.

Distraction from SC’s basic science mission should be prevented.

Increase the level of accountability. The National Laboratories need to

be more directly accountable to the Secretary of Energy and Congress for

their work and management.

New Policies

Commit to U.S. science dominance. The United States is losing its

dominance in scientiﬁc discoveries and technological development. China

and other adversaries have been stealing American science and technology

for years and are now on the verge of dominating science—a development that

is fraught with negative strategic and economic implications for the United

States. The next Administration must commit itself to ensuring that the U.S.

continues to dominate scientiﬁc discovery and technological advancement.

Refocus on mission and eliminate duplication and waste. The

Administration should work with Congress to rationalize the National Lab

network to meet speciﬁc national objectives (such as the NNSA laboratories’

role in national defense) and conduct basic research that the private sector

would not otherwise conduct. Activities that duplicate those of other

government agencies or the private sector should be eliminated.

Properly manage the National Labs’ contributions to the private

sector. SC should improve private-sector access to the National Labs,

through programs like the GAIN voucher program and consistent with

national security considerations, while ensuring that the economic beneﬁts

of taxpayer-funded technologies ﬂow back to taxpayers through patent-

review sharing or a revolving fund.

Budget

The Oce of Science was appropriated slightly more than $7 billion in FY 2021,

and DOE requested slightly less than $7.8 billion for FY 2023.

OFFICE OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT (EM)

Mission/Overview

The Office of Environmental Management’s mission is to “complete the

safe cleanup of [the] environmental legacy resulting from decades of nuclear

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Department of Energy and Related Commissions

weapons development and government-sponsored nuclear energy research.”

Its

cleanup program is the world’s largest, and EM reports that 92 (of 107) sites have

been completed.

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Oce, “DOE is responsible

for the largest share of the federal government’s environmental liability—about 85

percent in ﬁscal year 2020.”

Since 2011, EM has spent a cumulative total of $63.2

billion, and its liability has grown by $243 billion.

It is currently projected that

cleanup will take another 70 years (FY 2022 to FY 2091).

Projected “Low Range”

and “High Range” lifecycle costs total slightly less than $652.4 billion and slightly

more than $887.2 billion, respectively.

Needed Reforms

Some states (and contractors), see EM as a jobs program and have little interest

in accelerating the cleanup. EM needs to move to an expeditious program with

targets for cleanup of sites. The Hanford site in Washington State is a particular

challenge. The Tri-Party Agreement (TPA) among DOE, the Environmental Pro-

tection Agency, and Washington State’s Department of Ecology has hampered

attempts to accelerate and innovate the cleanup. A central challenge at Hanford

is the classiﬁcation of radioactive waste. High-Level Waste (HLW) and Low-Level

Waste (LLW) classiﬁcations drive the remediation and disposal process. Under

President Trump, signiﬁcant changes in waste classiﬁcation from HLW to LLW

enabled signiﬁcant progress on remediation. Implementation needs to continue

across the complex, particularly at Hanford.

New Policies

The next Administration should:

Accelerate the cleanup. This means that a comprehensive cost projection

and schedule reﬂecting the entire scope of the job should be developed and

appropriate reforms should be instituted. To save taxpayers a potential

$500 billion over the long run and reduce current risk, a 10-year program

to complete all sites by 2035 (except Hanford with a target date of 2060)

should be considered. Such a commitment will require increased funding

for EM during those accelerated periods. To the extent that funding from

the IIJA and IRA cannot be repealed, requests to divert those funds to EM’s

cleanup obligations should be considered.

Fully implement High-Level Waste determination. Fully adopting

the High-Level Waste (HLW) determination across the DOE complex,

particularly at Hanford, would allow LLW to be grouted rather than vitriﬁed.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Increase the use of commercial waste disposal. Using commercial

disposal would reduce capital costs (~ $2 billion) for new disposal sites to

accelerate cleanup and reduce local post-cleanup environmental liability at

multiple sites.

Revisit the Hanford cleanup’s regulatory framework. Hanford poses

signiﬁcant political and legal challenges with the State of Washington, and

DOE will have to work with Congress to make progress in accelerating

cleanup at that site. DOE and EPA need to work more closely to coordinate

their responses to claims made under the TPA and work more aggressively

for changes, including congressional action if necessary, to achieve workable

cleanup goals.

Establish more direct leadership and accountability to the Deputy

Secretary consistent with Government Accountability Oce

recommendations.

Change Environmental Management’s culture to promote innovation

and completion.

Budget

Environmental Management received slightly less than $7.6 billion in FY 2021,

and its budget request for FY 2023 is approximately $8.06 billion.

The additional

funding necessary to accelerate closure of the program will need to be considered

as part of a broader government-wide discussion about yearly appropriations.

OFFICE OF CIVILIAN RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT (OCRWM)

(CURRENTLY OFFICE OF SPENT FUEL AND WASTE DISPOSITION)

Mission/Overview

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) of 1982 conferred the responsibility

for commercial nuclear waste disposal on the federal government,

and in 2002,

Congress designated a single repository located at Yucca Mountain in Nevada as

the national repository site. The act also established the Oce of Civilian Radio-

active Waste Management (OCRWM).

The Obama Administration shut down

OCRWM in 2010. The Oce of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition, which is headed

by a non-conﬁrmed Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Oce of Nuclear Energy, is

currently responsible for the management of nuclear waste, and interim disposal

is taking place on various sites. Providing a plan for the proper disposal of civilian

nuclear waste is essential to the promotion of nuclear power in the United States.

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Department of Energy and Related Commissions

Needed Reforms

Work with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as it reviews DOE’s

permit application for Yucca Mountain. According to both the scientiﬁc

community and global experience, deep geologic storage is critical to any

plan for the proper disposal of more than 75 years of defense waste and

80,000 tons of commercial spent nuclear fuel.

Yucca Mountain remains a

viable option for waste management, and DOE should recommit to working

with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as it reviews DOE’s permit

application for a repository. Finishing the review does not mean that Yucca

Mountain will be completed and operational; it merely presents all the

information for the State of Nevada, Congress, the nuclear industry, and the

Administration to use as the basis for informed decisions.

Reform the licensing process. The reactor licensing process is inadequate.

Fixing nuclear waste management will require wholesale reform that

realigns responsibilities, resets incentives, and introduces market forces

without creating chaos within the current nuclear industry that has been

built around the current system.

Produce concrete outcomes from consent-based siting. Beginning in

the Obama Administration and resurrected during the Biden Administration,

consent-based siting for a civilian waste nuclear repository has been a way

to delay any politically painful decisions about siting a permanent civilian

nuclear waste facility. In 2022, DOE announced $16 million to support local

communities in consent-based siting.

The next Administration should

use the consent-based-siting process to identify and build temporary or

permanent sites for a civilian waste nuclear repository (or repositories).

New Policies

Restart Yucca Mountain licensing. DOE should restart the Yucca

Mountain licensing process. Any continuation of interim storage facilities

should be made part of an integrated waste management system that

includes geologic storage. Further, building on the consent-based siting

process already underway, DOE should ﬁnd a second repository site.

Fix the policy and cost drivers that are preventing nuclear storage.

The federal government continues to hold $46 billion

in the Nuclear

Waste Fund (NWF),

funded by utilities and their ratepayers for permanent

disposal of nuclear waste. However, no such storage exists, and spent

nuclear fuel remains on site at most nuclear plants. Meanwhile, Congress

uses those funds to ﬁnance unrelated spending. Moreover, DOE’s

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

violation of its contractual obligation to take the waste has resulted in the

payment of “approximately $10.1 billion in settlements and judgments to

contract holders.”

Develop new NWF funding and accounting mechanisms that allow

licensed nuclear operators to guarantee resources for future nuclear

waste disposal while also maintaining control of those resources.

Reconstitute OCRWM. OCRWM, as already established by statute, should

be tasked with developing the next steps on Yucca Mountain and nuclear

waste management. These steps should include initiating market reforms,

including signiﬁcant amendments to the NWPA, to allow additional

industry responsibility for managing waste, market pricing and competition

for waste services, and the opportunity for Nevadans to have more

partnership involvement with any nuclear facility at Yucca Mountain.

Reestablish, consistent with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act,

the position of Director of the Oce of Civilian Radioactive

Waste Management.

Budget

Within the Oce of Nuclear Energy budget, approximately $100 million is set

aside for fuel cycle and waste management activities.

100

These funds should be

transferred to the newly established OCRWM, which should also be responsible

for managing the Nuclear Waste Fund and given access to the fund as necessary

to carry out its responsibilities.

NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION (NNSA)

Mission/Overview

NNSA’s primary mission is to provide and maintain a modern, safe, and eective

nuclear deterrent for the United States. This includes the design and production of

nuclear warheads, their integration with delivery systems, and their safe storage

and decommissioning. NNSA’s responsibilities also include developing nuclear

reactors for the U.S. Navy and “work[ing] to prevent nuclear weapon proliferation

and reduce the threat of nuclear and radiological terrorism around the world.”

101

NNSA was established by the NNSA Act, which also deﬁnes its authority.

102

Needed Reforms

The United States, through the NNSA, needs to make the design, development,

and deployment of new nuclear warheads a top priority. Existing warheads were

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Department of Energy and Related Commissions

designed and built during the Cold War, and the U.S. lacks sucient plutonium

production capabilities.

103

Because this process will take time, NNSA and the

NNSA Labs need to ensure that existing nuclear warheads are viable and provide

an appropriate strategic deterrent.

New Policies

The expansion of Chinese nuclear forces, the continued nuclear threat

from Russia, and active nuclear programs in North Korea, Iran, and elsewhere

require NNSA’s recommitment to the nuclear mission. A conservative Adminis-

tration should:

Continue to develop new warheads for each branch of the triad (land,

sea, and air defenses). If possible, reverse the Biden Administration’s

decision to retire the B83 bomb (in order to maintain two aircraft-delivered

warheads) and its decision to cancel the submarine-launched cruise

missile (SLCM).

104

Also undertake an evaluation of the need for nuclear

antisubmarine and air defense weapons in light of emerging threats.

Maintain two production sites for plutonium pits (a key element of

warhead production) at Los Alamos and Savannah River.

105

Reject ratiﬁcation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and

indicate a willingness to conduct nuclear tests in response to

adversary nuclear developments if necessary. This will require

that NNSA be directed to move to immediate test readiness to give the

Administration maximum ﬂexibility in responding to adversary actions.

Review all new Navy, Department of Homeland Security, and

U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration

construction programs. The review should be conducted by the Director

of Naval Reactors (DNR) with an eye to the possible inclusion of advanced

aordable nuclear reactor technology and extension of DNR authority over

these agencies’ nuclear construction programs.

Review the non–national security portfolios at the Los Alamos,

Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia labs and identify divestments to

focus on nuclear deterrence. Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and

Sandia provide unique capabilities for nuclear deterrence, and each

lab maintains extensive non–national security research programs and

commercial activities.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Review the operations of the Nuclear Weapons Council (NWC). The

statutorily established NWC is required to report to the President and

Congress but needs to refocus its eorts on providing comprehensive

oversight of DOE and DOD nuclear weapons policy and requirements.

Budget

Concurrent modernization of the nuclear triad and its warheads will be a major

challenge to the DOD and DOE budgets over the coming decade. DOE non-nuclear

programs should be the ﬁrst source of additional resources for NNSA activities.

Divestment of non-nuclear activities from NNSA laboratories can address some

overhead and operational costs. NNSA received $19.7 billion in 2021, and its FY

2023 budget request was $21.4 billion.

106

The next Administration should ensure

that funding is targeted to the accelerated development of new warheads.

Personnel

NNSA has tended to act as though it is not part of DOE and has resisted oversight

by the Secretary of Energy. The NNSA Act grants some autonomy to the NNSA, but

it also makes it clear that NNSA is under the authority of the Secretary. NNSA’s

leaders need to understand that ultimately, they report to the Secretary.

FERC: ELECTRIC RELIABILITY AND RESILIENCE

Mission/Overview

The Federal Power Act tasks FERC, along with the FERC-designated North

American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), with promoting the reliability

of the bulk power system (the transmission and generation needed to power the

electric grid).

107

NERC develops technical standards, and FERC adopts them as

mandatory standards (including cyber security standards) with which transmis-

sion providers, generators, and utilities must comply. Under the Federal Power

Act, critical electric infrastructure security and issues like electromagnetic pulse

(EMP) are addressed by both FERC and DOE.

108

In addition, the Infrastructure

Investment and Jobs Act directed FERC to establish incentive-based rate treat-

ments by encouraging utilities to invest in advanced cyber security technology and

participate in cyber security threat information-sharing programs.

Needed Reforms

There is a growing problem with the electric grid’s reliability because of the

increasing growth of subsidized intermittent renewable generation (like wind and

solar) and a lack of dispatchable generation (for example, power plants powered

by natural gas, nuclear, and coal), especially during hot and cold weather.

109

FERC

and NERC have been studying the potential for generation shortages across the

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Department of Energy and Related Commissions

nation in the summer

110

and winter.

111

Cyber and physical attacks also threaten the

grid. Speciﬁc areas for reform include the following:

Limit the impact of subsidized renewables on price formation.

Subsidized renewable resources are undermining electric reliability in

RTOs. The increase in subsidized, intermittent resources is undermining

the ability of RTOs’ pricing models to support the reliable dispatchable

generation that is needed to serve the grid at all times.

112

Reform the application of reserve margins. Reserve margins have

become largely meaningless. Traditionally, the electric industry has

used “reserve margins” to ensure that the grid has enough power plants

to guarantee reliability. Generally, reserve margins represent the amount

of generation available (power plants) to meet peak electric demand (the

time of day and year when people are using the most electricity) plus a

percentage of additional generation for backup.

113

However, given the

increasing number of intermittent resources (like solar, which may be

available during the heat of the day but disappears as the sun sets), other

dispatchable generation needs to be available to meet customers’ electricity

requirements. Therefore, the deﬁnitions and calculations of reserve

margins and peak load need to be updated to focus on the modern grid’s

reliability challenges for all times of the day and year.

Recognize the interdependence of electric generation and natural

gas. The interdependence of electric generation and natural gas pipelines

continues to grow. Given natural gas’s important role in generating

electricity, especially as backup when renewables are not available, lack of

natural gas pipelines or attacks on existing pipelines could threaten our

ability to generate electricity.

Expand resource diversity and reliability. Resource diversity is needed

to support grid reliability. Pressure to use 100 percent renewables or non–

carbon emitting resources threatens the electric grid’s reliability. A grid that

has access to dispatchable resources such as coal, nuclear, and natural gas

for generating power is inherently more reliable and resilient.

Protect against cyber and physical attacks. The threat of cyber and

physical attacks on electric infrastructure by foreign actors like China,

Russia, North Korea, and Iran, as well as terrorists, continues to grow. The

attacks with guns on substations in North Carolina in December 2022 that

left customers without power demonstrate the grid’s vulnerability.

114

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

New Policies

Reform RTOs to require reliability. FERC should direct RTOs to

establish reliability pricing for eligible dispatchable generation resources

or require intermittent resources to procure backup power for times when

they are not available to operate. In addition, Congress should repeal

subsidies for generation resources.

Update the deﬁnition and calculation of reserve margins to support

reliability. FERC, NERC, and DOE should revise the deﬁnition of reserve

margins to ensure the grid’s reliability throughout the day and the year. This

will mean recognizing that reserve margins may need to consider “net peak”

and exclude non-dispatchable resources from inclusion in reserve margin

calculations.

Expand and protect natural gas infrastructure in support of electric

generation. FERC needs to ensure that its consideration of natural gas

pipeline applications recognizes the role that natural gas plays in electric

reliability. FERC also needs to make sure that RTO pricing mechanisms

support generators that need to contract for natural gas service on

a ﬁrm basis.

Support resource diversity and reliability. FERC, NERC, and DOE play

key roles in balancing consumer, industrial, and national defense interests

to ensure an ongoing reliable, plentiful, and accessible national electricity

supply. NERC reliability reviews and FERC’s reliability roles should be

aware that overreliance on any one power generation fuel source entails

concurrent cost and availability risk. FERC should reform market rules that

unduly discriminate against dispatchable resources needed for reliability.

Strengthen security against cyber and physical threats. FERC and

NERC need to enhance the security of the bulk power system by, for

example, banning Chinese-made components, investing in transformers,

and hardening substations and other critical infrastructure. DOE should

play a leading role in identifying and addressing threats to the grid.

FERC: RTOS/ISOS AND “ELECTRIC POWER MARKETS”

Mission/Overview

For more than 20 years, FERC has issued regulations and directed policies for

the creation and operation of regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and

independent system operators (ISOs) to manage the dispatch of generation and

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Department of Energy and Related Commissions

transmission of electricity.

115

Under the misnomer “electric power markets,” these

regulatory constructs use marginal price clearing auctions (in some cases both

hourly day-ahead auctions and ﬁve-minute day-of-need auctions) and locational

marginal pricing to procure electric generation and set prices to meet the needs of

the grid. Some RTOs also have capacity auctions. Of the nation’s seven RTOs, six

are subject to FERC jurisdiction (but not ERCOT in Texas). Areas without an RTO

include the Southeast and portions of the West (although California is in an RTO).

Needed Reforms

Too many conservatives have assumed that because RTOs are described as

“electric power markets,” market forces of supply and demand set electric prices

and beneﬁt customers. RTOs are complex regulatory constructs (with rules set

by FERC) that obscure government interference and preferences for preferred

resources. Furthermore, government preferences and subsidies for resources like

wind and solar distort price formation for electricity that is undermining the reli-

ability of the grid. Finally, customers are not seeing the full economic beneﬁts that

non-fuel, subsidized resources should provide. Additionally:

Electric reliability is threatened in many RTOs. As subsidized

renewables (like wind and solar receiving tax credits) and state renewable

portfolio standards (RPS) programs have disrupted market functions, price

distortions have driven out reliable, dispatchable resources like coal, natural

gas, and nuclear generation in various RTOs. The result: Electric reliability

is decreasing in many parts of the country.

116

As noted, FERC and NERC

have been studying the potential for summer and winter shortages.

117

RTOs are not providing the full economic beneﬁts of renewables to

customers. Because RTOs use marginal price auctions where natural gas

usually sets the clearing price paid to all generators, the economic beneﬁts

of renewables (no fuel, tax credits, etc.) are ﬂowing mainly to renewables

investors and not to customers (although customers do beneﬁt from some

decrease in marginal costs). Yet reliability is decreasing, so customers are

getting the worst of both worlds, paying more for electricity and having less

reliability for the money.

Big Green and Big Tech want RTO expansion. Renewable developers,

large industrial users, and Big Tech tend to want RTO expansion for their

own economic and ESG reasons. These entities can beneﬁt economically

from the complexity and marginal pricing regime of the RTOs. Increased

costs and reliability problems are often shifted to other customers.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Unlike vertically integrated utilities that are accountable to state

elected ocials and state public utility commissions, RTOs and

their participants are accountable only to FERC. Even then, however,

accountability is indirect through the taris (rules) that the RTOs adopt and

FERC approves. In addition, unlike utilities, generators in an RTO have no

obligation to serve customers.

New Policies

FERC must make reliability of the grid and service to end use top priorities. To

do so, it should:

Reexamine the premise of RTOs. RTOs no longer seem to work for the

beneﬁt of the American people. Marginal price auctions for energy are not

ensuring the reliability of the grid and are not passing the full economic

beneﬁts of subsidized renewables on to customers. FERC needs to

reexamine the RTOs under its jurisdiction to make sure that they procure

reliable and aordable electricity for the beneﬁt of the American people.

Ensure that RTOs return to market fundamentals so that they serve

customers, not special interests and political causes. FERC should

require RTOs to ensure that reliable, dispatchable resources are properly

valued to provide electricity when needed for the beneﬁt of customers.

Potential reforms could include:

1. Requiring renewable generators to provide intra-day backup by

dispatchable on-demand generation so that bids by intermittent

resources into RTOs equate fairly with far more valuable on-demand

dispatchable resources;

2. Creating dual energy markets for dispatchable and nondispatchable

resources; or

3. Eliminating capacity markets where intermittent resources participate

and instead establishing “reliability” markets where dispatchable

on-demand resources participate.

Alternatives to marginal price auctions also should be considered.

Direct the RTOs to ensure that the economic beneﬁts of renewables

(like tax credits and no fuel costs) are passed on to customers.

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Department of Energy and Related Commissions

End undue discrimination that allows subsidized resources to distort

price formation in RTOs.

Arm its commitment that states will decide whether to join

an RTO instead of imposing RTOs on regions that do not want

them. FERC should also consider allowing states to enter into non-RTO

power pools with alternative structures for the sharing of resources and

electric generation.

FERC: ELECTRIC TRANSMISSION

Mission/Overview

Under the Federal Power Act, FERC has the authority to regulate the rates,

terms, and conditions of interstate electric transmission. (Pursuant to court cases,

interstate transmission can be entirely within a state, although the part of Texas

served by ERCOT is not under FERC transmission jurisdiction.)

Needed Reforms

FERC has been considering how to plan for and allocate costs for new trans-

mission lines and how new generation resources will be interconnected to the

transmission grid. (Transmission expansion and replacement decisions are usu

ally made by local utilities or by an RTO or regional planning entity). Through

two major rulemakings,

118

FERC is attempting to facilitate the building of more

long-range transmission lines and to socialize more of the costs of transmission

buildouts to more customers in order to make it cheaper for renewable develop-

ers (primarily) to interconnect to the grid and sell their power. Socializing such

costs is a form of subsidy for generators and will cause further price distortions

in RTOs and ISOs that will make it less economical for reliable, dispatchable

resources like coal, nuclear, and natural gas to stay operational and support

reliability.

119

Also, under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, DOE and FERC are

granted authority to site and permit high-priority transmission lines as National

Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETCs). The Inﬂation Reduction Act

provides funding to DOE to support transmission expansion.

120

These initiatives

will undermine state input and decision-making. FERC will consider rules on how

NIETC transmission applications are to be made.

New Policies

FERC should either change course on its existing transmission rulemakings (if

still in progress) or issue a new rulemaking to:

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Ensure that transmission planning and interconnection processes

are resource neutral.

Prevent socializing costs for customers who do not beneﬁt from the

projects or justifying such cost shifts as advancing vague “societal

beneﬁts” such as climate change.

Stop cost allocation from becoming a subsidy for generators, such

as renewables.

With respect to NIETCs, FERC and the new DESAS should ensure that state

interests are respected and not allow such NEITC transmission lines to be devel-

oped as a mere subsidy to renewable developers. Furthermore, much of the

transmission buildout (including its attendant costs) is being driven by renewable

developers seeking market share. These projects are causing rates for customers

to go up and hurting reliability. FERC needs to ensure that transmission buildouts

are planned for the beneﬁt of customers.

FERC: NATURAL GAS PIPELINES

Mission/Overview

FERC permits, sites, and authorizes the construction and operation of inter

state natural gas pipelines.

121

It also regulates the rates for the shipping of natural

gas

122

(but not the price of the natural gas commodity, which is market based).

FERC is charged with ensuring that natural gas pipelines are approved if they are

required by the “public convenience and necessity.”

123

Pipeline permitting is sub-

ject to environmental reviews under NEPA, and the rate for the pipeline and the

shipping of the commodity is set by FERC under a just and reasonable standard.

Once FERC approves a project, the holder of the certiﬁcate has the sovereign’s

power of eminent domain.

Needed Reforms

Natural gas pipelines are vital for the economy, manufacturing, heating, and

electric generation. Opposition from “Keep it in the ground” environmentalists

has made it harder to gain approvals for natural gas pipelines. Under Democrat

leadership, FERC has proposed ocial policies to consider upstream and down-

stream GHG emissions from the use of the natural gas that would be shipped in

the pipeline to be part of FERC’s public-interest determination when deciding

whether to approve a pipeline. There is conﬂicting direction from the D.C. Circuit

on the GHG issue, which also could be seen as a “major questions” issue under the

U.S. Supreme Court’s West Virginia v. EPA decision.

124

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Department of Energy and Related Commissions

New Policies

FERC should:

Recommit itself to the NGA’s purpose of providing the American

people with access to aordable and reliable natural gas.

Limit its NGA decision-making on natural gas pipeline certiﬁcates to

the question of whether there is a need for the natural gas.

Limit its NEPA analysis to the impacts of the actual pipeline itself,

not indirect upstream and downstream eects.

In addition, Congress, the states, and FERC should consider how better to pro-

tect and compensate property owners whose property is taken for the beneﬁt of the

public. FERC also needs to be mindful that natural gas pipelines and projects are

important for domestic access to natural gas, including local natural gas utilities,

natural gas–ﬁred electric generation, and manufacturing, as well as for exports of

liqueﬁed natural gas.

FERC: LNG EXPORT FACILITIES

Mission/Overview

FERC permits, sites, and authorizes the construction and operation of LNG

export facilities.

125

It does not authorize the export of natural gas; DOE exercises

that authority. LNG export facilities are important for delivering natural gas to

markets around the world and have become an important policy tool in limiting

the ability of Russia and Middle Eastern countries to use energy as a tool in for-

eign aairs.

Needed Reforms

LNG exports are opposed by climate activists. In addition, some domestic man-

ufacturers argue that LNG exports decrease available U.S. supplies of natural gas

and increase the domestic price, thereby harming the competitive advantages of

U.S. manufacturers in world markets.

Currently, most LNG export facilities are along the Gulf of Mexico in Texas and

Louisiana.

126

Attempts to build facilities on the west coast (Jordan Cove LNG

127

)

and the east coast have not moved forward for a variety of reasons; delays and

costs of litigation can cause developers to cancel projects. An Alaska facility was

approved by FERC in 2020, and the Biden Administration has indicated its sup-

port.

128

An east coast facility in Pennsylvania (or nearby) would unlock Marcellus

shale natural gas for export.

— 408 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

FERC is considering policy statements that would consider GHG emissions as

part of its NEPA review and its NGA determination as to whether approval of an

LNG export facility is consistent with the public interest.

New Policies

Since Congress through the NGA has already determined that LNG exports to

countries with free trade agreements are in the public interest,

129

and because LNG

exports help to ensure America’s ability to support our friends and allies around

the world while also supporting domestic natural gas production, FERC:

Should not use environmental issues like climate change as a reason

to stop LNG projects.

Should ensure that the natural gas pipelines that are needed deliver

more of the product to market, both for domestic use and export, and

are reviewed, developed and constructed in a timely manner.

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Mission/Overview

The Energy Reorganization Act of 1974

130

created the Nuclear Regulatory Com

mission (NRC). Before then, the commercial nuclear industry was regulated by

the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which was established by the 1954 Atomic

Energy Act.

131

Importantly, the AEC was responsible for encouraging and regulat-

ing commercial nuclear power. Broad criticism of this dual function was a major

factor in the establishment of the NRC, which held regulatory authority while the

newly established Department of Energy held the advocacy function. Today, the

NRC is responsible for a broad range of regulatory activities, including reactor

safety, oversight of nuclear materials, and protection against radiation as well as

permitting new reactors, certifying new reactor designs, and regulating nuclear

waste management activities.

Needed Reforms

In 1989, the NRC established alternative licensing processes that were meant to

provide a more predictable and ecient regulatory pathway for new Light Water

Reactors (LWRs) by combining construction and operating nuclear power plant

licenses, allowing for Early Site Permits, and establishing a framework for pre-

approval of reactor designs. More recently, the Nuclear Energy Innovation and

Modernization Act directed the NRC to establish a technology-neutral licensing

process for new, advanced reactor technologies.

132

Despite these eorts, the NRC

remains a signiﬁcant cost and regulatory barrier to new nuclear power. Especially

— 409 —

Department of Energy and Related Commissions

frustrating is that these costs to a large extent are due to the agencies being overly

prescriptive rather than outcomes-focused and fall on well-known and understood

LWR reactor technologies.

New Policies

While refocusing its regulatory eorts on new reactor technologies, the NRC

should also continue to ensure the security of radiological sources and mitigate

cybersecurity risks across the industry. Applications for Combined Operating

Licenses (COLs) and design certiﬁcations that rely on light-water technology

should generally be completed within two years. Early Site Permits should gener-

ally be issued within one year for construction on or adjacent to an existing reactor

site. Additionally, the NRC should:

Expedite the review and approval of license extensions of existing

reactors, which will require the NRC to streamline and focus its

NEPA review process.

Set clear radiation exposure and protection standards by eliminating

ALARA (“as low as reasonably achievable”) as a regulatory principle

and setting clear standards according to radiological risk and dose

rather than arbitrary objectives.

Work with Congress to reform its funding approach so that licensee

fees are generally required for activities that are speciﬁc to a

regulated entity, with other agency costs being provided through

normal appropriations.

Budget

In FY 2022, the NRC was required to recover approximately 85 percent of its

$887.7 million budget through licensee fees.

133

The Nuclear Energy Innovation

and Modernization Act requires the NRC to recover nearly all of its costs through

fees. These reforms would likely not cost additional money but could rebalance

the fee-versus-appropriations calculation.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was the work of many individuals. All contributors to this

chapter are listed at the front of this volume, but I wish to give special thanks to Brent Bennett, Willis Bixby, Travis

Fisher, Ben Lieberman, Brian McCormack, Tom Pyle, Mark Robeck, Daniel Simmons, Jack Spencer, Katie Tubb, and

David Walsh. Though informed by many, the author alone assumes responsibility for the content of this chapter,

and no views expressed herein should be attributed to any particular individual.

— 410 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

 Sean Michael Kerner, “Colonial Pipeline Hack Explained: Everything You Need to Know,” TechTarget, April, 26,

2022, https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/feature/Colonial-Pipeline-hack-explained-Everything-you-need-to-

know (accessed February 13, 2023).

 Jacob Knutson, “N.C. Power Company: Substation Repairs Complete After Alleged Attack,” Axios, December

7, 2022, https://www.axios.com/2022/12/07/duke-energy-moore-county-substation-attack (accessed

February 13, 2023).

 H.R. 3684, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Public Law No. 117-58, 117th Congress, November 15, 2021,

https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ58/PLAW-117publ58.pdf (accessed February 13, 2023).

 H.R. 5376, Inﬂation Reduction Act of 2022, Public Law No. 117-169, August 16, 2022, https://www.congress.

gov/117/plaws/publ169/PLAW-117publ169.pdf (accessed February 13, 2023).

 S. 826, Department of Energy Organization Act, Public Law 95-91, 95th Congress, August 4, 1977, https://www.

congress.gov/95/statute/STATUTE-91/STATUTE-91-Pg565.pdf (accessed February 13, 2023).

 DOE also promotes domestic energy security by providing research and coordination between government

and the private sector on physical and cyber-related threats to energy security. This work should continue and

be enhanced under the next Administration.

 Elimination of OE, NE, FE, and EERE might also be considered; however, there are beneﬁts from having

political appointees run separate oces. Speciﬁcally, separate program oces can focus on threats that are

unique to their energy areas, and having political appointees run separate oces helps to ensure focused,

unobstructed pursuit of policy objectives.

 H.R. 6586, Natural Gas Act, Public Law No. 75-688, 75th Congress, June 21, 1938, https://govtrackus.

s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/52/STATUTE-52-Pg821a.pdf (accessed February 24, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, “Promoting Energy Justice,” https://www.energy.gov/promoting-energy-justice

(accessed February 13, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Economic Impact and Diversity, “Justice40 Initiative,” https://www.

energy.gov/diversity/justice40-initiative (accessed February 13, 2023).

 Press release, “DOE Releases First-Ever Plan to Advance Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility,” U.S.

Department of Energy, September 1, 2022, https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-releases-ﬁrst-ever-plan-

advance-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-accessibility (accessed February 14, 2023).

 Including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Science Foundation, Defense

Advanced Research Projects Agency, Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate,

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, etc.

 Table, “Environmental Management: Lifecycle Cost by Project Baseline Summary (PBS) ($M),” in U.S.

Department of Energy, Oce of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional Budget

Request, Volume 6, Environmental Management, April 2022, p. 53, https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/

ﬁles/2022-09/doe-fy2023-budget-volume-6-em-v3.pd (accessed February 13, 2023).

 KPMG, “Independent Auditor’s Report, United States Department of Energy Nuclear Waste Fund Annual

Financial Report as of and for the Years Ended September 30, 2022 and 2021,” November 8, 2022, p. 8, in U.S.

Department of Energy, Oce of Inspector General, Oce of Cyber Assessments and Data Analytics, Audit

Report: The Department of Energy Nuclear Waste Fund’s Fiscal Year 2022 Financial Statement Audit, DOE-

OIG-23-05, November 2022, p. 10, https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/2022-11/DOE-OIG-23-05.pdf

(accessed February 13, 2023).

 See Patty-Jane Geller, “U.S. Nuclear Weapons,” in 2023 Index of U.S. Military Strength, ed. Dakota L. Wood

(Washington: The Heritage Foundation, 2023), pp. 481–506, http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2022/

Military_Index/2023_IndexOfUSMilitaryStrength.pdf.

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional

Budget Request, Budget in Brief, March 2022, pp. 9, 21, 23, and 43, https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/

ﬁles/2022-03/doe-fy2023-budget-in-brief-v2.pdf (accessed February 13, 2023).

 H.R. 4346, CHIPS and Science Act, Public Law No. 117-167, 117th Congress, August 9, 2022, https://www.

congress.gov/117/plaws/publ167/PLAW-117publ167.pdf (accessed February 13, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, “About Us,”

https://www.energy.gov/ceser/ceser-mission (accessed February 27, 2023).

— 411 —

Department of Energy and Related Commissions

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13920, “Securing the United States Bulk-Power System,” May 1,

2020, in Federal Register, Vol. 85, No. 86 (May 4, 2020), pp. 26595–26599, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/

pkg/FR-2020-05-04/pdf/2020-09695.pdf (accessed February 13, 2023).

 18 U.S. Code § 824a(c), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/16/824a (accessed February 27, 2023).

 Report No. 117-98, Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, 2022,

Committee on Appropriations, U.S. House of Representatives, 117th Cong. 1st Sess., July 20, 2021, p. 6, https://

www.congress.gov/117/crpt/hrpt98/CRPT-117hrpt98.pdf (accessed February 13, 2023).

 H.R. 3684, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Public Law No. 11-58, 117th Congress, November 15, 2021,

Division J, Title III.

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional

Budget Request, Budget in Brief, p. 7.

 Timothy Gardner, “White House Asks Congress for $500 mln to Modernize Oil Reserve,” Reuters, November 16,

2022, https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-oil-spr-idAFL1N32C36I (accessed February 13, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Electricity, “Our History,” https://www.energy.gov/oe/about-us/our-

history (accessed February 13, 2023).

 Press release, “Secretary of Energy Signs Order to Mitigate Security Risks to the Nation’s Electric Grid,” U.S.

Department of Energy, December 17, 2021, https://www.energy.gov/articles/secretary-energy-signs-order-

mitigate-security-risks-nations-electric-grid (accessed February 13, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Electricity, “Revocation of Prohibition Order Securing Critical Defense

Facilities,” Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 76 (April 22, 2021), pp. 21308–21309, https://www.govinfo.gov/

content/pkg/FR-2021-04-22/pdf/2021-08483.pdf (accessed February 13, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional

Budget Request, Budget in Brief, pp. 19 and 61.

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Nuclear Energy, “About Us,” https://www.energy.gov/ne/about-us

(accessed February 13, 2023).

 H.R. 3809, Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, Public Law No. 97-425, 97th Congress, January 7, 1983, https://

www.congress.gov/97/statute/STATUTE-96/STATUTE-96-Pg2201.pdf (accessed February 24, 2023).

 The Heritage Foundation, “Budget Blueprint for Fiscal Year 2023: Reduce the DOE Oce of Nuclear Energy,”

https://www.heritage.org/budget/pages/recommendations/1.270.127.html.

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional

Budget Request, Budget in Brief, pp. 23 and 58.

 42 USC § 16291, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/16291 (accessed February 27, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, “About Us: Mission,” https://

www.energy.gov/fecm/mission (accessed February 13, 2023).

 U.S. Government Accountability Oce, Carbon Capture and Storage: Actions Needed to Improve DOE

Management of Demonstration Projects, GAO-22-105111, December2021, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-

105111.pdf (accessed February 13, 2023).

 International Energy Agency, The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions, World Energy Outlook

Special Report, revised March 2022, https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/d2a83b-8c30-4e9d-980a-

52b6d9a86fdc/TheRoleofCriticalMineralsinCleanEnergyTransitions.pdf (accessed February 13, 2023).

 See 42 U.S. Code § 16291.

 42 U.S. Code Ch. 55, §§ 4321–4347, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/chapter-55 (accessed

February 27, 2023).

 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “Categorical Exclusions from Environmental Review,” Advance Notice of

Proposed Rulemaking; Request for Comment, Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 87 (May 7, 2021), pp. 24514–24516,

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-05-07/pdf/2021-09675.pdf (accessed February 27, 2023), and

Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “Categorical Exclusions from Environmental Review,” Advance Notice of

Proposed Rulemaking; Reopening of Comment Period, Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 160 (August 23, 2021),

pp. 47032–47033, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-08-23/pdf/2021-18058.pdf (accessed

February 27, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional

Budget Request, Budget in Brief, pp. 19, 21, 23, and 52.

— 412 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional

Budget Request, Budget in Brief, pp. 3, 6, 12, 19, 21, and 23.

 S. 622, Energy Policy and Conservation Act, Public Law 94-163, 94th Congress, December 22, 1975, https://

www.congress.gov/94/statute/STATUTE-89/STATUTE-89-Pg871.pdf (accessed February 27, 2023).

 H.R. 6, Energy Policy Act of 2005, Public Law No. 109-58, 109th Congress, August 8, 2005, https://www.

congress.gov/109/plaws/publ58/PLAW-109publ58.pdf (accessed February 27, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Energy Eciency and Renewable Energy, “About the Oce of Energy

Eciency and Renewable Energy,” https://www.energy.gov/eere/about-oce-energy-eciency-and-

renewable-energy (accessed February 28, 2023).

 Ibid.

 See note 41, supra.

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional

Budget Request, Budget in Brief, pp. 19, 23, 43, and 49.

 See U.S. Department of Energy, Grid Deployment Oce, “About Us,” https://www.energy.gov/gdo/about-us

(accessed February 13, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Grid Deployment Oce, “Building a Better Grid Initiative,” https://www.energy.

gov/gdo/building-better-grid-initiative (accessed February 13, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional

Budget Request, Budget in Brief, pp. 2, 19, 21, 23, and 84. “The FY 2023 Budget Request to Congress proposes

to split the Electricity appropriation account into two accounts: Electricity and Grid Deployment Oce (GDO).

Had the proposed FY 2023 structure been in place in FY 2021 and FY 2022, the $7,000,000 shown under the

Electricity account’s Transmission Permitting and Technical Assistance (TPTA) program would have appeared

under Grid Technical Assistance in GDO and the $3,000,000 shown under Program Direction in the Electricity

account represents the estimated share of Electricity PD funding associated with TPTA and would have

appeared under Program Direction in GDO.” Ibid., p. 84, note.

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Clean Energy Demonstrations, “About Us: Our Mission,” https://www.

energy.gov/oced/about-us (accessed February 13, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional

Budget Request, Budget in Brief, p. 6.

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Clean Energy Demonstrations, “About Us: Our Story,” https://www.

energy.gov/oced/about-us (accessed February 28, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Clean Energy Demonstrations, “OCED Project Portfolio,” https://www.

energy.gov/oced/oce-clean-energy-demonstrations (accessed February 28, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional

Budget Request, Volume 3, Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, Federal Energy

Management Program, Grid Deployment Oce, Indian Energy Policy & Programs, Loan Programs,

Manufacturing & Energy Supply Chains, Oce of Clean Energy Demonstrations, Petroleum Reserves, Power

Marketing Administrations, State and Community Energy Programs, April 2022, p. 104, https://www.energy.

gov/sites/default/ﬁles/2022-09/doe-fy2023-budget-volume-3-v2.pdf (accessed February 13, 2023).

 See, for example, ibid., pp. 104 and 107.

 U.S. Department of Energy, Loan Program Oce, “LPO Year in Review 2022: New Legislation,” January 5,

2023, https://www.energy.gov/lpo/articles/lpo-year-review-2022 (accessed February 28, 2023). Emphases

in original.

 H.R. 6256, To Ensure That Goods Made with Forced Labor in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the

People’s Republic of China Do Not Enter the United States Market, and for Other Purposes, Public Law No.

117-78, 117th Congress, December 23, 2021, https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ78/PLAW-117publ78.pdf

(accessed February 28, 2023).

 H.R. 2272, America COMPETES Act, Public Law 110–69, 110th Congress, August 9, 2007, § 5012, https://www.

congress.gov/110/plaws/publ69/PLAW-110publ69.pdf (accessed February 13, 2023).

 Ibid., § 5012(c)(1).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional

Budget Request, Budget in Brief, March 2022, p. 103.

— 413 —

Department of Energy and Related Commissions

 U.S. Department of Energy, Federal Energy Management Program, “About the Federal Energy Management

Program: Mission and Stakeholders,” https://www.energy.gov/eere/femp/about-federal-energy-

management-program (accessed February 13, 2023).

 See, for example, 42 U.S. Code § 8252, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/8252 (accessed February

13, 2023); § 8253, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/8253 (accessed February 13, 2023); § 8254,

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/8254 (accessed February 13, 2023); § 8255, https://www.law.

cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/8255 (accessed February 13, 2023); § 8256, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/

text/42/8256 (accessed February 13, 2023); § 8257, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/8257

(accessed February 13, 2023); § 8258, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/8258 (accessed February

13, 2023); § 8259b, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/8258b (accessed February 13, 2023); § 15852,

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/15852 (accessed February 13, 2023); and § 17143, https://www.

law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/17143 (accessed February 13, 2023).

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13834, “Ecient Federal Operations,” May 17, 2018, Federal

22/pdf/2018-11101.pdf (accessed February 28, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Energy Eciency and Renewable Energy, “FY 2022 Request Overview

Brieﬁng,” June 2021, p. 11, https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/2021-06/FY2022-EERE-budget-request-

energy-eciency.pdf (accessed February 28, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional

Budget Request, Budget in Brief, pp. 19 and 21.

 U.S. Department of Energy, Clean Energy Corps, “Careers,” https://www.energy.gov/CleanEnergyCorps

(accessed March 13, 2023).

 Ibid.

 U.S. Department of Energy, “DOE Kicks O Recruitment to Support Implementation of Bipartisan

Infrastructure Law,” January 13, 2022, https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-kicks-recruitment-support-

implementation-bipartisan-infrastructure-law (accessed March 13, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, “About EIA,” https://www.eia.gov/about/

(accessed February 13, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, “Levelized Costs of New Generation Resources

in the Annual Energy Outlook 2022,” March 2022, p. 1, https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_

generation.pdf (accessed March 13, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Energy Information Administration, Direct Federal Financial Interventions and

Subsidies in Energy in Fiscal Year 2016, April 2018, https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/pdf/subsidy.

pdf (accessed March 1, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional

Budget Request, Budget in Brief, pp. 19, 24, and 105.

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of International Aairs, “Mission: Our Mission,” https://www.energy.gov/ia/

our-mission (accessed February 13, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of International Aairs, “Priorities: Our Objectives,” https://www.energy.

gov/ia/priorities (accessed February 13, 2023).

 Editorial Board, “Biden Signs Up for Climate Reparations,” The Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2022,

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-signs-up-for-climate-change-reparations-europe-fund-un-john-kerry-

poor-countries-bank-capitalism-11668974219 (accessed February 13, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Arctic Energy Oce, “About the Arctic Energy Oce,” https://www.energy.gov/

arctic/about-arctic-energy-oce (accessed March 1, 2023).

 National Strategy for the Arctic Region, The White House, October 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-

content/uploads/2022/10/National-Strategy-for-the-Arctic-Region.pdf (accessed March 13, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Intelligence and Counterintelligence website, https://www.energy.gov/

intelligence/oce-intelligence-and-counterintelligence (accessed February 13, 2023).

 See U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Policy, “Publications,” https://www.energy.gov/policy/oce-policy

(accessed February 13, 2023).

— 414 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Technology Transitions, “About Us: Mission,” https://www.energy.gov/

technologytransitions/mission-0 (accessed February 13, 2023).

 Advanced Scientiﬁc Computing Research (ASCR); Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Biological and Environmental

Research (BER); Fusion Energy Sciences (FES); High-Energy Physics (HEP); Nuclear Physics (NP); Isotope

R&D and Production (IRP); and Accelerator R&D and Production (ARDAP). U.S. Department of Energy, Oce

of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional Budget Request, Volume 5, Science,

April 2022, pp. 10–14, https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/2022-05/doe-fy2023-budget-volume-5-

science-v2.pdf (accessed March 1, 2023).

 For example, the CHIPS and Science Act authorizes $50 billion for the Oce of Science. U.S. Department of

Energy, “Statement by Secretary Granholm on Congressional Passage of the CHIPS and Science Act,” July

28, 2022, https://www.energy.gov/articles/statement-secretary-granholm-congressional-passage-chips-and-

science-act (accessed February 13, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional

Budget Request, Volume 5, Science, April 2022, p. 7, https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/2022-05/doe-

fy2023-budget-volume-5-science-v2.pdf (accessed March 2, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Environmental Management, “Mission,” https://www.energy.gov/em/

mission (accessed March 1, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Environmental Management, “Cleanup Sites,” https://www.energy.gov/

em/cleanup-sites (accessed March 1, 2023).

 U.S. Government Accountability Oce, “DOE’s Environmental Liability,” GAO-21-585R, June 2021, p. 2, https://

www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-585r.pdf (accessed March 13, 2023).

 Chart, “EM’s Annual Spending and Estimated Environmental Liability (Fiscal Years 2011–2020),” in ibid., p. 1.

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional

Budget Request, Volume 6, Environmental Management, April 2022, p. 53, https://www.energy.gov/sites/

default/ﬁles/2022-09/doe-fy2023-budget-volume-6-em-v3.pdf (accessed March 1, 2023).

 Ibid.

 U.S. Government Accountability Oce, Nuclear Waste: DOE Needs Greater Leadership Stability and

Commitment to Accomplish Cleanup Mission, GAO-22-104805, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-104805.

pdf#:~:text=DOE%20Needs%20Greater%20Leadership%20Stability%20and%20Commitment%20to,May%20

2022%20GAO-22-104805%20United%20States%20Government%20Accountability%20Oce May 2022,

(accessed February 14, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional

Budget Request, Budget in Brief, pp. 23 and 93.

 H.R. 3809, Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, Public Law No. 97-425, Title I, Subtitle B.

 Ibid., Title III, § 304.

 See, for example, Chapter 4, “The Need for Geologic Disposal,” in Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s

Nuclear Future, Report to the Secretary of Energy, January 2012, pp. 27–31, https://www.energy.gov/sites/

default/ﬁles/2013/04/f0/brc_ﬁnalreport_jan2012.pdf (accessed February 14, 2023).

 Press release, “DOE Announces $16 Million to Support Consent-Based Siting for Spent Nuclear Fuel,” U.S.

Department of Energy, September 20, 2022, https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-announces-16-million-

support-consent-based-siting-spent-nuclear-fuel (accessed February 14, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Agency Financial Report, Fiscal Year 2022, DOE/CF-0191, p. 58, https://www.

energy.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/2022-11/fy-2022-doe-agency-ﬁnancial-report.pdf (accessed March 13, 2023).

 H.R. 3809, Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, Public Law No. 97-425, Title III, § 302.

 Ibid., p. 57.

 Table, “Department of Energy Comparative Organization by Congressional Control, FY 2023,” p. 5, in U.S.

Department of Energy, Oce of the Chief Financial Ocer, “FY 2023 Budget Justiﬁcation: Summary Budget

Documents,” https://www.energy.gov/cfo/articles/fy-2023-budget-justiﬁcation (accessed March 13, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, “Missions,” https://www.energy.gov/

nnsa/missions#:~:text=NNSA%20ensures%20the%20United%20States%20maintains%20a%20safe%2C,of%20

nuclear%20and%20radiological%20terrorism%20around%20the%20world (accessed March 2, 2023).

— 415 —

Department of Energy and Related Commissions

 S. 1059, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, Public Law 106-65, 106th Congress, October

5, 1999, §§ 3201–3299, https://www.congress.gov/106/plaws/publ65/PLAW-106publ65.pdf (accessed

February 14, 2023).

 See Geller, “U.S. Nuclear Weapons.”

 U.S. Department of Defense, 2022 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America, Including the

2022 Nuclear Posture Review and the 2022 Missile Defense Review, pp. 3 and 20, https://media.defense.

gov/2022/Oct/27/2003103845/-1/-1/1/2022-NATIONAL-DEFENSE-STRATEGY-NPR-MDR.PDF (accessed

March 2, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, “Plutonium Pit Production,” https://

www.energy.gov/nnsa/plutonium-pit-production (accessed March 13, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Oce of Chief Financial Ocer, Department of Energy FY 2023 Congressional

Budget Request, Budget in Brief, p. 27.

 16 U.S. Code § 824o, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/16/824o (accessed March 2, 2023).

 16 U.S. Code § 824o-1, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/16/824o-1 (accessed March 2, 2023).

 For example, the California blackouts in August 2020 and the Texas blackouts and deaths in February 2021.

 North American Electric Reliability Corporation, “Announcement: Extreme Weather Heightens Reliability Risks

This Summer,” May 18, 2022, https://www.nerc.com/news/Headlines%20DL/May%2018%202022%20SRA%20

Announcement.pdf (accessed February 14, 2023).

 Ethan Howland, “ISO-NE, ERCOT, MISO Face Possible Capacity Shortfalls in Extreme Winter Weather: FERC,”

Utility Dive, October 21, 2022, https://www.utilitydive.com/news/FERC-iso-ne-ercot-miso-extreme-winter-

weather-report/634682/ (accessed February 14, 2023), and North American Energy Reliability Corporation,

“Announcement: NERC Warns Generation Resources Tight in Large Portion of North America This Winter,”

November 17, 2022, https://www.nerc.com/news/Headlines%20DL/2022%20WRA%20Release%20ﬁnal.pdf

(accessed February 14, 2023).

 Note that the challenges to the grid are coming mainly from subsidized renewable resources. Renewable

resources have beneﬁcial attributes, and the electric grid can beneﬁt from embracing an all-of-the-above

approach to power generation.

 See U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Energy Information Administration, “Glossary: Reserve Margin,” https://

www.eia.gov/tools/glossary/index.php?id=reserve_margin (accessed February 14, 2023).

 Dan Frosch and Ginger Adams Otis, “North Carolina Power Outage Leaves 33,000 Without Electricity

After Substation Attack,” The Wall Street Journal, December 5, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/

attack-on-north-carolina-power-substations-leaves-45-000-without-electricity-11670200585 (accessed

February 14, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, “Power Sales and Markets: RTOs and

ISOs,” last updated May 3, 2022, https://www.ferc.gov/power-sales-and-markets/rtos-and-isos (accessed

February 14, 2023).

 Such as the blackouts and shortages in California (August 2020, summer 2022) and Texas (February 2021,

summer 2022).

 See notes 110 and 111, supra; North American Electric Reliability Corporation, “2022 Summer Reliability

Assessment,” May 2022, https://www.nerc.com/pa/RAPA/ra/Reliability%20Assessments%20DL/NERC_

SRA_2022.pdf (accessed March 13, 2023); and North American Electric Reliability Corporation, “2022–2023

Winter Reliability Assessment,” November 2022, https://www.nerc.com/pa/RAPA/ra/Reliability%20

Assessments%20DL/NERC_WRA_2022.pdf (accessed March 13, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Energy, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, “Building for the Future Through Electric

Regional Transmission Planning and Cost Allocation and Generator Interconnection,” Notice of Proposed

Rulemaking, Federal Register, Vol. 87, No. 86 (May 4, 2022), pp. 26504–26611, https://www.govinfo.gov/

content/pkg/FR-2022-05-04/pdf/2022-08973.pdf (accessed February 14, 2023), and U.S. Department of

Energy, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, “Improvements to Generator Interconnection Procedures

and Agreements,” Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Federal Register, Vol. 87, No. 127 (July 5, 2022), pp.

39934–40032, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-07-05/pdf/2022-13470.pdf (accessed

February 14, 2023).

— 416 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 During the deregulation-induced 230,000 MW combined cycle plant boom of 1999 to 2003 and beyond,

developers were able to move ahead only with projects that were supported by adequate available gas

transmission and near existing localized transmission hubs. Delinking transmission responsibility from

power generation, coupled with the heavy incentivization of renewable over gas projects, has promoted the

construction of a large class of partially usable and often partially stranded generation-only assets.

 U.S. Department of Energy, Grid Deployment Oce, “Grid Deployment Oce Launches Transmission Siting

and Economic Development Grants Program with $760M Inﬂation Reduction Act Investment,” January

13, 2023, https://www.energy.gov/gdo/articles/grid-deployment-oce-launches-transmission-siting-and-

economic-development-grants (accessed March 13, 2023).

 H.R. 6586, Natural Gas Act, Public Law No. 75-688, § 7.

 Ibid., §§ 4 and 5.

 Ibid., § 7(c).

 West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U.S. ___ (2022), https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf

(accessed March 2, 2022).

 H.R. 6586, Natural Gas Act, Public Law No. 75-688, § 3.

 U.S. Department of Energy U.S.-based operating export LNG terminals are located in Louisiana (3); Texas

(2); Alaska (1); Georgia (1); and Maryland (1). Map, “North American LNG Export Terminals: Existing,” in U.S.

Department of Energy, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, “North American LNG Export Terminals—

Existing, Approved not Yet Built, and Proposed,” February 8, 2023, https://www.ferc.gov/natural-gas/lng

(accessed February 14, 2023).

 Niina H. Farah, Miranda Wilson, and Carlos Anchondo, “Jordan Cove Project Dies. What It Means for FERC,

Gas,” Energywire, December 2, 2021, https://www.eenews.net/articles/jordan-cove-project-dies-what-it-

means-for-ferc-gas/ (accessed February 14, 2023).

 Carlos Anchondo, “Biden Admin Backs Contested Alaska LNG Project,” Energywire, October 25, 2022, https://

www.eenews.net/articles/biden-admin-backs-contested-alaska-lng-project/ (accessed February 14, 2023).

 As discussed in the section on the Oce of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, infra, these automatic

approvals should be extended to allies of the United States, not just to those with free trade agreements.

 H.R. 11510, Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, Public Law No. 93-438, 93rd Congress, October 11, 1974, https://

www.congress.gov/93/statute/STATUTE-88/STATUTE-88-Pg1233.pdf (accessed February 27, 2023).

 H.R. 9757, Atomic Energy Act of 1954, Public Law No. 83-703, 83rd Congress, August 30, 1954, §§ 21–28,

https://www.congress.gov/83/statute/STATUTE-68/STATUTE-68-Pg919.pdf (accessed February 27, 2023).

 S. 512, Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, Public Law No. 115-439, January 14, 2019, § 103,

https://www.congress.gov/115/plaws/publ439/PLAW-115publ439.pdf (accessed March 2, 2023).

 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Congressional Budget Justiﬁcation Fiscal Year 2022, June 2021,

p. xii, https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/sta/sr1100/v37/index.html (accessed

March 2, 2023).

— 417 —

ENVIRONMENTAL

PROTECTION AGENCY

Mandy M. Gunasekara

MISSION STATEMENT

Creating a better environmental tomorrow with clean air, safe water, healthy soil,

and thriving communities.

A conservative U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will take a more

supportive role toward local and state eorts, building them up so that they may

lead in a meaningful fashion. This will include the sharing of federal resources and

agency expertise. Creating environmental standards from the ground up is con-

sistent with the concept of cooperative federalism embedded within many of the

agency’s authorizing statutes and will create earnest relationships among local o-

cials and regulated stakeholders. This in turn will promote a culture of compliance.

A conservative EPA will track success by measured progress as opposed to the

current perpetual process and will convey this progress to the public in clear, con-

cise terms. True transparency will be a deﬁning characteristic of a conservative

EPA. This will be reﬂected in all agency work, including the establishment of open-

source science, to build not only transparency and awareness among the public,

but also trust.

The challenge of creating a conservative EPA will be to balance justiﬁed skep

ticism toward an agency that has long been amenable to being coopted by the Left

for political ends against the need to implement the agency’s true function: pro-

tecting public health and the environment in cooperation with states. Further, the

EPA needs to be realigned away from attempts to make it an all-powerful energy

and land use policymaker and returned to its congressionally sanctioned role as

environmental regulator.

— 418 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

OVERVIEW

The Status Quo. Not surprisingly, the EPA under the Biden Administration

has returned to the same top-down, coercive approach that deﬁned the Obama

Administration. There has been a reinstitution of unachievable standards designed

to aid in the “transition” away from politically disfavored industries and technolo-

gies and toward the Biden Administration’s preferred alternatives. This approach

is most obvious in the Biden Administration’s assault on the energy sector as the

Administration uses its regulatory might to make coal, oil, and natural gas opera-

tions very expensive and increasingly inaccessible while forcing the economy to

build out and rely on unreliable renewables.

This approach has also been applied

to pesticides and chemicals as the Biden Administration pushes the “greening” of

agriculture and manufacturing among other industrial activities.

As a consequence of this approach, we see the return of costly, job-killing

regulations that serve to depress the economy and grow the bureaucracy but do

little to address, much less resolve, complex environmental problems. In some

instances, these actions even work to undermine environmental eorts as they

push industries overseas to countries whose enforcement of pollution-control

requirements is seriously deﬁcient—if indeed they have any meaningful require

ments at all. Meanwhile, agency costs and stang have increased signiﬁcantly.

The EPA’s ﬁscal year (FY) 2023 request included a 28.8 percent increase in fund-

ing and a 13.3 percent increase in stang, making it the “highest funding ever”

in EPA’s history.

Compared to the Obama Administration, there is one key dierence in the

Biden Administration’s approach: In a concerted eort to diminish congressio-

nal oversight, the position of EPA Administrator has been overshadowed by the

creation of multiple “Climate Czars” at the Biden White House. In eect, current

EPA Administrator Michael Regan, who has a reputation as a well-meaning, gen-

erally capable former state ocial, has been left out of the political loop, serving

mostly as a pleasant distraction from EPA’s expansive, costly, and economy-de-

stroying agenda.

A Coopted Mission. The EPA has been a breeding ground for expansion of

the federal government’s inﬂuence and control across the economy. Embedded

activists have sought to evade legal restraints in pursuit of a global, climate-themed

agenda, aiming to achieve that agenda by implementing costly policies that oth-

erwise have failed to gain the requisite political traction in Congress. Many EPA

actions in liberal Administrations have simply ignored the will of Congress, align-

ing instead with the goals and wants of politically connected activists.

Pursuit of this globally focused agenda has distracted the agency from fulﬁlling

its core mission, thereby creating a backlog of missed statutory deadlines,

and

at times has even led to preventable environmental disasters. During the Obama

Administration, for example, the U.S. experienced two of the worst environmental

— 419 —

Environmental Protection Agency

disasters in decades, including the Flint, Michigan, water crisis in 2014

and the

Gold King Mine spill in 2015.

Beyond creating such immediate and tangible harm in various communities,

an EPA led by activism and a disregard for the law has generated uncertainty in

the regulated community, vendetta-driven

enforcement, weighted analytics,

increased costs, and diminished trust in ﬁnal agency actions. Although the U.S.

environmental story is very positive, there has been a return to fear-based rhetoric

within the agency, especially as it pertains to the perceived threat of climate change.

Mischaracterizing the state of our environment generally and the actual harms

reasonably attributable to climate change speciﬁcally is a favored tool that the Left

uses to scare the American public into accepting their ineective, liberty-crushing

regulations, diminished private property rights, and exorbitant costs. In eect, the

Biden EPA has once again presented a false choice to the American people: that

they have to choose between a healthy environment and a strong, growing economy.

Historical Role and Purpose. For many decades, rapid industrial activity

with an unorganized approach to environmental standards signiﬁcantly degraded

the country’s environment. Particle pollution in the form of a thick, fog-like haze

that at times was laced with harmful metals was a frequent occurrence across the

country.

More than 40 percent of communities failed to meet basic water quality

standards, and in 1969, the Cuyahoga River infamously caught ﬁre after sparks

from a passing train ignited debris in the water, which was ﬁlled with heavy indus-

trial waste.

EPA was established on December 2, 1970, following a call by President Rich-

ard Nixon to “rationally and systematically” organize existing piecemeal eorts

to clean up and protect the environment.

Under Reorganization Plan No. 3, the

EPA was to initiate a “coordinated attack on the pollutants which debase the air

we breathe, the water we drink, and the land that grows our food.”

Numerous

authorities were consolidated and given to the EPA including research, monitor-

ing, standard-setting, and enforcement activities. The mission to protect public

health and the environment was born, and the ﬁrst Administrator was sworn in

on December 4, 1970.

Congress followed suit with the landmark Clean Air Act of 1970 (CAA)

and

the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972.

The subsequent Clean Air Act

Amendments of 1990

played a signiﬁcant role in the expansion of EPA’s responsi-

bilities and legal authority with the agency then being tasked with the development

of new regulatory mechanisms that included, among other things, cap-and-trade

programs for the control of sulfur dioxide and technological standards for nitrogen

oxide emissions from coal-ﬁred power plants, a vastly expanded hazardous air

pollutant program, a federal operating permit program, and new regulations gov-

erning phaseout of the production of ozone-depleting substances in conjunction

with U.S. ratiﬁcation of the Montreal Protocol in 1988.

— 420 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Subsequently, especially during the Obama Administration, EPA experienced

massive growth as it was used to pursue far-reaching political goals to the point

where its current activities and stang levels far exceeded its congressional man-

dates and purpose. This expansive status is entirely unnecessary: It has nothing

to do with improving either the environment or public health. The EPA’s initial

success was driven by clear mandates, a streamlined structure, recognition of the

states’ prominent role, and built-in accountability. Fulﬁlling the agency’s mis-

sion in a manner consistent with a limited-government approach proved to be

extremely eective during the agency’s infancy.

Back to Basics. EPA’s structure and mission should be greatly circumscribed

to reﬂect the principles of cooperative federalism and limited government. This

will require signiﬁcant restructuring and streamlining of the agency to reﬂect

the following:

State Leadership. EPA should build earnest relationships with state and

local ocials and assume a more supportive role by sharing resources and

expertise, recognizing that the primary role in making choices about the

environment belongs to the people who live in it.

Accountable Progress. Regulatory eorts should focus on addressing

tangible environmental problems with practical, cost-beneﬁcial, aordable

solutions to clean up the air, water, and soil, and the results should be

measured and tracked by simple metrics that are available to the public.

Streamlined Process. Duplicative, wasteful, or superﬂuous programs that

do not tangibly support the agency’s mission should be eliminated, and a

structured management program should be designed to assist state and

local governments in protecting public health and the environment.

Healthy, Thriving Communities. EPA should consider and reduce as

much as possible the economic costs of its actions on local communities to

help them thrive and prosper.

Compliance Before Enforcement. EPA should foster cooperative

relationships with the regulated community, especially small businesses,

that encourage compliance over enforcement.

Transparent Science and Regulatory Analysis. EPA should make

public and take comment on all scientiﬁc studies and analyses that support

regulatory decision-making.

— 421 —

Environmental Protection Agency

ADMINISTRATOR’S OFFICE AND REORGANIZATION RESPONSIBILITY

The Oce of the Administrator (AO) is intended to provide executive and

logistical support for the EPA Administrator. Its stated purpose is to support

EPA leadership and activities. To implement policies that are consistent with a

conservative EPA, the agency will have to undergo a major reorganization. The

Deputy Chief of Sta for Policy position within the Administrator’s oce should

be renamed the Deputy Chief of Sta for Regulatory Improvement. This position

would oversee a reorganization eort that includes the following actions:

Returning the environmental justice function to the AO, eliminating the

stand-alone Oce of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights.

Returning the enforcement and compliance function to the media oces

(air, water, land, and emergency management, etc.) and eliminating the

stand-alone Oce of Enforcement and Compliance Assistance, which has

created a mismatch between standard-setting and implementation.

Using enforcement to ensure compliance, not to achieve

extrastatutory objectives.

Developing a plan for relocating regional oces so that they are

more accessible to the areas they serve and deliver cost savings to the

American people.

Restructuring the Oce of International and Tribal Aairs into the

American Indian Environmental Oce and returning the international

liaison function to media oces where appropriate.

Eliminating the Oce of Public Engagement and Environmental Education

as a stand-alone entity and reabsorbing substantive elements into the Oce

of Public Aairs.

Relocating the Oce of Children’s Health Protection and the Oce of Small

and Disadvantaged Business Utilization from the AO and reabsorbing

those functions within the media oces (air, water, land, and emergency

management, etc.).

Reviewing the grants program to ensure that taxpayer funds go to

organizations focused on tangible environmental improvements free from

political aliation.

— 422 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Resetting science advisory boards to expand opportunities for a diversity of

scientiﬁc viewpoints free of potential conﬂicts of interest.

Restoring the guidance portal to ensure that regulatory and subregulatory

standards are clear to aected entities.

Working with Assistant Administrators to implement major reforms in

media oces.

Day One Executive Order. To initiate the review and reorganization, a Day

One executive order should be drafted for the incoming President with explicit

language requiring reconsideration of the agency’s structure with reference to

fulﬁlling its mission to create a better environmental tomorrow with clean air, safe

water, healthy soil, and thriving communities. The order should set up “pause and

review” teams to assess the following:

Major Rules and Guidance Materials. Identify existing rules to be stayed

and reproposed and initiate rule development in appropriate media oces.

Pending Petitions. Grant new petitions for rule reconsideration and

stays of rules.

Grants. Stop all grants to advocacy groups and review which potential

federal investments will lead to tangible environmental improvements.

Legal Settlements. Reassess any “sue and settle” cases and develop a

new policy to establish standard review and oversight, including public

notiﬁcation and participation.

Employee Review. Determine the opportunity to downsize by

terminating the newest hires in low-value programs and identify relocation

opportunities for Senior Executive Service (SES) positions.

Budget Review. Develop a tiered-down approach to cut costs, reduce the

number of full-time equivalent (FTE) positions, and eliminate duplicative

programs. EPA should not conduct any ongoing or planned activity for

which there is not clear and current congressional authorization, and it

should communicate this shift in the President’s ﬁrst budget request.

Risk Management Policy. Revise guidance documents that control

regulations such as the social cost of carbon; discount rates; timing of

— 423 —

Environmental Protection Agency

regulatory review (before options are selected); causality of health eects;

low-dose risk estimation (linear no-threshold analysis); and employment

loss analysis.

Personnel

The majority of the political appointee team must be assembled, vetted, and

ready to deploy before Day One. To the extent provided by the Federal Vacan-

cies Reform Act,

appointees in consideration for Senate-conﬁrmed positions

(excluding the Administrator) should be prepared to serve as a Deputy or Principal

Deputy to get into the agency on Day One while their nomination and aliated

conﬁrmation processes proceeds. In addition to a deputy slated for the Assistant

Administrator role, each oce will need a political chief of sta, senior advisers

designated to run suboces, and energized assistants. Teams should be balanced

with technical knowledge, legal expertise, and political exposure. Ideally, they

should also be geographically diverse. Appointee positions should also extend to

all the regional oces and specialty labs.

OFFICE OF AIR AND RADIATION (OAR)

OAR develops national programs, policies, and regulations to control air

pollution and radiation exposure. In recent decades, OAR and its statutory respon-

sibilities under the Clean Air Act have been reimagined in an attempt to expand

the reach of the federal government. The U.S. Supreme Court has stopped and

stricken several actions from OAR under liberal Administrations, citing a lack of

requisite legal support. A reformed OAR should focus on EPA’s mission of limiting

and minimizing criteria and hazardous air pollutants in partnership with the states.

Cross-Cutting Reforms. OAR consists of four suboces with two located in

Washington, D.C.; one in Ann Arbor, Michigan; and one at Research Triangle Park

in Raleigh, North Carolina. The following reforms should be implemented across

all OAR oces:

Issue a rule to ensure consistent and transparent consideration of costs.

When doing cost-beneﬁt analysis, use appropriate discount rates, focus

on the beneﬁts of reducing the pollutant targeted by Congress, identify

“co-beneﬁts” separately, and acknowledge the uncertainties involved in

quantifying beneﬁts.

Review and revise Reasonably Available Control Technology (RACT)

cost guidance to ensure that calculations are accurate and reﬂect the

actual regulatory burden, including costs of air rules implementation

and compliance.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Obey Congress’s direction in CAA § 321

to “conduct continuing

evaluations” of the employment and plant-closure eects of air regulations.

Ensure that all provisions of CAA § 307(d)

are observed. Congress placed

special constraints on air rules, and that intent should be respected.

To the extent that the Inﬂation Reduction Act (IRA)

remains in place,

ensure to the maximum extent possible that grants and funding are

provided to state regulatory entities and not to nonproﬁts.

Remove any regulations or requirements that confer on third parties

any authorities that have been provided to EPA, such as the oil and gas

supplemental, which created a Super-Emitter Response Program that

allows third parties to act as EPA enforcers.

Policy-Speciﬁc Actions

National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS)

EPA adopted by regulation a goal of restoring natural visibility by 2064. The

statute does not require this, and EPA should consider whether a longer

timeline is less disruptive or more realistic. Regional haze rules should be

revised to prevent subsequent “planning periods” from being abused to

compel the shutdown of disfavored facilities.

Under the Good Neighbor Program/Interstate pollutant transport

program, review Biden-era regulations to ensure that they do not

“overcontrol” upwind states in violation of the statute as construed by

the U.S. Supreme Court. Reverse the program’s 2022 expansion beyond

power plants.

Putting guardrails on downwind states is an abuse of the CAA § 126(b)

petition process. EPA must ensure, in keeping with statutory text, that

petitions identify a reasonably discrete “group” of upwind sources alleged to

violate the good neighbor provision.

Ensure that the Clean Air Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee (CASAC) considers

all of the statutorily charged factors (for example, social and economic

eects resulting from NAAQS attainment and maintenance strategies).

Ensure that the requirements EPA puts on a state that has achieved

attainment status from nonattainment status are limited to those that

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Environmental Protection Agency

are statutorily required, and remove any regulatory dierences between

attainment and maintenance that are not explicitly required by law.

Streamline the process for state and local governments to demonstrate

that their federally funded highway projects will not interfere with

NAAQS attainment.

Adopt policies to prevent abuse of EPA’s CAA “error correction”

authority.

EPA historically has used this to coerce states into

adopting its favored policies on pain of imposition of a Federal

Implementation Plan (FIP).

Limit EPA’s reliance on CAA § 301

general rulemaking authority to ensure

that it is not abused to issue regulations for which EPA lacks substantive

authority elsewhere in the statute.

If possible, return the standard-setting role to Congress.

Climate Change

Remove the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) for any source

category that is not currently being regulated. The overall reporting

program imposes signiﬁcant burdens on small businesses and companies

that are not being regulated. This is either a pointless burden or a sword-of-

Damocles threat of future regulation, neither of which is appropriate.

Establish a system, with an appropriate deadline, to update the 2009

endangerment ﬁnding.

Establish a signiﬁcant emissions rate (SER) for greenhouse gasses (GHGs).

Regulating Hydroﬂuorocarbons (HFCs) Under the American Innovation

and Manufacturing (AIM) Act

Repeal Biden Administration implementing regulations for the AIM Act

that are unnecessarily stringent and costly.

Refrain from granting petitions from opportunistic manufacturers to add

new restrictions that further skew the market toward costlier refrigerants

and equipment.

— 426 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Conduct realistic cost assessments that reﬂect actual consumer experiences

instead of the current unrealistic ones claiming that the program is

virtually cost-free.

Mobile Source Regulation by the Oce of Transportation and Air Quality

Establish GHG car standards under Department of Transportation (DOT)

leadership that properly consider cost, choice, safety, and national security.

Review the existing “ramp rate” for car standards to ensure that it is

actually achievable.

Include life cycle emissions of electric vehicles and consider all of their

environmental impacts.

Restore the position that California’s waiver applies only to California-

speciﬁc issues like ground-level ozone, not global climate issues.

Ensure that other states can adopt California’s standards only for

traditional/criteria pollutants, not greenhouse gases.

Stop the use of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to

increase standards on airplanes.

Reconsider the Cleaner Trucks Initiative to balance the goal of driving

down emissions without creating signiﬁcant costs or complex burdens on

the industry.

Air Permitting Reforms for New Source Review (Pre-Construction Per-

mits) and Title V (Operating Permits)

Develop reforms to ensure that when a facility improves eciency within its

production process, new permitting requirements are not triggered.

Restore the Trump EPA position on Once-In, Always-In (that major sources

can convert to area sources when aliated emissions standards are met).

Revisit permitting and enforcement assumptions that sources will operate

24 hours a day, 365 days a year; this artiﬁcially inﬂates a source’s potential to

emit (PTE), which can result in more stringent permit terms.

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Environmental Protection Agency

Defend the position that petitions to object to Title V should not be used to

second-guess previous state decisions.

Clarify the relationship between New Source Review and Title V to ensure

that Title V is used only as intended by Congress.

CAA Section 111

Restore the position that EPA cannot regulate a new pollutant from an

already regulated source category without making predicate ﬁndings for

that new pollutant.

Institute automatic withdrawal of any proposed rule that is not ﬁnalized

within the statutorily prescribed one-year period.

Revise general implementing regulations for existing source regulatory

authority under CAA § 111(d)

to ensure that EPA gives full meaning to

Congress’s direction, including source-speciﬁc application, and that the

state planning program is ﬂexible, federalist, and deferential to the states.

CAA Section 112 (Hazardous Air Pollutants)

Unregulated point or non-point source (fugitive emissions) of an already

regulated hazardous air pollutant do not require a Maximum Available

Control Technology (MACT) standard.

Ensure that Section 112 regulations are harmonized with Section 111

regulations that apply to the same sector/sources.

Ensure that cost-beneﬁt analysis is focused on a regulation’s targeted

pollutant and separately identify ancillary or co-beneﬁts.

Radiation

Assess and update the agency’s radiation standards so that they align with

those of other agencies, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,

Department of Energy, and Department of Transportation, as well as

international standards.

Level-set past, misleading statements regarding radiological risk and

reassess the Linear Non-Threshold standard.

— 428 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Personnel, Budget, and Oce Restructuring

Place a political appointee in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for the Oce of

Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ, regulating mobile sources) and

a political appointee in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, for the

Oce of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS, regulating stationary

sources) and give those appointees the requisite titles and authority to

oversee the OTAQ and OAQPS sta.

Establish a political Chief of Sta in D.C. to manage the entire air oce.

Pull the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program out of OTAQ; establish

its own suboce in D.C. (with status parallel to OTAQ and OAQPS) that

is headed by a political appointee; and establish a Memorandum of

Understanding with the Department of Agriculture and the Department of

Energy to work together to establish RFS programs.

Require regional air oces to receive approval from OAR before moving

forward with enforcement actions in order to ensure that enforcement

is meeting the requirements established by regulations and is not going

beyond them.

OFFICE OF WATER (OW)

OW is responsible for ensuring safe drinking water and restoring and main-

taining oceans, watersheds, and their aquatic ecosystems to protect human health,

support economic and recreational activities, and provide healthy habitats for ﬁsh,

plants, and wildlife. Its two main statutes include implementing the Clean Water

Act (CWA)

and Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).

OW has generated a large

number of expansive regulations that infringe on private property rights, most

notably with the Waters of the U.S. program.

Needed Reforms

The overarching theme for reform is guidance on guidance. OW relies heav-

ily on guidance documents that are outdated and that sometimes have been in a

“deliberative” state for years. Additionally, there are signiﬁcant issues surrounding

OW’s holding up guidance as something more than simply guidance: as something

akin to law in certain circumstances. The August 6, 2019, “Oce of Water Policy for

Draft Documents” memorandum

should be strictly enforced to ensure transpar-

ency as well as good governance by not letting guidance linger in draft form and

by also ensuring that guidance documents are clearly just that: guidance. They do

not have the eect of law and should not be treated by the oce as if they did have

any such eect.

— 429 —

Environmental Protection Agency

As a matter of broad practice, OW should be complying with statutorily estab-

lished deadlines in all situations with only minimal exceptions. In cases where

statutory deadlines will not be met, senior management should be made aware

of the delay and should have an opportunity to determine whether alternative

courses should be taken.

Depending on the outcome of regulations from the Biden Administration as

well as intervention by the Supreme Court on both waters of the United States

(WOTUS) and CWA Section 401,

the repeal and reissuance of new regulations

should be pursued.

New Policies

New regulations should include the following:

A WOTUS rule that makes clear what is and is not a “navigable water” and

respects private property rights. Coordinate with Congress to develop

legislation, if necessary, to codify the deﬁnition in Rapanos v. United States

that “waters of the United States” can refer only to “relatively permanent,

standing or continuously ﬂowing bodies of water…as opposed to ordinarily

dry channels through which water occasionally or intermittently ﬂows.”

A rule that provides clarity and regulatory certainty regarding the CWA

Section 401 water quality certiﬁcation process to limit unnecessary delay for

needed projects, including by establishing a discharge-only approach with

a limited scope (from point sources into navigable waters), assessing only

water quality factors that are consistent with speciﬁc CWA sections, and

excluding speculative analysis regarding future potential harm.

A rule to ensure that CWA Section 308

has a clear and enforced time limit.

A rule to clarify the standard for criminal negligence under CWA Sections

402

and 404.

A rule to prohibit retroactive or preemptive permits under CWA Section 404.

A rule to promote and shape nutrient trading that utilizes a carrot-versus-

stick approach when dealing with nutrient compliance.

A rule to update compensatory mitigation that imposes no new or additional

requirements beyond current law.

A rule on updates necessary for the eective use of the CWA needs survey.

— 430 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

An executive order requiring EPA to ﬁnd avenues and expedite the process

for states obtaining primacy in available CWA and SDWA programs. This

order would require coordination with the Army Corps of Engineers and the

Department of the Interior.

Implementation of additional policies to address challenges in water

workforce, issues surrounding timely actions on primacy applications, and

cybersecurity.

Budget

While the overall goal is certainly to reduce government spending, there is one

very targeted area where increased spending would be in the nation’s interest. The

Clean Water Act needs survey is the entire basis for how congressionally appro-

priated funds directed to state revolving funds—standard annual appropriations

that are the true underpinning of all infrastructure funding for drinking water and

clean water—are distributed by EPA across the country. Because this program is

currently underfunded, money is being thrown at untargeted locations while water

infrastructure is crumbling at other locations. Increased targeted funding would

greatly beneﬁt water systems across the country at a time when intervention is

crucial, leaving fewer communities with signiﬁcant water service challenges.

Personnel

OW would beneﬁt greatly from the reshifting of SES employees to dierent

programs and from headquarters out to regional oces.

OFFICE OF LAND AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT (OLEM)

OLEM’s mission is to partner with other federal agencies, states, tribes, local

governments, and communities to clean up legacy pollution and revitalize land

for reuse. OLEM executes this mission by protecting human health and the envi-

ronment while leveraging economic opportunities and creating jobs. OLEM also

oversees the agency’s emergency response. The main statutes that OLEM exe-

cutes are the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)

to regulate waste

management; the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and

Liability Act (CERCLA)

to clean up Superfund sites and provide resources for

cleaning up brownﬁelds sites; and Section 112(r) of the Clean Air Act

to reduce

the likelihood of accidental chemical releases.

Needed Reforms

OLEM’s main function is to oversee the execution of cleanups under CERCLA

and RCRA; therefore, it is critical that OLEM sta focus on project management

more than policy creation. Emphasizing productivity more than process and policies

— 431 —

Environmental Protection Agency

can result in more work on the ground in communities where Americans live and

work. OLEM can accomplish this goal by determining the scope of work based on

an actual reduction in exposure to chemicals as opposed to the elimination of the-

oretical potential exposures. To manage cleanups more eectively, OLEM should:

Require training in project management for project managers (as opposed

to all sta having a general science background).

Adopt EPA’s Lean Management System (ELMS) across all OLEM programs.

Delegate all CERCLA authority from the Administrator to the OLEM

Assistant Administrator as opposed to a direct delegation to the Regional

Administrators.

Find opportunities to transfer work and funding to states and tribes.

New Policies

Superfund. To execute more ecient and eective cleanups, the following

changes are needed in the Oce of Superfund Remediation and Technology Inno-

vation (OSRTI):

Revise the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency

Plan (NCP) to modernize and streamline the cleanup process using lessons

learned from the execution of the NCP over the past 40-plus years.

Increase the use of CERCLA removal authority to execute short-term

cleanups, which will provide clarity and ﬁnality for potentially responsible

parties (PRPs) and return cleaned up land to communities more swiftly.

Streamline the process for determining Applicable or Relevant and

Appropriate Requirements based on commonalities across sites as opposed

to making such determinations on a site-by-site basis.

Revise groundwater cleanup regulations and policies to reﬂect the

challenges of omnipresent contaminants like PFAS.

Revisit the designation of PFAS chemicals as “hazardous substances”

under CERCLA.

Allow PRPs to perform the statutorily required ﬁve-year reviews of

Superfund cleanups to free OLEM resources.

— 432 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Expand and fully stand up the Oce of Mountains, Deserts and Plains to

support innovative approaches to the cleaning up of abandoned mines.

Develop and execute a 10-year cleanup plan to address lead at all existing

cleanup sites that includes benchmarks and milestones that allow for

congressional and public oversight of the schedule.

RCRA. To streamline waste management, the following changes are needed in

the Oce of Resource Conservation and Recovery (ORCR):

Create an RCRA post-closure care permit that is tailored only to post-

closure obligations.

Modify regulations that impede resource efficiency, recycling, and

reuse by providing clearly that these materials are not waste. This can

be done by promulgating a rule that provides an alternative pathway

to hazardous waste regulation to allow the transport of material to

legitimate recyclers or back to manufacturers to support the recycling

and reuse of material.

Change the electronic manifest (e-manifest) regulations to a 100 percent

electronic system and eliminate all paper manifests and manual ﬁling and

data input. This system should operate from a range of common handheld

devices and could be expanded to accommodate solid waste and materials

for reuse and recycling.

Reassign regulation and enforcement of air emission standards under the

authority of RCRA Section 3004

to OAR and revise and modernize the

regulations to comport and integrate with CAA rules.

Risk Management Program. If a new Risk Management Program (RMP) rule

is ﬁnalized by the Biden Administration, it should be revised to reﬂect the amend-

ments ﬁnalized in 2019 to protect sensitive information.

Personnel

The following organizational changes could create resource eciencies to focus

on the highest-value opportunities:

Eliminate or consolidate the regional laboratories and allow OLEM to use

EPA, other government, or private labs based on expertise and cost.

— 433 —

Environmental Protection Agency

Consolidate non-core functions (communications, economists,

congressional relations, etc.) into one OLEM suboce to allow the subject-

matter oces to focus on the execution of ﬁeld work.

Eliminate the Oce of Emergency Management and reassign its functions.

1. Move the emergency management function (currently OEM) into

Homeland Security under the Administrator’s oce.

2. Incorporate removal authority (currently OEM) into OSRTI.

3. Retain the oversight and enforcement of the RMP program

within OLEM.

4. Drop “Emergency Management” from OLEM’s name.

Budget

While the overall goal is certainly to reduce government scope and spending,

OLEM’s programs present the best opportunity to use taxpayer dollars to execute

EPA’s core mission of cleaning up contamination.

OFFICE OF CHEMICAL SAFETY AND

POLLUTION PREVENTION (OCSPP)

OCSPP primarily oversees the regulation of new and existing chemicals under

the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)

and the regulation of pesticides under

the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA)

and Federal

Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA).

These activities are managed in two

separate oces within OCSPP: the Oce of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT,

chemicals) and Oce of Pesticide Programs (OPP, pesticides). OCSPP is constantly

pressured to ban the use of certain chemicals, typically based on fear as a result of

mischaracterized or incomplete science.

Needed Reforms and New Policy in OPPT (Chemicals)

Ensure that decision-making is risk-based rather than defaulting to

precautionary, hazard-based approaches like the Integrated Risk

Information System (IRIS).

Focus the scope of chemical evaluations on pathways of exposure that are

not covered by other program oces and other environmental statutes, and

eliminate scope creep to ensure that evaluations can be completed in a

timely manner consistent with the statutory requirements.

— 434 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Ensure that new chemical evaluations are conducted in a timely manner,

consistent with statutory requirements, to ensure the competitiveness of

U.S. manufacturers.

For new chemicals, reset the program to ensure that reviews are completed

on a timeline that is consistent with the statute. This includes revising the

regulations governing the reviews of new chemicals.

Ensure that risk evaluations and risk management rules presume that

workplaces are following all OSHA requirements, including requirements

for personal protective equipment (PPE).

Apply real-world use of chemicals when assessing conditions of use for risk

evaluations.

Transition the Safer Choice program to the private sector.

Right-size the TSCA fee’s rule so that it is consistent with the tasks that the

agency is actually completing within the timelines of the statute and is not

covering the costs of EPA ineciency or overreach.

Revise existing policies to address the requirements of the 2016 Lautenberg

amendments to the TSCA.

Develop a framework rule for risk management approaches that will be used

under TSCA for existing chemicals.

Needed Reforms and New Policy in OPP (Pesticides)

OPP should rely on Department of Agriculture and state usage data that

reﬂect actual pesticide use in registration reviews and Endangered Species

Act (ESA)

analyses. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine

Fisheries Service should rely on similar data in their ESA analyses.

OPP has rigorous testing requirements that registrants must meet before

pesticides are allowed on the market. However, when pesticides undergo

registration review every 15 years, EPA relies on publicly available data with

diering levels of quality and transparency. Data standards are needed to

ensure that information relied on by EPA is made available to the agency at

a similar level as the original testing data conducted by registrants to ensure

that EPA can conduct a robust review and analysis of the data.

— 435 —

Environmental Protection Agency

ESA reform for pesticides is necessary. When approving pesticides, FIFRA

allows for cost-beneﬁt balancing, recognizing that pesticides are eective

precisely because they harm pests. However, the ESA does not allow for

any consideration of the beneﬁcial eects of pesticides. In order to meet

ESA obligations, pesticide uses are severely restricted, leaving growers with

limited tools for crop protection.

New policies are needed to ensure that other program oces (such as ORD,

OW, and OLEM) will defer to OPP on toxicity issues. OPP has rigorous

testing requirements for pesticide ingredients and products to ensure

before they go to market that their use will not harm human health and the

environment. Assessments by other oces are redundant.

While individual pesticide registrations are considered adjudications and not

reviewed by the Oce of Management and Budget (OMB), consistent with a

1993 OMB guidance, when pesticide tolerances and registrations are withdrawn

by the agency (as opposed to being withdrawn voluntarily by registrants), these

actions should undergo coordinated interagency review managed by OMB.

Budget

The Biden Administration has expanded the scope and breadth of regulatory

actions with respect to OPPT and OPP, but both programs continue to maintain

that resources are insucient.

OPPT (chemicals) suers from a lack of leadership and an inability to complete

the most basic requirements eciently and in a timely fashion. While EPA has

asked for more resources, including higher industry fees, it is not clear that it has

the capacity to use additional dollars eciently.

With regard to OPP (pesticides), pesticide manufacturers feel that the program

is underfunded and would like its budget to be increased so that pesticide actions

can be reviewed more quickly. Manufacturers are also willing to pay higher fees

to the fee-based portion of the program. However, grower groups have been dis-

appointed by EPA’s actions and have signiﬁcant concerns about EPA’s ability to

conduct science-based risk assessments and take risk management actions that

appropriately balance beneﬁts and risks as required by FIFRA. Guardrails and

third-party audits should be part of any funding increases through the Pesticide

Registration Improvement Act (PRIA)

or other mechanisms.

OFFICE OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (ORD)

AND RELATED SCIENCE ACTIVITIES

While much of this work has not been authorized by law, EPA conducts a wide

variety of intramural and extramural research, development, regulatory science,

— 436 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

science advisory, peer review, risk assessment, and risk management activities. This

enterprise includes the Oce of Research and Development (ORD), the agency’s

largest employer, as well as science activities across other key programs, regions,

and cross-cutting parts of the Administrator’s oce. EPA’s scientiﬁc enterprise,

including ORD, has rightly been criticized for decades as precautionary, bloated,

unaccountable, closed, outcome-driven, hostile to public and legislative input, and

inclined to pursue political rather than purely scientiﬁc goals.

Needed Reforms: Day One Priorities

Notify Congress that EPA will not conduct any ongoing or planned science

activity for which there is not clear and current congressional authorization.

This priority should be underscored in the President’s ﬁrst budget request.

The new President’s Inauguration Day regulatory review/freeze directives

should avoid exceptions for EPA actions. This freeze should explicitly

include quasi-regulatory actions, including assessments, determinations,

standards, and guidance, that have failed to go through the notice-and-

comment process and may date back years.

Pause for review all contracts above $100,000 with a heavy focus on major

external peer reviews and regulatory models.

Call for the public to identify areas where EPA has inconsistently assessed

risk, failed to use the best science, or participated in research misconduct.

Eliminate the use of unauthorized regulatory inputs like the social cost of

carbon, black box and proprietary models, and unrealistic climate scenarios,

including those based on Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5.

Personnel

Quickly nominate a reform-minded Assistant Administrator for Research

and Development.

Appoint and empower a Science Adviser reporting directly to the

Administrator in addition to a substantial investment (no fewer than

six senior political appointees) charged with overseeing and reforming

EPA research and science activities. Qualiﬁcations for these positions

should emphasize management, oversight, and execution skills (including

in leading state environmental agencies) as opposed to personal

scientiﬁc output.

— 437 —

Environmental Protection Agency

Suspend and review the activities of EPA advisory bodies, many of which

have not been authorized by Congress or lack independence, balance, and

geographic and viewpoint diversity.

Retract delegations for key science and risk-assessment decisions from

Assistant Administrators, regional oces, and career ocials.

Eliminate the use of Title 42 hiring authority that allows ORD to spend

millions in taxpayer dollars for salaries of certain employees above the civil

service scale.

Announce plans to streamline and reform EPA’s poorly coordinated and

managed laboratory structure.

Budget: Back-to-Basics Rejection of Unauthorized

or Expired Science Activities

A top priority should be the immediate and consistent rejection of all EPA

ORD and science activities that have not been authorized by Congress. In FY

2022, according to EPA’s opaque budgeting eorts, science and technology activ-

ities totaled nearly $730 million. EPA’s FY 2023 budget request for the Oce of

Research and Development seeks funds for more than 1,850 employees—a dramatic

increase for what is already the largest EPA oce with well above 10 percent of

the agency’s workforce.

ORD conducts a wide-ranging series of science and peer

review activities, some in support of regulatory programs established by our envi-

ronmental laws, but often lacks authority for these speciﬁc endeavors.

Several ORD oces and programs, many of which constitute unaccountable

eorts to use scientiﬁc determinations to drive regulatory, enforcement, and legal

decisions, should be eliminated. The Integrated Risk Information System, for

example, was ostensibly designed by EPA to evaluate hazard and dose-response for

certain chemicals. Despite operating since the 1980s, the program has never been

authorized by Congress and often sets “safe levels” based on questionable science

and below background levels, resulting in billions in economic costs. The program

has been criticized by a wide variety of stakeholders: states; Congress; the National

Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM); and the U.S. Govern-

ment Accountability Oce (GAO), among others. EPA has failed to implement

meaningful reforms, and this unaccountable program threatens key regulatory

processes as well as the integrity of Clean Air Act and TSCA implementation.

Needed EPA Advisory Body Reforms

EPA currently operates 21 federal advisory committees.

These committees

often play an outsized role in determining agency scientiﬁc and regulatory policy,

— 438 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

and their membership has too often been handpicked to achieve certain politi-

cal positions. In the Biden Administration, key EPA advisory committees were

purged of balanced perspectives, geographic diversity, important regulatory and

private-sector experience, and state, local, and tribal expertise. Contrary to con-

gressional directives and recommendations from the GAO and intergovernmental

associations, these moves eviscerated historic levels of participation on key com-

mittees by state, local, and tribal members from 2017 to 2020. As a result, a variety

of EPA regulations lack relevant scientiﬁc perspectives, increasing the risks of

economic fallout and a failure of cooperative federalism. EPA also has repeatedly

disregarded legal requirements regarding the role of these advisory committees

and the scope of scientiﬁc advice on key regulations.

Needed Science Policy Reforms

Instead of allowing these eorts to be misused for scaremongering risk com-

munications and enforcement activities, EPA should embrace so-called citizen

science and deputize the public to subject the agency’s science to greater scrutiny,

especially in areas of data analysis, identiﬁcation of scientiﬁc ﬂaws, and research

misconduct. In addition, EPA should:

Shift responsibility for evaluating misconduct away from its Oce of

Scientiﬁc Integrity, which has been overseen by environmental activists,

and toward an independent body.

Work (including with Congress) to provide incentives similar to those under

the False Claims Act

for the public to identify scientiﬁc ﬂaws and research

misconduct, thereby saving taxpayers from having to bear the costs involved

in expending unnecessary resources.

Avoid proprietary, black box models for key regulations. Nearly all major

EPA regulations are based on nontransparent models for which the

public lacks access or for which signiﬁcant costs prevent the public from

understanding agency analysis.

Reject precautionary default models and uncertainty factors. In the face

of uncertainty around associations between certain pollutants and health

or welfare endpoints, EPA’s heavy reliance on default assumptions like its

low-dose, linear non-threshold model bake orders of magnitude of risk

into key regulatory inputs and drive ﬂawed and opaque decisions. Given

the disproportionate economic impacts of top-down solutions, EPA should

implement an approach that defaults to less restrictive regulatory outcomes.

— 439 —

Environmental Protection Agency

Refocus its research activities on accountable real-world examinations

of the ecacy of its regulations with a heavy emphasis on characterizing

and better understanding natural, background, international, and

anthropogenic contributions for key pollutants. It should embrace concepts

laid out in the 2018 “Back-to-Basics Process for Reviewing National

Ambient Air Quality Standards” memo

to ensure that any science and risk

assessment for the NAAQS matches congressional direction.

Legislative Reforms

While some reforms can be achieved administratively (especially in areas where

EPA clearly lacks congressional authorization for its activities), Congress should

prioritize several EPA science activity reforms:

Use of the Congressional Review Act for Congress to disapprove of EPA

regulations and other quasi-regulatory actions and prohibit “substantially

similar” actions in the future.

Reform EPA’s Science Advisory Board and other advisory bodies to ensure

independence, balance, transparency, and geographic diversity.

Build on recent bipartisan proposals to increase transparency for

advisory bodies, subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act

as well

as recommendations from the Administrative Conference of the U.S., to

strengthen provisions for independence, accountability, geographic

diversity, turnover, and public participation. This should include a

prohibition on peer review activities for unaccountable third parties

that lack independence or application of these same principles to non-

governmental peer review bodies (including NASEM).

Add teeth to long-standing executive orders, memoranda, recommendations,

and other policies to require that EPA regulations are based on transparent,

reproducible science as well as that the data and publications resulting from

taxpayer-funded activities are made immediately available to the public.

Reject funds for programs that have not been authorized by Congress

(like IRIS) as well as peer review activities that have not been authorized

by Congress.

Revisit and repeal or reform outdated environmental statutes. A high

priority should be the repeal or reform of the Global Change Research Act of

1990,

which has been misused for political purposes.

— 440 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Repeal Inﬂation Reduction Act programs providing grants for

environmental science activities.

AMERICAN INDIAN OFFICE (AIO)

AIO is a vital EPA function. It is mandated to carry out a 1992 act of Congress

that administers the Indian Environmental General Assistance Program.

Because

of the sovereign-to-sovereign relationship between the U.S. government and fed-

erally recognized sovereign Indian nations, this act’s purpose is to assist tribes

in developing the capacity to manage their own tribal environmental protection

programs and set them up to implement programs for the management of solid

and hazardous waste. This oce also is the chief oce under which the EPA’s 1984

Indian Policy functions.

Needed Reforms

AIO should be signiﬁcantly elevated as a stand-alone EPA Assistant Admin-

istrator oce. This would send a clear message to American Indians and Alaska

Native Villages that the agency takes seriously the environmental issues plaguing

Indian Country. While designated a “headquarters” oce with direct reporting

to the Administrator, its location should be in the American West, closer to most

tribal nations. This could include Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Dallas, Texas; or

Denver, Colorado. The state of Oklahoma is considered the tribal center of Amer-

ica and is home to 39 federally recognized tribes, including the “Five Civilized

Tribes.” The other two options are also close to numerous tribes and home to EPA

regional oces.

New Policies

All EPA tribal grants and tribal matters should be run from this oce as a one-

stop-shop for all tribal aairs.

Budget and Personnel

AIO should be led by a politically appointed, Senate-conﬁrmed Assistant Admin-

istrator, ideally one with strong ties to a federally recognized tribe. He or she should

have political deputies and sta to assist the political leadership in carrying out

agency policies.

Career EPA tribal sta are located throughout the nation in all regional oces

but are paid mostly under the budget of the current Oce of International and

Tribal Aairs, which will be signiﬁcantly restructured as international functions

are reabsorbed into the appropriate media oces (for example, Air, Water, and

Land and Emergency Management). Because of this, tribal sta should be fully

under the authority of the new American Indian Oce and its Assistant Admin-

istrator, not the regional oces.

— 441 —

Environmental Protection Agency

OFFICE OF GENERAL COUNSEL (OGC)

OGC serves as the chief legal adviser to EPA’s policymaking ocials. It also pro

vides legal support to regional actions and enforcement and compliance litigation.

OGC lawyers represent the agency in court alongside the Department of Justice,

typically defending agency actions.

Needed Reforms and New Policies

Review EPA’s Environmental Justice and Title VI authority.

Wherever possible, the Biden Administration is broadening EPA’s use and

interpretation of Environmental Justice (EJ)

and Title VI of the Civil

Rights Act of 1964

beyond long-standing understandings of the legal limits

of that authority. As a threshold matter, there is an opportunity to redeﬁne

EJ as a tool for the agency to prioritize environmental protection eorts

and assistance to communities in proximity to pollution or with the greatest

need for additional protection. Allocations of agency resources, increased

EPA enforcement, and/or agency distribution of grants should be based on

neutral constitutional principles.

In 2023, the Supreme Court is expected to provide guidance on the

constitutionality of race-based discrimination as it considers Students for

Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina.

Accordingly, the next

Administration should pause and review all ongoing EJ and Title VI actions

to ensure that they are consistent with any forthcoming SCOTUS decision.

Establish a policy of legally speaking with one voice. Some EPA oces

(for example, the Oce of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance and the

Oces of Regional Counsel) assert legal positions and interpretations of

the law that conﬂict with an Administration’s interpretation as articulated

by OGC with input from program oces. It is unacceptable for the agency

to have inconsistent legal positions, particularly with respect to key

interpretative issues. All attorneys with authority to represent EPA—not

necessarily all attorneys—should therefore be housed in OGC. These

oces include:

1. The Oce of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA).

OECA was established during the Clinton Administration. Enforcement

attorneys tend to take legal positions to win cases or obtain settlements

that may be inconsistent with those of OGC and program oces. OECA

attorneys should be moved into OGC. Additionally, non-attorney

program sta in OECA could be moved into their relevant program

oces (for example, the Clean Air Act Enforcement Advisor could

— 442 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

be moved into OAR). Beyond the avoidance of inconsistent legal

positions, this policy would reduce the agency’s overall expenditures

and duplication of work. To accommodate this new function, OGC could

establish a new Deputy General Counsel for Enforcement position to

manage the enforcement attorneys at headquarters and in the regions.

2. The Oce of Congressional and Intergovernmental Aairs

(OCIR). OCIR employees should not take legal positions. In all

Administrations, White House Counsel is key with respect to oversight

issues and has an important relationship with OGC. There must be a

strategic relationship between OCIR and OGC, but OGC, in consultation

with agency clients and White House Counsel, should assert EPA legal

positions to Congress (for example, the assertion of interests regarding

congressional subpoenas, witness availability and testimony, and

document production).

3. The Oce of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights

(OEJECR). OEJECR was established during the Biden Administration.

EJ and civil rights functions were taken from OGC and moved into

a stand-alone oce as well as spread through the regions. OEJECR

should be disbanded; OEJECR’s attorneys should be moved back into

OGC; and nonlegal sta (for example, EJ Policy Advisers) should be

moved back into the Administrator’s oce as is customary.

4. The Oces of Regional Counsel (ORCs). Regional EJ sta eorts,

both in the ORCs and in the policymaking oces, are highly variable.

EPA is therefore likely to take inconsistent legal positions. To the

extent that legal positions are taken by the ORCs and/or regional sta,

they should be coordinated and approved by OGC and the appropriate

regional leadership. For example, nearly all regional oces have EJ

Action Plans and/or EJ Implementation Plans. Region 1’s EJ Action

Plan is six pages, and Region 2’s is 66 pages. The Region 2 EJ Action Plan,

for example, speciﬁes that “ORC will conduct EJ training for all legal

sta…to provide attorneys with a simple standard EJ analysis they can

use regardless of the context—enforcement, grants, permits, referrals,

etc.—of the case.”

In addition, EPA should refrain from publicly undermining the National

Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)

process at other agencies and should

instead focus on providing constructive, technical support during the

interagency process.

— 443 —

Environmental Protection Agency

Personnel

Review OGC resources to consider reorganization of other attorney functions

and leadership for consolidation into a Cross-Cutting Issues Law Oce.

Review telework policies and attorneys with permanent duty stations not at

EPA headquarters or a regional oce.

Consider invoking the rotation of SES managers within OGC and ORCs to

other EPA oces where appropriate.

Monitor all external communications conveying a legal position.

Do not allow public events at which the agency puts forth its legal position

unless they are speciﬁcally approved (for example, agency webinars on

sensitive issues).

Budget

OGC’s budget will increase with consolidation of FTE funding that follows attor-

neys who come from other EPA oces.

Reassess duplicative skill sets with the consolidation and allow for

attrition if needed.

Consider allocated resources for regional recruiting to increase geographic

diversity from law schools from each state.

OFFICE OF MISSION SUPPORT (OMS)

OMS leads the agency’s core mission support functions to improve eciency,

coordination, and customer experience for internal customers, stakeholders,

and the public, including protection of EPA’s facilities and other critical assets

nationwide, acquisition activities (contracts), grants management, human capital,

information technology, and information management activities.

Grant Reform

EPA now awards up to $30 billion in grants annually—up to half of the agen-

cy’s annual budget. Of these funds, $500 million is awarded as discretionary. This

grantmaking—discretionary and otherwise—is driven by ideology instead of

need. Of particular concern is a practice whereby numerous small-dollar grants

are administered to a great number of grantees while larger grants are given to

academic institutions. As a result, grant funds produce little to no meaningful

improvements in the environment and public health and instead fund questionably

— 444 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

relevant projects at elite, private academic institutions that invariably produce

radical environmental research.

Steps should be taken to ensure that grants are awarded based on need instead

of ideological aliation or academic preference. Speciﬁcally, EPA should:

Institute a pause and review for all grants over a certain threshold.

Put a political appointee in charge of the grants oce to prioritize

distribution of grants to those who are most in need and toward projects

that will tangibly improve the environment.

Cap the number and dollar amounts of grants that the Oce of Research

and Development can award and require that they be reviewed by the

Administrator’s oce.

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER (OCFO)

OCFO formulates and manages EPA’s annual budget and performance plan,

coordinates EPA’s strategic planning eorts, develops EPA’s annual Performance

and Accountability Report, and implements the Government Performance and

Results Act.

Needed Reforms

EPA has been audited by the agency’s Inspector General for decades, well

beyond accepted norms for private-sector ﬁnancial audits. Audit teams should be

diversiﬁed. Stang assignments, especially at the senior level, should be reviewed

and streamlined, and the oce should consolidate space to save agency costs. For

example, six oces need six security contracts to protect employees when one

contract would suce.

New Policies

Review travel and reimbursement policies for best practices aligned for

industry norms.

Personnel

The Deputy Chief Financial Ocer position is currently reserved for a career

ocial, but political appointees may serve as Associate CFO, Special Advisor, and

other senior ocials. In addition to evaluating whether the Deputy Chief Finan

cial Ocer position should be reserved for a career ocial, a new Administration

should immediately ﬁll these positions with political appointees and establish a

new political leadership position for Appropriations Liaison, which is currently

overseen by career employees.

— 445 —

Environmental Protection Agency

Budget

OCFO is responsible for drafting and sharing the President’s budget with Con-

gress. The CFO often testiﬁes along with the Administrator. Eorts to simplify the

budget request could improve the overall transparency and general understanding

of the agency’s work.

CONCLUSION

A more conservative EPA that aligns with the policies outlined in this chapter

will lead to a better environmental future without unintended consequences. It

will prevent unnecessary expenditures by the regulated community, allowing for

investment in economic development and job creation, which are keys to thriving

communities. Cutting EPA’s size and scope will deliver savings to the American

taxpayer. Improved transparency will serve as an important check to ensure that

the agency’s mission is not distorted or coopted for political gain. Importantly, a

conservative EPA will deliver tangible environmental improvements to the Amer-

ican people in the form of cleaner air, cleaner water, and healthier soils.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This chapter could not have been completed without the assistance of numerous policy

experts, legal professionals, and former appointees. A special note of thanks to David Harlow, Justin Schwab,

Aaron Szabo, Clint Woods, and Scott Mason IV. The author alone assumes responsibility for this chapter. No views

expressed herein should be attributed to any other individual.

— 446 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

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policy-for-stopping-climate-change/ (accessed January 25, 2023).

 Stephen Lee, Pat Rizzuto, Dean Scott, and Jennifer Hijazi, “EPA Would See Highest Funding Ever Under

Biden Budget Plan (2),” Bloomberg Law, March 28, 2022, https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-

and-energy/epa-would-see-highest-funding-level-ever-under-biden-budget-plan (accessed January 25,

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March 20, 2023).

 William Yeatman, “EPA’s Missed Deadlines Cause Widespread Dysfunction,” Competitive Enterprise Institute

Blog, August 3, 2016, https://cei.org/blog/epas-missed-deadlines-causing-widespread-dysfunction/

(accessed January 25, 2023).

 Shannon Osaka, “The EPA Failed Flint. Now We Know Exactly How,” Grist, July 19, 2018, https://grist.org/

article/the-epa-failed-ﬂint-now-we-know-exactly-how/ (accessed January 25, 2023).

 Alan Neuhauser, “EPA to Blame for ‘Preventable’ Gold King Mine Spill,” US News & World Report, October 22,

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 Christopher Helman, “EPA Ocial Not Only Touted ‘Crucifying’ Oil Companies, He Tried It,” Forbes, April 26,

2012, https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/04/26/epa-ocial-not-only-touted-crucifying-

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

News release, “EPA Celebrates 50 Year[s] of Progress, Dedicates Conference Center to First Administrator,”

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epa-celebrates-50-year-progress-dedicates-conference-center-ﬁrst-administrator (accessed

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 Case Western Reserve University, “Encyclopedia of Cleveland History: Cuyahoga River Fire,” https://case.edu/

ech/articles/c/cuyahoga-river-ﬁre (accessed January 25, 2023).

 President Richard Nixon, “Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1970: Special Message from the President to the

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 Ibid.

 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Summary of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. §7401 et seq. (1970),” last

updated September 12, 2022, https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-air-act (accessed

January 27, 2023).

 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Summary of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. §1251 et seq. (1972),”

last updated July 6, 2022, https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act (accessed

January 25, 2023).

 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “1990 Clean Air Act Amendment Summary,” last updated November

28, 2022, https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/1990-clean-air-act-amendment-summary (accessed

January 25, 2023).

 U.S. Department of State, Oce of Environmental Quality, “The Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete

the Ozone Layer,” https://www.state.gov/key-topics-oce-of-environmental-quality-and-transboundary-

issues/the-montreal-protocol-on-substances-that-deplete-the-ozone-layer/ (accessed January 25, 2023).

 5 U.S. Code § 3345 et seq., https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/3345 (accessed March 20, 2023).

 42 U.S. Code § 7261(a), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2013-title42/html/USCODE-2013-

title42-chap85-subchapIII-sec7621.htm (accessed January 25, 2023).

 42 U.S. Code § 7607(d), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2013-title42/html/USCODE-2013-

title42-chap85-subchapIII-sec7607.htm (accessed January 25, 2023).

 H.R. 5376, Inﬂation Reduction Act of 2022, Public Law No. 117-169, 117th Congress, August 16, 2022, https://

www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ169/PLAW-117publ169.pdf (accessed March 20, 2023).

— 447 —

Environmental Protection Agency

 42 U.S. Code § 7426(b), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/7426 (accessed January 26, 2023).

 42 U.S. Code § 7410(k)(5)–(6), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/7410 (accessed January 26, 2023).

 42 U.S. Code § 7601(a), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/7601 (accessed January 26, 2023).

 42 U.S. Code § 7675, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/7675 (accessed January 26, 2023).

 42 U.S. Code § 7411, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/7411 (accessed January 26, 2023).

 42 U.S. Code § 7411(d).

 42 U.S. Code § 7412, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/7412 (accessed January 26, 2023).

 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Summary of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. §1251 et seq. (1972),”

last updated July 6, 2022, https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act (accessed

January 26, 2023).

 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Summary of the Safe Drinking Water Act, 42 U.S.C. §300f et seq,

(1974),” last updated September 12, 2022, https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-safe-drinking-

water-acthttps://www.epa.gov/sdwa (accessed January 26, 2023).

 Memorandum from David P. Ross, Assistant Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency, to Oce of

Water Program Directors, “Subject: Oce of Water Policy for Draft Documents,” August 6, 2019, https://

www.epa.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/2020-12/documents/ow_policy_for_draft_documents_to_ow_program_

directors_signed_002.pdf (accessed January 26, 2023).

 33 U.S. Code § 1341, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/33/1341 (accessed January 26, 2023).

 Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. 715 (2006), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/547/04-1034/

index.pdf (accessed January 25, 2023).

 33 U.S. Code § 1318, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/33/1318 (accessed January 26, 2023).

 33 U.S. Code § 1342, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/33/1342 (accessed January 26, 2023).

 33 U.S. Code § 1344, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/33/1344 (accessed January 26, 2023).

 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Summary of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, 42 U.S.C.

§6901 et seq. (1976),” last updated September 12, 2022, https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-

resource-conservation-and-recovery-act (accessed January 27, 2023).

 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Summary of the Comprehensive Environmental Response,

Compensation, and Liability Act (Superfund), 42 U.S.C. §9601 et seq. (1980),” last updated September

12, 2022, https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-comprehensive-environmental-response-

compensation-and-liability-act (accessed January 27, 2023).

 42 U.S. Code § 7412(r), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/7412 (accessed January 27, 2023).

 42 U.S. Code § 6924(n), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/6924 (accessed January 27, 2023).

 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Summary of the Toxic Substances Control Act, 15 U.S.C. §2601 et seq.

(1976),” last updated October 4, 2022, https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-toxic-substances-

control-act (accessed January 27, 2023).

 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Summary of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide

Act, 7 U.S.C. §136 et seq. (1996),” last updated September 12, 2022, https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/

summary-federal-insecticide-fungicide-and-rodenticide-act (accessed January 27, 2023).

 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Summary of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, 21 U.S.C. §301

et seq. (2002),” last updated September 12, 2022, https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-federal-

food-drug-and-cosmetic-act (accessed January 27, 2023).

 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act,”

last updated March 24, 2022, https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca/frank-r-

lautenberg-chemical-safety-21st-century-act (accessed January 27, 2023), and “Highlights of Key Provisions

in the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act for the 21st Century,” last updated February 12, 2020, https://

www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca/highlights-key-provisions-frank-r-lautenberg-

chemical (accessed January 27, 2023).

 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Summary of the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. §1531 et seq.

(1973),” last updated September 12, 2022, https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-endangered-

species-act (accessed January 27, 2023).

 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “PRIA Overview and History,” last updated July 19, 2022, https://www.

epa.gov/pria-fees/pria-overview-and-history (accessed January 27, 2023).

— 448 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 Table, “EPA Budget by National Program Manager and Major Oce,” in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,

United States Environmental Protection Agency Fiscal Year 2023 Justiﬁcation of Appropriation Estimates for

the Committee on Appropriations, p. 1076.

 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “All Federal Advisory Committees at EPA,” last updated March 10, 2023,

https://www.epa.gov/faca/all-federal-advisory-committees-epa (accessed March 20, 2023).

 For example, EPA has steadfastly refused to follow Clean Air Act requirements that the Clean Air Scientiﬁc

Advisory Committee provide, in the words of the U.S. Supreme Court, “unquestionably pertinent” advice on

the “relative contribution to air pollution concentrations of natural… activity” as well as “any adverse public

health, welfare, social, economic, or energy eects which may result from various strategies for attainment

and maintenance” of the NAAQS. Memorandum from E. Scott Pruitt, Administrator, Environmental Protection

Agency, to Assistant Administrators, “Subject: Back-to-Basics Process for Reviewing National Ambient

Air Quality Standards,” May 9, 2018, p. 4, https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/2018-05/documents/

image2018-05-09-173219.pdf (accessed January 25, 2023) (cited hereafter as Pruitt Memorandum, May

9, 2018), and Whitman v. American Trucking Associations, 531 U.S. 457, 470 n.2 (2001), https://supreme.

justia.com/cases/federal/us/531/457/case.pdF (accessed January 25, 2023). Similarly, EPA has refused to

follow legal requirements dating to the late 1970s regarding congressional requests for scientiﬁc advice.

Pruitt Memorandum, May 9, 2018; U.S. Government Accountability Oce, “EPA Science and Advisory

Panels: Preliminary Observations on the Processes for Providing Scientiﬁc Advice,” testimony of J. Alfredo

Gómez, Director, Natural Resources and Environment, GAO, before the Subcommittee on Superfund,

Waste Management, and Regulatory Oversight, Committee on Environment and Public Works, U.S. Senate,

GAO-15-636T, May 20, 2015, https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-15-636t (accessed January 25, 2023);

and U.S. Government Accountability Oce, “EPA Science Advisory Board: Policy Statement on Science

Quality and Integrity,” GAO-17-526R, June 8, 2017, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-17-526r.pdf (accessed

January 25, 2023).

 31 U.S. Code § 3729 et seq., https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/3729 (accessed March 20, 2023).

 See Pruitt Memorandum, May 9, 2018.

 H.R. 4383, Federal Advisory Committee Act, Public Law 92-463, 92nd Congress, October 6, 1972, https://www.

congress.gov/92/statute/STATUTE-86/STATUTE-86-Pg770.pdf (accessed March 20, 2023).

 15 U.S. Code Chapter 56A, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/chapter-56A (accessed

January 27, 2023).

 Indian Environmental General Assistance Act of 1992, 42 U.S. Code § 4368b, https://www.law.cornell.edu/

uscode/text/42/4368b (accessed January 27, 2023).

 See U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Oce of General Counsel, EPA Legal Tools to Advance

Environmental Justice, May 2022, https://www.epa.gov/system/ﬁles/documents/2022-05/EJ%20Legal%20

Tools%20May%202022%20FINAL.pdf (accessed January 25, 2023), and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,

Oce of General Counsel, Oce of Policy, “Interim Environmental Justice and Civil Rights in Permitting

Frequently Asked Questions,” August 2022, https://www.epa.gov/system/ﬁles/documents/2022-08/EJ%20

and%20CR%20in%20PERMITTING%20FAQs%20508%20compliant.pdf (accessed January 25, 2023).

 2 U.S. Code §§ 2000d–2000d-7, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/chapter-21/subchapter-V

(accessed January 27, 2023).

 Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, No. 1:14CV954 (M.D.N.C. Sep. 30, 2019),

https://www.leagle.com/decision/infdco20191008j38 (accessed January 27, 2023).

 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Region 2 Environmental Justice Action Plan, p. 24, https://www.

epa.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/2016-03/documents/region_2_environmental_justice_action_plan.pdf (accessed

January 27, 2023).

 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Summary of the National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. §4321

et seq. (1969),” last updated September 12, 2022, https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-national-

environmental-policy-act (accessed January 27, 2023).

 31 U.S. Code § 1115, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/1115 (accessed January 27, 2023).

— 449 —

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

AND HUMAN SERVICES

Roger Severino

f the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) were a separate coun-

try, its approximately $1.6 trillion budget would rank as the world’s ﬁfth-largest

national budget. For good or ill, HHS activities personally impact the lives of more

Americans than do those of any other federal agency. Under President Trump, HHS

was dedicated to serving “all Americans from conception to natural death, including

those individuals and families who face…economic and social well-being challenges.”

Under President Biden, the mission has shifted to “promoting equity in everything

we do” for the sake of “populations sharing a particular characteristic” including race,

sexuality, gender identiﬁcation, ethnicity, and a host of other categories.

As a result of HHS’s having lost its way, U.S. life expectancy, instead of return-

ing to normal after the COVID-19 pandemic, continued to drop precipitously to

levels not seen since 1996 with white populations alone losing 7 percent of their

expected life span in just one year.

Nothing less than America’s long-term survival

is at stake. Accordingly, HHS must return to serving the health and well-being of

all Americans at all stages of life instead of using social engineering that leaves us

sicker, poorer, and more divided.

OVERVIEW

HHS consists of 11 operating divisions that have varying degrees of practical

independence from the Secretary of Health and Human Services and 15 sta

divisions that are directly under the Oce of the Secretary. This chapter’s rec-

ommendations are limited to those divisions that most need reform and address,

wherever possible, ﬁve cross-cutting goals.

— 450 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Goal #1: Protecting Life, Conscience, and Bodily Integrity. The Secretary

should pursue a robust agenda to protect the fundamental right to life, protect con-

science rights, and uphold bodily integrity rooted in biological realities, not ideology.

From the moment of conception, every human being possesses inherent dignity

and worth, and our humanity does not depend on our age, stage of development,

race, or abilities. The Secretary must ensure that all HHS programs and activities

are rooted in a deep respect for innocent human life from day one until natural

death: Abortion and euthanasia are not health care.

A robust respect for the sacred rights of conscience, both at HHS and among gov-

ernments and institutions funded by it, increases choices for patients and program

beneﬁciaries and furthers pluralism and tolerance. The Secretary must protect

Americans’ civil rights by ensuring that HHS programs and activities follow the

letter and spirit of religious freedom and conscience-protection laws.

Radical actors inside and outside government are promoting harmful identity

politics that replaces biological sex with subjective notions of “gender identity” and

bases a person’s worth on his or her race, sex, or other identities. This destructive

dogma, under the guise of “equity,” threatens American’s fundamental liberties as

well as the health and well-being of children and adults alike. The next Secretary

must ensure that HHS programs protect children’s minds and bodies and that

HHS programs respect parents’ basic right to direct the upbringing, education,

and care of their children.

Goal #2: Empowering Patient Choices and Provider Autonomy. Basic eco-

nomics holds that costs tend to decrease and quality and options tend to increase

when there is robust and free competition in the provision of goods and services.

Health care is no exception. Health care reform should be patient-centered and

market-based and should empower individuals to control their health care–related

dollars and decisions.

Of course, providers who deliver health care also need the freedom to address

the unique needs of their patients. States should be the primary regulators of the

medical profession, and the federal government should not restrict providers’ abil

ity to discharge their responsibilities or limit their ability to innovate through

government pricing controls or irrational Medicare and Medicaid reimburse-

ment schemes.

Finally, America’s broken insurance system, run largely through confusing pro-

vider networks and third-party payers (employers), induces overconsumption of

health care, limits consumer shopping, and hides true costs from patients.

The federal government should focus reform on reducing burdens of regulatory

compliance, unleashing innovation in health care delivery, ceasing interference in

the daily lives of patients and providers, allowing alternative insurance coverage

options, and returning control of health care dollars to patients making decisions

with their providers about their health care treatments and services.

— 451 —

Department of Health and Human Services

Goal #3: Promoting Stable and Flourishing Married Families. Families

comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of

a well-ordered nation and healthy society. Unfortunately, family policies and

programs under President Biden’s HHS are fraught with agenda items focusing

on “LGBTQ+ equity,” subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and

penalizing marriage. These policies should be repealed and replaced by policies

that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families.

Working fathers are essential to the well-being and development of their

children, but the United States is experiencing a crisis of fatherlessness that is

ruining our children’s futures. In the overwhelming number of cases, fathers

insulate children from physical and sexual abuse, ﬁnancial diculty or poverty,

incarceration, teen pregnancy, poor educational outcomes, high school failure,

and a host of behavioral and psychological problems. By contrast, homes with

non-related “boyfriends” present are among the most dangerous place for a child

to be. HHS should prioritize married father engagement in its messaging, health,

and welfare policies.

In the context of current and emerging reproductive technologies, HHS policies

should never place the desires of adults over the right of children to be raised by

the biological fathers and mothers who conceive them. In cases involving biolog-

ical parents who are found by a court to be unﬁt because of abuse or neglect, the

process of adoption should be speedy, certain, and supported generously by HHS.

Goal #4: Preparing for the Next Health Emergency. The COVID-19 pan-

demic demonstrated how catastrophic a micromanaging, misinformed, centralized,

and politicized federal government can be. Basic human rights, medical choice, and

the doctor–patient relationship were trampled without scientiﬁc justiﬁcation and

for extended periods of time. Excess deaths, not due to COVID-19, skyrocketed

because of forced lockdowns, isolation, vaccine-related mass ﬁrings, and colossal

disruptions of the economy and daily rhythms of life.

The federal government’s public health apparatus has lost the public’s trust.

Before the next national public health emergency, this apparatus must be funda-

mentally restructured to ensure a transparent, scientiﬁcally grounded, and more

nimble, ecient, transparent, and targeted response that respects the unique

needs and input of patient populations and providers.

Every one of the overreaching policies during the pandemic—from lockdowns

and school closures to mask and vaccine mandates or passports—received its

supposed legal justiﬁcation from the state of emergency declared (and renewed)

by the HHS Secretary. Tellingly, however, the threshold for what constitutes a

public health emergency—how many cases, hospitalizations, deaths, etc.—was

never deﬁned. For the sake of democratic accountability, we must know with clarity

what will trigger the next emergency declaration and, just as important, what will

trigger its end.

— 452 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Unaccountable bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci should never again have such

broad, unchecked power to issue health “guidelines” that will certainly be the basis

for federal and state mandates. Never again should public health bureaucrats be

allowed to hide information, ignore information, or mislead the public concerning

the ecacy or dangers associated with any recommended health interventions

because they believe it may lead to hesitancy on the part of the public. The only

way to restore public trust in HHS as an institution capable of acting responsibly

during a health emergency is through the best of disinfectants—light.

Goal #5: Instituting Greater Transparency, Accountability, and Over-

sight. The next Administration should guard against the regulatory capture of our

public health agencies by pharmaceutical companies, insurers, hospital conglomer-

ates, and related economic interests that these agencies are meant to regulate. We

must erect robust ﬁrewalls to mitigate these obvious ﬁnancial conﬂicts of interest.

All National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

and Food and Drug Administration regulators should be entirely free from pri-

vate biopharmaceutical funding. In this realm, “public–private partnerships” is a

euphemism for agency capture, a thin veneer for corporatism. Funding for agencies

and individual government researchers must come directly from the government

with robust congressional oversight.

We must shut and lock the revolving door between government and Big Pharma.

Regulators should have a long “cooling o period” on their contracts (15 years

would not be too long) that prevents them from working for companies they have

regulated. Similarly, pharmaceutical company executives should be restricted from

moving from industry into positions within regulatory agencies.

Finally, HHS should adopt metrics across the agency that can objectively deter-

mine the extent to which the agency’s policies and programs achieve desired health

and welfare outcomes (not agency outputs). What is not measured is not achieved.

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION (CDC)

COVID and Structural Reform. COVID-19 exposed the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention (CDC) as perhaps the most incompetent and arrogant

agency in the federal government. CDC continually misjudged COVID-19, from

its lethality, transmissibility, and origins to treatments. We were told masks were

not needed; then they were made mandatory. CDC botched the development of

COVID tests when they were needed most. When it was too late, we were told to put

our lives on hold for “two weeks to ﬂatten the curve;” that turned into two years of

interference and restrictions on the smallest details of our lives. Congress should

ensure that CDC’s legal authorities are clearly deﬁned and limited to prevent a

recurrence of any such arbitrary and vacillating exercise of power.

The CDC should be split into two separate entities housing its two distinct func-

tions. On the one hand, the CDC is now responsible for collecting, synthesizing,

— 453 —

Department of Health and Human Services

and publishing epidemiological data from the individual states—a scientiﬁc

data-gathering function. This information is crucial for medical and public health

researchers around the country. On the other hand, the CDC is also responsible

for making public health recommendations and policies—an inescapably political

function. At times, these two functions are in tension or clear conﬂict. In February

2022, for example, it was reported that “[t]wo full years into the pandemic, the

agency leading the country’s response to the public health emergency has pub-

lished only a tiny fraction of the data it has collected,” much of which “could [have

helped] state and local health ocials better target their eorts to bring the virus

under control.” A CDC spokesman said that one of the reasons was “fear that the

information might be misinterpreted.”

These distinct functions should be separated into two entirely separate agen-

cies with a ﬁrewall between them. We need a national epidemiological agency

responsible only for publishing data and required by law to publish all of the data

gathered from states and other sources. A separate agency should be responsible

for public health with a severely conﬁned ability to make policy recommendations.

The CDC can and should make assessments as to the health costs and beneﬁts of

health interventions, but it has limited to no capacity to measure the social costs

or beneﬁts they may entail. For example, how much risk mitigation is worth the

price of shutting down churches on the holiest day of the Christian calendar and

far beyond as happened in 2020? What is the proper balance of lives saved versus

souls saved? The CDC has no business making such inherently political (and often

unconstitutional) assessments and should be required by law to stay in its lane.

The CDC’s initial COVID-19 testing failures were largely the result of that agen-

cy’s prioritizing its own development and production of tests using its internal

sta and facilities. The private sector is much better positioned to tackle the chal-

lenges inherent in developing and manufacturing novel products, as illustrated by

the relative success of the alternative approach to facilitating the development of

COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics by private companies that was adopted by

the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

When it comes to testing, the CDC’s role should similarly be to facilitate rather

than supplant the eorts of private test developers, academic laboratories, state

public health laboratories, and clinical testing providers. When responding to a

novel pathogen, the CDC should focus on gathering and disseminating information,

including specimens needed for development of positive controls and reference

panels, and ensuring that test developers can develop and validate diagnostic

tests. These changes will require a shift in priorities and culture at the CDC—and

throughout HHS more broadly.

Most problematically, the CDC presented itself as a kind of “super-doctor” for

the entire nation. The CDC is a public health institution, not a medical institution.

According to its mission statement, the agency focuses on “disease prevention and

— 454 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

control, environmental health, and health promotion and health education activi-

ties.”

It is not qualiﬁed to oer (and usually does not purport to oer) professional

medical opinions applicable to speciﬁc patients.

From time to time, the CDC oers ﬁndings and recommendations that compe-

tent medical practitioners often will consider in arriving at a professional medical

judgment for a particular patient. In this respect, CDC guidelines are analogous

to guidelines from other public health associations or medical societies: They are

informative, not prescriptive.

By statute or regulation, CDC guidance must be prohibited from taking on a

prescriptive character. For example, never again should CDC ocials be allowed to

say in their ocial capacity that school children “should be” masked or vaccinated

(through a schedule or otherwise) or prohibited from learning in a school building.

Such decisions should be left to parents and medical providers. We have learned

that when CDC says what people “should” do, it readily becomes a “must” backed by

severe punishments, including criminal penalties. CDC should report on the risks

and eectiveness of all infectious disease-mitigation measures dispassionately

and leave the “should” and “must” policy calls to politically accountable parties.

Conﬂicts of Interest. There was a time when the CDC could not take money

from the pharmaceutical industry, but in 1992, the agency discovered a loophole in

federal law that allowed it to accept pharma contributions through the nonproﬁt

CDC Foundation. The money started ﬂowing immediately: From 2014 through

2018, the CDC Foundation received $79.6 million from pharmaceutical corpo-

rations like Pﬁzer, Biogen, and Merck.

This practice presents a stark conﬂict of

interest that should be banned.

Data Systems. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the disastrous public

health consequences of the CDC’s failure to follow multiple congressional

mandates to modernize its data infrastructure. Current reporting methods are

burdensome for frontline medical workers, yet they result only in fragmented data

that are not available in real time or usable across systems.

Congress should require HHS to prioritize the electronic collection and dis-

semination of robust, privacy-protected data that better leverages existing systems

while reducing burdens on clinicians. HHS should also enter into a public–private

partnership with a data-management expert to develop a system that makes crit-

ical information available to health care workers and policymakers in real time.

The CDC operates several programs related to vaccine safety including the Vac-

cine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS); Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD);

and Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) Project. Those functions and

their associated funding should be transferred to the FDA, which is responsible for

post-market surveillance and evaluation of all other drugs and biological products.

Respect for Life and Conscience. The CDC should eliminate programs and

projects that do not respect human life and conscience rights and that undermine

— 455 —

Department of Health and Human Services

family formation. It should ensure that it is not promoting abortion as health care.

It should fund studies into the risks and complications of abortion and ensure that

it corrects and does not promote misinformation regarding the comparative health

and psychological beneﬁts of childbirth versus the health and psychological risks

of intentionally taking a human life through abortion.

The CDC oversaw and funded the development and testing of the COVID-19

vaccines with aborted fetal cell lines, insensitive to the consciences of tens of

thousands to hundreds of thousands of people who objected to taking a vac-

cine with such a link to abortion. As evidenced by litigation across the country,

it is likely that thousands were ﬁred unjustly because of the exercise of their

consciences or faith on this question, which could have been avoided with a

modicum of concern for this issue from CDC. There is never any justiﬁcation for

ending a child’s life as part of research, and the research beneﬁts from splicing or

growing aborted fetal cells and aborted baby body parts can easily be provided

by alternative sources. All such research should be prohibited as a matter of

law and policy.

CDC should update its public messaging about the unsurpassed eectiveness of

modern fertility awareness–based methods (FABMs) of family planning and stop

publishing communications that conﬂate such methods with the long-eclipsed

“rhythm” or “calendar” methods. CDC should fund studies exploring the evi-

dence-based methods used in cutting-edge fertility awareness.

Data Collection. The CDC’s abortion surveillance and maternity mortality

reporting systems are woefully inadequate. CDC abortion data are reported by

states on a voluntary basis, and California, Maryland, and New Hampshire do not

submit abortion data at all. Accurate and reliable statistical data about abortion,

abortion survivors, and abortion-related maternal deaths are essential to timely,

reliable public health and policy analysis.

Because liberal states have now become sanctuaries for abortion tourism, HHS

should use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every

state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what

gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and

by what method. It should also ensure that statistics are separated by category:

spontaneous miscarriage; treatments that incidentally result in the death of a child

(such as chemotherapy); stillbirths; and induced abortion. In addition, CDC should

require monitoring and reporting for complications due to abortion and every

instance of children being born alive after an abortion. Moreover, abortion should

be clearly deﬁned as only those procedures that intentionally end an unborn child’s

life. Miscarriage management or standard ectopic pregnancy treatments should

never be conﬂated with abortion.

Comparisons between live births and abortion should be tracked across vari-

ous demographic indicators to assess whether certain populations are targeted by

— 456 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

abortion providers and whether better prenatal physical, mental, and social care

improves infant outcomes and decreases abortion rates, especially among those

who are most vulnerable.

The Ensuring Accurate and Complete Abortion Data Reporting Act of 2023

would amend title XIX of the Social Security Act and Public Health Service Act

to improve the CDC’s abortion reporting mechanisms by requiring states, as a

condition of federal Medicaid payments for family planning services, to report

streamlined variables in a timely manner.

The CDC should immediately end its collection of data on gender identity, which

legitimizes the unscientiﬁc notion that men can become women (and vice versa)

and encourages the phenomenon of ever-multiplying subjective identities.

FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION (FDA)

The FDA’s mission includes ensuring the safety and ecacy of drugs, biological

products, and medical devices.

Federal Laws That Shield Big Pharma from Competition. Because generics

generally cost far less than brand-name drugs, consumers begin to save money as

soon as a generic product comes on the market. The vast majority are very aord-

able with 93 percent of generic products costing $20 or less.

Savings would be even higher under proposals that prevent brand-name man-

ufacturers from slowing down or impeding the entrance of generic products into

the marketplace. Speciﬁcally, the FDA should prohibit pharmaceutical companies

from purposely sitting on their legally available right to be the ﬁrst to sell generic

versions of their drugs. Additionally, Congress should create legal remedies for

generic companies to obtain samples of brand-name products for their generic

development eorts and should prohibit meritless “citizen petitions” submitted

by manufacturers to delay approval of a generic competitor.

Approval Process for Laboratory-Developed or Modiﬁed Medical Tests.

Learning from the failed early COVID-19 testing experience, Congress and the FDA

should focus on reforming laws and regulations governing medical tests, especially

with respect to laboratory-developed tests.

Commercial tests are developed with the intention of being widely marketed,

distributed, and used, while laboratory-developed tests are created with the

intention of being used solely within one laboratory. A test developed by a lab in

accordance with the protocols developed by another lab (non-commercial sharing)

currently constitutes a “new” laboratory-developed test because the lab in which

it will be used is dierent from the initial developing lab. To encourage interlab-

oratory collaboration and discourage duplicative test creation (and associated

regulatory and logistical burdens), the FDA should introduce mechanisms through

which laboratory-developed tests can easily be shared with other laboratories with-

out the current regulatory burdens.

— 457 —

Department of Health and Human Services

The “laboratory-developed tests” category currently encompasses a range of

possible tests, many of which would be characterized more appropriately as “lab-

oratory-modiﬁed tests” because they are not truly novel tests but rather modiﬁed

versions of existing tests. To avoid stiﬂing innovation and access to medical care,

the applicable statutes and regulations should be revised to facilitate greater access

to such modiﬁed tests.

Finally, the FDA has long held that it has regulatory authority over such tests,

while others have argued that they should be considered clinical services regulated

by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The FDA currently

has regulatory authority over in vitro diagnostics, and under the Clinical Lab-

oratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA),

the CMS ensures that labs meet

analytical validity standards for test methods. Congress, the FDA, and the CMS

need to clarify and disentangle overlapping authorities over tests to eliminate

regulatory confusion.

Drug Shortages. The very thin proﬁt margins and the regulatory burdens

associated with generic drug manufacturing discourage inventory and capacity

investments by manufacturers and contribute to drug shortages. HHS and the FDA

should encourage more dependable generic drug manufacturing.

The FDA should expand its current pass/fail approach to drug facility inspec-

tions into a graded system that recognizes manufacturers that exceed minimum

standards by investing in improving production reliability. The FDA should also

add facility codes to drug packaging and construct a searchable database that

cross-references product codes and facility codes. That would enable wholesalers

and pharmacy beneﬁt managers to identify and preference drugs manufactured at

more reliable facilities, thus encouraging generic drug manufacturers to compete

on reliability as well as on price.

For its part, HHS should exempt multi-source generic drugs from requirements

to pay rebates to Medicaid and other federally funded health programs, as those

provisions penalize new investments in expanding manufacturing capacity when

supply is unable to meet demand.

Additionally, FDA and NIH should promote

ecacy trials of new applications for generic drugs, which might include NIH fund-

ing such trials or conducting its own.

Abortion Pills. Abortion pills pose the single greatest threat to unborn chil-

dren in a post-Roe world. The rate of chemical abortion in the U.S. has increased

by more than 150 percent in the past decade; more than half of annual abortions

in the U.S. are chemical rather than surgical.

The abortion pill regimen is typically a two-part process. The ﬁrst pill, mifepris-

tone, causes the death of the unborn child by cutting o the hormone progesterone,

which is required to sustain a pregnancy. The second pill, misoprostol, causes con-

tractions to induce a delivery of the dead child and uterine contents, usually into a

toilet at home. The abortion-pill regimen is currently approved for up to 70 days

— 458 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

(10 weeks) into pregnancy and before Biden was subject to a heightened safety

restriction called a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) that requires

an in-person visit with a physician who can check for dangerous contraindications

such as ectopic pregnancies and can advise the mother seeking an abortion of the

risks of chemical abortion, including hemorrhaging, and what to do in such cir-

cumstances. Chemical abortion has been found to have a complication rate four

times higher than that of surgical abortion.

Since its approval more than 20 years ago, mifepristone has been associated with

26 deaths of pregnant mothers, over a thousand hospitalizations, and thousands

more adverse events, but that number does not account for all complications. Of

course, this does not count the hundreds of thousands to millions of babies whose

lives have been unjustly taken through chemical abortion. FDA should therefore:

Reverse its approval of chemical abortion drugs because the

politicized approval process was illegal from the start. The FDA

failed to abide by its legal obligations to protect the health, safety, and

welfare of girls and women. It never studied the safety of the drugs

under the labeled conditions of use, ignored the potential impacts of the

hormone-blocking regimen on the developing bodies of adolescent girls,

disregarded the substantial evidence that chemical abortion drugs cause

more complications than surgical abortions, and eliminated necessary

safeguards for pregnant girls and women who undergo this dangerous drug

regimen. Furthermore, at no point in the past two decades has the FDA ever

acknowledged or addressed federal laws that prohibit the distribution of

abortion drugs by postal mail; to the contrary, the FDA has permitted and

actively encouraged such activity.

Now that the Supreme Court has acknowledged that the Constitution

contains no right to an abortion, the FDA is ethically and legally obliged to

revisit and withdraw its initial approval, which was premised on pregnancy

being an “illness” and abortion being “therapeutically” eective at treating

this “illness.” The FDA is statutorily charged with guaranteeing the

safety and ecacy of drugs and therefore should withdraw this drug that

is proven to be dangerous to women and by deﬁnition fatally unsafe for

unborn children.

As an interim step, the FDA should immediately restore the REMS by removing

the in-person dispensing requirement to eliminate dangerous tele-abortion and

abortion-by-mail distribution.

Mail-Order Abortions. Allowing mail-order abortions is a gift to the abortion

industry that allows it to expand far beyond brick-and-mortar clinics and into

— 459 —

Department of Health and Human Services

pro-life states that are trying to protect women, girls, and unborn children from

abortion. The FDA should therefore:

Reinstate earlier safety protocols for Mifeprex that were mostly

eliminated in 2016 and apply these protocols to any generic version

of mifepristone. A bare-minimum policy of limiting abortion pills to the

pre-2016 policy of 49 days gestation, returning to the pre-2021 in-person

dispensing requirement, and returning to requiring prescribers to report all

serious adverse events, not just deaths, to the drug sponsor would increase

women’s health and safety.

Address weaknesses in the current FAERS (FDA Adverse Events

Reporting System). The Administration and policymakers should ensure

that health care workers, particularly those in hospitals and emergency rooms,

report abortion pill complications. Women who experience complications

from abortion pills typically go to an emergency room, not to the abortion pill

prescriber, so putting the onus of reporting on the prescriber who typically has

no idea that a complication has occurred means that the FAERS is seriously

undercounting adverse events. Submitting an adverse event to the database

should be a quick and ecient process for busy health care practitioners.

Currently, providers report that the process is dicult and convoluted.

Implement a policy of transparency about inspections of the abortion

pill’s sponsors, Danco and GenBioPro, as well as facilities that

manufacture the pills. The FDA should respond to congressional requests

and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests about inspections,

compliance, and post-marketing safety in a timely manner.

Stop promoting or approving mail-order abortions in violation of

long-standing federal laws that prohibit the mailing and interstate

carriage of abortion drugs.

Vaccine Importation. Thousands of Americans of faith and conscience wish

to receive various childhood vaccinations for themselves and their families but are

not allowed to receive vaccines that are derived through or tested on aborted fetal

cells. For example, the chickenpox, Hepatitis, and MMR vaccines in the U.S. are all

linked to abortion in this way. There are ethically derived alternatives abroad that

have been used safely there for decades, but the FDA makes it exceedingly dicult

for Americans to import them.

In January 2021, the HHS Oce for Civil Rights (OCR) and the FDA jointly

announced that HHS was required by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act

— 460 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

(RFRA)

to allow bulk importation by doctors of certain Japanese-made vaccines

to accommodate religious needs of patients, but the Biden FDA unlawfully revoked

this waiver. The FDA should restore the waiver to comply with RFRA and for the

obvious public health beneﬁts of increased childhood vaccination by families seek-

ing ethically derived alternatives.

To avoid future moral coercion of the sort experienced with the COVID-19 vac-

cines, the FDA and NIH should require the development of drugs and biologics that

are free from moral taint and switch to cell lines that are not derived from aborted

fetal cell lines or aborted baby body parts.

Conﬂicts of Interest. A 2018 report in Science found that more than two-thirds

of FDA reviewers later ended up at the same companies whose products they had

been reviewing while they were working for the government.

This revolving door

is one mechanism by which pharmaceutical companies capture the agencies that

regulate them. The FDA should impose a lengthy cooling o period for reviewers,

preventing them from working for companies they regulated.

In 1997, the FDA relaxed regulations to permit broadcast drug advertisements,

after which Big Pharma began routine direct-to-consumer advertising, making the

United States and New Zealand the only countries where such practices are legal.

Following the 1997 changes, pharma became the largest advertiser for all major

media organizations. This buys considerable inﬂuence in the newsroom—whether

media companies acknowledge this or not—and distorts independent reporting on

public health issues. The FDA or Congress should regulate where and how paid

advertising is used by pharmaceutical companies more stringently, especially on

media outlets.

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH (NIH)

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the world’s largest biomedical

research agency and is made up of 27 dierent components called Institutes and

Centers. Despite its popular image as a benign science agency, NIH was respon-

sible for paying for research in aborted baby body parts, human animal chimera

experiments, and gain-of-function viral research that may have been responsible

for COVID-19.

Bioethics Reform. Research using fetal tissue obtained from elective abortions

is immoral and obsolete. Research using human embryonic stem cells also involves

the destruction of human life and should not be subsidized with taxpayer dollars.

Good science and life-arming, ethical research are not mutually exclusive. In

fact, ethically derived sources such as discarded surgical tissue and adult stem cells

(made pluripotent), not tissue obtained from elective abortions, have contributed

the most successful treatments for a variety of ailments.

Congress authorized HHS to choose not to fund extramural abortion-de-

rived fetal tissue research that fails ethics advisory board review, and in 2019, the

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Department of Health and Human Services

Trump Administration’s HHS chose that course. Subsequently, however, the Biden

Administration restored unrestricted funding of abortion-derived fetal tissue

research. HHS should:

Promptly restore the ethics advisory committee to oversee abortion-

derived fetal tissue research, and Congress should prohibit such

research altogether.

End intramural research projects using tissue from aborted children

within the NIH, which should end its human embryonic stem

cell registry.

Aggressively implement a plan to pursue and fund ethical alternative

methods of research in order to ensure that abortion and embryo-

destructive related research, cell lines, and other testing methods

become both fully obsolete and ethically unthinkable.

In addition, the Administration should reconvene a new National Council on

Bioethics (NCB) to discuss new and emerging areas of ethical concern, to assess

whether the ends justify the means when it comes to the promise of therapies

and cures, and to establish what limiting principles should guide research and

health policy. Because the male–female dyad is essential to human nature and

because every child has a right to a mother and father, three-parent embryo cre-

ation and human cloning research should be banned. A new NCB should convene

leading experts to examine these issues and provide policy recommendations for

the new frontier of bioethical questions that our country will have to address in

the coming years.

Finally, HHS should create and promote a research agenda that supports pro-

life policies and explores the harms, both mental and physical, that abortion has

wrought on women and girls.

Conﬂicts of Interest. NIH maintains inappropriate industry ties that create

serious conﬂicts of interest. In 2018, it was revealed that a $100 million NIH study

on the beneﬁts of moderate drinking was funded by the beer and liquor industry.

More recently, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID),

Anthony Fauci’s division of the NIH, owns half of the patent for the Moderna

COVID-19 vaccine, among thousands of other pharma patents.

Rather than pro-

viding grants to university-based investigators to run the clinical trials on their own

Moderna vaccine, the NIH conducted this research internally—a clear conﬂict of

interest. The NIAID will earn millions from this vaccine’s revenue with several

NIH employees (and their heirs) personally receiving up to $150,000 annually

from Moderna vaccine sales.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

In May 2022, documents obtained pursuant to a FOIA request revealed that

NIH Director Francis Collins, NAIAD Director Anthony Fauci, and Fauci’s Deputy

Director, Cliord Lane, all received royalties from pharmaceutical companies

between 2009 and 2014.

Nonproﬁt watchdog Open the Books estimates that from

2010 to 2020, third parties paid more than $350 million in royalties to NIH and

its scientists, who are credited as coinventors. Most problematically, in the years

when they received payments, Collins, Fauci, and Lane were NIH administrators,

not researchers, with no plausible claim to be scientiﬁc co-discoverers.

Most of the world’s other advanced science countries have stricter prohibitions

on such conﬂicts, which helps to explain why the most signiﬁcant studies on COVID

treatments, on natural immunity, and on vaccine ecacy have come mostly from

outside the U.S.

Funding for scientiﬁc research should not be controlled by a small group of

highly paid and unaccountable insiders at the NIH, many of whom stay in power

for decades. The NIH monopoly on directing research should be broken. Term

limits should be imposed on top career leaders at the NIH, and Congress should

consider block granting NIH’s grants budget to states to fund their own scientiﬁc

research. Nothing in this system would prevent several states from partnering to

co-fund large research projects that require greater resources or impact larger

regions. Likewise, the establishment of funding for scientiﬁc research at the state

level does not preclude more modest federal funding through the National Insti-

tutes of Health: The two models are not mutually exclusive.

The CDC and NIH Foundations, whose boards are populated with pharma-

ceutical company executives, need to be decommissioned. Private donations to

these foundations—a majority of them from pharmaceutical companies—should

not be permitted to inﬂuence government decisions about research funding or

public health policy.

Woke Policies. Under Francis Collins, NIH became so focused on the #MeToo

movement that it refused to sponsor scientiﬁc conferences unless there were a cer-

tain number of women panelists, which violates federal civil rights law against sex

discrimination. This quota practice should be ended, and the NIH Oce of Equity,

Diversity, and Inclusion, which pushes such unlawful actions, should be abolished.

NIH has been at the forefront in pushing junk gender science. Instead, it

should fund studies into the short-term and long-term negative eects of cross-

sex interventions, including “armation,” puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones

and surgeries, and the likelihood of desistence if young people are given counseling

that does not include medical or social interventions.

CENTERS FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID SERVICES (CMS)

With the goal of being a societal safety net, Medicare and Medicaid touch more

American lives than does any other federal program. While they help many, they

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Department of Health and Human Services

operate as runaway entitlements that stiﬂe medical innovation, encourage fraud,

and impede cost containment, in addition to which their ﬁscal future is in peril.

Both programs should be managed so that the individuals enrolled are empow-

ered to make decisions for themselves and have quality options with aordable

prices driven by competition and innovation. Providers who participate should

retain (or have restored) the freedom to practice medicine and take care of their

patients according to their patients’ unique needs.

Medicare. Medicare should be reformed according to four goals and principles:

Increase Medicare beneﬁciaries’ control of their health care.

Patients are best positioned to determine the value of health care

services, working with their health care providers. They also beneﬁt from

increased choice of doctors, hospitals, and insurance plans. Access to

reliable information with respect to physicians, hospitals, and insurers is

therefore essential.

Reduce regulatory burdens on doctors. Doctors must be free to focus on

treating patients ﬁrst, not entering codes on computers, and should not be

tempted to change their medical judgment based on arbitrary or illogical

reimbursement incentives.

Ensure sustainability and value for beneﬁciaries and taxpayers.

Prices are best for patients when determined by economic value rather

than political power and when they are known in advance of the receipt of

services. Government’s use of non-market-based methods to determine

reimbursement leads to overspending on low-value services and products

and underpayment for high-value services and products, stiﬂes beneﬁcial

innovation, and because of Medicare’s size distorts payments throughout

the health care system. Intermediate entities that can manage ﬁnancial risk

and ensure quality of care are important in transitioning to value-based care

within the Medicare program.

Reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, including through the use of artiﬁcial

intelligence for their detection.

Regulatory Reforms. Medicare regulations restrict choice of coverage and

care. The next Administration should reintroduce and restore regulations and

demonstrations from the Trump Administration that were withdrawn, weakened,

or never ﬁnalized by the Biden Administration, including:

The Medicare Coverage of Innovative Technologies (MCIT) rule;

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

The Risk Adjustment Data Validation (RADV) rule;

The Medicare Advantage Qualifying Payment Arrangement Incentive

(MAQI) demonstration; and

The Global and Professional Direct Contracting (GPDC, rebranded as the

Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access, and Community

Health or ACO REACH) model.

Additionally, regulations should advance site neutrality by eliminating the inpa-

tient-only list and expanding the ambulatory surgical center covered procedures

list. Medicare generally pays more for inpatient hospital procedures and less for

the same procedures performed in an outpatient setting. Whether a medical ser-

vice is delivered in a physician’s oce, a clinic, or a hospital setting, the Medicare

payment for that service should be the same. CMS should expand the application

of site-neutral payment options to more settings. Such a policy would level the

playing ﬁeld among providers and remove the ﬁnancial disabilities for medical

professionals who would compete with hospital systems.

Finally, HHS needs to restore and enhance conscience protection regulations

that allow medical practitioners to participate in federal health care programs

without being compelled to provide sex changes or similar services.

LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS

Remove restrictions on physician-owned hospitals. The Aordable

Care Act (ACA)

imposed restrictions prohibiting Medicare from

reimbursing physician-owned and specialty hospitals. The current

restrictions do little more than serve the special interests of large hospital

systems and undercut consumer choice of high-quality, specialty care.

These restrictions should be removed so that physician-owned hospitals can

compete with other hospitals in serving Medicare patients.

Encourage more direct competition between Medicare Advantage

and private plans. Medicare Advantage (MA), a system of competing

private health plans, is the major alternative to traditional Medicare for

America’s large and growing cohort of seniors. The program provides

beneﬁciaries with a wide range of competitive health plan choices—a richer

set of beneﬁts than traditional Medicare provides and at a reasonable cost.

Equally as important, the MA program has been registering consistently

high marks for superior performance in delivering high-quality care.

Critical reforms are still needed to strengthen and improve the program for

the future. Speciﬁcally:

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Department of Health and Human Services

1. Make Medicare Advantage the default enrollment option.

2. Give beneﬁciaries direct control of how they spend Medicare dollars.

3. Remove burdensome policies that micromanage MA plans.

4. Replace the complex formula-based payment model with a competitive

bidding model.

5. Reconﬁgure the current risk adjustment model.

6. Remove restrictions on key beneﬁts and services, including those related

to prescription drugs, hospice care, and medical savings account plans.

Legacy Medicare Reform. Legislation reforming legacy (non-MA)

Medicare should:

Base payments on the health status of the patient or intensity of the

service rather than where the patient happens to receive that service.

Replace the bureaucrat-driven fee-for-service system with value-

based payments to empower patients to ﬁnd the care that best serves

their needs.

Codify price transparency regulations.

Restructure 340B drug subsidies

toward beneﬁciaries rather

than hospitals.

Repeal harmful health policies enacted under the Obama and Biden

Administrations such as the Medicare Shared Savings Program

and

Inﬂation Reduction Act.

Medicare Part D Reform. The Inﬂation Reduction Act (IRA) created a drug

price negotiation program in Medicare that replaced the existing private-sector

negotiations in Part D with government price controls for prescription drugs.

These government price controls will limit access to medications and reduce

patient access to new medication.

This “negotiation” program should be repealed, and reforms in Part D that

will have meaningful impact for seniors should be pursued. Other reforms should

include eliminating the coverage gap in Part D, reducing the government share in

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

the catastrophic tier, and requiring manufacturers to bear a larger share. Until the

IRA is repealed, an Administration that is required to implement it must do so in a

way that is prudent with its authority, minimizing the harmful eects of the law’s

policies and avoiding even worse unintended consequences.

Medicaid. Over the past 45 years, Medicaid and the health safety net have

evolved into a cumbersome, complicated, and unaordable burden on nearly every

state. The program is failing some of the most vulnerable patients; is a prime target

for waste, fraud, and abuse; and is consuming more of state and federal budgets.

The dramatic increase in Medicaid expenditures is due in large part to the ACA

(Obamacare), which mandates that states must expand their Medicaid eligibility

standards to include all individuals at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty

level (FPL), and the public health emergency, which has prohibited states from

performing basic eligibility reviews.

The overlap of available beneﬁts among the various health agencies has led

to a complex, confusing system that is nearly impossible to navigate—even for

recipients. Recipients are often faced with a “welfare cli” of beneﬁt losses as they

earn above a certain amount, which is contrary to the fundamental purpose of

empowering individuals to achieve economic independence. Beneﬁts increasingly

involve nonmedical services such as air conditioning and housing, many of which

are already handled by departments other than HHS.

Improper payments within Medicaid are higher than those of any other federal

program. These payments are evidence of the inappropriateness of Medicaid’s

expansion, which, stemming largely from public health emergency maintenance

of eort (MOE) requirements and the Aordable Care Act, has crowded out the

primary targets of these programs: those who are most in need.

True health care reform cannot be accomplished in a bureaucratic silo or only

through Medicaid and health safety net programs. Reform of the tax code is also

essential to genuine, eective reform of our health care system. All components

of the health care system should be part of the reform eorts, and it is imperative

that the system be modiﬁed to assist states with their current programs. Therefore,

the next Administration should:

Reform ﬁnancing. Allow states to have a more ﬂexible, accountable,

predictable, transparent, and ecient ﬁnancing mechanism to deliver

medical services. This system should include a more balanced or blended

match rate, block grants, aggregate caps, or per capita caps. Any ﬁnancial

system should be designed to encourage and incentivize innovation and

the ecient delivery of health care services. Federal and state ﬁnancial

participation in the Medicaid program should be rational, predictable, and

reasonable. It should also incentivize states to save money and improve the

quality of health care.

— 467 —

Department of Health and Human Services

Direct dollars to beneﬁciaries more eectively and responsibly. The

current funding structure for the Medicaid program rewards expansions,

lacks transparency, and promotes ﬁnancing gimmicks. CMS should:

1. End state ﬁnancing loopholes.

2. Reform payments to hospitals for uncompensated care.

3. Replace the enhanced match rate with a fairer and more

rational match rate.

4. Restructure basic ﬁnancing and put the program on a more ﬁscally

predictable budget (which should include reform of Disproportionate

Share Hospital payments to hospitals).

Strengthen program integrity. Make program integrity a top priority and

the responsibility of the states. To protect the taxpayers’ investment:

1. Incentivize states. An enhanced contingency fee should be paid to

states that successfully increase their eorts to decrease waste, fraud,

and abuse. The current system’s IT development 90/10 matching rate

should be allowed for improvements in states’ current fraud and abuse

and eligibility systems. Innovative programs that show a positive return

on investment for both the state and federal governments should be

allowed without the onerous waiver process.

2. Improve Medicaid eligibility standards to protect those in need.

As Medicaid enrollment continues to climb, it is imperative that there

are appropriate and accurate eligibility standards to ensure that the

program remains focused on serving those who are in need. To this

end, CMS should:

a. Hold states accountable for improper eligibility determinations.

b. Require more robust eligibility determinations.

c. Strengthen asset test determinations within Medicaid.

3. Conduct oversight and reform of managed care.

Incentivize personal responsibility. CMS should allow states to ensure

that Medicaid recipients have a stake in their personal health care and a

say in decisions related to the Medicaid program. Personal responsibility

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

and consumer choice for Medicaid recipients must go together as standard

components of the safety net, especially for able-bodied recipients.

Medicaid recipients, like the rest of Americans, should be given both the

freedom to choose their health plans and the responsibility to contribute to

their health care costs at a level that is appropriate to protect the taxpayer.

Add work requirements and match Medicaid beneﬁts to beneﬁciary

needs. Because Medicaid serves a broad and diverse group of individuals, it

should be ﬂexible enough to accommodate dierent designs for dierent

groups. For example, CMS should launch a robust “personal option” to allow

families to use Medicaid dollars to secure coverage outside of the Medicaid

program. CMS should also:

1. Clarify that states have the ability to adopt work incentives for able-

bodied individuals (similar to what is required in other welfare

programs) and the ability to broaden the application of targeted

premiums and cost sharing to higher-income enrollees.

2. Add targeted time limits or lifetime caps on beneﬁts to disincentivize

permanent dependence.

Allow private health insurance. Congress should allow states the option

of contributing to a private insurance beneﬁt for all members of the family

in a ﬂexible account that rewards healthy behaviors. This reform should also

allow catastrophic coverage combined with an account similar to a health

savings account (HSA) for the direct purchase of health care and payment of

cost sharing for most of the population.

Increase ﬂexible beneﬁt redesign without waivers. CMS should

add ﬂexibility to eliminate obsolete mandatory and optional beneﬁt

requirements and, for able-bodied recipients, eliminate beneﬁt mandates

that exceed those in the private market. This should include ﬂexibility to

redesign eligibility, ﬁnancing, and service delivery of long-term care to serve

the most vulnerable and truly needy and eliminate middle-income to upper-

income Medicaid recipients.

Eliminate current waiver and state plan processes. CMS should

allow providers to make payment reforms without cumbersome waivers

or state plan amendment processes where possible. More broadly, the

federal government’s role should be oversight on broad indicators like cost

eectiveness and health measures like quality, health improvement, and

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Department of Health and Human Services

wellness and should give the balance of responsibility for Medicaid program

management to states. This reform would include adding Section 1115

waiver requirements in some cases (such as imposing work requirements

for able-bodied adults) while rescinding requirements in others (such as

non–health care beneﬁts and services related to climate change).

AFFORDABLE CARE ACT AND PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE

Remove barriers to direct primary care. Direct primary care (DPC)

is an innovative health care delivery model in which doctors contract

directly with patients for their care on a subscription basis regardless of

how or where the care is provided. The DPC model is improving patient

access, driving higher quality and lower cost, and strengthening the doctor–

patient relationship. DPC has faced many challenges from government

policymakers, including overly exuberant attempts at regulation and

misclassiﬁcation. Changes should clarify that DPC’s ﬁxed fee for care does

not constitute insurance in the context of health savings accounts.

Revisit the No Surprises Act on surprise medical billing. The No

Surprises Act

protected consumers against balance bills, but it also

established a deeply ﬂawed system for resolving payment disputes between

insurers and providers. This government-mandated dispute resolution

process has sown confusion among arbiters and regulators as judges have

sought to ascertain its meaning. The No Surprises Act should scrap the

dispute resolution process in favor of a truth-in-advertising approach

that will protect consumers and free doctors, insurers, and arbiters from

confused and conﬂicting standards for resolving disputes that the disputing

parties can best resolve themselves.

Facilitate the development of shared savings and reference pricing

plan options. Under traditional insurance, patients who choose lower-

cost care do not beneﬁt ﬁnancially from that choice. Barriers to rewarding

patients for cost-saving decisions should be removed. CMS should ensure

that shared savings and reference pricing models that reward consumers

are permitted.

Separate the subsidized ACA exchange market from the non-

subsidized insurance market. The Aordable Care Act has made

insurance more expensive and less competitive, and the ACA subsidy

scheme simply masks these impacts.

To make health insurance coverage

more aordable for those who are without government subsidies, CMS

should develop a plan to separate the non-subsidized insurance market

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

from the subsidized market, giving the non-subsidized market regulatory

relief from the costly ACA regulatory mandates.

Strengthen hospital price transparency. In 2020, CMS completed its

rule to require hospitals to post the prices of common hospital procedures.

Future updates of these rules should focus on including quality measures.

Combined with the shared savings models and other consumer tools, these

eorts could deliver considerable savings for consumers.

Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCHO).

CMS also plays an outsized role in overseeing the Obamacare exchanges, includ-

ing managing Healthcare.gov, through the Center for Consumer Information and

Insurance Oversight (CCIIO). While Obamacare limits plan options, CCIIO has

been overly prescriptive in dictating what beneﬁts and types of health plans may

participate in the exchanges, thereby actually stiﬂing market innovation and driv-

ing up costs.

Congress should build on the Trump Administration’s eorts to expand choices

for small businesses and workers, both in and out of the exchanges, by codifying an

expansion of association health plans, short-term health plans, and health reim-

bursement arrangements (including individual coverage HRAs). CCIIO should also

work with the Treasury Department and the Oce of Management and Budget

(OMB) to give consumers more ﬂexibility with their health care dollars through

expanded access to health savings accounts.

EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS

Expand the scope of practice of low-complexity and moderate-

complexity clinical laboratories. During the COVID-19 pandemic,

allowing laboratories greater regulatory ﬂexibility regarding CLIA

requirements increased access to testing. However, the need for regulatory

ﬂexibility is not limited to emergency situations. Ongoing innovations

in medical care will continue to drive demand for clinical testing and

new tests. One way that increasing demand for other medical services

has been accommodated is by revising restrictions on scope of practice

to enable providers to practice at the so-called top of their license. CMS

should similarly revise CLIA rules regarding scope of practice for clinical

laboratories and testing personnel.

Create CLIA-certiﬁcation-equivalent pathways for non-clinical

laboratories and researchers. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed that

the U.S. needs to leverage the expertise of non-clinical laboratories and

researchers in order to bolster clinical testing capacity. To accomplish this,

— 471 —

Department of Health and Human Services

CMS should create pathways for granting non-clinical laboratories and their

testing personnel CLIA certiﬁcation equivalency. Non-clinical researchers

already demonstrate their technical expertise through online training and

certiﬁcation programs. CMS should build on that existing framework so that

those laboratories and personnel can similarly demonstrate their clinical

testing capabilities.

LIFE, CONSCIENCE, AND BODILY INTEGRITY

Prohibit abortion travel funding. Providing funding for abortions

increases the number of abortions and violates the conscience and religious

freedom rights of Americans who object to subsidizing the taking of life. The

Hyde Amendment

has long prohibited the use of HHS funds for elective

abortions, but an August 2022 Biden executive order

pressed the HHS

Secretary to use his authority under Section 1115 demonstrations to waive

certain provisions of the law in order to use taxpayer funds to achieve the

Administration’s goal of helping women to travel out of state to obtain

abortions. Moreover, the Department of Justice Oce of Legal Counsel

(DOJ OLC) issued a politicized legal opinion declaring, for the ﬁrst time in

the history of Hyde, that this action did not violate the Hyde Amendment

and that Hyde applies only to the performance of the abortion itself in

violation of the plainly broad language that Congress used.

Two of the ﬁrst actions of a pro-life Administration should be for HHS

to withdraw the Medicaid guidance (and any Section 1115 waivers issued

thereunder) and for DOJ OLC to withdraw and disavow its interpretation of

the Hyde Amendment.

Prohibit Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds. During

the 2020–2021 reporting period, Planned Parenthood performed more than

383,000 abortions.

The national organization reported more than $133

million in excess revenue

and more than $2.1 billion in net assets.

During

this same year, Planned Parenthood reports that its aliates received more

than $633 million in government funding and more than $579 million in

private contributions.

Planned Parenthood aliates face accusations of

waste, abuse and potential fraud with taxpayer dollars, failure to report

the sexual abuse of minor girls, and allegations of proﬁting from the sale of

organs from aborted babies.

Policymakers should end taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood and

all other abortion providers and redirect funding to health centers that

provide real health care for women. The bulk of federal funding for Planned

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Parenthood comes through the Medicaid program. HHS should take two

actions to limit this funding:

1. Issue guidance reemphasizing that states are free to defund Planned

Parenthood in their state Medicaid plans.

2. Propose rulemaking to interpret the Medicaid statute to disqualify

providers of elective abortion from the Medicaid program.

Congress should pass the Protecting Life and Taxpayers Act,

which

would accomplish the goal of defunding abortion providers such as

Planned Parenthood.

CMS should resolve pending Section 1115 waivers from Idaho, South Carolina,

and Tennessee, which, like Texas in January 2022, are seeking both to prohibit

abortion providers from participating in state-run Medicaid programs and to

work with other states to do the same. Abortion is not health care, and states

should be free to devise and implement programs that prioritize qualiﬁed

providers that are not entangled with the abortion industry.

Withdraw Medicaid funds for states that require abortion insurance

or that discriminate in violation of the Weldon Amendment. The

Weldon Amendment

declares that no HHS funding may go to a state

or local government that discriminates against pro-life health entities

or insurers. In blatant violation of this law, seven states require abortion

coverage in private health insurance plans, and HHS continues to fund

those states. HHS under President Trump disallowed $200 million in

Medicaid funding from California because of the state’s ﬂouting of the law,

but the Biden Administration restored it.

HHS/CMS should withdraw appropriated funding, up to and including 10

percent of Medicaid funds, from states that require abortion insurance

coverage. DOJ should commit to litigating the defense of those funding

decisions promptly to the Supreme Court in order to maximize HHS’s

ability to withdraw funds from entities that violate the Weldon Amendment.

Additionally, California has announced that it will discriminate against

pharmacies that do not carry chemical abortion drugs outside of California.

California’s discrimination takes the form of cutting state contracts with

such pharmacies and clearly violates the Weldon Amendment. The violation

should likewise face the penalties discussed above.

— 473 —

Department of Health and Human Services

Rewrite the ACA abortion separate payment regulation. Section 1303

of Obamacare requires that insurers collect a separate payment for certain

abortion coverage in qualiﬁed health plans that are approved to be sold on

exchanges and that they keep those separate payments in separate accounts

that are used only to pay for elective abortion services. Neither the letter

nor the spirit of the law was enforced under President Obama, and a Trump-

era regulation sought to correct this problem. The Biden HHS rescinded

this regulation to allow insurance companies once again—contrary to

the law—to collect combined payments for what are clearly required to

be separate payments for elective abortion coverage. “Separate” does not

mean “together.”

HHS should reinstate a Trump Administration regulation and enforce what

the plain text of Section 1303 requires. That regulation should be further

improved by requiring CMS to ensure that consumers pay truly separate

charges for abortion coverage.

Audit Hyde Amendment compliance. HHS should undertake a full audit

to determine compliance or noncompliance with the Hyde amendment and

similar funding restrictions in HHS programs. This audit should include a

full review of the Biden Administration’s post-Dobbs executive actions to

promote abortion. It should also encompass a review of Medicaid managed

care plans in pro-abortion states.

Reverse distorted pro-abortion “interpretations” added to the

Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. The Emergency

Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA)

prohibits hospitals

that receive Medicare funds from “dumping” emergency patients who

cannot pay by sending them to other hospitals. It also mandates that

hospitals stabilize pregnant women and explicitly protects unborn children.

Hospitals or physicians found to be in violation of the statute could lose

all of their federal health funding—Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and other

funds—and face civil penalties of up to nearly $120,000.

In July 2022, HHS/CMS released guidance mandating that EMTALA-

covered hospitals and the physicians who work there must perform

abortions, to include completing chemical abortions even when the child

might still be alive. The guidance also declared that EMTALA would

protect physicians and hospitals that perform abortions in violation of

state law if they deem those abortions necessary to stabilize the women’s

health. This novel interpretation of EMTALA is baseless. EMTALA requires

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

no abortions, preempts no pro-life state laws, and explicitly requires

stabilization of the unborn child.

HHS should rescind the guidance and end CMS and state agency

investigations into cases of alleged refusals to perform abortions. DOJ

should agree to eliminate existing injunctions against pro-life states,

withdraw its enforcement lawsuits, and in lawsuits against CMS on the

guidance agree to injunctions against CMS and withdraw appeals of

injunctions.

Reissue a stronger transgender national coverage determination.

CMS should repromulgate its 2016 decision that CMS could not issue a

National Coverage Determination (NCD) regarding “gender reassignment

surgery” for Medicare beneﬁciaries. In doing so, CMS should acknowledge

the growing body of evidence that such interventions are dangerous and

acknowledge that there is insucient scientiﬁc evidence to support such

coverage in state plans.

Enforce EMTALA. The undeniable reality of abortion is that it does do

not always result in a dead baby, and these born-alive babies are left to

die. HHS should use EMTALA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act,

which prohibits disability discrimination, to investigate instances of infants

born alive and left untreated in covered hospitals. CMS, OCR, and OIG

should be required to follow through on these investigations with speciﬁc

enforcement actions.

HHS should revive a Trump Administration proposed regulation,

“Special Responsibilities of Medicare Hospitals in Emergency Cases and

Discrimination on the Basis of Disability in Critical Health and Human

Service Programs or Activities,”

to achieve this end. In addition, Congress

should pass the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act

to require

that proper medical care be given to infants who survive an abortion

and to establish criminal consequences for practitioners who fail to

provide such care.

Permanently codify both the Hyde family of amendments and the

protections provided by the Weldon Amendment. Congress can

accomplish this through legislation such as the No Taxpayer Funding for

Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act

(Hyde) and the

Conscience Protection Act

(Weldon).

— 475 —

Department of Health and Human Services

Radical Redeﬁnition of Sex. On August 4, 2022, HHS published a proposed

rule entitled “Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities.”

This rule

addresses nondiscrimination provisions of the Aordable Care Act, known as

Section 1557, which is enforced by the Oce for Civil Rights and the Centers for

Medicare and Medicaid Services. Section 1557 prohibits discrimination on the basis

of race, color, national origin, age, disability, and sex in covered health programs

or activities.

Under the proposed rule, sex is redeﬁned: “Discrimination on the basis of sex

includes, but is not limited to, discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes; sex

characteristics, including intersex traits; pregnancy or related conditions; sexual

orientation; and gender identity.”

In other words, the department proposes to

interpret Section 1557 as if it created special privileges for new classes of people,

deﬁned in ways that are highly ideological and unscientiﬁc.

The redeﬁnition of sex to cover gender identity and sexual orientation and

pregnancy to cover abortion should be reversed in all HHS and CMS programs as

was done under the Trump Administration. This includes the Children’s Health

Insurance Program (CHIP). Low-income families who rely on CHIP should not be

coerced, pressured, or otherwise encouraged to embrace this ideologically moti

vated sexualization of their children.

However, while the Biden Administration’s Section 1557 regulation should be

altered and corrected, the lactation room requirements added in the regulation

should either be consistently included in any upcoming Section 1557 rulemaking

or be proposed in a new individual rule.

COVID-19 Vaccination and Mask Requirements. Health care workers were

praised for their self-sacriﬁce in caring for sick patients at the beginning of the

COVID-19 pandemic, but then they were ﬁred if they objected to receiving COVID-

19 vaccines with or without complying with onerous masking requirements and

regardless of whether they already had the virus and had gained natural immunity.

With the disease being endemic and constantly mutating, vaccines and univer-

sal masking in health care facilities do not have appreciable beneﬁts in reducing

COVID-19 transmission throughout the community. Moreover, more recent

COVID strains pose fewer health risks than the earlier strains, and the pandemic

has been declared to be at an end. CMS should:

Announce nonenforcement of the Biden Administration’s COVID-19

vaccination mandate on Medicaid and Medicare hospitals.

Revoke corresponding guidance and regulations.

Refrain from imposing general COVID-19 mask mandates on health care

facilities or personnel.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Pay damages to all medical professionals who were dismissed directly

because of the CMS vaccine mandate.

ADMINISTRATION FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES (ACF)

TANF. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program is a

federal block grant that gives states signiﬁcant ﬂexibility to fund a broad array of

programs aimed at helping low-income families break the cycle of poverty and

achieve economic self-suciency. States use TANF to fund monthly cash assis-

tance payments to low-income families with children as well as a wide range of

services that include work activities, work supports and supportive services, child-

care, administration and systems, tax credits, pre-K/Head Start, child welfare, and

other services.

The TANF program serves 1.8 million individuals. Since 1996, when the program

was reformed, federal TANF outlays have been $16.5 billion. The state match is

$14.9 billion, bringing the total state and federal TANF investment to $31.4 billion.

The TANF statute requires that states engage 50 percent of single-parent fam-

ilies in work for at least 30 hours a week (20 hours a week for single parents with

children under age six, though states have the option to waive the requirement

for families with children under the age of six, and most do). States also have 90

percent work requirements for two-parent families to engage in work for 35 hours

per week. Because of the “Caseload Reduction Credit,” states’ work engagement

targets are reduced if their assistance caseloads have fallen since 2005. As a result,

21 states had a work engagement target of zero percent in 2017.

Generally, states apply their work requirement only to beneﬁciaries receiv-

ing basic assistance, who account for 22.3 percent of TANF outlays. The Trump

Administration proposed a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

rule to “increase program integrity and reduce fraud, waste, and abuse” that would

have prevented an individual from qualifying for SNAP simply because he or she

received a pamphlet from the TANF program.

This rule deﬁned non-cash beneﬁts

as those that are worth at least $50 a month and received for at least six months.

The tenets of this rule should be applied to the TANF program as well. This deﬁ-

nitional change would apply the TANF work requirements to any noncash beneﬁt

worth $50 a month and received for six consecutive months.

To increase transparency, HHS should clarify how states, in their quarterly and

annual reports, ought to track and audit the outcomes from how they spend TANF

funds to meet the TANF program’s four statutory purposes.

Additionally, TANF priorities are not implemented in an equally weighted

way. Marriage, healthy family formation, and delaying sex to prevent pregnancy

are virtually ignored in terms of priorities, yet these goals can reverse the cycle

of poverty in meaningful ways. CMS should require explicit measurement of

these goals.

— 477 —

Department of Health and Human Services

Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) and Personal Responsibility Educa

tion Program (PREP). TPP is operated by the Oce of Population Aairs in the

Oce of the Assistant Secretary for Health; PREP is operated by the ACF Oce

of Planning, Research, and Evaluation. Both programs should ensure that there

is better reporting of subgrantees and referral lists so that they do not promote

abortion or high-risk sexual behavior among adolescents. CMS should ensure that

Sexual Risk Avoidance (SRA) proponents receive these grants and are given every

opportunity to prove their eectiveness. SRA programs, both at ACF and at OASH

and both discretionary and mandatory, should be equal in funding and emphasis.

Qualitative research should be conducted on both types of programs to ensure

continuous improvement.

In addition, certain provisions should be employed so that these programs do

not serve as advocacy tools to promote sex, promote prostitution, or provide a

funnel eect for abortion facilities and school ﬁeld trips to clinics, or for similar

purposes. Parent involvement and parent–child communication should be encour-

aged and be a part of any funded project. Risk avoidance should be prioritized, and

any program that submits a proposal that promotes risk rather than health should

not be eligible for funding.

Site visits should be revamped to ensure adherence to these optimal health met-

rics, and a cost analysis of programming as compared to students served should be

a metric in funding (taking into account that in certain cases, intensive programs

will serve fewer students and can have more positive results). These same param-

eters should apply to sex education programs at ACF. Any lists with “approved

curriculum” or so-called evidence-based lists should be abolished; HHS should

not create a monopoly of curriculum, adding to the proﬁt of certain publishers.

Furthermore, lists created in the past have given priority to sex-promotion text-

books. HHS should create a list of criteria for evaluating the sort of curriculum

that should be selected for any sex education grant programs, both at OASH and

at ACF, with the aim of promoting optimal health and adhering to the legislative

language of each program.

Adoption Reform. There are roughly 400,000 children across the nation on the

waiting list for foster care and 100,000 awaiting adoptive families, and the opioid/

fentanyl crisis is putting more at risk every day. Unfortunately, many of the faith-

based adoption agencies that serve these children are under threat from lawsuits,

or else their licenses and contracts have been halted because they cannot in good

conscience place children in every household due to their religious belief that a

child should have a married mother and father.

HHS, through ACF and the Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources (ASFR),

should repeal the unnecessary 2016 regulation

that imposes nonstatutory sexual

orientation and gender identity nondiscrimination conditions on agency grants

and return to the policy of maximizing the options for placing vulnerable children

— 478 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

in their forever homes. ACF and OCR should also survey their programs to consider

whether additional waivers of HHS grant conditions—waivers the Biden Admin-

istration revoked in 2021—are needed for faith-based agencies.

Additionally, Congress should pass the Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act

ensure that providers and organizations cannot be subjected to discrimination for

providing adoption and foster care services based on their beliefs about marriage.

Oce of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). The Oce of Refugee Resettlement

should be moved to the Department of Homeland Security. Having health and

welfare functions managed by HHS and border security functions managed by

DHS has created intolerable failures in both. HHS and ORR have forgotten their

original refugee-resettlement mission and instead have provided a panoply of free

programs that incentivize people to come to the U.S. illegally. Even more troubling,

ORR has too often placed children into dangerous situations when releasing them

into the country.

Nearly all of HHS’s care, custody, and placement of children is done through

cooperative agreements with private agencies, many of which may have broken

federal law by inducing or being accomplices in illegal immigration. Those

arrangements could be handled far more eectively by DHS. Congress should

reform the Tracking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act

to transfer all

ORR duties for unaccompanied alien children to DHS and eliminate the Flores

settlement agreement.

Regardless of where ORR’s functions reside, ORR sta and care providers should

never be allowed to facilitate abortions for unaccompanied children in its cus-

tody, including by transporting minors across state lines from pro-life states to

abortion-friendly states. Pregnant, unaccompanied girls in ORR custody should

be treated with dignity, not tracked across state lines to be victimized by the

abortion industry. ORR should withdraw its policy of allowing elective abortions

for children in ORR care and issue a new policy of instructing care providers not

to allow girls to be transported for elective abortions. HHS OGC and the White

House should insist that DOJ ﬁght to defend that policy up to the U.S. Supreme

Court in light of Dobbs.

Oce of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) Congress established Aid to

Families with Dependent Children in 1935 to assist single-parent families who

were suering ﬁnancially from the loss of a bread-winning husband and father.

Within two decades, however, the majority of families receiving aid were depen-

dent because of paternal abandonment rather than death. Today, nearly a third of

America’s children live without a father present in the home, and a fourth of them

are enrolled to receive child support.

The glaring issue in child support enforcement today is a non-resident father’s

ability to provide full or consistent child support payments. The literature reﬂects

this divide as fathers have been categorized as “deadbeat” dads, then as “deadbroke”

— 479 —

Department of Health and Human Services

dads, and now as “disconnected” dads who do not commit to the mother and child.

Child support in the United States should strengthen marriage as the norm, restore

broken homes, and encourage unmarried couples to commit to marriage.

Child Support Tax Credit. National or state guidelines and tax law should be

updated to ensure that nonresident parents with child support orders can receive

a nondependent, child support tax credit. Single ﬁlers of up to $41,756 and married

or joint ﬁlers of up to $47,646 would be eligible for a child support tax credit similar

to the current earned income tax credit. Filers could receive a maximum of $538

in annual returns for one child and a maximum of $3,584 in annual returns for two

or more children (based on a credit rate of 34 percent). A child support tax credit

would use the low-income, nonresident parents’ own earned income and history

of employment to assist them further in the task of caring for their children.

The key to this policy is that it empowers fathers with their own resources and

money rather than creating another government assistance program (or a fully

refundable credit) devoid of the father’s own monetary eorts. This way, the non-

resident father’s role as ﬁnancial provider and relational ﬁgure is armed, and

much-needed ﬁnancial resources are given to the children.

Visitation. Visitation is key to revitalizing child support and increasing pay-

ment frequency. The most eective way to lower a nonresident parent’s monthly

child support order is to spend more court-accounted-for time with the child. For

example, Texas combined its child support court with its visitation court to ensure

that resident and nonresident parents received state-mandated ﬁnancial support

orders and enforceable visitation orders.

Child Support Payment and Interactive Smartphone Application. Each

state should be induced to implement a high-tech, easy-to-use application to cen-

tralize child support payments. As with Venmo or Cash App, nonresident parents

would link their bank accounts and provide one-click monthly payments (or con-

tribute incrementally throughout the month while tracking how much is due).

Additionally, the nonresident parents could track “informal” gifts from money,

groceries, clothes, sports gear, and more through the app.

This would address one of the main issues within current child support pay-

ment systems: nonresident parents claim that they are spending much of their

own money to provide for children outside of their monthly payments and resident

parents’ claim that they spend little and neglect their ocial child support orders.

Currently, only the latter claim can be tracked reliably. This process would enable

nonresident parents to track the amount of informal support they provide and the

reason for it while ensuring that the resident parent acknowledges and accepts

the contribution.

Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education (HMRE) Program. The

HMRE program is part of the ACF Oce of Family Assistance. The following pol-

icies should be implemented.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Utilize HMRE funding or grants to provide state-level high school

education resources and curriculum on healthy marriages, sexual

risk avoidance, and healthy relationships. Early interventions and

prevention are much more cost-eective than are eorts to reach people

already in broken relationships.

Allow child welfare funding to be used for marriage and relationship

education. Congress should adopt the following recommendation from a

report issued by members of Congress’s Joint Economic Committee:

Children are far more likely to experience abuse when they are raised

outside of their married-parent family. Title II of the Child Abuse Preven-

tion and Treatment Act provides grants to communities for the purpose

of preventing child abuse and neglect, and one of the stated purposes

for which the grants can be used is for eorts to increase family stability.

However, Congress could change the law to make it clear that Title II

funding can be used for healthy marriage and relationship education.

Funding provided under Title IV-B of the Social Security Act—which

provides grants to states for foster care and adoption services—can also

be used for promoting healthy marriage. States should consider using

some of their Title IV-B funding for providing healthy marriage and

relationship education for families at risk of having their children placed

in foster care.

Provide educational information on healthy marriage and

relationships at Title X family planning clinics. HHS should require

clinics it funds under Title X (family planning) to provide information

to customers about the importance of marriage to family and personal

well-being and refer them to available federal, state, and nonproﬁt

marriage resources.

Ensure proper assessments with enough time to assess HMRE

programs. Although some widely available assessments of HMRE

programs report poor outcomes, many of these assessments either utilized a

poor methodology or tried to measure program success prematurely. Recent

assessments have shown increasing eectiveness and positive community-

level marital outcomes.

The HMRE program should receive a fair and realistic assessment.

Additionally, the positive role of faith-based programs should be protected

— 481 —

Department of Health and Human Services

and prioritized so that these programs do not receive undue scrutiny or

pressure to conform to nonreligious deﬁnitions of marriage and family as

put forward by the recently enacted Respect for Marriage Act.

Protect faith-based grant recipients from religious liberty violations

and maintain a biblically based, social science–reinforced deﬁnition

of marriage and family. Social science reports that assess the objective

outcomes for children raised in homes aside from a heterosexual, intact

marriage are clear: All other family forms involve higher levels of instability

(the average length of same-sex marriages is half that of heterosexual

marriages); ﬁnancial stress or poverty; and poor behavioral, psychological,

or educational outcomes.

For the sake of child well-being, programs should arm that children

require and deserve both the love and nurturing of a mother and the play

and protection of a father. Despite recent congressional bills like the

Respect for Marriage Act that redeﬁne marriage to be the union between

any two individuals, HMRE program grants should be available to faith-

based recipients who arm that marriage is between not just any two adults,

but one man and one unrelated woman.

Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood (HMRF) Program. This

program is located within the ACF Oce of Family Assistance. Its goal, like that

of the HMRE program, is to provide marriage and parenting guidance for low-in-

come fathers. This includes fatherhood and marriage training, curriculum, and

subsequent research.

Implement a pro-fatherhood messaging campaign. With nearly 41

percent of children born without a married father in the home (and nearly

69 percent among black Americans), the fatherhood problem is clear.

Similar to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s 2022 fatherhood bill, HMRF

funds should be used to support national messaging campaigns that arm

the role fathers play in the lives of their children, that recognize the ﬁnancial

hardships the fathers themselves face, and that seek to provide relationship

education to fathers who were raised without a father in the home.

Fund eective HMRF state programs. Grant allocations should protect

and prioritize faith-based programs that incorporate local churches and

mentorship programs or increase social capital through multilayered

community support (including, for example, job training and social

events). Programs should arm and teach fathers based on a biological and

— 482 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

sociological understanding of what it means to be a father—not a gender-

neutral parent—from social science, psychology, personal testimonies, etc.

ADMINISTRATION ON CHILDREN, YOUTH, AND FAMILIES (ACYF)

Allocate funding to strategy programs promoting father involvement

or terminate parental rights quickly. ACYF is currently considering

dierent programs to encourage parents, especially fathers, to engage with

their children in foster care. While these program ideas and initiatives are

still in the early planning stages, promoting responsible parenthood to

reintegrate children or at least keep a consistent male ﬁgure in the minor’s

life is crucial. At the same time, in cases where the father or mother does

not make a sincere or serious eort to be involved in the child’s upbringing,

termination of parental rights for children in foster care should be swift.

OFFICE OF HEAD START (OHS)

Eliminate the Head Start program. Head Start, originally established

and funded to support low-income families, is fraught with scandal and

abuse. With a budget of more than $11 billion, the program should function

to protect and educate minors. Sadly, it has done exactly the opposite. In

fact, “approximately 1 in 4 grant recipients had incidents in which children

were abused, left unsupervised, or released to an unauthorized person

between October 2015 and May 2020.”

Research has demonstrated that

federal Head Start centers, which provide preschool care to children from

low-income families, have little or no long-term academic value for children.

Given its unaddressed crisis of rampant abuse and lack of positive outcomes,

this program should be eliminated along with the entire OHS. At the very

least, the program’s COVID-19 vaccine and mask requirements should

be rescinded.

ADMINISTRATION FOR COMMUNITY LIVING (ACL)

Support palliative care. Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is legal in 10

states and the District of Columbia. Legalizing PAS is a grave mistake that

endangers the weak and vulnerable, corrupts the practice of medicine

and the doctor–patient relationship, compromises the family and

intergenerational commitments, and betrays human dignity and equality

before the law. Instead of embracing PAS, policymakers should focus on

the beneﬁts of palliative care, which works to improve a patient’s quality

of life by alleviating pain and other distressing symptoms of a serious

illness. HHS ACL should survey their programs to ensure that they are

supporting vulnerable persons of age or disability and are not facilitating or

encouraging participation in PAS.

— 483 —

Department of Health and Human Services

Readdress the National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers. While

in theory the strategy aims to support family members with duties to care

for older family members, the plan is overly focused on racial and “LGBTQ+

equity.” The strategy should be examined to establish an ecient plan to

support caregivers and their families. There should also be a review of its

COVID-19 policies.

HEALTH RESOURCES AND SERVICES ADMINISTRATION (HRSA)

Congress should allow CMS to use the 340B data that HRSA collects

rather than having CMS conduct its own survey, especially in view

of the U.S. Supreme Court’s American Hospital Association v. Becerra

decision.

The legislation should also create penalties for those who do not

respond to HRSA’s data collection.

Legally deﬁne the locus of service as where the provider is located

during the telehealth visit rather than where the patient is. With such

a deﬁnition, states could continue to reserve their powers to establish the

standards for licensure and scope of practice. The providers could ensure

continuity and consistency of care no matter where their patients might

move while maintaining the licenses that make the most sense for them.

Americans are far more mobile and technologically advanced today than

they were when most health care laws were written. Telehealth has become

increasingly important, particularly during the height of the COVID-19

pandemic. It also has great potential in rural and other areas where there

are shortages of health care providers. HRSA’s Oce for the Advancement

of Telehealth includes a program known as the Licensure Portability Grant

Program, which bolsters state eorts to reform licensing laws to maximize

telehealth ﬂexibility. HRSA does not have the authority through this oce

to dictate licensure laws; that power has typically been reserved to the

states. However, telehealth across state lines, when permitted, is interstate

commerce, which can be regulated by the federal government according to

the Constitution.

Restore Trump religious and moral exemptions to the contraceptive

mandate (also a CMS rule). HHS should rescind, if ﬁnalized, the

regulation titled “Coverage of Certain Preventive Services Under the

Aordable Care Act,” proposed jointly by HHS, Treasury, and Labor.

This

rule proposes to amend Trump-era ﬁnal rules regarding religious and

moral exemptions and accommodations for coverage of certain preventive

services under the ACA. Preventive services include contraception, and

— 484 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

it appears the proposed rule would change the existing regulations for

religious and moral exemptions to the ACA’s contraception mandate.

There is no need for further rulemaking that curtails existing exemptions

and accommodations.

Require HRSA to use rulemaking to update the women’s preventive

services mandate. The contraceptive mandate issued under Obamacare

has been the source of years of egregious attacks on many Americans’

religious and moral beliefs. The mandate was issued as part of the women’s

preventive services guidelines, which were issued without any rulemaking

that involved public notice and an opportunity to comment. Instead, HRSA

issued and changed the mandate by simply posting changes to its website.

HRSA also started o not requiring coverage of fertility awareness–based

methods of family planning, then requiring them, and then removing the

requirement without notifying the public. A federal judge recently ruled

that this failure to undergo notice and comment in issuing the mandate

is unlawful. HRSA should be required to repromulgate any women’s

preventive services mandates through the notice and comment process that

is compliant with the Administrative Procedures Act.

Moreover, since the Obama Administration HRSA entered into long-

term contracts with the pro-abortion American College of Obstetricians

and Gynecologists (ACOG) and related entities to serve as an exclusive

adviser with respect to the content of this mandate, HRSA has used

this arrangement to ignore comments that members of the public were

sometimes able to submit in the process, and ACOG has abused its

position to attack HHS’s allowance of religious and moral exemptions

to the contraceptive mandate. HHS should rescind these contracts and

establish an advisory committee that is compliant with the Federal Advisory

Committee Act and has members that are committed to women’s preventive

services and are not pro-abortion ideologues.

Expand inclusion of fertility awareness–based methods and supplies

to family planning in the women’s preventive services mandate. The

ACA requires coverage of and prevents insurance plans from imposing

any cost-sharing requirements on women who obtain preventive care and

screenings as deﬁned by HRSA. In 2016, HHS included “instruction in

fertility awareness-based methods” as part of this requirement. However,

in December 2021, HHS removed that language from its list without

using the notice-and-comment process or giving any rationale, both of

which are mandated by the Administrative Procedures Act. In August

— 485 —

Department of Health and Human Services

2022, a federal court blocked this attempt to eliminate health insurance

coverage for fertility awareness–based methods of family planning from

requirements that cover at least 58 million women, and the judge made his

ruling permanent in December 2022. HRSA should promulgate regulations

consistent with this order.

HHS should more thoroughly ensure that fertility awareness–based

methods of family planning are part of women’s preventive services under

the ACA. FABMs often involve costs for materials and supplies, and HHS

should make clear that coverage of those items is also required. FABMs

are highly eective and allow women to make family planning choices in a

manner that meets their needs and reﬂects their values.

Eliminate men’s preventive services from the women’s preventive

services mandate. In December 2021, HRSA updated its women’s

preventive services guidelines to include male condoms after claiming for

years that it had no authority to do so because Congress explicitly limited

the mandate to “women’s” preventive care and screenings. HRSA should not

incorporate exclusively male contraceptive methods into guidelines that

specify they encompass only women’s services.

Eliminate the week-after-pill from the contraceptive mandate as a

potential abortifacient. One of the emergency contraceptives covered

under the HRSA preventive services guidelines is Ella (ulipristal acetate).

Like its close cousin, the abortion pill mifepristone, Ella is a progesterone

blocker and can prevent a recently fertilized embryo from implanting in a

woman’s uterus. HRSA should eliminate this potential abortifacient from

the contraceptive mandate.

Withdraw Ryan White guidance allowing funds to pay for cross-sex

transition support. HRSA should withdraw all guidance encouraging

Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program service providers to provide controversial

“gender transition” procedures or “gender-arming care,” which cause

irreversible physical and mental harm to those who receive them.

Ensure that training for medical professionals (doctors, nurses, etc.)

and doulas is not being used for abortion training. HHS should ensure

that training programs for medical professionals—including doctors, nurses,

and doulas—are in full compliance with restrictions on abortion funding

and conscience-protection laws. In addition, HHS should:

— 486 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

1. Investigate state medical school compliance with the Coats–Snowe

Amendment,

which prohibits discrimination against health care

entities that do not provide or undergo training for abortion.

2. Ensure that the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education

(ACGME) complies with all relevant conscience statutes and

regulations and that states have taken the armative steps (for example,

by issuing regulations) to assure compliance with Coats–Snowe.

3. Communicate to medical schools that any abortion-related training

must be on an opt-in rather than opt-out basis.

4. Require states that receive HHS funds to issue regulations or enter into

arrangements with accrediting bodies to comply with the Coats–Snowe

Amendment’s prohibition of mandatory abortion training by individuals

or institutions. The Coats–Snowe Amendment speciﬁcally requires

such state regulations or arrangements.

Prioritize funding for home-based childcare, not universal day care.

As HRSA’s Early Childhood Health page outlines, “Currently, only about

half of U.S. preschoolers are on-track with their development and ready

for school. And more than one in four of children (28%) who experience

abuse or neglect are under 3 years old.”

Concurrently, children who spend

signiﬁcant time in day care experience higher rates of anxiety, depression,

and neglect as well as poor educational and developmental outcomes.

Instead of providing universal day care, funding should go to parents

either to oset the cost of staying home with a child or to pay for familial,

in-home childcare.

Provide education and resources on early childhood health. By

partnering with new organizations like the Center on Child and Family

Poverty, HRSA should provide resources and information on the importance

of the mother–child relationship in child well-being. This should include

relationship education curricula that equip mothers and caregivers to

connect with and improve their understanding of their infants, toddlers, and

young children.

Maternal and Child Health. Currently, the HRSA Maternal and Child Health

program is collecting data on the beneﬁts of doulas in improving the health, safety,

and emotional well-being of mothers at birth. Doulas provide a patient-focused,

nonmedical support system for single or married mothers that “decreases the

— 487 —

Department of Health and Human Services

overall cesarean rate by 50%, the length of labor by 25%, the use of oxytocin by

40%, and requests for an epidural by 60%. Doulas often use the power of touch

and massage to reduce stress and anxiety during labor.”

Given concerns about maternal mortality or postpartum depression that is

worsened by poor birth experiences, doulas should be an active option for all

women whether they are giving birth in a traditional hospital, through midwifery,

or at home. Additionally, since most Doulas’ services are not covered by traditional

insurance programs, the Maternal and Child Health program should work to pro-

vide funding for low-income mothers.

INDIAN HEALTH SERVICE (IHS)

The Indian Health Service serves our American Indian and Alaska Native popu-

lations. Reforms are needed to improve America’s ability to deliver on its promises

to these important populations and must take account of cultural preferences and

lifestyles, limitations due to geography (such as challenging terrain), and limited

Internet access. For example, contacting individuals within some of these com-

munities and tribes during the COVID-19 pandemic proved to be dicult because

many had transient addresses and unreliable cell service.

During the transition to the Biden Administration, IHS abandoned tribes as

their sources of COVID-19 tests and vaccine supplies disappeared. It is important

to guard against such situations in order to preserve these tribes’ access to health

resources during public health emergencies (PHEs). Even before the pandemic,

services available to these populations through federal resources and personnel

(such as vision care) were often scarce or nonexistent.

Patients in these populations should be empowered to rely on alternatives to

IHS through better access to private health care providers. Exploring positive

reforms contained in the VA MISSION Act

could reveal similar opportunities

for increased options and access for American Indians and Alaska Natives.

RURAL HEALTH

A growing concern is the decreasing access to health care services for Americans

living in rural, less populated areas. Many ﬁnd themselves in regions that were not

previously as rural as industries move away, taking with them economic prosperity

and often medical providers. Others are in essential professions such as farming

that by nature necessitate living in regions with fewer city accommodations and

economic opportunities. Seeking space for one’s family and cultivating the land

are valued goals that are deeply rooted in America’s fabric.

Both Congress and an Administration must continually keep in mind how

health care policies uniquely aect these regions because their market trends

and populations are dierent from those of more populous regions. Often, rural

patients face an hour’s drive to the nearest medical provider or facility or have

— 488 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

limited or no Internet access, which restricts their access to telehealth services

(especially video visits).

To improve its health care policies that aect rural regions, HHS should:

Reduce the regulatory burden and unleash private innovation that can

discover solutions to unique, local needs.

Implement or encourage policies that increase the supply of health care

providers, such as increased telehealth access and interstate licensure

(a historically state matter), including for volunteers wishing to provide

temporary, charitable services across state lines.

Encourage ﬂexibility in modes of health care delivery, including less

expensive alternatives to hospitals and telehealth independent of expensive

air ambulances.

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY

The Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Oce of the Secretary

necessarily set the tone for the entire department. The Secretary is the most

accountable individual within HHS and, along with his or her immediate sta,

should therefore be responsible for setting the policies that govern the depart-

ment’s operations instead of allowing the operational divisions to assume the

leading role in policymaking, thereby diusing responsibility.

Practical reforms to enhance the Secretary’s accountability should include

the following:

Restrict HHS’s ability to declare indeﬁnite public health emergencies

(PHEs). Currently, HHS is merely required to notify Congress of such a

declaration within 48 hours. Congress should establish a set time frame

for any PHE, placing on the Secretary the burden of proof as to why an

extension of the PHE is necessary.

Reinstate the HHS SUNSET (Securing Updated and Necessary

Statutory Evaluations Timely) rule.

Congress should codify the now-

reversed Trump Administration rule that required all HHS agencies to

review regulations retrospectively and publish results; without such a

review, regulations expire.

Investigate, expose, and remediate any instances in which HHS

violated people’s rights by:

— 489 —

Department of Health and Human Services

1. Colluding with Big Tech to censor dissenting opinions during COVID.

2. Colluding with abortion advocates and LGBT advocates to violate

conscience-protection laws and the Hyde Amendment.

The Life Agenda. The Oce of the Secretary should eliminate the HHS Repro-

ductive Healthcare Access Task Force and install a pro-life task force to ensure

that all of the department’s divisions seek to use their authority to promote the life

and health of women and their unborn children. Additionally, HHS should return

to being known as the Department of Life by explicitly rejecting the notion that

abortion is health care and by restoring its mission statement under the Strategic

Plan and elsewhere to include furthering the health and well-being of all Americans

“from conception to natural death.”

The next Administration should create a dedicated Special Representative

for Domestic Women’s Health. In the Trump Administration, there was a Special

Representative for Global Women’s Health that focused on international issues,

but this position lacked authority to be the lead on international policies because

of overlapping issues with the U.S. Department of State and USAID (and at times

a lack of clarity as to the lead point of contact and policy decisions at the White

House). The new Special Representative would serve as the lead on all matters of

federal domestic policy development related to life and family with support from

the DPC for implementation and coordination among agencies. In the post-Dobbs

era, advancing support for mothers will include coordination among agencies out-

side of HHS, and the Special Representative would provide a clear focal point for

all issues related to protecting life and serving families.

The Family Agenda. The Secretary’s antidiscrimination policy statements

should never conﬂate sex with gender identity or sexual orientation. Rather, the

Secretary should proudly state that men and women are biological realities that

are crucial to the advancement of life sciences and medical care and that married

men and women are the ideal, natural family structure because all children have

a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.

OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH

(OASH) / OFFICE OF THE SURGEON GENERAL (OSG)

The Assistant Secretary for Health (ASH) is the four-star admiral for the United

States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (USPHS), and the Surgeon Gen-

eral (SG) is the three-star admiral.

The ASH is tasked with overseeing not only the USPHS, but also 10 regional

health oces, multiple presidential and secretarial advisory committees, and other

oces such as the Oces of Minority Health, Women’s Health, and Population

Aairs. The Secretary can further expand the ASH’s responsibilities (for example, by

— 490 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

designating the ASH as liaison to the CDC). The SG ocially oversees the daily oper-

ations of the USPHS, although those are actually under the control of the Director

of the USPHS Commissioned Corps Headquarters. The SG also issues information

to the public (Surgeon General’s advisories, Calls to Action, and Reports), serving

in eect as a key public health spokesperson for the federal government.

USPHS ocers are assigned to various agencies such as the CDC, NIH, and

Bureau of Prisons. Their organizational structure is similar in some respects to the

National Guard’s, and their salaries are paid primarily by the agencies to which they

are assigned (which serves to limit USPHS appropriations). USPHS ocers can be

deployed on missions to respond to domestic or international crises (for example,

a hurricane in Florida or an Ebola outbreak in Africa) at any time.

The USPHS should be restructured to make it more like its sister uniformed

services with a more streamlined chain of command and corresponding appro-

priations to ensure eciency and clarity of mission. Its core mission should be

refocused to emphasize prompt, responsive deployments that meet speciﬁc criteria

and are less dependent on the various agencies to which the ocers are assigned.

Fulﬁllment of speciﬁc tasks should not be duplicated by non-uniformed civil ser-

vants and USPHS ocers, and any roles that can be ﬁlled by civilians should be

ﬁlled by them.

The ASH and SG positions should be combined into one four-star position with

the rank, responsibilities, and authority of the ASH retained but with the title of

Surgeon General and some of the SG’s communications responsibilities, which

would include disseminating other HHS messages and sharing general medical

advice without legal weight. The holder of this consolidated position, which should

be ﬁlled by a health care provider, would be better positioned to ensure that the

USPHS is properly focused and deployed.

With such reforms, the supporting oce (previously the OASH and OSG) would

be better equipped than other HHS oces or agencies to reduce silos and con-

solidate or eliminate duplicative functions. Congress should consider legislation

that would require this oce to take such actions or at least make such recom-

mendations to the Secretary. Such legislation would require a thorough analysis

of the various legal authorities impacting the department’s current organiza-

tional structure.

The position previously known as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for

Health should be combined with and have the title of Deputy Surgeon General

and become a three-star position with operational control including ﬁnancial and

deployment decisions. The Director of the Headquarters should be responsible for

implementing the decisions of the Deputy Surgeon General.

Promoting Life and Family. In dealing with sexually transmitted diseases and

unwanted pregnancies, the OASH should focus on root-cause analysis with a focus

on strengthening marriage and sexual risk avoidance. Strong leadership is needed

— 491 —

Department of Health and Human Services

in the Oce of Science and Medicine to drive investigative review of literature for a

variety of issues including the eect of abortion on prematurity and breast cancer;

lack of evidence for so-called gender-arming care; and physical and emotional

damage following cross-sex treatments, especially on children. The OASH should

withdraw all recommendations of and support for cross-sex medical interventions

and “gender-arming care.”

Title X. The Title X family planning program should be reframed with a focus

on better education around fertility awareness and holistic family planning and a

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Aairs that understands the program

and is able to work within its legislative framework (ideally, an MD). In addition,

the Oce of Population Aairs should eliminate religious discrimination in grant

selections and guarantee the right of conscience and religious freedom of health

care workers and participants in the Title X program.

In 2021, HHS reversed a Trump Administration regulation that required grant-

ees to maintain strict physical and ﬁnancial separation between Title X activity and

abortion-related activity.

Under the Biden Administration’s regulation,

Title X

activity can be conducted alongside abortion activity without strict physical and

ﬁnancial separation. The regulation also requires grantees to refer for abortions

despite sincere moral or religious objections. This eectively bans otherwise qual-

iﬁed pro-life grantees from participating in the program.

HHS should rescind the Biden Administration’s regulation and reinstate the

Trump Administration regulation for the program. It should also do this quickly

(the Biden Administration completed its regulatory process and issued a ﬁnal rule

in less than nine months) and expand the potential grantee population beyond

abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.

Congress should complement these eorts by passing legislation such as the

Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act,

which would prohibit family planning

grants from going to entities that perform abortions or provide funding to other

entities that perform abortions. This would help to protect the integrity of the

Title X program even under an abortion-friendly Administration.

ADMINISTRATION FOR STRATEGIC

PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE (ASPR)

ASPR vs. FEMA. When the President declares a national emergency (per the

Staord Act) related to a public health emergency declared by the HHS Secretary,

FEMA is activated and controls instead of HHS/ASPR. While this arrangement

has some beneﬁts because of FEMA’s unique logistical capabilities, the arrange-

ment should be reviewed—especially considering the COVID-19 pandemic—for

improvements in eciency according to expertise and available resources, reduced

confusion for ASPR and among HHS agencies, and avoidance of duplicated eorts

among agencies and personnel.

— 492 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Strategic National Stockpile. The President should invoke the Defense Pro-

duction Act,

which is a form of temporary takeover of private enterprises, only

in the gravest circumstances. The Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) should be

reformed to consider the potential supply chain disruptions of pandemics or global

conﬂicts. Also, during the COVID pandemic, many states received ventilators from

the SNS and hoarded them in places where a rush of COVID patients needing ven-

tilators never materialized. The SNS should clarify its mission as supplier of last

resort to the federal government, state governments, or ﬁrst responders and key

medical sta and should not portray itself as serving the public as a whole.

OFFICE OF GENERAL COUNSEL (OGC)

The Oce of General Counsel is essential to ensuring that HHS is operating

within the bounds of its numerous governing statutes. However, legal caution can

outweigh practical necessity and often slows processes and decisions when time is

of the essence. Such problems were evident both before and during the COVID-19

pandemic. Internal processes should be reformed to streamline necessary legal

determinations during crises, and general processes should be reviewed for e-

ciency. OGC should also:

Rescind its PREP Act liability memo. OGC issued a PREP Act liability

memo that suspended application of civil rights and other laws in the

context of the administration of covered countermeasures during the

pandemic. It should be rescinded as contrary to law.

Rescind eorts to curtail OCR authority over conscience and

religious freedom. All OGC memos and Federal Register notices of

organization or delegations of authority moving any OCR conscience

and religious freedom enforcement to OGC, including RFRA, should

be rescinded, and independent authority over these matters should be

restored to OCR.

Encourage DOJ to repeal OLC memos allowing abortion funding

despite Hyde and memos allowing federal enclave immunity to

perform abortions despite the Assimilative Crimes Act.

Rescind legal analysis that authorized HHS to impose a moratorium

on rental evictions during COVID.

Rescind the OGC legal analysis saying that the injunction in Bowen

v. American Hospital Association

prevents any proposed HHS

regulations or enforcement actions concerning the denial of care

— 493 —

Department of Health and Human Services

to newborn infants with disabilities by covered health care entities

without or against parental consent.

Rescind the legal analysis supporting the Biden Administration’s

decision to dismiss the University of Vermont Medical Center

case dealing with the forced participation of a nurse in abortion in

violation of law.

Rescind the legal analysis restoring $200 million in Medicaid funds

to California after having been found to be in violation of the Weldon

Amendment by OCR.

OFFICE OF GLOBAL AFFAIRS (OGA)

The Director of the Oce of Global Aairs should have the title of Assistant

Secretary so that he or she can adequately represent HHS and the Secretary and

serve as the lead on global health diplomacy for the government. The designation

“Director” is not understood to indicate the leadership role that this position holds

in the international arena. In addition:

All divisions that work on international health eorts should be

responsive to requests and direction from the Assistant Secretary

with coordination for all health diplomacy emanating from OGA.

OGA should have a clear and consistent voice for the Administration’s

pro-life and pro-family priorities in all international engagements.

OGA should hold oversight authority for implementation of the

Mexico City policy throughout all divisions.

Every eort should be made to locate all OGA sta in the same

building for better oversight and communication.

Health attachés in various global locations should be trained in the

Administration’s policies with clear expectations communicated

and with accountability, including replacement, when their

conduct and advocacy are contrary to Administration policies and

programmatic priorities.

OFFICE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS (OCR)

Conscience Enforcement. Existing statutes that protect rights of conscience

(such as the Church, Coats–Snowe, and Weldon amendments) do not explicitly

— 494 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

provide a private right of action that would allow victims to seek legal redress in

court. At the same time, when it continues to fund governmental and private enti-

ties that violate these laws, HHS is spending taxpayer funds unlawfully. Under

liberal Administrations, OCR has amassed a poor record of devoting resources to

conscience and religious freedom enforcement and is often complicit in approving

or looking the other way at the Administration’s own attacks on religious liberty.

Congress should pass the Conscience Protection Act so that victims can pursue

redress through courts without having to depend exclusively on OCR. In addition:

OCR should return to Trump Administration policies that initiated

robust enforcement of these conscience laws. It should restore and fully

fund the Oce of the Deputy Director for the Conscience and Religious

Freedom Division (CRFD) and ensure that it has the necessary delegations

from the Secretary to enforce these laws. The Secretary should give

adequate delegations to OCR to pursue enforcement of conscience laws,

including RFRA, and require all HHS components that provide funding or

grants to cooperate with OCR CRFD investigations.

The Secretary, the Deputy Secretary, and principals in other HHS divisions

should endorse the remedial measures recommended by OCR CRFD and

limit territorial objections and slow-down attempts by other divisional

ocials including OGC. HHS should withdraw funding from any violating

entities that refuse to correct their behavior, and OCR CRFD should work

with ASFR to ensure that all grant announcements and instruments inform

grantees and applicants of their obligations to comply with federal health

care conscience laws speciﬁcally as a condition of obtaining or maintaining

their funding.

A draft OCR RFRA and religious freedom rule from the Trump

Administration should be issued and ﬁnalized. These regulations would

provide a clear process for OCR’s enforcement in coordination with other

HHS divisions and existing HHS grants regulations.

HHS should reestablish waivers for state and child welfare agencies

for religious exemptions, especially for faith-based adoption and

foster care agencies. It should also rescind subjective case-by-case eval-

uations for religious and faith-based organizations that request religious

exemptions. These case-by-case determinations are currently coordinated

with ACF and OCR. The recommended waivers should be granted to all

states and agencies that request them, and OCR memos ﬁnding that RFRA

would be violated if the waivers are not granted should be restored.

— 495 —

Department of Health and Human Services

HHS should restore OCR authority to review requests for and

render opinions on the application of RFRA to requests for religious

accommodation of people, families, and doctors who cannot in good

conscience take or administer vaccines, including those made or

tested with aborted fetal cell lines.

HHS should restore Section 1557, Section 504, and other OCR

regulations and ﬁx guidance documents. In 2020, the Trump

Administration’s OCR published regulations under Section 1557 of the

Aordable Care Act that restored the agency’s enforcement of that law

to the limits of its statutory text, deferred to the ACA’s widespread use of

a binary biological conception of sex discrimination, and speciﬁed that

the regulation must comply with the religious exemption and abortion

neutrality clauses in Title IX from which it is derived as well as the Religious

Freedom Restoration Act and other laws. Courts blocked core provisions of

that rule from going into eect.

In 2022, the Biden Administration proposed to reinstate a rule

contradicting the scope of the statute and imposing nondiscrimination on

the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. It is expected that this

rule will be ﬁnalized in 2023 even though several courts have issued rulings

against the interpretation on which it is based.

OCR should return its enforcement of sex discrimination

to the statutory framework of Section 1557 and Title IX.

Speciﬁcally, it should:

1. Remove all guidance issued under the Biden Administration

concerning sexual orientation and gender identity under Section 1557,

particularly the May 2021 announcement of enforcement

and March

2022 statement threatening states that protect minors from genital

mutilation.

2. Issue a general statement of policy specifying that it will not enforce any

prohibition on sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination in

the Section 1557 regulation and that it will prioritize compliance with

the First Amendment, RFRA, and federal conscience laws in any case

implicating those claims. DOJ should commit to defending these actions

aggressively against inevitable court challenges, including under cases

such as Heckler v. Chaney.

— 496 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

3. Issue a proposed rule to restore the Trump regulations under Section

1557, explicitly interpreting the law not to include sexual orientation

and gender identity discrimination based on the textual approach to

male and female biology taken by Congress in the ACA, the need to

recognize biological distinctions as part of the sound practice of health

care, and the need to ensure protections of medical judgment and

conscience. DOJ should agree to defend this rule to the Supreme Court

if necessary.

4. Issue a general statement of policy announcing that it plans to enforce

Section 1557 discrimination bans by refocusing on serious cases of

race, sex, and disability discrimination. In particular, OCR should

highlight its 2019 investigation and voluntary resolution agreement

with Michigan State University based on the sexual abuse of gymnasts

by Larry Nassar. OCR should also coordinate with the Department of

Education on a public education and civil rights enforcement campaign

to ensure that female college athletes who become pregnant are no

longer pressured to obtain abortions; pursue race discrimination claims

against entities that adopt or impose racially discriminatory policies

such as those based on critical race theory; and announce its intention

to enforce disability rights laws to protect children born prematurely,

children with disabilities, and children born alive after abortions.

5. Issue and ﬁnalize the Trump-era draft disability rights regulations

concerning crisis standards of care and use of Quality of Life

Adjusted Years (QALYs), and reissue and ﬁnalize a disability

regulation (withdrawn by the Biden Administration) that prohibited

discriminatory application of assisted suicide and denial of life-saving

treatments for disabled newborns.

OCR should withdraw its pharmacy abortion mandate guidance. OCR

should withdraw its “Obligations Under Federal Civil Rights Laws to Ensure

Access to Comprehensive Reproductive Health Care Services” guidance

for retail pharmacies,

which purports to address nondiscrimination

obligations of pharmacies under federal civil rights laws and in fact orders

them to stock and dispense ﬁrst-trimester abortion drugs. The guidance

invents this so-called requirement and fails to acknowledge that pharmacies

and pharmacists have the right not to participate in abortions, including

pill-induced abortions, if doing so would violate their sincere moral or

religious objections. Moreover, no federal civil rights laws preempt state

pro-life statutes.

— 497 —

Department of Health and Human Services

OCR should withdraw its Health Insurance Portability and

Accountability Act (HIPAA)

guidance on abortion. OCR should

withdraw its June 2022 guidance

that purports to address patient privacy

concerns following the Dobbs decision but is actually a politicized statement

in favor of abortion and against Dobbs. HIPAA covers patients in the womb,

but this guidance treats them as nonpersons contrary to law. The guidance

is unnecessary and contributes to ideologically motivated fearmongering

about abortion after Dobbs.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of selﬂess individuals involved

in the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. All contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume

and include former ocials in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies, as well as

academics, attorneys, and experts in the health care and insurance ﬁelds.

— 498 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Strategic Plan, FY 2018–2022, p. 50, https://aspe.hhs.gov/

sites/default/ﬁles/documents/feac346aca967bfadc446398679e14ec/hhs-strategic-plan-fy-2018-2022.pdf

(accessed February 7, 2023).

 “Strategic Goal 1: Protect and Strengthen Equitable Access to High Quality and Aordable Healthcare” in ibid.

“In the context of HHS, this Strategic Plan adopts the deﬁnition of underserved communities listed in Executive

Order 13985: Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities through the Federal

Government to refer to ‘populations sharing a particular characteristic, as well as geographic communities,

who have been systematically denied a full opportunity to participate in aspects of economic, social, and civic

life’; this deﬁnition includes individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such

treatment, such as Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Paciﬁc

Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and

queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise

adversely aected by persistent poverty or inequality. Individuals may belong to more than one underserved

community and face intersecting barriers. This deﬁnition applies to the terms underserved communities and

underserved populations throughout this Strategic Plan.” Ibid. Emphasis in original.

 Karen Weintraub, “Americans’ Life Expectancy Continues to Fall, Erasing Health Gains of the Last Quarter

Century,” USA Today, December 22, 2022, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2022/12/22/us-life-

expectancy-continues-fall-erasing-25-years-health-gains/10937418002/ (accessed February 6, 2023).

 Apoorva Mandavilli, “The C.D.C. Isn’t Publishing Large Portions of the Data It Collects,” The New York Times,

updated February 22, 2022, https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/114450/documents/HHRG-117-

IF02-20220302-SD004.pdf (accessed March 22, 2023).

 Zachary B. Sluzala and Edmund F. Haislmaier, “Lessons from COVID-19: How Policymakers Should Reform the

Regulation of Clinical Testing,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3696, March 28, 2022, https://www.

heritage.org/public-health/report/lessons-covid-19-how-policymakers-should-reform-the-regulation-clinical.

 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention (C),” https://www.cdc.gov/maso/pdf/cdcmiss.pdf (March 16, 2023).



Judith Garber, “CDC ‘Disclaimers’ Hide Financial Conﬂicts of Interest,” Lown Institute Accountability Blog,

November 6, 2019, https://lowninstitute.org/cdc-disclaimers-hide-ﬁnancial-conﬂicts-of-interest/ (accessed

February 6, 2023). See also U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention, “CDC Foundation Active Programs (October 1, 2014–September 30, 2015),” https://www.

cdcfoundation.org/sites/default/ﬁles/upload/pdf/CDCFoundation-ActivePrograms-FY2015.pdf (accessed

February 7, 2023); “CDC Active Programs (October 1, 2015–September 30, 2016),” https://www.cdcfoundation.

org/sites/default/ﬁles/upload/pdf/CDCFoundation-ActivePrograms-FY2016.pdf (accessed February 7, 2023);

“CDC Foundation Active Programs (October 1, 2016–September 30, 2017),” https://www.cdcfoundation.org/

sites/default/ﬁles/upload/pdf/CDCFoundation-ActivePrograms-FY2017.pdf (accessed February 7, 2023); “CDC

Foundation Active Programs (October 1, 2017–September 30, 2018),” https://www.cdcfoundation.org/sites/default/

ﬁles/upload/pdf/CDCFoundation-ActivePrograms-FY2018.pdf (accessed February 7, 2023); “CDC Foundation

Active Programs, October 1, 2018–September 30, 2019,” https://www.cdcfoundation.org/sites/default/ﬁles/upload/

pdf/CDCFoundation-ActivePrograms-FY2019.pdf (accessed February 7, 2023); “CDC Foundation Active Programs,

October 1, 2029–September 30, 2020,” https://www.cdcfoundation.org/CDCF-ActivePrograms-CDC-FY20?inline

(accessed February 7, 2023); and “CDC Foundation Active Programs, October 1, 2020–September 30, 2021,”

https://www.cdcfoundation.org/CDCF-ActivePrograms-CDC-FY21?inline (accessed February 7, 2023).

 Joel White and Doug Badger, “In Order to Defeat COVID-19, the Federal Government Must Modernize Its

Public Health Data,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3527, September 3, 2020, https://www.heritage.

org/sites/default/ﬁles/2020-09/BG3527_0.pdf.

 S. 15, Ensuring Accurate and Complete Abortion Data Reporting Act of 2023, 118th Congress, introduced

January 23, 2023, https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/s15/BILLS-118s15is.pdf (accessed March 22, 2023), and

H.R. 632, Ensuring Accurate and Complete Abortion Data Reporting Act of 2023, 118th Congress, introduced

January 30, 2023, https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr632/BILLS-118hr632ih.pdf (accessed March 22, 2023).

 Doug Badger, “How Congress Can Make Real Progress on Drug Prices,” Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No.

5016, December 9, 2019, https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/ﬁles/2019-12/IB5016_1.pdf.

— 499 —

Department of Health and Human Services

 Sluzala and Haislmaier, “Lessons From COVID-19: How Policymakers Should Reform the Regulation of

Clinical Testing.”

 Ibid.

 H.R. 5471, Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988, Public Law No. 100-578, 100th Congress,

October 31, 1988, https://uscode.house.gov/statutes/pl/100/578.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

 Sluzala and Haislmaier, “Lessons From COVID-19: How Policymakers Should Reform the Regulation of

Clinical Testing.”

 Edmund F. Haislmaier, “Ensuring Americans’ Access to Pharmaceuticals: A Primer and Road Map for

Policymakers,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3545, October 20, 2020, https://www.heritage.org/

sites/default/ﬁles/2020-10/BG3545.pdf.

 18 U.S.C. 1461, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1461 (accessed March 16, 2023), and 18 U.S.C. 1462,

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1462 (accessed March 16, 2023).

 H.R. 1308, Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, Public Law No. 103-141, 103rd Congress, November 16,

1993, https://www.congress.gov/103/statute/STATUTE-107/STATUTE-107-Pg1488.pdf (accessed March 18, 2023).

 Charles Piller, “Is FDA’s Revolving Door Open Too Wide?” Science, Vol. 361, No. 6397 (July 6, 2018), p. 21,

https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/science.361.6397.21 (accessed February 6, 2023).

 Joel Achenbach, “NIH Halts $100 Million Study of Moderate Drinking That Is Funded by Alcohol Industry,” The

Washington Post, May 17, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/17/nih-

halts-controversial-study-of-moderate-drinking/ (accessed February 6, 2023).

 Alexander Tin, “Moderna Oers NIH Co-ownership of COVID Vaccine Patent amid Dispute with Government,”

CBS News, November 15, 2021, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/moderna-covid-vaccine-patent-dispute-

national-institutes-health/ (accessed February 6, 2023).

 Informed Consent Action Network, “NIH Ocials Proﬁting from COVID-19 Vaccine,” June 3, 2021, https://www.

icandecide.org/nih-ocials-proﬁting-from-covid-19-vaccine/ (accessed February 6, 2023).

 Adam Andrzejewski, “Substack Investigation: Fauci’s Royalties and the $350 Million Royalty Payment

Stream HIDDEN by NIH,” Open the Books Substack, May 9, 2022, https://openthebooks.substack.

com/p/faucis-royalties-and-the-350-million?utm_source=/proﬁle/24758236-adam-andrzejewski&utm_

medium=reader2&s=w (accessed February 6, 2023).

 Robert E. Mot, “Time to Reverse Hospital Market Consolidation,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, January 5,

2022, https://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/commentary/time-reverse-hospital-market-consolidation.

 H.R. 3590, Patient Protection and Aordable Care Act, Public Law No. 111-148, 111th Congress, March 23, 2021,

https://www.congress.gov/111/plaws/publ148/PLAW-111publ148.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 Brian J. Miller, Robert E. Mot, James Ficke, Joseph Marine, and Jesse Ehrenfeld, “Reversing Hospital

Consolidation: The Promise of Physician-Owned Hospitals,” Health Aairs Forefront, April 12, 2021, https://

www.healthaairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20210408.980640/ (accessed February 13, 2023).

 Robert E. Mot, “Medicare’s Future: Challenges and Opportunities,” testimony before the Special Committee

on Aging, U.S. Senate, November 21, 2022, https://www.heritage.org/testimony/medicares-future-challenges-

and-opportunities.

 42 U.S. Code § 256b, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/256b (accessed March 16, 2023).

 H.R. 3590, Patient Protection and Aordable Care Act, § 3022.

 H.R. 5376, Inﬂation Reduction Act of 2022, Public Law No. 117-169, 117th Congress, August 16, 2022, https://

www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ169/PLAW-117publ169.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 Robert E. Mot, “Reducing Patient Access to New Medications Is the Left’s Latest Medicare Price-Fixing

Scheme,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, July 22, 2022, https://www.heritage.org/medicare/commentary/

reducing-patient-access-new-medications-the-lefts-latest-medicare-price-ﬁxing, and Badger, “How Congress

Can Make Real Progress on Drug Prices.”

 Nina Owcharenko Schaefer, “Medicaid at 55: Understanding the Design, Trends, and Reforms Needed to

Improve the Health Care Safety Net,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3604, April 14, 2021, https://

www.heritage.org/sites/default/ﬁles/2021-04/BG3604_0.pdf, and Brian C. Blase, “Punishing Conservative

States: Payment Cuts to Hospitals Where Federal Spending Is Already Low,” Paragon Health Institute,

December 2021, https://paragoninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Punishing-Conservative-States-

HTML.html (accessed February 13, 2023).

— 500 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 Owcharenko Schaefer, “Medicaid at 55: Understanding the Design, Trends, and Reforms Needed to Improve

the Health Care Safety Net.”

 Brian Blase, “Managed Care in Medicaid: Need for Oversight, Accountability, and Reform,” Paragon Health

Institute Policy Brief, October 13, 2022, https://paragoninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/20221012-

Managed-Care-in-Medicaid-Need-for-Oversight-Accountability-and-Reform-FOR-DISTRIBUTION-V2.pdf

(accessed February 13, 2023).

 Owcharenko Schaefer, “Medicaid at 55: Understanding the Design, Trends, and Reforms Needed to Improve

the Health Care Safety Net.”

 42 U.S. Code § 1315, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1315 (accessed March 17, 2023).

 Chad D. Savage and Lee S. Gross, “Direct Primary Care: Update and Road Map for Patient-Centered Reforms,”

Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3635, June 28, 2021, https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/

ﬁles/2021-06/BG3635.pdf.

 H.R. 133, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, Public Law No. 116-260, 116th Congress, December 27,

2020, Division BB, Title I, https://www.congress.gov/116/plaws/publ260/PLAW-116publ260.pdf (accessed

March 17, 2023).

 Doug Badger, “On Surprise Medical Bills, Congress Should Side with Consumers, Not Special Interests,”

Heritage Foundation Commentary, January 31, 2020, https://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/

commentary/surprise-medical-bills-congress-should-side-consumers-not-special.

 Edmund F. Haislmaier and Abigail Slagle, “Premiums, Choices, Deductibles, Care Access, and Government

Dependence Under the Aordable Care Act: 2021 State-by-State Review,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder

No. 3668, November 2, 2021, https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/ﬁles/2021-11/BG3668.pdf.

 U.S. Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service; U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Beneﬁts

Security Administration; and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “Transparency in Coverage,”

Final Rule, Federal Register, Vol. 85, No. 219 (November 12, 2020), pp. 72158–72310, https://www.govinfo.gov/

content/pkg/FR-2020-11-12/pdf/2020-24591.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

 David N. Bernstein and Robert E. Mot, “New Price Transparency Rule Will Help Transform America’s Health

Care System,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, November 1, 2020, https://www.heritage.org/health-care-

reform/commentary/new-price-transparency-rule-will-help-transform-americas-health-care.

 Sluzala and Haislmaier, “Lessons from COVID-19: How Policymakers Should Reform the Regulation of

Clinical Testing.”

 Ibid.

 Most recently enacted in H.R. 2471, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, Public Law No. 117-103, 117th

Congress, March 15, 2022, Division H, Title V, §§ 506–507, https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ103/

PLAW-117publ103.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

 President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Executive Order 14079, “Securing Access to Reproductive and Other Healthcare

Services,” August 3, 2022, in Federal Register, Vol. 87, No. 154 (August 11, 2022), pp. 49505–49507, https://

www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-08-11/pdf/2022-17420.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 Planned Parenthood, 2020–2021 Annual Report, p. 27, https://www.plannedparenthood.org/uploads/

ﬁler_public/40/8f/408fc2ad-c8c2-48da-ad87-be5cc257d370/211214-ppfa-annualreport-20-21-c3-digital.pdf

(accessed March 22, 2023).

 Ibid., pp. 30 and 31. Total revenue of $1,714.4 million (p. 30) minus $1,580.7 million in total expenses (p. 31)

yields $133,7 million.

 Ibid., p. 28.

 Ibid., p. 30.

 H.R. 372, Protecting Life and Taxpayers Act of 2023, 118th Congress, introduced January 17, 2023, https://www.

congress.gov/118/bills/hr372/BILLS-118hr372ih.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

 42 U.S. Code § 18023, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/18023 (accessed March 17, 2023).

 H.R. 3128, Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985, Public Law No. 99-272, 99th Congress,

April 7, 1986, Title IX, Subtitle A, Part 1, Subpart B, § 9121, https://www.congress.gov/99/statute/STATUTE-100/

STATUTE-100-Pg82.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

 H.R. 8070, Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Public Law No. 93-112, 93rd Congress, September 26, 1973, https://www.

congress.gov/93/statute/STATUTE-87/STATUTE-87-Pg355.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

— 501 —

Department of Health and Human Services

 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Oce of Civil

Rights, and Oce of the Secretary, “Special Responsibilities of Medicare Hospitals in Emergency Cases and

Discrimination on the Basis of Disability in Critical Health and Human Service Programs or Activities,” draft

of Proposed Rule, January 14, 2021, https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/infants-nprm.pdf (accessed

March 17, 2023).

 H.R. 26, Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, 118th Congress, introduced January 9, 2023, https://

www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr26/BILLS-118hr26pcs.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

 H.R. 7, No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act of 2023, 118th Congress,

introduced January 9, 2023, https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr7/BILLS-118hr7ih.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

 S. 401, Conscience Protection Act of 2021, 117th Congress, introduced February 24, 2021, https://www.congress.

gov/117/bills/s401/BILLS-117s401is.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Oce of the

Secretary, “Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities,” Notice of Proposed Rulemaking; Notice of

Tribal Consultation, Federal Register, Vol. 87, No. 149 (August 4, 2022), pp. 47824–47920, https://www.govinfo.

gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-08-04/pdf/2022-16217.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

 Ibid., p. 47916.

 The regulation was not ﬁnalized before the end of the Administration. U.S. Department of Agriculture,

Food and Nutrition Services, “Revision of Categorical Eligibility in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance

Program (SNAP),” Proposed Rule, Federal Register, Vol. 84, No. 142 (July 24, 2019), pp. 35570–55581, https://

www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/07/24/2019-15670/revision-of-categorical-eligibility-in-the-

supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap (accessed March 17, 2023).

 45 Code of Federal Regulations § 75.300(c) and (d), https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-45/subtitle-A/

subchapter-A/part-75/subpart-D/subject-group-ECFR911e5e1a30bfbcb/section-75.300 (accessed

March 17, 2023).

 H.R. 1750, Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act of 2021, 117th Congress, introduced March 10, 2021, https://

www.congress.gov/117/bills/hr1750/BILLS-117hr1750ih.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023), and S. 656, Child Welfare

Provider Inclusion Act of 2021, 117th Congress, introduced March 10, 2021, https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/

s656/BILLS-117s656is.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

 S. 3949, Tracking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2022, Public Law No. 117-348, 117th Congress,

January 25, 2023, https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ348/PLAW-117publ348.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

 Kelsey Y. Santamaria, “Child Migrants at the Border: The Flores Settlement Agreement and Other Legal

Developments,” Congressional Research Service In Focus No. IF11799, April 1, 2021, https://crsreports.congress.

gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11799 (accessed March 17, 2023).

 Report, Building a Happy Home: Marriage Education as a Tool to Strengthen Families, Social Capital Project

Report No. 1-22, March 2022, p. 17, https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/ﬁles/3d102525-6f0d-48ed-

92f4-d71edd468ad6/building-a-happy-home.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023). The cover of the report reﬂects

that the Social Capital Project is “[a] project of the Joint Economic Committee – Republicans.”

 See, for example, Alan J. Hawkins, “Are Federally Supported Relationship Education Programs for Lower-Income Individuals

and Couples Working? A Review of Evaluation Research,” American Enterprise Institute, September 2019, https://www.

congress.gov/117/plaws/publ228/PLAW-117publ228.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

 H.R. 8404, Respect for Marriage Act, Public Law No. 117-228, 117th Congress, December 13, 2022, https://www.

congress.gov/117/plaws/publ228/PLAW-117publ228.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

 Madison Marino, “Over 1,000 Safety Violations Mar Head Start. Children Deserve Better,” Heritage Foundation

Commentary, November 10, 2022, https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/over-1000-safety-

violations-mar-head-start-children-deserve-better.

 American Hospital Association v. Becerra, 596 U.S. ___ (2022), https://www.supremecourt.gov/

opinions/21pdf/20-1114_09m1.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service; U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Beneﬁts

Security Administration; and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and

Medicaid Services, “Coverage of Certain Preventive Services Under the Aordable Care Act,” Notice of

Proposed Rulemaking, Federal Register, Vol. 88, No. 22 (February 2, 2023), pp. 7236–7281, https://www.

govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-02-02/pdf/2023-01981.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

— 502 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 42 U.S. Code § 238n, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/238n (accessed March 17, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, “Early

Childhood Health,” last reviewed October 2022, https://mchb.hrsa.gov/programs-impact/focus-areas/early-

childhood-health (accessed March 17, 2023).

 American Pregnancy Association, “Having a Doula—What Are the Beneﬁts?” https://americanpregnancy.

org/healthy-pregnancy/labor-and-birth/having-a-doula/#:~:text=Other%20studies%20have%20shown%20

that%20having%20a%20doula,massage%20to%20reduce%20stress%20and%20anxiety%20during%20labor

(accessed March 17, 2023).

 S. 2372, VA MISSION [Maintaining Internal Systems and Strengthening Integrated Outside Networks] Act

of 2018, Public Law No. 115-182, 115th Congress, June 6, 2018, https://www.congress.gov/115/plaws/publ182/

PLAW-115publ182.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “Securing Updated and Necessary Statutory Evaluations

Timely,” Final Rule, Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 11 (January 19, 2021), pp. 5694–5764, https://www.govinfo.

gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-01-19/pdf/2021-00597.pdf (accessed March 22, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Oce of the Secretary, Oce of the Assistant Secretary for

Health, “Compliance with Statutory Program Integrity Requirements,” Final Rule, Federal Register, Vol. 84, No.

42 (March 4, 2029), pp. 7714–7791, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2019-03-04/pdf/2019-03461.pdf

(accessed March 18, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Oce of the Secretary, Oce of the Assistant Secretary for

Health, “Ensuring Access to Equitable, Aordable, Client-Centered, Quality Family Planning Services,” Final

Rule, Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 192 (October 7, 2021), pp. 56144–56180, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/

pkg/FR-2021-10-07/pdf/2021-21542.pdf (accessed March 18, 2023).

 S. 624, Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act, 118th Congress, introduced March 2, 2023, https://www.

congress.gov/118/bills/s624/BILLS-118s624is.pdf (accessed March 18, 2023).

 50 U.S. Code Chapter 55, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/chapter-55 (accessed March 22, 2023).

 18 U.S. Code § 13, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/13 (accessed March 18, 2023).

 Bowen v. American Hospital Association, 476 U.S. 610 (1986), https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/

usrep/usrep476/usrep476610/usrep476610.pdf (accessed 22, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Oce of the Secretary, “Notiﬁcation of Interpretation and

Enforcement of Section 1557 of the Aordable Care Act and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972,”

Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 99 (May 25, 2021), pp. 27984–27985, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-

2021-05-25/pdf/2021-10477.pdf (accessed March 18, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Oce for Civil Rights, “HHS Notice and Guidance on Gender

Arming Care, Civil Rights, and Patient Privacy,” March 2, 2022, https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/hhs-

ocr-notice-and-guidance-gender-arming-care.pdf (accessed March 18, 2023).

 Heckler v. Chaney, 420 U.S. 821 (1985), https://caselaw.ﬁndlaw.com/us-supreme-court/470/821.html (accessed

March 18, 2022).

 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Oce for Civil Rights, “Guidance to Nation’s Retail

Pharmacies: Obligations Under Federal Civil Rights Laws to Ensure Access to Comprehensive Reproductive

Health Care Services,” content last reviewed July 14, 2022, https://www.hhs.gov/civil-rights/for-individuals/

special-topics/reproductive-healthcare/pharmacies-guidance/index.html (accessed March 18, 2023).

 H.R. 3103, “Health Insurance and Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, Public Law No. 104-191, 104th

Congress, August 21, 1996, https://www.congress.gov/104/plaws/publ191/PLAW-104publ191.pdf (accessed

March 18, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Human Services, “HIPAA Privacy Rule and Disclosures of Information Relating to

Reproductive Health Care,” content last reviewed June 29, 2022, (accessed March 18, 2023). See also

“Protecting the Privacy and Security of Your Health Information When Using Your Personal Cell Phone or

Tablet,” content last reviewed June 29, 2022, https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/guidance/

cell-phone-hipaa/index.html (accessed March 18, 2023).

— 503 —

DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING

AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., MD

he U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) admin-

isters a web of federal programs with mandates to support access to

homeownership and aordable rental housing, relieve temporary hous-

ing instability for homeless persons, preserve a stable inventory of public housing

units, and enforce mandates with powers to settle compliance matters ranging

from housing quality standards to housing discrimination cases.

Politicians across party lines use HUD to promise ever-greater public bene-

ﬁts. In addition, HUD programs tend to perpetuate the notion of bureaucratically

provided housing as a basic life need and, whether intentionally or not, fail to

acknowledge that these public beneﬁts too often have led to intergenerational

poverty traps, have implicitly penalized family formation in traditional two-parent

marriages, and have discouraged work and income growth, thereby limiting upward

mobility. A new conservative Administration will therefore need to:

Reset HUD. This eort should speciﬁcally include a broad reversal of the

Biden Administration’s persistent implementation of corrosive progressive

ideologies across the department’s programs.

Implement an action plan across both process and people. This plan

should include both the immediate redelegation of authority to a cadre

of political appointees and the urgent implementation of administrative

regulatory actions with respect to HUD policy and program eligibility.

— 504 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Reverse HUD’s mission creep over nearly a century of program

implementation dating from the Department’s New Deal forebears.

HUD’s new political leadership team will need to reexamine the federal

government’s role in housing markets across the nation and consider

whether it is time for a “reform, reinvention, and renewal”

that transfers

Department functions to separate federal agencies, states, and localities.

OVERVIEW

HUD was created by the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965

and

since then has administered several programs that had been administered by

the Housing and Home Finance Agency. With a proposed ﬁscal year (FY) budget

authority totaling $71.9 billion and 8,326 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees,

it remains the largest government agency charged with implementing federal

housing policy.

In addition to its headquarters in Washington, D.C., HUD has 10 regional

oces as well as ﬁeld oces and centers to implement specialized operational

and enforcement responsibilities.

HUD program oces also interface with various

networks of implementing organizations such as locally chartered public housing

agencies (PHAs) and federal, state, and local government and judicial bodies as

well as such private industry participants as mortgage lenders.

The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development can delegate authority to

various entities across an array of HUD programs.

The Secretary also oversees

the Oce of the Deputy Secretary;

the Oce of Hearings and Appeals (OHA);

the Oce of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU);

and the

Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (CFBNP).

The Oce of

the Secretary also comprises a team of politically appointed positions and career

support sta. Each of the following oces should be headed by political appointees

except where otherwise noted.

Oce of Administration, headed by the Chief Administration Ocer.

The Oce of Administration has responsibilities for the Oce of the Chief

Human Capital Ocer (OCHO, headed by the Chief Human Capital Ocer,

currently a career position) and the Oce of the Chief Procurement Ocer

(CPO, headed by the Chief Procurement Ocer, currently a career position).

Oce of the Chief Financial Ocer, headed by the Chief

Financial Ocer.

Oce of the Chief Information Ocer, headed by the Chief

Information Ocer.

— 505 —

Department of Housing and Urban Development

Oce of Public Aairs, headed by a Senate-conﬁrmed Assistant Secretary

(AS) or Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary (PDAS).

Oce of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations (CIR),

headed by a Senate-conﬁrmed AS or PDAS.

Oce of Community Planning and Development (CPD), headed

by a Senate-conﬁrmed AS or Principal DAS. CPD administers various

entitlement and non-entitlement programs across community

development, disaster recovery, and housing for the homeless

and

individuals with special needs, including Housing Opportunities for Persons

with AIDS (HOPWA). The two largest CPD-administered programs are

the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program,

which

includes disaster recovery funding, and the Home Investment Partnerships

Program (HOME).

CPD’s Relocation and Real Estate Division (RRED) has

departmental delegated authority for the Uniform Relocation Assistance

and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act of 1970.

Oce of Public and Indian Housing (PIH), headed by a Senate-

conﬁrmed AS or PDAS. PIH administers public housing and tenant-based

rental assistance programs, as well as authorities for Native American and

Native Hawaiian housing assistance and loan guarantee programs under

the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act

(NAHSDA).

Tenant-Based Rental Assistance represents the major portion

of HUD’s nonemergency discretionary budget. HUD describes its Housing

Choice Voucher Program as “an essential component of the Federal housing

safety net for people in need.”

PIH also implements funding for the Self-

Suciency Coordinator Program; the Public Housing Fund (operating

and capital funds for PHA administration of Section 9 public housing and

Section 8 voucher programs); and Choice Neighborhoods (zeroed out during

the Trump Administration budget request but included in HUD’s FY 2023

budget, which requests $250 million for the program).

Oce of Housing and Federal Housing Administration (FHA),

headed by a dual-hatted, Senate-conﬁrmed AS and Federal Housing

Commissioner or Acting Federal Housing Commissioner. The Oce of

Housing oversees implementation of the department’s project-based rental

assistance (PBRA) multifamily housing portfolio, Section 202 supportive

housing for the elderly program, Section 811 program for disabled persons’

housing, and Housing Counseling Assistance program. The Federal

Housing Administration administers the Mutual Mortgage Insurance

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Program (MMIF) and various other mortgage insurance, direct loan, and

loan guarantee programs for single-family housing, multifamily housing,

hospitals, and health care facilities that meet certain conditions.

Government National Mortgage Association (GNMA), headed by a Sen-

ate-conﬁrmed GNMA President or Executive Vice President. GNMA oversees

more than $2 billion in federal guarantees to mortgage-backed securities

structured from mortgages that are pooled from various federal programs,

including mortgages backed by programs outside of HUD, principally the sin-

gle-family mortgage guarantee programs administered by the Department of

Veterans Aairs (VA) and the Rural Housing Service at the U.S. Department of

Agriculture (USDA). FHA-insured single-family housing mortgages comprise

the largest share of GNMA-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities.

Oce of Departmental Equal Employment Opportunity, headed

by a Director.

Oce of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO), headed by a

Senate-conﬁrmed AS or PDAS. The Assistant Secretary for FHEO is the

designated HUD ocial responsible for enforcing Title VI of the Civil

Rights Act of 1964,

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973,

and

Section 109 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974. After

informal eorts to resolve noncompliance, the AS for FHEO may make a

formal ﬁnding of noncompliance and initiate enforcement action before an

administrative tribunal or a referral to the Department of Justice.

Oce of General Counsel (OGC), headed by the General Counsel or

Principal Deputy General Counsel. OGC handles department-wide legal

and compliance oversight advice with supervision responsibilities for the

Deputy General Counsel for Housing Programs, Deputy General Counsel for

Operations, and Deputy General Counsel for Enforcement and Fair Housing

as well as the Departmental Enforcement Center.

Oce of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control (OHHLHC), headed

by a Director. OHHLHC was established in the early 1990s to eliminate

lead-based paint hazards in America’s privately owned and low-income

housing, address healthy housing initiatives, and enforce lead-based paint

regulations authorized under the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard

Reduction Act of 1992 (Title X of the Housing and Community Development

Act of 1992).

These functions overlap with similar functions of the

Environmental Protection Agency (also authorized to enforce lead-based

— 507 —

Department of Housing and Urban Development

paint regulations under Title X) and the Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention’s Healthy Homes Initiative, Childhood Lead Poisoning

Prevention Program, and National Asthma Control Program.

Oce of Policy Development and Research (PDR), headed by a Senate-

conﬁrmed AS or PDAS. PDR was established in the early 1970s and today

administers research activities, including external contract research grants,

and provides analytical and policy advice to senior HUD sta. PDR also

provides publicly available statistics through the American Housing Survey

(AHS), which is sponsored by HUD and conducted by the Census Bureau;

the State of the Cities Data Systems; data on the Low-Income Housing Tax

Credit (LIHTC); and annual Fair Market Rents and Income Limits data,

among other statistical publications and datasets on the characteristics of

families assisted under HUD programs.

Oce of Inspector General (OIG), headed by an Inspector General.

The OIG is independent of HUD and one of 12 Inspectors General across

the federal government authorized under the Inspector General Act of

1978.

Operating under its own budget authority and strategic plan, the

HUD OIG conducts internal and external audits and investigations of HUD

programs and operations. While independent of HUD and holding no

enforcement powers over HUD programs, HUD OIG works closely with the

Oce of General Counsel, the Departmental Enforcement Center, and HUD

program oces. The Inspector General serves as an adviser to and non-

voting member of the FHA Mortgagee Review Board.

Oce of Field Policy and Management (FPM), headed by an Assistant

Deputy Secretary for FPM. FPM supports the Secretary through regional

and ﬁeld oce communication and external engagement with various

community stakeholders to ensure the successful implementation of

Secretarial initiatives and special projects.

HUD REFORM PILLARS

Ideally, Congress would redelegate authorities that have been diverted to HUD’s

administrative bureaucracy and safeguard taxpayers against the mission creep that

inevitably occurs when Congress delegates power to an empowered and unelected

bureaucracy that is insulated by civil service protections. If implemented, the

reforms proposed in this chapter can help a new conservative Administration to

use its Article II powers to rectify bureaucratic overreach, reverse the expansion

of programs beyond their statutory authority, and end progressive policies that

have been put in place at the department.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

It is hoped that a future Congress under conservative leadership will enact legis-

lative reforms of HUD programs. With or without congressional action, however, it

is vital that a conservative Administration immediately institute guardrails across

HUD programs to remove the administrative state’s bureaucratic overreach of

Article I authorities, thereby ensuring formal execution of Article II process and

personnel reforms of the sort outlined below.

FIRST-DAY AND FIRST-YEAR ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS

A new conservative Administration can and should implement the follow-

ing reforms that focus on both people

and process.

Implementation of these

reforms simply requires courageous political leadership across all of HUD’s key

appointed positions.

HUD political leadership should immediately assign all delegated powers

to politically appointed PDAS, DAS, and other oce leadership positions;

change any current career leadership positions into political and non-career

appointment positions; and use Senior Executive Service (SES) transfers to

install motivated and aligned leadership.

The President should issue an executive order making the HUD Secretary

a member of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which will

gain broader oversight authorities to address foreign threats, particularly

from China with oversight of foreign ownership of real estate in both rental

and ownership markets of single-family and multifamily housing,

with

trillions worth of real estate secured across HUD’s portfolio.

The Secretary should initiate a HUD task force consisting of politically

appointed personnel to identify and reverse all actions taken by the Biden

Administration to advance progressive ideology.

The Oce of the Secretary or the leadership in the Oce of General

Counsel should conduct a thorough review of all subregulatory guidance

that has been instituted outside of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

Additionally, departmental leadership should:

1. Immediately end the Biden Administration’s Property Appraisal and

Valuation Equity (PAVE) policies and reverse any Biden Administration

actions that threaten to undermine the integrity of real estate appraisals.

2. Repeal climate change initiatives and spending in the department’s

budget request.

— 509 —

Department of Housing and Urban Development

3. Repeal the Armatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulation

reinstituted under the Biden Administration

and any other uses of

special-purpose credit authorities to further equity.

4. Eliminate the new Housing Supply Fund.

The Oce of the Secretary should recommence proposed regulation put

forward under the Trump Administration that would prohibit noncitizens,

including all mixed-status families, from living in all federally assisted

housing.

HUD’s statutory obligations include providing housing for

American citizens who are in need. HUD reforms must also ensure

alignment with reforms implemented by other federal agencies where

immigration status impacts public programs, certainly to include any

reforms in the Public Charge regulatory framework administered by the U.S.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Local welfare organizations, not

the federal government, should step up to provide welfare for the housing of

noncitizens.

The Oce of the Secretary should execute regulatory and subregulatory

guidance actions, across HUD programs and applicable to all relevant

stakeholders, that would restrict program eligibility when admission

would threaten the protection of the life and health of individuals and

fail to encourage upward mobility and economic advancement through

household self-suciency. Where admissible in regulatory action, HUD

should implement reforms reducing the implicit anti-marriage bias in

housing assistance programs,

strengthen work and work-readiness

requirements,

implement maximum term limits for residents in PBRA

and TBRA programs,

and end Housing First

policies so that the

department prioritizes mental health and substance abuse issues before

jumping to permanent interventions in homelessness.

Notwithstanding

administrative reforms, Congress should enact legislation that protects

life and eliminates provisions in federal housing and welfare beneﬁts

policies that discourage work, marriage, and meaningful paths to upward

economic mobility.

The AS or PDAS for the Oce of Policy Development and Research should

suspend all external research and evaluation grants in the Oce of Policy

Development and Research and end or realign to another oce any

functions that are not involved in the collection and use of data and survey

administration functions and do not facilitate the execution of regulatory

impact analysis studies.

— 510 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

FHA leadership should increase the mortgage insurance premium (MIP) for

all products above 20-year terms and maintain MIP for all products below

20-year terms and all reﬁnances. FHA should encourage wealth-building

homeownership opportunities, which can be accomplished best through

shorter-duration mortgages.

Ideally, Congress would contemplate a

fundamental revision of FHA’s statutory restriction of single-family housing

mortgage insurance to ﬁrst-time homebuyers.

This would include (with

support from HUD leadership):

1. Moving the Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECM) program once

again to its own special risk insurance fund.

2. Revising loan limit determinations.

3. Providing statutory ﬂexibility for shorter-term products that amortize

principal earlier and faster.

Statutorily restricting eligibility for ﬁrst-time homebuyers and abandoning

the armative obligation authorities erected for the single-family housing

programs across federal agencies and government-sponsored enterprises.

The HUD Secretary should move the HUD Real Estate Assessment Center

(REAC) from PIH to the Oce of Housing, which already implements

property standards in its multifamily housing lending programs through

the multifamily accelerated processing (MAP) lending guidelines. Giving

HUD the authority to streamline the enforcement of compliance with

housing standards across the federal government and ﬂexibility for physical

inspections through private accreditation should also be considered.

HUD should maintain its requested budget authority for modernization

initiatives that are applicable to the Oce of the Chief Information Ocer

and program oces across the department.

LONGER-TERM POLICY REFORM CONSIDERATIONS

Congress has charged HUD principally with mandates for construction of the

nation’s aordable housing stock in addition to setting and enforcing standards

for decent housing and fair housing enforcement. Regardless of intent, HUD’s

eorts have yielded mixed results at best. Even today, more than a half-century

after Congress put enforcement of so-called fair housing in the hands of the HUD

bureaucracy, implementation of this policy is muddled by the repeated applica-

tion of armative race-based policies. Also, the production mandate for HUD’s

— 511 —

Department of Housing and Urban Development

housing portfolio has waned for decades with the department eectively working

to maintain the public housing portfolio from the late 1990s when the Faircloth

Amendment capped HUD’s public housing portfolio.

Longer-term reforms of HUD rental assistance programs should encourage

choice and competition for renters, encourage participation by landlords where

appropriate,

and encourage all non-elderly, able-bodied adults to move toward

self-suciency. This can be pursued through regulations and legislative reforms

that seek to strengthen work requirements, limit the period during which house-

holds are eligible for housing beneﬁts, and add ﬂexibility to rent payment terms

to facilitate the movement of households toward self-suciency.

Obviously, using government vouchers or other such programs to expand hous-

ing choice options is not without its downsides. The turn toward mobility vouchers

constitutes an abandonment of America’s public housing stock, and eorts to

increase competition in the public housing market must not come at the expense

of local autonomy and the ability of cities, towns, neighborhoods, and commu-

nities to choose for themselves the sort of housing they want to allow. Freedom

of association and self-government at the most local level possible must remain

primary considerations in any conservative eort to increase competition in the

public housing market.

Congress should also consider those areas in which federal policy negatively

interacts with private markets, including when federal policy crowds out pri-

vate-sector development and exacerbates aordability challenges that persist

across the nation. It is essential that legislation provides states and localities max-

imal ﬂexibility to pursue locally designed policies and minimize the likelihood of

federal preemption of local land use and zoning decisions.

In the same manner, Congress should prioritize any and all legislative support

for the single-family home. Homeownership forms the backbone of the American

Dream. The purchase of a home is the largest investment most Americans will

make in their lifetimes, and homeownership remains the most accessible way to

build generational wealth for millions of Americans. For these reasons, American

homeowners and citizens know best what is in the interest of their neighborhoods

and communities. Localities rather than the federal government must have the

ﬁnal say in zoning laws and regulations, and a conservative Administration should

oppose any eorts to weaken single-family zoning. Along the same lines, Congress

can propose tax credits for the renovation or repair of housing stock in rural areas

so that more Americans are able to access the American Dream of homeownership.

Additionally, enhanced statutory authorities for local autonomy should extend

to the prioritizing of federal rental assistance subsidies that emphasize choice and

mobility in housing voucher subsidies over static, site-based subsidies and provide

authority for maximal ﬂexibility to direct PHA land sales that involve the existing

stock of public housing units. Congress must consider the future of the public

— 512 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

housing model. At best, any new public investments will provide maintenance

funds to bring substandard housing units and properties up to livability standards

but will still fail to address larger aims of upward mobility and dynamism for local

housing markets where land can be sold by PHAs and put to greater economic

use, thereby beneﬁting entire local economies through greater private investment,

productivity and employment opportunities, and increased tax revenue.

Any long-term view of HUD’s future must include maintaining the strong

ﬁnancial operations and reliable reporting that are needed to run a $50 billion-

per-year agency. Before the Trump Administration, HUD eectively did not have

a Chief Financial Ocer (CFO) for eight years, and HUD’s ﬁnancial infrastructure

inevitably deteriorated. The department’s auditors were unable to conclude that

HUD’s internal operations were producing accurate ﬁnancial reporting. The audi-

tors had identiﬁed multiple material weaknesses and signiﬁcant deﬁciencies in

the department’s internal ﬁnancial controls. Overall, the deterioration of HUD’s

ﬁnancial infrastructure led to a lack of accountability with respect to the use of

taxpayer funds as well as to pervasive diculties with operations and program

implementation.

However, by hiring a new CFO from the private sector with a proven track record

of visionary leadership, HUD was able to implement an agencywide governance

structure that improved its ﬁnancial processes and internal controls and harnessed

the power of innovative new technologies to bring a modernized business mindset

to the agency’s ﬁnancial infrastructure. By the end of the Trump Administration,

for the ﬁrst time in nearly a decade, HUD was able to address all of its previously

identiﬁed material weaknesses, and the auditors were able to issue their ﬁrst clean

audit report on HUD’s ﬁnancial statements and internal controls.

Finally, and more fundamentally, Congress could consider a wholesale overhaul

of HUD that contemplates devolving many HUD functions to states and localities

with any remaining federal functions consolidated to other federal agencies (for

example, by transferring loan guarantee programs to SBA; moving Indian housing

programs to the Department of the Interior; moving rental assistance, mortgage

insurance programs, and GNMA to a redesignated Housing and Home Finance

Agency). Generally, this reform path could consolidate some programs, elimi-

nate others that have failed to produce meaningful long-run results, and narrow

the scope of many programs so that they are closer to what they were when they

were created.

— 513 —

Department of Housing and Urban Development

ENDNOTES

 At a 1998 Senate hearing, then-HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo acknowledged that the department “faced a

competence gap” and had “the dubious distinction of being the only federal agency designated as ‘high risk’

by the General Accounting [now Government Accountability] Oce (GAO),” even referencing the Section

8 rental subsidy as “on the brink of becoming the next savings and loan scandal,” and explained how the

department was stepping up enforcement eorts “focused on closing the competence gap by eliminating

waste, fraud, and abuse.” See “Testimony of Secretary Andrew Cuomo before the House Appropriations

Subcommittee on VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies,” March 25, 1998, https://archives.hud.gov/

testimony/1998/tst32598.cfm (accessed March 4, 2023).

 H.R. 7984, Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965, Public Law No. 89-117, 89th Congress, August 10,

1965, https://www.congress.gov/89/statute/STATUTE-79/STATUTE-79-Pg451.pdf (accessed March 4, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2023 Budget in Brief, pp. 2 and 7, https://www.hud.gov/

sites/dﬁles/CFO/documents/2023_BudgetInBriefFINAL.pdf (accessed March 4, 2023).

 For example, the Special Applications Center (SAC) located in Chicago, Illinois, was established in 1998

as a division of the Oce of Public and Indian Housing to accept, review, and approve all nonfunded,

noncompetitive applications and plans for demolition, disposition, and conversion of land subject to an

annual contributions contract (ACC) in public housing.

 The Secretary has delegated full authority for the Administration and enforcement of the Fair Housing Act to

the Assistant Secretary of the Oce of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity but also has delegated limited

assignment and decision-making authority to the General Counsel.

 Eectively the HUD Chief Operating Ocer and appointed by the President with Senate advice and consent.

 The Oce of Hearings and Appeals (OHA) is an independent adjudicatory oce within the Oce of the

Secretary. Led by a Director who is appointed by the Secretary, it supervises the Administrative Judges of

the Oce of Appeals, the administrative law judges of the Oce of Administrative Law Judges, and the OHA

support sta. The HUD Secretary appoints administrative judges and administrative law judges in accordance

with the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. Chapter 5, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/part-I/

chapter-5 (accessed March 4, 2023).

 HUD currently has a Departmental Equity Assessment Working Group, supported with ﬁve FTEs funded by

the OSDBU, “as part of the President’s Executive Order 13985, Executive Order On Advancing Racial Equity

and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.” See U.S. Department of

Housing and Urban Development, 2023 Congressional Justiﬁcations, p. 35-15, https://www.hud.gov/sites/

dﬁles/CFO/documents/2023HUDCongressionalJustiﬁcationsFINALelectronicversion.pdf (accessed March 4,

2023), and President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Executive Order 13985, “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for

Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government,” January 20, 2021, in Federal Register, Vol. 86,

No. 14 (January 25, 2021), pp. 7009–7013, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-01-25/pdf/2021-

01753.pdf (accessed March 4, 2023).

 Interestingly, “[t]he 2023 President’s Budget requests $748 thousand for CFBNP, which is $436 thousand less

than the 2022 Annualized CR level. The Budget reﬂects total funding (carryover and new authority) of $1.2

million, $448 thousand less than 2022 total funding.” U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,

2023 Congressional Justiﬁcations, p. 35-16.

 See H.R. 558, Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, Public Law No. 100-77, 100th Congress, July 22,

1987, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-101/pdf/STATUTE-101-Pg482.pdf (accessed March 5,

2023). Later renamed the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act.

 Established under the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, 42 U.S.C. §§ 5301 et seq., https://

www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42 (accessed March 4, 2023).

 S. 566, Cranston–Gonzalez National Aordable Housing Act, Public Law No. 101-625, 101st Congress,

November 28, 1990, Title II, https://www.congress.gov/101/statute/STATUTE-104/STATUTE-104-Pg4079.pdf

(accessed March 5, 2023).

 S. 1, Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act of 1970, Public Law No. 91-646,

91st Congress, January 2, 1971, https://www.congress.gov/91/statute/STATUTE-84/STATUTE-84-Pg1894.pdf

(accessed March 4, 2023). “The URA establishes the minimum Federal requirements for the acquisition of real

property for Federally-funded programs and projects, and for the relocation of persons who must move from

— 514 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

their homes, businesses, or farms as a direct result of acquisition, rehabilitation, or demolition for a Federally-

funded program or project.” U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD Exchange, “49 CFR

Part 24–URA Regulations,” published February 2005, https://www.hudexchange.info/resource/804/ura-and-

real-property-acquisition-policies-act-49-cfr-part-24/ (accessed March 4, 2023). HUD is one of the 18 federal

departments and agencies that “are subject to the Uniform Act.” U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal

Highway Administration, “Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition for Federal and

Federally Assisted Programs,” Federal Register, Vol. 84, No. 243 (December 18, 2019), pp. 69466–69521, esp. p.

69484, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2019-12-18/pdf/2019-25558.pdf (accessed March 4, 2023).

 H.R. 3219, Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act of 1996, Public Law No. 104-330,

104th Congress, October 26, 1996, https://www.congress.gov/104/plaws/publ330/PLAW-104publ330.pdf

(accessed March 4, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2023 Congressional Justiﬁcations, p. 6-1. The U.S.

Housing Act of 1937 (Wagner–Steagall Act) established the origins of locally chartered housing agencies

that administer federal funding for various rental assistance programs—a quintessentially progressive New

Deal–era policy that expanded the administrative state’s powers to the housing market—with the primary

legislative intent of eradicating slum housing in urban areas, boosting jobs, and providing housing for the

working poor. 42 U.S.C. §§ 1437 et seq., https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42 (accessed March 4, 2023).

A decade later, the Housing Act of 1949 codiﬁed federal standards for housing livability—a rationale that

HUD and federal legislators have continued to use to justify federal intervention in housing—establishing as

a national policy objective the provision of a minimum standard of housing quality for all Americans. This

legislation also statutorily established many of the rural housing programs that are administered at USDA and

expanded programs facilitating the removal of slum housing in urban areas. 42 U.S.C. §§ 1441 et seq., https://

www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42 (accessed March 4, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2023 Congressional Justiﬁcations, pp. 1-2 and 2-2.

 The National Housing Act of 1934 established the FHA and the statutory authority for the secondary market. The

main stated premise was to stimulate jobs and facilitate the housing and construction sector during the Great

Depression. 42 U.S.C. §§ 1701 et seq., https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/12 (accessed March 4, 2023).

 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000d et seq., https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42 (accessed March 4, 2023).

 29 U.S.C. §§ 701 et seq., https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/29 (accessed March 4, 2023).

 HUD’s Departmental Enforcement Center (DEC) is led by a Director. It was established in 1998 as part of

a broader eort to streamline and consolidate functions at HUD and was later merged with the Oce of

General Counsel. The DEC “is comprised of the Oce of the Director, the Compliance Division, the Operations

Division and ﬁve Satellite Oces” and describes its mission as “assuring the highest standards of ethics,

management and accountability in the resolution of HUD's troubled properties.” U.S. Department of Housing

and Urban Development, Departmental Enforcement Center, “Program Oces: Departmental Enforcement

Center,” https://www.hud.gov/program_oces/enforcement (accessed March 4, 2023).

 H.R. 5334, Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, Public Law No. 102-1017, 102nd Congress,

October 28, 1992, Title X, https://www.congress.gov/102/statute/STATUTE-106/STATUTE-106-Pg3672.pdf

(accessed March 4, 2023).

 H.R. 8588, Inspector General Act of 1978, Public Law No. 95-452, 95th Congress, October 12, 1978, https://www.

congress.gov/95/statute/STATUTE-92/STATUTE-92-Pg1101.pdf (accessed March 4, 2023).

 Guiding questions: What immediate administrative reforms of HUD and its programs can be made with

high probability of success? What short-term legislative reforms can be proposed that, in tandem with

administrative reforms, would achieve the HUD vision/mission objective? What HUD oces should be

eliminated and/or realigned to reduce any redundancy that may persist in programmatic functions?

 Wholly aside from reforms that would require legislation, the next Administration must ensure that key

political appointees are able to acquit themselves as change agents to execute administrative reforms.

Otherwise, whether because of a sheer lack of skill and expertise or simply a lack of will and philosophical

alignment with reforms, sta may frustrate the eorts of committed political appointee sta and leadership

to execute substantive administrative reforms. To achieve the policy and regulatory reforms outlined in this

chapter, political appointees must be carefully placed in positions that reﬂect not only technical, market/

industry, and operational expertise, but also a shared will and commitment.

— 515 —

Department of Housing and Urban Development

 Process must prioritize where political leadership can implement administrative reforms through regulatory

action and subregulatory guidance reforms.

 China and other foreign nations should not be able to disrupt our nation’s housing markets, including by

artiﬁcially driving up prices and reducing aordability and access to housing for Americans who are crowded

out of the market by such market participation.

 These initiatives are maintained under such designations as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); critical race

theory (CRT); black, indigenous, Paciﬁc Islander, and other people of color (BIPOC); and environmental, social,

and governance (ESG).

 At a minimum, these eorts duplicate what the federal government already collects and assesses; at worst,

they institute arbitrary procedures in real estate appraisal practices that undermine integrity and perversely

introduce arbitrary biases into what should be an unbiased system for determining ﬁnancial value.

 Revise regulatory and subregulatory guidance, where applicable within statutory authorities, that adds

unnecessary delay and costs to the construction and development of new housing and has been estimated to

account for about 40 percent of new housing unit costs in multifamily housing.

 The Biden Administration has issued a proposed rule to replace the Trump Administration’s “Preserving

Community and Neighborhood Choice” rule that had repealed earlier rules expanding AFFH enforcement.

See U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Oce of Fair Housing, “Preserving Community

and Neighborhood Choice,” Final Rule, Federal Register, Vol. 85, No. 153 (August 7, 2020), pp. 47899–47912,

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-08-07/pdf/2020-16320.pdf (accessed March 5, 2023), and

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Oce of the Secretary, “Armatively Furthering Fair

Housing,” Proposed Rule, Federal Register, Vol. 88, No. 27 (February 9, 2023), pp. 8516–8590, https://www.

govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2015-07-16/pdf/2015-17032.pdf (accessed March 5, 2023).

 Certain pilot initiatives may encourage greater take-up of loan products designed for faster equity

accumulation, including loans with shorter terms and accelerated amortization schedules. In concept, the

FHA’s Home Equity Accelerator Loan (HEAL) and Good Neighbor Next Door (GNND) pilot initiatives might

lead to meaningful wealth generation for ﬁrst-time buyers, but they should be available to all eligible

households only when they do not arbitrarily discriminate based on race or other characteristics.

 Housing supply does remain a problem in the U.S., but constructing more units at the low end of the market

will not solve the problem. Investors and developers can deliver at more ecient cost new units that will allow

for greater upward mobility of rental and ownership housing stock and better target increased construction

of mid-tier rental units. Further, and more fundamental to the housing supply challenge in markets across

the U.S., localities can consider revising land use, zoning, and building regulations that constrict new housing

development, adding time delays and costs that impede construction. Federal housing policy should get out

of the way where possible and minimize the distortive impact that stimulating greater demand through loose

lending can have in driving up housing prices for households that are looking for aordable entry into the

housing market.

 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Oce of the Secretary, “Housing and Community

Development Act of 1980: Veriﬁcation of Eligible Status,” Proposed Rule, Federal Register, Vol. 84, No. 91

(May 10, 2019), pp. 20589–20595, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2019-05-10/pdf/2019-09566.pdf

(accessed March 5, 2023).

 Reforms should contemplate rent payment ﬂexibilities, allow escrow savings, and set maximum term

limits that can reduce implicit penalties for increasing household incomes over eligibility terms for housing

assistance and reweight waiting-list prioritization for two-parent households.

 Some PHAs have been able to implement work requirements and term limit policies in various congressionally

authorized demonstration programs, notably the Moving to Work (MTW) demonstration program established

in 1996 for 39 PHAs (Congress has since authorized another 100 PHAs) in which participating MTW PHAs

were given authority to implement rent reforms, work requirements and other experimental policies in rental

assistance programs along with ﬂexibilities in the use of capital and operating appropriations.

 The FSS program has a general ﬁve-year term with a possible two-year extension, which could be applied

at the term limit for overall beneﬁts, and certain PHAs have imposed ﬁve-year to seven-year term limits.

Families in these programs build escrow savings during their term eligibility that helps to facilitate successful

transitions to family self-suciency and unassisted housing.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 HUD should implement administrative changes in regulation and guidance and seek statutory authority to

end all Housing First directives of Continuum of Care (CoC) grantees and contract homelessness providers in

addition to establishing restrictions on local Housing First policies where HUD grant funds are used.

 The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) was established in the 1990s, and numerous

Administrations have devoted enormous resources to the Housing First model, experimenting with various

ways to provide federally ﬁnanced rapid rehousing and permanent housing opportunities. Housing First is a

far-left idea premised on the belief that homelessness is primarily circumstantial rather than behavioral. The

Housing First answer to homelessness is to give someone a house instead of attempting to understand the

underlying causes of homelessness. Federal intervention centered on Housing First has failed to acknowledge

that resolving the issue of homelessness is often a matter of resolving mental health and substance

abuse challenges. Instead of the permanent supportive housing proered by Housing First, a conservative

Administration should shift to transitional housing with a focus on addressing the underlying issues that

cause homelessness in the ﬁrst place.

 The Senate Low-Income First-Time Homebuyers (LIFT) Act would address this policy goal. See S. 2797,

Low-Income First-Time Homebuyers Act of 2021 (LIFT Homebuyers Act of 2021), 117th Congress, introduced

September 22, 2021, https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/s2797/BILLS-117s2797is.pdf (accessed March 5, 2023).

 FHA did not facilitate the widespread use of 30-year mortgages until the 1950s when, interacting with

Federal Reserve policies, federal agencies began broader adoption of the mortgages, which, despite lowering

the monthly repayment terms, result in slow equity accumulation and wealth-building opportunities.

 The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 fundamentally revised the scope of federal regulation

in the nation’s housing ﬁnance system, placing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under the purview of a newly

established Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and establishing a Housing Trust Fund (HTF) that

is administered in the HUD Oce of Community Planning and Development. See H.R. 3221, Housing and

Economic Recovery Act of 2008, Public Law No. 110-289, 110th Congress, July 30, 2008, https://www.congress.

gov/110/plaws/publ289/PLAW-110publ289.pdf (accessed March 5, 2023).

 Guiding questions: What reforms should be proposed that could be accomplished within ﬁve years? What

reforms can be done administratively, and what reforms would need legislative authorization? Are there

functions that HUD administers that could be achieved more eectively at another department or agency?

What big-picture reforms should be proposed that might take more than ﬁve years that would reorganize

HUD and its programs to meet the objectives in the vision or mission? What would occur in the absence

of these public ﬁnance subsidies? How much crowd-out do these subsidies create in the market? Would

America be a seriously underhoused nation without these subsidies? Who are the policies intended to

beneﬁt? What organizational changes must be made?

 The Faircloth Amendment (Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998) amended the Housing

Act of 1937 to maintain public housing units at 1999 levels, preventing housing authorities from maintaining

more public housing than they did then. H.R. 4194, Departments of Veterans Aairs and Housing and Urban

Development, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, 1999, Public Law No. 105-276, 105th Congress,

October 21, 1998, Title V, https://www.congress.gov/105/plaws/publ276/PLAW-105publ276.pdf (accessed

March 5, 2023). In recent years, the statutory restriction on new construction of public housing units has

been circumvented through some narrow uses of preservation programs such as the Rental Assistance

Demonstration (RAD) program, initially authorized in 2012 and reauthorized several times since under higher

program unit conversion caps. Congress also provided paths for renewal and continuation of a portion

of existing public housing; project/site-based housing stock (reﬁnancing with long-term HAP contract

commitments); and Section 8 units through the Multifamily Assisted Housing Reform and Aordability Act

of 1997 (MAHRA). H.R. 2158, Departments of Veterans Aairs and Housing and Urban Development, and

Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, 1998, Public Law No. 105-65, 105th Congress, October 27, 1997,

Title V, https://www.congress.gov/105/plaws/publ65/PLAW-105publ65.pdf (accessed March 5, 2023).

 As the evolution of HUD rental assistance transitions away from the public housing model toward housing

choice vouchers, there should be adequate landlord participation to ensure that the supply of housing units

for rent in these programs meets the demand for rent among eligible tenants. This issue has been addressed

in various ways, including by a task force instituted at the department during the Trump Administration, but

could likely remain a challenge in the administration of the program.

— 517 —

DEPARTMENT OF

THE INTERIOR

William Perry Pendley

he U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) oversees, manages, and protects

the nation’s natural resources and cultural heritage; provides scientiﬁc

and other information about those resources; and honors the nation’s trust

responsibilities or special commitments to American Indians, Alaska Natives, and

aliated island communities.

AGENCY OVERVIEW

DOI’s purview encompasses more than 500 million acres of federal lands,

including national parks and national wildlife refuges; 700 million acres of sub-

surface minerals; 1.7 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS); 23 percent

of the nation’s energy; water in 17 western states; and trust responsibilities for 566

Indian tribes and Alaska Natives. DOI’s 2024 budget request totals $18.9 billion, an

increase of $2 billion, or 12 percent, more than the 2023 enacted level. The budget

also provides an estimated $12.6 billion in permanent funding in 2024. In 2024,

DOI will generate receipts of $19.6 billion.

A “Home Department” had been considered in 1789 and urged by Presidents

over the decades until DOI’s creation in 1849. The variety of its early responsibil-

ities—the Indian Bureau, the General Land Oce, the Bureau of Pensions, and

the Patent Oce, among others—earned it various nicknames, including “Great

Miscellany,” “hydra-headed monster,” and “Mother of Departments.”

Its mission

became more focused on natural resources with the rise of the conservation move-

ment in the early 20th century; however, it kept its historic (since the days of the

Founding Fathers) role as overseer of vast working landscapes involving grazing,

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

logging, mining, oil, and gas and, with the Bureau of Reclamation in 1902, as the

nation’s dam builder. Today, DOI has 70,000 employees in approximately 2,400

locations with oces across the United States, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Territories

and Freely Associated States.

Historically, DOI operated in a bipartisan manner consistent with the laws

enacted by Congress pursuant to its powers under the Property Clause.

Thus,

DOI fulﬁlled its statutory responsibilities in a manner that ensured the ability of

western states, counties, and communities to be sustained by both economic and

recreational activities on neighboring federal lands, especially given that in some

rural western counties, federal lands constituted 50, 60, 70, 80—even 90 percent

of the county’s landmass.

That ended with the Administration of President Jimmy Carter, who, beholden

to environmental groups that supported his election, adopted DOI policies consis-

tent with their demands, much to the horror of western governors, most of whom

were Democrats. President Ronald Reagan campaigned against this “War on the

West,” declared himself a “Sagebrush Rebel,” and, on taking oce,

quelled the

rebellion by reversing Carter Administration policies. President George H. W.

Bush distanced himself from Reagan’s western policies, committed to a “kinder

and gentler America,” and proclaimed his desire to be “the environmental Pres-

ident,” which resulted in changes at the his Administration’s DOI—again, much

to the dismay of westerners.

President Bill Clinton resumed Carter’s “War on

the West,” epitomized by his DOI’s deploying of wolves into the states bordering

Yellowstone National Park; the decreed death of a world-class mine in Montana;

and the designation of a vast national monument in Utah over the objections of

Utah leaders—but with the support of the Hollywood elite.

Although Texas Governor George W. Bush and former Wyoming Representative

Dick Cheney (R–WY) campaigned in 2000 against Clinton’s worst outrages, includ-

ing the Utah monument, there was no signiﬁcant ratcheting back of DOI policies

that were either objected to by westerners or contrary to the express provisions of

federal statutes. President Barack Obama’s DOI resumed the anti-economic fed-

eral lands policies activated by Carter and ampliﬁed by Clinton; however, Obama’s

DOI’s antipathy to oil and gas activity on federal lands as mandated by Congress

could not have come at a worse time.

After the demonstrated success of fracking on Bureau of Land Management

(BLM) acreage in Wyoming in 1993, the fracking revolution soon swept the nation,

yielding massive discoveries on state and private land from coast to coast, but not,

thanks to Obama, on western federal lands.

President Donald Trump, on the other

hand, immediately ordered his DOI to comply with federal law, conduct congressio-

nally mandated lease sales, and seek to achieve energy dominance or independence.

Thanks in part to the success of oil and gas operations on federal land in the West,

the United States achieved energy security for the ﬁrst time since 1957 in 2019.

— 519 —

Department of the Interior

President Joe Biden’s DOI, as is well documented, abandoned all pretense of

complying with federal law regarding federally owned oil and gas resources. Not

since the Administration of President Harry S. Truman—prior to creation of the

OCS oil and gas program—have fewer federal leases been issued.

At DOI, not since the Reagan Administration was the radical environmen-

tal agenda (ﬁrst implemented by Carter, resumed by Clinton, and revitalized

by Obama) rolled back as substantially as it was by President Trump. Trump’s

DOI change aected not only oil and gas leasing, as noted above, but all statutory

responsibilities of its various agencies, bureaus, and oces. Thus, whether the

statutory mandate was to promote economic activity, to ensure and expand rec-

reational opportunities, or to protect valuable natural resources, including, for

example, parks, wilderness areas, national monuments, and wild and scenic areas,

eorts were expended, barriers were removed, and career employees were aided

in the accomplishment of those missions.

Unfortunately, Biden’s DOI is at war with the department’s mission, not only

when it comes to DOI’s obligation to develop the vast oil and gas and coal resources

for which it is responsible, but also as to its statutory mandate, for example, to

manage much of federal land overseen by the BLM pursuant to “multiple use” and

“sustained yield” principles.

Instead, Biden’s DOI believes most BLM land should

be placed o-limits to all economic and most recreational uses. Worse yet, Biden’s

DOI not only refuses to adhere to the statutes enacted by Congress as to how the

lands under its jurisdiction are managed, but it also insists on implementing a vast

regulatory regime (for which Congress has not granted authority) and overturning,

by unilateral regulatory action, congressional acts that set forth the productive

economic uses permitted on DOI-managed federal land.

BUDGET STRUCTURE

At $18.9 billion, DOI’s 2024 proposed budget is small relative to many other

federal agencies. On the other side of the ledger, the DOI forecasts it will generate

more than $19.6 billion in “osetting receipts” from oil and gas royalties, timber

and grazing fees, park user fees, and land sales, among other sources. Most of the

proposed allocations are divided among nine bureaus.

Bureau of Indian Aairs. Fulﬁlls Indian trust responsibilities on behalf of

566 Indian tribes; supports natural resource education, law enforcement, and

social service programs delivered by tribes; operates 182 elementary and secondary

schools and dormitories and 29 tribally controlled community colleges, universi-

ties, and post-secondary schools.

Bureau of Land Management. Manages and conserves resources for 245

million acres of public land and 700 million acres of subsurface federal mineral

estate, including energy and mineral development, forest management, timber

and biomass production, and wild horse and burro management.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Manages access to renewable and

conventional energy resources of the Outer Continental Shelf, including more than

6,400 ﬂuid mineral leases on approximately 35 million OCS acres; issues leases

for 24 percent of domestic crude oil and 8 percent of domestic natural gas supply;

oversees lease and grant issuance for oshore renewable energy projects.

Bureau of Reclamation. Manages, develops, and protects water and related

resources, including 476 dams and 337 reservoirs; delivers water to one in every

ﬁve western farmers and more than 31 million people; is America’s second-largest

producer of hydroelectric power.

Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. Regulates oshore oil

and gas facilities on 1.7 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf; oversees oil

spill response; supports research on technology for oil spill response.

National Park Service. Maintains and manages 401 natural, cultural, and

recreational sites, 26,000 historic structures, and more than 44 million acres of

wilderness; provides outdoor recreation; provides technical assistance and support

to state and local programs.

Oce of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. Regulates coal

mining and site reclamation; provides grants to states and tribes for mining over-

sight; mitigates the eects of past mining.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Manages the 150-million-acre National Wild-

life Refuge System; manages 70 ﬁsh hatcheries and other related facilities for

endangered species recovery; protects migratory birds and some marine mammals.

U.S. Geological Survey. Conducts scientiﬁc research in ecosystems, climate,

and land-use change, mineral assessments, environmental health, and water

resources; produces information about natural hazards (earthquakes, volcanoes,

and landslides); leads climate change research for the department.

RESTORING AMERICAN ENERGY DOMINANCE

Given the dire adverse national impact of Biden’s war on fossil fuels, no other

initiative is as important for the DOI under a conservative President than the

restoration of the department’s historic role managing the nation’s vast store-

house of hydrocarbons, much of which is yet to be discovered. The U.S. depends

on reliable and cheap energy resources to ensure the economic well-being of its

citizens, the vitality of its economy, and its geopolitical standing in an uncertain

and dangerous world. Not only are valuable natural resources owned generally

by the American people involved, so too are those owned separately by American

Indian tribes and individual American Indians, both of which have been injured

by Biden’s illegal actions.

The federal government owns 61 percent of the onshore and oshore min-

eral estate of the U.S., but only 22 percent of the nation’s oil and 12 percent of U.S.

natural gas comes from those federal lands and waters—and even that amount is

— 521 —

Department of the Interior

declining. Additionally, 42 percent of coal production takes place on federal lands

in 11 states.

DOI manages a subsurface mineral estate of 700 million acres onshore

and 1.76 billion acres oshore, for a total of 2.46 billion acres.

The total land area of the U.S. is 2.263 billion acres. Private and state lands,

at 1.563 billion acres, make up only 39 percent of the total onshore and oshore

subsurface area of the United States. Oil, natural gas, coal, and other minerals on

federal lands and waters are managed by the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau

of Ocean Energy Management, and Oce of Surface Mining Reclamation and

Enforcement; these agencies’ responsibilities frequently overlap with resource

management by the U.S. Forest Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, state

governments, and private property owners.

Biden is “aligning the management of…public lands and waters…to support

robust climate action,” as envisioned in Executive Orders 14008 and 13990.

One of

his ﬁrst actions was to ban federal coal, oil, and natural gas leasing on federal lands

and waters to fulﬁll his campaign promise of “no federal oil,” followed by actions

from Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to rescind the Trump Administration’s

Energy Dominance Agenda. To this end, DOI unilaterally overhauled resource

management plans, lease sales, fees, rents, royalty rates, bonding requirements,

and permitting processes to prevent new production of coal, oil, and natural gas

on federal lands and waters; to dramatically increase production of solar and wind

energy; and to accomplish its “30 by 30,” “America the Beautiful” agenda to remove

federal lands from “multiple”—that is, productive—use.

DOI is abusing National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)

processes, the

Antiquities Act,

and bureaucratic procedures to advance a radical climate agenda,

ostensibly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, for which DOI has no statutory

responsibility or authority.

The Federal Land Policy and Management Act

(FLPMA), Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OSCLA), General Mining Law,

and other congressional acts clearly set forth multiple-use principles and processes

that include production of coal, oil, natural gas, and other minerals, as legitimate

activities consistent with the welfare of all Americans and of environmental

stewardship.

Biden’s DOI is hoarding supplies of energy and keeping them from Americans

whose lives could be improved with cheaper and more abundant energy while

making the economy stronger and providing job opportunities for Americans.

DOI is a bad manager of the public trust and has operated lawlessly in deﬁance of

congressional statute and federal court orders.

ADMINISTRATION PRIORITIES

Rollbacks. A new Administration must immediately roll back Biden’s orders,

reinstate the Trump-era Energy Dominance Agenda, rescind Secretarial Order

(SO) 3398, and review all regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

similar agency actions made in compliance with that order.

Meanwhile, the

new Administration must immediately reinstate the following Trump DOI sec-

retarial orders:

SO 3348: Concerning the Federal Coal Moratorium;

SO 3349: American Energy Independence;

SO 3350: America-First Oshore Energy Strategy;

SO 3351: Strengthening the Department of the Interior’s Energy Portfolio;

SO 3352: National Petroleum Reserve—Alaska;

SO 3354: Supporting and Improving the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas

Leasing Program and Federal Solid Mineral Leasing Program;

SO 3355: Streamlining National Environmental Policy Reviews and

Implementation of Executive Order 13807, “Establishing Discipline and

Accountability in the Environmental Review and Permitting Process for

Infrastructure Projects”;

SO 3358: Executive Committee for Expedited Permitting;

SO 3360: Rescinding Authorities Inconsistent with Secretary’s Order 3349,

“American Energy Independence;”

SO 3380: Public Notice of the Costs Associated with Developing Department

of the Interior Publications and Similar Documents;

SO 3385: Enforcement Priorities;

and

SO 3389: Coordinating and Clarifying National Historic Preservation Act

Section 106 Reviews.

Actions. At the same time, the new Administration must:

Reinstate quarterly onshore lease sales in all producing states according to

the model of BLM’s IM 2018–034, with the slight adjustment of including

expanded public notice and comment.

The new Administration should

work with Congress on legislation, such as the Lease Now Act

and

— 523 —

Department of the Interior

ONSHORE Act,

to increase state participation and federal accountability

for energy production on the federal estate.

Conduct oshore oil and natural gas lease sales to the maximum extent

permitted under the 2023–2028 lease program,

with the possibility to

move forward under a previously studied but unselected plan alternative.

Develop immediately and ﬁnalize a new ﬁve-year plan, while working with

Congress to reform the OCSLA by eliminating ﬁve-year plans in favor of

rolling or quarterly lease sales.

Review all resource management plans ﬁnalized in the previous four years

and, when necessary, select studied alternatives to restore the multi-use

concept enshrined in FLPMA and to eliminate management decisions that

advance the 30 by 30 agenda.

Set rents, royalty rates, and bonding requirements to no higher than what is

required under the Inﬂation Reduction Act.

Comply with the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act

(ANILCA) and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 to establish a competitive

leasing and development program in the Coastal Plain, an area of Alaska

that was set aside by Congress speciﬁcally for future oil and gas exploration

and development. It is often referred to as the “Section 1002 Area” after

the section of ANILCA that excludes the area from Arctic National Wildlife

Refuge’s wilderness designation.

Conclude the programmatic review of the coal leasing program, and work

with the congressional delegations and governors of Wyoming and Montana

to restart the program immediately.

Abandon withdrawals of lands from leasing in the Thompson Divide of the

White River National Forest, Colorado; the 10-mile buer around Chaco

Cultural Historic National Park in New Mexico (restoring the compromise

forged in the Arizona Wilderness Act

); and the Boundary Waters area

in northern Minnesota if those withdrawals have not been completed.

Meanwhile, revisit associated leases and permits for energy and mineral

production in these areas in consultation with state elected ocials.

Require regional oces to complete right-of-way and drilling permits

within the average time it takes states in the region to complete them.

— 524 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Rulemaking. The following policy reversals require rulemaking:

Rescind the Biden rules and reinstate the Trump rules regarding:

1. BLM waste prevention;

2. The Endangered Species Act rules deﬁning Critical Habitat and Critical

Habitat Exclusions;

3. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act;

and

4. CEQ reforms to NEPA.

Reinstate President Trump’s plan for opening most of the National

Petroleum Reserve of Alaska to leasing and development.

Personnel Changes. The new Administration should be able to draw on the

enormous expertise of state agency personnel throughout the country who are

capable and knowledgeable about land management and prove it daily. States are

better resource managers than the federal government because they must live with

the results. President Trump’s Schedule F proposal

regarding accountability in

hiring must be reinstituted to bring success to these reforms. Consistent with the

theme of bringing successful state resource management examples to the forefront

of federal policy, DOI should also look for opportunities to broaden state–federal

and tribal–federal cooperative agreements.

IMMEDIATE ACTIONS

BLM Headquarters. BLM headquarters belongs in the American West. After

all, the overwhelming majority of the 245 million surface acres (10 percent of the

nation’s landmass) managed by the agency lies in the 11 western states and Alaska:

A mere 50,000 surface acres lie elsewhere. Moreover, 97 percent of BLM employees

are located in the American West.

Thus, the Trump Administration’s decision to relocate BLM headquarters from

Washington, D.C., to the West was the epitome of good governance: That is, it was

not only well-informed, but it was also implemented eciently, eectively, and

with an eye toward aected career civil servants. Plus, despite overblown chatter

from the inside-the-Beltway media, Congress, with bipartisan support, approved

funding the move.

Meanwhile, state, tribal, and local ocials, the diverse collection of stakehold-

ers who use public lands and western neighbors became accustomed to having

top BLM decision-makers in Grand Junction, Colorado, rather than up to four

— 525 —

Department of the Interior

time zones away. All of them also appreciated that the BLM’s top subject matter

experts were located not in the District of Columbia, but in the western states

that most need their knowledge and expertise. Westerners no longer had to travel

cross country to address BLM issues. Neither did ocials in the West, closest to

the resources and people they manage.

On July 16, 2019, Secretary of the Interior David L. Bernhardt delivered to Con-

gress the proposal for the relocation of nearly 600 BLM headquarters employees.

On August 10, 2020, Secretary Bernhardt formally established the Robert F. Burford

headquarters—named after the longest-serving BLM director, a Grand Junction

native—with a sta of 41 senior ocials and assistants. Another 76 positions were

assigned to BLM state oces in western communities such as Billings, Montana;

Boise, Idaho; Reno, Nevada; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Cheyenne, Wyoming, to meet

critical needs. Scores of other positions were assigned to the states that required

BLM expertise. For example, wild horse and burro professionals were relocated

to Nevada, home to nearly 60 percent of these western icons. Sixty-one positions

were retained in Washington, D.C., to address public, congressional, and regulatory

aairs, Freedom of Information Act compliance, and budget development.

Despite the dislocating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the BLM success-

fully ﬁlled hundreds of long-vacant positions, as well as those that opened because

of the move West. The BLM saw notable numbers of applicants for these positions—

so numerous that the BLM capped the number of eligible applicants to no more

than 50. Obviously, reduced commuting times (often from hours to mere minutes),

lower cost of living, and opportunity to access vast public lands for recreation made

these jobs attractive to potential employees. Many, if not most, applicants stated

they would not have applied had the positions been based in Washington, D.C. At

the same time, western positions attracted those with the skills needed to meet

the BLM’s multiple-use, sustained-yield mandate, disproving the claim that the

BLM was suering a “brain drain.”

The Trump Administration recognized that, despite its attractions, not every-

one employed by BLM in Washington, D.C., could move West. The Administration

applied a hands-on approach, with all-employee brieﬁng and question-and-answer

sessions, regular email communications, and a website devoted to frequently asked

questions. Two human resources teams aided employees wishing to remain in

federal jobs in the D.C. area: All received new opportunities.

The BLM’s move West incurred no legal challenges, no formal Equal Employ-

ment Opportunity or U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board complaints, and no

adverse union activity. It is hard to please everyone, but the Trump Administra-

tion’s BLM did just that, putting the lie to assertions, by some, that the BLM was

trying to “ﬁre” federal employees.

The total cost of $17.9 million for relocation incentives, permanent change-of-

station moves, temporary labor, travel, printing, rent, supplies, equipment, and

— 526 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

other contracts will save money for the American people. For example, in ﬁscal

2020, the BLM estimated $1.6 million in travel costs savings, which will grow

slightly over time, and $1.9 million in savings from its terminated lease in Wash-

ington, D.C. Furthermore, BLM estimated that, by October 2022, the BLM move

West would generate a net savings of $3.5 million, which, the following ﬁscal year,

would increase to $10.3 million.

Those funds can be devoted to reducing the risk of wildﬁres, increasing recre-

ational opportunities, conserving public lands, and addressing tough issues such

as wild horses and burros. Moreover, those funds will be used more wisely thanks

to the eciency of senior, seasoned managers working closely with BLM ﬁeld

employees in near daily contact with western ocials, stakeholders, and neighbors.

In late 2022, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced the return of

headquarters and scores of highly paid, senior employees to Washington, D.C. Sub-

sequently, BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning revealed 56 BLM jobs in BLM’s

“Western Headquarters” and 70 other BLM jobs will remain in Grand Junction,

an increase of 15 from the 41 announced by Trump’s BLM in 2019, and an increase

of 40 other jobs above the 16 ﬁrst announced by Biden ocials. Thus, the director,

the two deputy directors, six of seven assistant directors (ADs) and their stas are

now or soon will be in Washington.

The Biden Administration failed to recognize the wisdom of having BLM’s lead-

ership, including its director, deputy directors, and ADs in the West. That is why,

decades ago, the AD and sta in charge of BLM’s ﬁreﬁghters were relocated to Boise,

Idaho, where they remain. Not so the head of BLM law enforcement and security,

who supervises over 200 uniformed law enforcement rangers and 76 special agents

stationed mainly in 11 western states and Alaska. Haaland moved that ocial to

Washington, far from state troopers, county sheris and deputies, and city police

with whom BLM law enforcement ocers keep the peace in the West’s wide-open

spaces. BLM’s “top cop” might as well be on the moon.

The AD in charge of oil, gas, and minerals was also moved to Washington, D.C.,

notwithstanding that most oil, gas, and minerals are in the West and Alaska; New

Mexico’s Permian Basin, for example, is second only to Alaska in petroleum poten-

tial, and Montana and Wyoming’s Powder River Basin contains the world’s best

low-sulfur coal. The AD responsible for wild horses and burros was moved east as

well, despite the fact that the uncontrolled growth of wild horses and burros poses

an existential threat to public lands; 60 percent of the nation’s wild horses are in

Nevada,

but thousands are in nine other western states. There is no way these

and other ADs can professionally manage issues thousands of miles and multiple

time zones away.

It is not just eective and responsive management that has been lost; Colorado

lost its chance to become a must-visit destination for BLM’s stakeholders. Those

seeking to develop world-class mineral deposits in Minnesota or another Prudhoe

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Department of the Interior

Bay in Alaska; to expand recreation across BLM’s vast, diverse, and unique land-

scapes; or to manage timber and rangelands to prevent wildﬁres, would all journey

to Grand Junction. Convention opportunities on Colorado’s western slope would

abound for BLM’s disparate constituencies to congregate and meet with BLM

leadership. The Western States Sheris’ Association, for example, whose annual

gathering attracts hundreds of law enforcement ocers from 17 western and plains

states might have moved its event to Grand Junction.

Law Enforcement Ocers. In 2002, at the direction of the Secretary of the

Interior in the days following the 9/11 attack, the Inspector General (IG) for DOI

made a series of department-wide recommendations regarding law enforcement.

Then-Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton ordered adoption of those recom-

mendations, which drew strong bipartisan support from Congress. Over the years,

most were implemented. One, however, remained undone: placing all BLM law

enforcement ocers (LEOs), that is, its 212 Law Enforcement Rangers and 76

Special Agents, in an exclusively law enforcement chain of command.

This was not just the IG’s recommendation in 2002, but that of every IG who fol-

lowed. It is also the strong recommendation of the department’s top LEO. Moreover,

it has been the urgent recommendation of law enforcement professionals across

the country, especially in the West, for decades, including the Western States Sher-

is Association. Unfortunately, over time, BLM leadership stonewalled, adhering

to a haphazard system in which LEOs reported to non-LEO superiors, including

not only state directors, but also district and ﬁeld managers with expertise in other

ﬁelds—range management or petroleum engineering, for example—with only 24

hours of law enforcement study. Obviously, those managers lack a comprehensive

understanding of law enforcement issues—constitutional, legal, and tactical. In

addition, they do not uniformly apply or enforce rules of conduct or ethical stan-

dards for LEOs and special agents, leading to weakened esprit de corps and morale.

Worse yet, because of their duties as managers of the multiple-use lands under

their jurisdiction, they are exposed to conﬂicts of interests and may intentionally

or unintentionally prevent LEOs from investigating violations or applying the law.

In the ﬁnal days of the Trump Administration, Secretary David L. Bernhardt

ordered, and Deputy Director William Perry Pendley implemented, the IG’s recom-

mendation. Of course, leadership heads exploded; they were furious with their loss

of authority, not to mention subordinates and budgets. Unfortunately, in the ﬁrst

days of the Biden Administration, BLM Deputy Director Mike Nedd suspended

Pendley’s order.

Nonetheless, LEOs, the BLM, and westerners want LEOs—who make life-and-

death decisions—to be as well-trained and well-equipped as possible. They should

report to a professional, expert, and knowledgeable chain of command. After all,

they protect visitors to BLM lands and the natural and cultural resources of those

lands, as well as the employees who manage those lands.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

BLM’s LEOs must keep in touch, work closely, and coordinate with fellow fed-

eral, state, and local law enforcement ocers. In the Trump Administration, they

joined state and local law enforcement in arresting dangerous suspects in Cortez,

Colorado; responded to a request from a rural sheri in Arizona to rescue a family

stuck in freezing temperatures; and, teamed up in an all-hands-on-deck eort to

locate a missing American Indian teenager in rural Montana. More important,

western LEOs need the assurance that the BLM LEOs with whom they work are

professionals who report through a professional chain of command.

Wild Horses and Burros. In 1971, Congress ordered the BLM to manage wild

horses and burros to ensure their iconic presence never disappeared from the

western landscape. For decades, Congress watched as these herds overwhelmed

the land’s ability to sustain them, crowded out indigenous plant and other animal

species, threatened the survival of species listed under the Endangered Species

Act, invaded private and permitted public land, disturbed private property rights,

and turned the sod into concrete. BLM experts said in 2019 that some aected land

will never recover from this unmitigated damage.

There are 95,000 wild horses and burros roaming nearly 32 million acres in the

West—triple what scientists and land management experts say the range can sup-

port. These animals face starvation and death from lack of forage and water. The

population has more than doubled in just the past 10 years and continues to grow

at a rate of 10 to 15 percent annually. This number includes the more than 47,000

animals the BLM has already gathered from public lands, at a cost to the American

taxpayer of nearly $50 million annually to care for them in o-range corrals.

This is not a new issue—it is not just a western issue—it is an American issue.

What is happening to these once-proud beasts of burden is neither compassionate

nor humane, and what these animals are doing to federal lands and fragile ecosys-

tems is unacceptable. In 2019, the American Association of Equine Practitioners

and the American Veterinary Medication Association—two of the largest organi-

zations of professional veterinarians in the world—issued a joint policy calling for

further reducing overpopulation to protect the health and well-being of wild horses

and burros on public lands. The National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board,

a panel of nine experts and professionals convened to advise the BLM, endorsed

the joint policy. Furthermore, animal welfare organizations such as the American

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Humane Society of the

United States recognize that the prosperity of wild horses and burros on public

lands is threatened if herds continue to grow unabated.

The BLM’s multi-pronged approach in its 2020 Report to Congress

included

expanded adoptions and sales of horses gathered from overpopulated herds;

increased gathers and increased capacity for o-range holding facilities and pas-

tures; more eective use of fertility control eorts; and improved research, in

concert with the academic and veterinary communities, to identify more eective

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Department of the Interior

contraceptive techniques and strategies. All of that will not be enough to solve

the problem, however. Congress must enact laws permitting the BLM to dispose

humanely of these animals.

IMMEDIATE ACTIONS REGARDING ALASKA

Alaska is a special case and deserves immediate action.

When Alaska was

admitted to the Union in 1959, nearly its entire landmass was federally owned;

therefore, Alaska was granted the right to select 104 million acres (out of 375

million acres) to manage for the beneﬁt of its residents.

In less than eight years,

Alaska selected 26 million acres. Then-Interior Secretary Stewart Udall—who

served during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations—put a freeze on further

land selections to protect any claims that might be asserted by Native Alaskans.

Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay in

1968 made resolution of the issue by Congress a matter of urgency. As a result, in

1971, Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), which

allowed the Native community to select 44 million acres.

Environmentalists, upset that too much of the land they coveted would be selected

by the state and Native Alaskans for development, demanded the inclusion in the act

of a provision—Section 17(d)(2)—that ordered the Interior Secretary to withdraw 80

million acres for future designation by Congress as parks, refuges, wild and scenic

rivers, and national forests.

The deadline for this congressional action was 1978,

and as it neared, the Carter Administration, impatient and worried, decided to force

Congress’s hand. The Administration unilaterally withdrew 100 million acres from

any use by the state or Native Alaskans.

Alaska promptly sued, charging that the

Administration had failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act.

In a lame duck session at the end of 1980, Congress passed (over the objec-

tions of the Alaskan delegation) the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation

Act, which revoked all of the withdrawals of the Carter Administration and sub-

stituted congressional designations that put 100 million acres permanently in

federal enclaves, doubled the acreage of national parks and refuges, and tripled the

amount of land declared to be wilderness.

Through all of this, Alaska pressed for

the DOI to convey the lands to which Alaska was entitled by federal law, but the

department grudgingly transferred only portions of that land.

By the time Ronald Reagan took oce, Alaska had received less than half the

lands to which it was entitled after its admission into the Union, and Native Alas-

kans had received only one-third of the land due to them.

From January of 1981

through 1983, however, under Reagan, Alaska received 30 million acres and a com-

mitment of land transfers at the rate of 13 million acres annually. In the same

period, Native Alaskans received 11 million acres, which constituted nearly 60

percent of their entitlement, and an additional 15 million acres were transferred

by the end of 1988.

— 530 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Despite the passage of nearly 40 years since the end of the Reagan Adminis-

tration, the federal government has yet to fulﬁll its statutory obligation to Alaska

and Alaska Natives—speciﬁcally, each group has 5 million acres of entitlement

remaining. Standing in the way are Public Land Orders (PLOs) issued by the BLM

seizing that land for the agency. Those PLOs must be lifted to permit Alaska and

Alaska Natives to select what was promised by Congress.

For example, revocation of PLO 5150

will provide the state of Alaska 1.3 million

acres of its remaining state entitlement. This revocation should be a top priority.

BLM recommended this revocation in the 2006 report to Congress based on the

Alaska Land Transfer Acceleration Act, and the Interior Secretary has authority

to revoke based on the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act under section d(1).

All other remaining BLM PLOs—all of which are more than 50 years old—should

be revoked immediately.

Alaska has untapped potential for increased oil production, which is important

not just to the revitalization of the nation’s energy sector but is vital to the Alaskan

economy. One-quarter of Alaska’s jobs are in the oil industry, and half of its overall

economy depends on that industry. Without oil production, the Alaskan economy

would be half its size.

A new Administration must take the following actions immediately:

Approve the 2020 National Petroleum Reserve Alaska Integrated Activity

Plan (NPRA-IAP) by resigning the Record of Decision. (Secretary Haaland’s

order reverted to the 2013 IAP, the science for which is out of date, unlike

the 2020 IAP.)

Reinstate the 2020 Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Environmental Impact

Statement (EIS) by secretarial order and lift the suspension of the leases.

Approve the 2020 Willow EIS, the largest pending oil and gas projection in

the United States in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, and expand

approval from three to ﬁve drilling pads.

Minerals. Alaska is not just blessed with an abundance of oil, it has vast

untapped mineral potential. Therefore, the new Administration must immedi-

ately approve the Ambler Road Project

across BLM-managed lands, pursuant

to the Secretary’s authority under the ANILCA and based on the Final Envi-

ronmental Impact Statement on the project.

This will permit construction of

a new 211-mile roadway on the south side of the Brooks Range, west from the

Dalton Highway to the south bank of the Ambler River, and open the area only

to mining-related industrial uses, providing high-paying jobs in an area known

for unemployment.

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Department of the Interior

Wildlife and Waters. Throughout Alaska’s history, the federal government

has treated Alaska as less than a sovereign state. This is especially the case when

it comes to two of Alaska’s most valued resources, its wildlife and its waters.

Immediate action is required to end, at least in part, this injustice. A new Admin-

istration should:

Revoke National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rules

regarding predator control and bear baiting, which are matters for state

regulation. Such revocation is permitted under the 2017 Congressional

Review Act.

Recognize Alaska’s authority to manage ﬁsh and game on all federal lands

in accordance with ANILCA as during the Reagan Administration, when

each DOI agency in Alaska signed a Memorandum of Understanding with

the Alaska Department of Fish and Game ceding to the state the lead on ﬁsh

and wildlife management matters.

Issue a secretarial order declaring navigable waters in Alaska to be owned

by the state so that the lands beneath these waters belong to Alaska. This

will force the BLM to prove that water is not navigable, since in the case of

non-navigability, any submerged lands belong to the BLM. Currently, BLM

requires Alaska to prove navigability at its own expense—including the

BLM’s preposterous assertion that the mighty Yukon River is non-navigable.

Reinstate President Trump’s 2020 Alaska Roadless Rule

for the Tongass

National Forest in Alaska, which was replaced by a Biden Roadless Rule

that continues a 2001 Clinton rule aecting 9.37 million of the forest’s 16.7

million acres.

The Clinton rule aects an area where communities are in

small islands with no road access. It has prevented multiple infrastructure

projects, including roads, electric transmission lines, and water and sewer

projects, and it forces residents to use a heavily subsidized ferry system.

Logging has been shut down to the extent that New York harvests more

timber than does all of Alaska.

OTHER ACTIONS

The 30 by 30 Plan.

President Biden’s Executive Order 14008 (30 by 30

plan)

requires that the federal government, which already owns one-third of

the country: (1) remove vast amounts of private property from productive use;

and (2) end congressionally mandated uses of all federal land. The end result

will be “total federal control of an additional 440 million acres of land or oceans

in the U.S. by 2030.”

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Although the new President should vacate that order, DOI under a conservative

President must take immediate action on the 30 by 30 plan by vacating a secre-

tarial order issued by the Biden DOI

that eliminated the Trump Administration’s

requirement for the approval of state and local governments before federal acquisi-

tion of private property with monies from the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

National Monument Designations. As has every Democratic President before

him beginning with Jimmy Carter, Joe Biden has abused his authority under the

Antiquities Act of 1906. Like the outrageous, unilateral withdrawals from public use

of multiple use federal land under the Carter, Clinton, and Obama Administrations,

Biden’s ﬁrst national monument was one in Colorado—adopted over the objections

of scores of local groups and at least one American Indian tribe.

In the days before

the 2024 election, Biden will likely designate more western monuments.

Although President Trump courageously ordered a review of national mon-

ument designations, the result of that review was insucient in that only two

national monuments in one state (Utah) were adjusted.

Monuments in Maine

and Oregon, for example, should have been adjusted downward given the ﬁnding

of Secretary Ryan Zinke’s review that they were improperly designated. The new

Administration’s review will permit a fresh look at past monument decrees and

new ones by President Biden.

Furthermore, the new Administration must vigorously defend the downward

adjustments it makes to permit a ruling on a President’s authority to reduce the

size of national monuments by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Finally, the new Administration must seek repeal of the Antiquities Act of 1906,

which permitted emergency action by a President long before the statutory author-

ity existed for the protection of special federal lands, such as those with wild and

scenic rivers, endangered specials, or other unique places. Moreover, in recent

years, Congress has designated as national monuments those areas deserving of

such congressional action.

Oregon and California Lands Act. One national monument worthy of down-

ward adjustment is in Oregon, where its designation and subsequent expansion

interfere with the federal obligation to residents to harvest timber on its BLM

lands. A federal district court ruled in 2019 that land subject to the Oregon and

California (O&C) Grant Lands Act of 1937

was set aside by Congress to be har-

vested for the beneﬁt of the people of Oregon. Speciﬁcally, those federal lands are

to be “managed…for permanent forest production” and its timber “sold, cut, and

removed in conformity with the princip[le] of sustained yield.”

As the district court concluded,

beginning in 1990, the federal government

erected a trifecta of illegal barriers to the accomplishment of the congressional

mandate, beginning with a response to the listing of the northern spotted owl,

continuing a decade later with the designation of the Cascade–Siskiyou National

Monument,

and concluding in 2017 with an expansion of that monument.

— 533 —

Department of the Interior

order to fulﬁll the yet-unaltered congressional mandate contained in federal law,

to provide for jobs and well-paying employment opportunities in rural Oregon,

and to ameliorate the eects of wildﬁres, the new Administration must immedi-

ately fulﬁll its responsibilities and manage the O&C lands for “permanent forest

production” to ensure that the timber is “sold, cut, and removed.”

NEPA Reforms. Congress never intended for the National Environmental

Policy Act to grow into the tree-killing, project-dooming, decade-spanning mon-

strosity that it has become. Instead, in 1970, Congress intended a short, succinct,

timely presentation of information regarding major federal action that signiﬁ-

cantly aects the quality of the human environment so that decisionmakers can

make informed decisions to beneﬁt the American people.

The Trump Administration adopted common-sense NEPA reform that must

be restored immediately. Meanwhile, DOI should reinstate the secretarial orders

adopted by the Trump Administration, such as placing time and page limits on

NEPA documents and setting forth—on page one—the costs of the document itself.

Meanwhile, the new Administration should call upon Congress to reform NEPA

to meet its original goal. Consideration should be given, for example, to eliminat-

ing judicial review of the adequacy of NEPA documents or the rectitude of NEPA

decisions. This would allow Congress to engage in eective oversight of federal

agencies when prudent.

Settlement Transparency. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt required DOI

to prominently display and provide open access to any and all litigation settlements

into which DOI or its agencies entered, and any attorneys’ fees paid for ending

the litigation.

Biden’s DOI, aware that the settlements into which it planned to

enter and the attorneys’ fees it was likely to pay would cause controversy, ended

this policy.

A new Administration should reinstate it.

The Endangered Species Act. The Endangered Species Act was intended

to bring endangered and threatened species back from the brink of extinction

and, when appropriate, to restore real habitat critical to the survival of the spe-

cies. The act’s success rate, however, is dismal. Its greatest deﬁciency, according

to one renowned expert, is “conﬂict of interest.”

Speciﬁcally, the work of the

Fish and Wildlife Service is the product of “species cartels” aicted with group-

think, conﬁrmation bias, and a common desire to preserve the prestige, power,

and appropriations of the agency that pays or employs them. For example, in one

highly inﬂuential sage-grouse monograph, 41 percent of the authors were federal

workers. The editor, a federal bureaucrat, had authored one-third of the paper.

Meaningful reform of the Endangered Species Act requires that Congress

take action to restore its original purpose and end its use to seize private prop-

erty, prevent economic development, and interfere with the rights of states over

their wildlife populations. In the meantime, a new Administration should take the

following immediate action:

— 534 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Delist the grizzly bear in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern

Continental Divide Ecosystems and defend to the Supreme Court of the

United States the agency’s fact-based decision to do so.

Delist the gray wolf in the lower 48 states in light of its full recovery

under the ESA.

Cede to western states jurisdiction over the greater sage-grouse,

recognizing the on-the-ground expertise of states and preventing use

of the sage-grouse to interfere with public access to public land and

economic activity.

Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to end its abuse of Section 10(j) of the

ESA by re-introducing so-called “experiment species” populations into

areas that no longer qualify as habitat and lie outside the historic ranges

of those species, which brings with it the full weight of the ESA in areas

previously without federal government oversight.

Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to design and implement an impartial

conservation triage program by prioritizing the allocation of limited

resources to maximize conservation returns, relative to the conservation

goals, under a constrained budget.

Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to make all data used in ESA decisions

available to the public, with limited or no exceptions, to fulﬁll the public’s

right to know and to prevent the agency’s previous opaque decision-making.

Abolish the Biological Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey

and obtain necessary scientiﬁc research about species of concern from

universities via competitive requests for proposals.

Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to: (1) design and implement an

Endangered Species Act program that ensures independent decision-

making by ending reliance on so-called species specialists who have

obvious self-interest, ideological bias, and land-use agendas; and (2) ensure

conformity with the Information Quality Act.

Oce of Surface Mining. The Oce of Surface Mining Reclamation and

Enforcement (OSM) was created by the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation

Act of 1977 (SMCRA)

to administer programs for controlling the impacts of surface

coal mining operations. Although the coal industry is contracting, coal constitutes

— 535 —

Department of the Interior

20 percent of the nation’s electricity and is a mainstay of many regional economies.

The following actions should ensure OSM’s ability to perform its mission while com-

plying with SMCRA and without interfering with the production of high-quality

American coal:

Relocate the OSM Reclamation and Enforcement headquarters to

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to recognize that the agency is ﬁeld-driven and

should be headquartered in the coal ﬁeld.

Reduce the number of ﬁeld coal-reclamation inspectors to recognize the

industry is smaller.

Reissue Trump’s Schedule F executive order to permit discharge of

nonperforming employees.

Permit coal company employees to beneﬁt from the OSM Training

Program, which is currently restricted to state and federal employees.

Revise the Applicant Violator System, the nationwide database for the

federal and state programs, to permit federal and state regulators to

consider extenuating circumstances.

Maintain the current “Ten-Day Notice” rule, which requires OSM to work

with state regulators in determining if a SMCRA violation has taken place in

recognition of the fact that a coal mining state with primacy has the lead in

implementing state and federal law.

Preserve Directive INE-26, which relates to approximate original contour,

a critical factor in permitting ecient and environmentally sound surface

mining, especially in Appalachia.

Western Water Issues. The American West, from the Great Plains to the Cas-

cades Range, is arid, as recognized by John Wesley Powell during his famous trip

across a large part of its length. Pursuant to an Executive Order signed by President

Trump, and consistent with its authority along with other federal agencies, DOI’s

Bureau of Reclamation must take the following actions:

Develop additional storage capacity across the arid west, including by:

1. Updating dam water control manuals for existing facilities during

routine operations; and

— 536 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

2. Engaging in real-time monitoring of operations.

Reduce bureaucratic ineciencies by consolidating federal water

working groups.

Implement actions identiﬁed in the Federal Action Plan for Improving Fore-

casts of Water Availability,

especially by adopting improvements related to:

1. Forecast Informed Reservoir Operations; and

2. Arial Snow Observation Systems.

Clarify the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act

to ensure

consistent application with other federal infrastructure loan programs

under the Federal Credit Reform Act. This should be done to foster

opportunities for locally led investment in water infrastructure.

Reinstate Presidential Memorandum on Promoting the Reliable Supply

and Delivery of Water in the West.

AMERICAN INDIANS AND U.S. TRUST RESPONSIBILITY

The Biden Administration has breached its federal trust responsibilities to

American Indians. This is unconscionable. Speciﬁcally, the Biden Administra-

tion’s war on domestically available fossil fuels and mineral sources has been

devastating. To wit:

The ability of American Indians and tribal governments to develop their

abundant oil and gas resources has been severely hampered, depriving

them of the revenue and proﬁts to which they are entitled during a time of

increasing worldwide energy prices, forcing American Indians—who are

among the poorest Americans—to choose between food and fuel.

Indian nations with signiﬁcant coal resources have some of the

highest quality and cleanest-burning coal in the world, but the Biden

Administration has sought to destroy the market for their coal by

eliminating coal-ﬁred electricity in the country and to prevent the transport

of their coal for sale internationally. Meanwhile, the Biden Administration,

at great public expense, artiﬁcially boosted the demand for electric

vehicles, which, because of their remote locations, the absence of increased

electricity demands for charging electric vehicles nearby, and the distances

to be traveled, are not a choice for Indian communities.

— 537 —

Department of the Interior

A signiﬁcant percentage of critical minerals needed by the United States

is on Indian lands, but the Biden Administration has actively discouraged

development of critical mineral mining projects on Indian lands rather than

assisting in their advancement.

Despite Indian nations having primary responsibility for their lands and

environment and responsibility for the safety of their communities, the

Biden Administration is reversing eorts to put Indian nations in charge of

environmental regulation on their own lands.

Moreover, Biden Administration policies, including those of the DOI, have dis-

proportionately impacted American Indians and Indian nations.

By its failure to secure the border, the Biden Administration has

robbed Indian nations on or near the Mexican border of safe and secure

communities while permitting them to be swamped by a tide of illegal drugs,

particularly fentanyl.

When ending COVID protocols at Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) schools,

Biden’s DOI failed to ensure an accurate accounting of students returning

from school shutdowns, which presents a signiﬁcant danger to the families

that trust their children to that federal agency.

The BIE is not reporting student academic assessment data to ensure

parents and the larger tribal communities know their children are learning

and are receiving a quality education.

The new Administration must take the following actions to fulﬁll the nation’s

trust responsibilities to American Indians and Indian nations:

End the war on fossil fuels and domestically available minerals and

facilitate their development on lands owned by Indians and Indian nations.

End federal mandates and subsidies of electric vehicles.

Restore the right of tribal governments to enforce environmental

regulation on their lands.

Secure the nation’s border to protect the sovereignty and safety of

tribal lands.

— 538 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Overhaul BIE schools to put parents and their children ﬁrst.

Finally, the new Administration should seek congressional reauthorization

of the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations,

which provided a $1.9 bil-

lion Trust Land Consolidation Fund to purchase fractional interests in trust or

restricted land from willing sellers at fair market value, but which sunsets Novem-

ber 24, 2022. New funds should come from the Great American Outdoors Act.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in the

2025 Presidential Transition Project. All contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume, but some

deserve special mention. Kathleen Sgamma, Dan Kish, and Katie Tubb wrote the section on energy in its entirety. I

received thoughtful, knowledgeable, and swift assistance from Aubrey Bettencourt, Mark Cruz, Lanny Erdos, Aurelia

S. Giacometto, Casey Hammond, Jim Magagna, Chad Padgett, Jim Pond, Rob Roy Ramey II, Kyle E. Scherer, Tara

Sweeney, John Tahsuda, Rob Wallace, and Gregory Zerzan. The author alone assumes responsibility for the content

of this chapter; no views expressed herein should be attributed to any other individual.

— 539 —

Department of the Interior

ENDNOTES

 See generally William Perry Pendley, Sagebrush Rebel: Reagan’s Battle with Environmental Extremists and

Why It Matters Today (Regnery, 2013), preface, pp. xvi-xxii.

 U.S. Const. art. IV, § 3, cl. 2. “The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and

Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States.”

 In Wyoming, the federal government owns 48 percent of the land; in Wyoming’s Teton County, the federal

government owns 97 percent of the land.

 Pendley, Sagebrush Rebel.

 Keith Schneider, “The 1992 Campaign; Bush on the Environment: A Record of Contradictions,” New York Times,

July 4, 1992, https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/04/us/the-1992-campaign-bush-on-the-environment-a-

record-of-contradictions.html (accessed March 15, 2023).

 William Perry Pendley, War on the West: Government Tyranny on America’s Great Frontier (Regnery, 1995).

 William Perry Pendley, “Bureau of Land Management Yesterday and Today: Energy Independence,” Cowboy

State Daily, April 5, 2022, https://cowboystatedaily.com/2022/04/05/bureau-of-land-management-

yesterday-and-today-energy-independence/ (accessed March 15, 2023).

 Ibid.

 William Perry Pendley, “Perspective: Biden’s War on Western Energy,” The Gazette, November 6, 2022, https://

gazette.com/opinion/perspective-biden-s-war-on-western-energy/article_3823a584-5bb2-11ed-a598-

235c22e34687.html (accessed March 15, 2023).

 Ibid.

 Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960, Public Law 86–517.

 Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 159 (August 20, 2021), pp. 46873–46877.

 Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 19 (February 1, 2021), pp. 7619–7633, and White House, “Executive Order on

Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis,” January

20, 2021, https://www.whitehouse.gov/brieﬁng-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-

protecting-public-health-and-environment-and-restoring-science-to-tackle-climate-crisis/ (accessed

March 16, 2023).

 National Environmental Policy Act, Public Law 91–160.

 Antiquities Act of 1906, Public Law 59–209.

 “You know what there’s not is a shall for? ‘I shall manage the land to stop climate change,’ or something

similar to that,” Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt testiﬁed. “You guys come up with the shalls.” Chris

D’Angelo, “Interior Secretary Blames Congress for His Inaction on Climate Change,” High Country News,

May 9, 2019.

 Federal Land Policy and Land Management Act of 1976, Public Law 94–579; Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act,

Public Law 95–372; and 30 U.S.C. § 21 et seq.

 U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3398: Revocation of Secretary’s Orders Inconsistent with

Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis,” April

16, 2021, https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/ﬁles/elips/documents/so-3398-508_0.pdf (accessed

March 16, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3348: Concerning the Federal Coal Moratorium,” March 29, 2017,

https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/ﬁles/uploads/so_3348_coal_moratorium.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3349: American Energy Independence,” March 29, 2017, https://

www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/ﬁles/uploads/so_3349_-american_energy_independence.pdf (accessed

March 16, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3350: America First Oshore Energy Strategy,” May 1, 2017,

https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/ﬁles/press-release/secretarial-order-3350-oshore-508.pdf (accessed

March 16, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3351: Strengthening the Department of the Interior’s Energy

Portfolio,” May 1, 2017, https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/ﬁles/press-release/secretarial-order-3351-energy-

counselor-508.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3352: National Petroleum Reserve—Alaska,” May 31, 2017, https://

www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/ﬁles/uploads/so-3352.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

— 540 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3354: Supporting and Improving the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas

Leasing Program and Federal Solid Mineral Leasing Program, July 6, 2017, https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/

ﬁles/uploads/so_-_3354_signed.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3355: Streamlining National Environmental Policy Reviews and

Implementation of Executive Order 13807, “Establishing Discipline and Accountability in the Environmental

Review and Permitting Process for Infrastructure Projects,” August 31, 2017, https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/

ﬁles/elips/documents/3355_-_streamlining_national_environmental_policy_reviews_and_implementation_

of_executive_order_13807_establishing_discipline_and_accountability_in_the_environmental_review_

and_permitting_process_for.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3358: Executive Committee for Expedited Permitting,” October

25, 2017, https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/ﬁles/elips/documents/so_3358_executive_committee_for_

expedited_permitting_0.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3360: Rescinding Authorities Inconsistent with Secretary’s Order

3349, “American Energy Independence,” December 22, 2017, https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/ﬁles/elips/

documents/3360_-_rescinding_authorities_inconsistent_with_secretarys_order_3349_american_energy_

independence.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3380: Public Notice of the Costs Associated with Developing

Department of the Interior Publications and Similar Documents,” March 10, 2020, https://www.doi.gov/sites/

doi.gov/ﬁles/elips/documents/so-3398-508_0.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3385: Enforcement Priorities,” September 14, 2020, https://

www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/ﬁles/elips/documents/signed-so-3385-enforcement-priorities.pdf (accessed

March 16, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order 3389: Coordinating and Clarifying National Historic Preservation Act

Section 106 Reviews,” September 14, 2020, https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/ﬁles/elips/documents/signed-

so-3385-enforcement-priorities.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 Bureau of Land Management, “Updating Oil and Gas Leasing Reform: Land Use Planning and Lease Parcel

Reviews,” IM 2018–034, January 31, 2018, https://www.blm.gov/policy/im-2018-034 (accessed March 16, 2023).

 Lease Now Act, S. 4228, 117th Cong., 2nd Sess. (2022).

 ONSHORE Act, S. 218, 116th Cong., 2nd Sess. (2019). https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-

bill/218/text (accessed March 18, 2023).

 Federal Register, Vol. 87, No. 130 (July 8, 2022), pp. 40859–40863.

 The Biden Administration’s 2023–2028 proposed program is fatally ﬂawed. Katie Tubb, “Comment for the

2023–2028 National OCS Oil and Gas Leasing Proposed Program,” BOEM–2022–0031, October 6, 2022, http://

thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2022/Regulatory_Comments/BOEM%202023-2028%20lease%20plan%20

comment%20KTubb.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 See Inﬂation Reduction Act of 2022, Public Law No. 117–169, §§ 50261–50263.

 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Public Law No. 115–97, § 20001, and U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No.

3401: Comprehensive Analysis and Temporary Halt on All Activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Relating

to the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program,” June 1, 2021, https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/ﬁles/elips/

documents/so-3401-comprehensive-analysis-and-temporary-halt-on-all-activitives-in-the-arctic-national-

wildlife-refuge-relating-to-the-coastal-plain-oil-and-gas-leasing-program.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 In 2016, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell instituted a moratorium on new coal leases while conducting a

programmatic environmental impact statement under NEPA to address concerns about competition and

inconsistency with the Obama Administration’s climate policy. In 2017, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke lifted

the moratorium and ended development of a programmatic environmental impact statement. In April 2021,

Interior Secretary Debra Haaland rescinded Zinke’s order and initiated a new review of the coal-leasing

program. See U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3338: Discretionary Programmatic Environmental

Impact Statement to Modernize the Federal Coal Program,” January 15, 2016, https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.

gov/ﬁles/elips/documents/archived-3338_-discretionary_programmatic_environmental_impact_statement_

to_modernize_the_federal_coal_program.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023); U.S. Department of the Interior,

“Order No. 3348”; U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3398”; and Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 159

(August 20, 2021), pp. 46873–46877.

— 541 —

Department of the Interior

 Katie Tubb, “No More Standos: Protecting Federal Employees and Ending the Culture of Anti-Government

Attacks and Abuse,” testimony before the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands,

Committee on Natural Resources, U.S. House of Representatives, pp. 2–4, October 22, 2019, https://congress.

gov/116/meeting/house/110104/witnesses/HHRG-116-II10-Wstate-TubbK-20191022.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 News release, “Secretary Haaland Announces Steps to Establish Protections for Culturally Signiﬁcant Chaco

Canyon Landscape,” U.S. Department of the Interior, November 15, 2021, https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/

secretary-haaland-announces-steps-establish-protections-culturally-signiﬁcant-chaco (accessed March

16, 2023); News release, “Biden–Harris Administration Proposes Protections for Thompson Divide,” U.S.

Department of the Interior, October 12, 2022, https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/biden-harris-administration-

proposes-protections-thompson-divide (accessed March 16, 2023); News release, “Biden Administration Takes

Action to Complete Study of Boundary Waters Area Watershed,” U.S. Department of the Interior, October

20, 2021, https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/biden-administration-takes-action-complete-study-boundary-

waters-area-watershed (accessed March 16, 2023); and News release, “Interior Department Takes Action on

Mineral Leases Improperly Renewed in the Watershed of the Boundary Waters Wilderness,” U.S. Department

of the Interior, January 26, 2022, https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-department-takes-action-

mineral-leases-improperly-renewed-watershed-boundary (accessed March 16, 2023).

 Endangered Species Act, Public Law 91–135, § 4(b)(2), and Federal Register, Vol. 85, No. 244 (December 18,

2020), pp. 82376–82389.

 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “Governing the Take of Migratory Birds Under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.”

https://www.fws.gov/regulations/mbta (accessed March 16, 2023).

 Dino Grandoni and Anna Phillips, “Biden Restores Climate Safeguards in Key Environmental Law,

Reversing Trump,” Washington Post, April 19, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-

environment/2022/04/19/biden-nepa-climate-trump/ (accessed March 16, 2023).

 Donald Trump, “Executive Order on Creating Schedule F in the Accepted Service,” Executive Order 13957,

October 21, 2020, https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-creating-

schedule-f-excepted-service/ (accessed March 16, 2023).

 Kathleen Masterson, “Nevada Wild Horse Population Skyrockets To New High,” KUNR Public Radio, July 22,

2019, https://www.kunr.org/energy-and-environment/2019-07-22/nevada-wild-horse-population-skyrockets-

to-new-high (accessed March 20, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, “Report to Congress: An Analysis of Achieving

a Sustainable Horse and Burro Program,” Fact sheet, May 8, 2020, https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/ﬁles/

Final%20Fact%20Sheet%20WHB%20Report%20To%20Congress.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

 Pendley, Sagebrush Rebel, pp. 45–47.

 James D. Linxwiler, The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act At 35: Delivering on the Promise, Rocky Mountain

Mineral Law Institute, Vol. 53, Chap. 12 (2007), § 12.03(1)(a)(iv), https://www.guessrudd.com/wp-content/

uploads/sites/1600422/2020/05/The-Alaska-Native-Claims-Settlement-Act-at-35.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 Ibid., § 12.03(1)(a)(vii). See generally Richard S. Jones, Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (Public

Law 92–203): History And Analysis Together With Subsequent Amendments, Report No. 81–127 GOV, June

1, 1981, http://www.alaskool.org/PROJECTS/ANCSA/reports/rsjones1981/ANCSA_History71.htm (accessed

March 16, 2023).

 43 U.S. Code, Ch. 33. ANCSA also created 12 Native-owned regional corporations and authorized $962 million

in “seed money.” Linxwiler, The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act At 35, § 12.03(2)(e).

 ANCSA provided that the withdrawal of the lands would expire in 1978 if Congress had not designated the

lands as federal enclaves. John K. Norman Cole and Steven W. Silver, Alaska’s D-2 Lands, Rocky Mountain

Mineral Law Institute, Vol. 6B, Ch. 5, September 1978, and Raymond A. Peck, Jr., And Then There Were None:

Evolving Federal Restraints on the Availability of Public Lands for Mineral Development, Rocky Mountain

Mineral Law Institute, Vol. 25, Ch. 3, 1979.

 Andrus used purported authority under the FLPMA to withdraw 40 million acres, and Carter used purported

authority under the Antiquities Act of to withdraw 56 million acres. James D. Linxwiler, The Alaska Native

Claims Settlement Act: The First Twenty Years, Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Institute, Vol. 38 Ch. 2, 1992 at

2.04(8)(c), https://ancsa.lbblawyers.com/wp-content/uploads/ANCSA-Paper-with-Table-of-Contents-1992.pdf

(accessed March 16, 2023).

— 542 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 Alaska’s request for an injunction was denied. State of Alaska v. Carter, 462 F. Supp. 1155, 1156 (D. Alaska

1978) (NEPA does not apply to presidential proclamations under the Antiquities Act). Alaska’s lawsuit was

similar to one ﬁled by Wyoming challenging use of the Antiquities Act to designate the Grand Teton National

Monument. Wyoming v. Franke, 58 F. Supp. 890 (D. Wyo. 1945). See generally Carol Hardy Vincent and

Kristina Alexander, “National Monuments and the Antiquities Act,” Congressional Research Service Report for

Congress, R41330, July 20, 2010, https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc813640/m2/1/high_res_d/

R41330_2011Aug22.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023). In December 1980, President Carter signed the Alaska

National Interest Lands Conservations Act; subsequently, during the Reagan Administration, Alaska dropped

its lawsuit.

 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, Public Law 96–487 (codiﬁed as amended in scattered

sections of 16 U.S.C., 43 U.S.C., 48 U.S.C.), and Joseph J. Perkins, Jr., The Great Land Divided But Not

Conquered: The Eects of Statehood, ANCSA, and ANILCA on Alaska, Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Institute,

Vol. 34, Ch. 6, 1988, § 6.02.

 U.S. Department of the Interior, 1983: A Year Of Enrichment: Improving The Quality Of Life For All Americans,

October 1983, p. 25, https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/public/digitallibrary/smof/publicliaison/blackwell/box-

006/40_047_7006969_006_022_2017.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 Ibid. The conveyances by the Reagan Administration to Alaska and Native Alaskans greatly exceeded the

amount of land transferred to each during the Carter Administration. See U.S. Department of the Interior,

1983: A Year Of Enrichment, pp. 86–87.

 Federal Register, Vol. 36, No. 252 (December 31, 1971), pp. 25410–25412. “On December 28, 1971, ten days

after enactment of ANCSA, the Secretary of Interior through his Assistant Secretary issued Public Land Order

(PLO) 5150 which withdrew and reserved various federal public lands, subject to valid existing rights, as a

utility and transportation corridor for the Alaska oil pipeline. 36 Fed. Reg. 25410 (December 31, 1971). The land

order was issued ‘by virtue of the authority vested in the President and pursuant to Executive Order 10355 of

May 26, 1952 (17 Fed. Reg. 4831)….PLO 5150 established a corridor extending from the North Slope of Alaska

(Prudhoe Bay) south to Valdez on Prince William Sound.’” Wisenak, Inc. v. Andrus, 471 F. Supp. 1004, 1006 (D.

Alaska 1979).

 Alaska Land Transfer Acceleration Act, Public Law 108–452.

 Philip Elliott, “Biden May Be About to Sign O on a Huge Alaska Oil Drilling Project,” Time, December 13, 2022,

https://time.com/6240733/biden-alaska-oil-drilling-willow-project/ (accessed March 16, 2023). A Biden

approval of the bare minimum three pads for ConocoPhillips disincentivized the ability of any other oil and

gas company to make the huge investment necessary to operate in NPRA.

 Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Division of Mining, Land and Water, “Ambler Road Project,” https://

dnr.alaska.gov/mlw/ambler-road/ (accessed March 17, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Ambler Road: Environmental Impact Statement:

Vol. 1, March 2020, https://eplanning.blm.gov/public_projects/nepa/57323/20015364/250020506/Ambler_

FEIS_Volume_1-_Chp_1-3_&__Appendices_A-F_.pdf (accessed March 18, 2023).

 5 U.S. Code § 801(a)(1)(A).

 U.S. Department of the Interior, “Master Memorandum of Understanding Between the Alaska Department

of Fish and Game, Juneau, Alaska and the U.S. National Park Service,” October 14, 1982; U.S. Department

of the Interior, “Master Memorandum of Understanding Between the Alaska Department of Fish and

Game, Juneau, Alaska and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Survey,” March 13, 1982; and U.S. Department of the

Interior, “Master Memorandum of Understanding Between the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Juneau,

Alaska and the Bureau of Land Management,” August 3, 1983, https://eplanning.blm.gov/public_projects/

lup/66967/84127/100727/Memorandum_of_Understanding_BLM_and_ADFG.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 Federal Register, Vol. 85, No. 210 (October 29, 2020), pp. 68668–68703.

 Federal Register, Vol. 88, No. 18 (January 27, 2023), pp. 5252–5272.

 E. Dinerstein et al., “A Global Deal For Nature: Guiding Principles, Milestones, and Targets,” Science Advances,

Vol. 5, No. 4 (April 19, 2019), https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaw2869 (accessed March 18, 2023).

 Joseph R. Biden, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad,” Executive Order 14008, https://www.

whitehouse.gov/brieﬁng-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/27/executive-order-on-tackling-the-climate-

crisis-at-home-and-abroad/ (accessed March 17, 2023).

— 543 —

Department of the Interior

 Karen Budd Falen, “Biden’s ‘30 By 30 Plan’: A Slap at American Private Property Rights,” Cowboy State Daily,

April 15, 2021, https://cowboystatedaily.com/2021/04/15/bidens-30-by-30-plan-a-slap-at-american-private-

property-rights/ (accessed March 16, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3396: Rescission of Secretary’s Order 3388, ‘Land and Water

Conservation Fund Implementation by the U.S. Department of the Interior,’” February 11, 2021, https://www.

doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/ﬁles/elips/documents/so-3396-signed-2-11-21-ﬁnal.pdf (accessed March 17, 2021).

 Ibid.

 Associated Press, “Ute Indian Tribe Criticizes Biden’s Camp Hale Monument Designation,” KUER 90.1,

October 13, 2022.

 William Perry Pendley, “Trump Wants to Free Up Federal Lands, His Interior Secretary Fails Him,” National

Review Online, September 25, 2017, https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/09/secretary-interior-ryan-zinke-

monuments-review-trump-executive-order-antiquities-act-environmentalists/ (accessed March 16, 2023).

 The Oregon and California Revested Lands Sustained Yield Management Act of 1937, Public Law 75-405, 43

U.S. Code § 2601.

 Ibid., and American Forest Resource Council v. Hammond, 422 F. Supp. 3d 184, 187 (D.D.C. 2019).

 American Forest Resource Council v. Hammond, 422 F. Supp. 3d, pp. 187–188.

 Federal Register, Vol. 55, No. 26 (June 26, 1990), p. 26114–26194.

 Federal Register, Vol. 65, No. 114 (June 13, 2000), pp. 37249–37252.

 Federal Register, Vol. 82, No. 11 (January 18, 2017), pp. 6145–6150.

 American Forest Resource Council v. Hammond, 422 F. Supp. 3d 184 (D.D.C. 2019).

 U.S. Department of the Interior, “Final Consent Decrees/Settlement Agreements,” https://www.doi.gov/

solicitor/transparency/ﬁnal (accessed March 16, 2023).

 Michael Doyle, “Interior Order Erases Litigation Website,” E&E News, June 17, 2022, https://www.eenews.net/

articles/interior-order-erases-litigation-website/ (accessed March 16, 2023).

 Rob Roy Ramey, On the Origin of Specious Species (Lexington Books 2012), pp. 77–97.

 William Perry Pendley, “Killing Jobs to Save the Sage Grouse: Junk Science, Weird Science, and Plain

Nonsense,” Washington Times, May 31, 2012, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/31/killing-

jobs-to-save-the-sage-grouse/ (accessed March 16, 2023).

 Michael Lee, “Wyoming’s Push to Delist Grizzly Bears from Endangered Species List Faces Opposition from

Anti-Hunting Group,” Fox News, January 21, 2022, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/wyoming-delist-grizzly-

endangered-species-list-opposition-anti-hunting-group (accessed March 18, 2023).

 News release, “Trump Administration Returns Management and Protection of Gray Wolves to States and

Tribes Following Successful Recovery Eorts,” October 29, 2020, https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/trump-

administration-returns-management-and-protection-gray-wolves-states-and-tribes (accessed March 18, 2023).

 50 Code of Federal Regulations §17, and Sean Paige, “‘Rewilding’ Will Backﬁre on Colorado,” The Gazette,

June 19, 2022, https://gazette.com/opinion/guest-column-rewilding-will-backﬁre-on-colorado/article_

d0016672-ed79-11ec-b027-abe62ba840a1.html (accessed March 18, 2023).

 Madeleine C. Bottrill et al., “Is Conservation Triage Just Smart Decision Making?” Trends in Ecology & Evolution,

Vol. 23, No. 12 (December 2008), pp. 649–654, https://karkgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/Bottrill-et-al-2008.

pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 Rob Roy Ramey II, testimony before the Committee on Resources, U.S. House of Representatives, April 8, 2014,

https://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedﬁles/rameytestimony4_8.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, Public Law 95–87.

 Pennsylvania is the nation’s third-largest coal producer, and its state program was the model for SMCRA.

 Federal Register, Vol. 85, No. 207 (October 26, 2020), pp. 67631–67635.

 U.S. Department of the Interior, Oce of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, “Approximate Original

Contour,” INE–26, June 23, 2020, https://www.osmre.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/pdfs/directive1003.pdf (accessed

March 18, 2023).

 Tim Gallaudet and Timothy R. Petty, “Federal Action Plan for Improving Forecasts of Water Availability,”

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, October 2019, https://www.noaa.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/

legacy/document/2019/Oct/Federal%20Action%20Plan%20for%20Improving%20Forecasts%20of%20

Water%20Availability.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023).

— 544 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 32 U.S. Code, ch. 52.

 Donald J. Trump, “Presidential Memorandum on Promoting the Reliable Supply and Delivery of Water

in the West,” October 19, 2018, https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-

memorandum-promoting-reliable-supply-delivery-water-west/ (accessed March 17, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Interior, “Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations,” https://www.doi.gov/

buybackprogram (accessed March 18, 2023).

 Great American Outdoors Act, Public Law 116–152.

— 545 —

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Gene Hamilton

he Department of Justice (DOJ) has a long and noble history. That history

began with the creation of the Oce of the Attorney General pursuant to

the Judiciary Act of 1789

and has continued through the creation of the

department in 1870,

the formation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in

1908,

reforms following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and to the pres-

ent day. Properly understood within the framework of a constitutional republic

that values ordered liberty, the Department of Justice has two primary functions:

protecting public safety and defending the rule of law.

Unfortunately, the department has lost its way in recent years and has forfeited

the trust of large segments of the American people. Large swaths of the depart-

ment have been captured by an unaccountable bureaucratic managerial class and

radical Left ideologues who have embedded themselves throughout its oces and

components. The department also suers from institutional inattentiveness to its

core functions. Instead of being perceived as possessing the utmost impartiality

and fairness as it advances the national interest on behalf of the American people—

ﬁghting crime and defending the rule of law—the DOJ has become a department

that 46.6 percent of Americans recently indicated is, in their view, “too political,

corrupt, and not to be trusted.”

The weight of the publicly available evidence indicates that there are many rea-

sons for this lack of trust. For example:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, knowing that claims of collusion

with Russia were false,

collaborated with Democratic operatives to inject

— 546 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

the story into the 2016 election through strategic media leaks, falsiﬁed

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant applications, and lied

to Congress.

Personnel within the FBI engaged in a campaign to convince social media

companies and the media generally that the story about the contents

of Hunter Biden’s laptop was the result of a Russian misinformation

campaign—while the FBI had possession of the laptop the entire time and

could have clariﬁed the authenticity of the source.

The DOJ engaged in conduct to chill the free speech rights of parents across

the United States in response to supposed “threats” against school boards,

yet it failed to engage in any concerted campaign to protect the rights

of Americans who actually were terrorized by acts of violence like those

perpetrated against pregnancy care centers.

The FBI tasked agents with monitoring social media and ﬂagging content

they deemed to be “misinformation” or “disinformation” (not associated

with any plausible criminal conspiracy to deprive anyone of any rights) for

platforms to remove.

The FBI engaged in a domestic inﬂuence operation to pressure social media

companies to report more “foreign inﬂuence” than the FBI was actually

seeing and stop the dissemination of and censor true information directly

related to the 2020 presidential election.

The department has devoted unprecedented resources to prosecuting

American citizens for misdemeanor trespassing oenses or violations of the

FACE Act

while dismissing prosecutions against radical agents of the Left

like Antifa.

The department has consistently threatened that any conduct not aligning

with the liberal agenda “could” violate federal law—without actually taking

a position that the conduct in question is illegal—using the prospect of

protracted litigation and federal sanctions to chill disfavored behavior

such as with state eorts to restrict abortion

or prevent genital mutilation

of children.

The department has sued multiple states regarding their eorts to enhance

election integrity.

— 547 —

Department of Justice

The department has failed to do its part to stop the ﬂood of fentanyl and

other deadly drugs that are ﬂowing across our borders and decimating

families and communities across the United States.

The department has abdicated its responsibility to assist in the enforcement

of our immigration laws and has engaged in wholescale abandonment of its

duty to adjudicate cases in the immigration court system.

These actions stand in stark contrast to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s

assertion before taking oce that “there [must] not be one rule for Democrats and

another for Republicans, one rule for friends and another for foes.”

While it is true, as it is with other federal departments and agencies, that there

are committed career personnel across the department who perform their duties

faithfully and with the best intentions, this small sampling of scandals illustrates

that the DOJ has become a bloated bureaucracy with a critical core of person-

nel who are infatuated with the perpetuation of a radical liberal agenda and the

defeat of perceived political enemies. It has become a Cabinet-level department

whose leadership appears to care more about how they are perceived in the next

Politico or Washington Post article, or their stature with any number of radical

leftist organizations, than they do about justice and advancing the interests of the

American people.

It is essential that the next conservative Administration place a high priority on

reforming the DOJ and its culture to align the department with its core purposes

and advance the national interest. Critically, this must include the FBI. Anything

other than a top-to-bottom overhaul will only further erode the trust of signiﬁcant

portions of the American people and harm the very fabric that holds together our

constitutional republic. At a practical level, not reforming the Department of Jus-

tice will also guarantee the failure of that conservative Administration’s agenda

in countless other ways.

Successful reform will require more than minor peripheral adjustments. It

will require a holistic, energetic, leadership-driven eort to remedy the damage

that has been done and advance the national interest. Additionally, some needed

reforms will not be possible without legislative changes from Congress. While

it is true that certain oces and components—like the FBI or the Civil Rights

Division—will require more attention than others, committed direction from the

department’s political leadership can restore the department’s focus on its two

core functions: protecting public safety and defending the rule of law.

This chapter features prominently the things the department must do to restore

its focus on these functions. Of course, there are other important reforms that do

not necessarily ﬁt within either of those core functions, so this chapter includes

an additional section to address those areas.

— 548 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

PRIORITIZING THE PROTECTION OF PUBLIC SAFETY

Ordered liberty is at risk when our citizens lack physical safety, when career

criminals do not fear the law, when foreign cartels move narcotics and illegal

aliens into our nation at will, and when political leaders call citizens “domestic

terrorists” for exercising their constitutional rights. The Department of Justice—in

partnership with state and local partners—must recommit in both word and deed

to protecting public safety.

The overwhelming majority of crimes in the United States are properly handled

at the state and local levels,

but the DOJ can provide critical technical support for

local law enforcement and play a critical agenda-setting role. With respect to the

Department’s core responsibilities—enforcing our immigration laws, combating

domestic and international criminal enterprises, protecting federal civil rights,

and combating foreign espionage—the federal government has primary authority

and, accordingly, accountability.

The evidence shows that the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice has

failed to protect law-abiding citizens and has ignored its most basic obligations. It

has become at once utterly unserious and dangerously politicized. Prosecution and

charging decisions are infused with racial and partisan political double standards.

Immigration laws are ignored.

The FBI harasses protesting parents (branded

“domestic terrorists” by some partisans) while working diligently to shut down

politically disfavored speech on the pretext of its being “misinformation” or “disin-

formation.”

A department that prosecutes FACE Act cases while ignoring dozens

of violent attacks on pregnancy care centers and/or the coordinated violation of

laws that prohibit attempts to intimidate Supreme Court Justices by parading out-

side of their homes

has clearly lost its way. A department that has twice engaged

in covert domestic election interference and propaganda operations—the Russian

collusion hoax in 2016 and the Hunter Biden laptop suppression in 2020—is a

threat to the Republic.

Restoring the department’s focus on public safety and a culture of respect

for the rule of law is a gargantuan task that will involve at minimum four

overriding actions:

Restoring the FBI’s integrity.

Renewing the DOJ’s focus on violent crime.

Dismantling domestic and international criminal enterprises.

Pursuing a national security agenda aimed at external state and non-state

actors, not U.S. citizens exercising their constitutional rights.

— 549 —

Department of Justice

RESTORING THE FBI’S INTEGRITY

The FBI was founded in 1908 to “tackle national crime and security issues” when

“there was hardly any systematic way of enforcing the law across this now broad

landscape of America.”

It best serves the American people when it dedicates its

resources and energies to attacking violent crime,

criminal organizations,

child

predators,

cyber-crime, and other uniquely federal interests.

Revelations regarding the FBI’s role in the Russia hoax of 2016, Big Tech collu-

sion, and suppression of Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020 strongly suggest that the

FBI is completely out of control. To protect the Constitution, ﬁght crime eectively,

and protect the nation from foreign adversaries, the next conservative Adminis-

tration should begin to restore the FBI’s domestic reputation and integrity and

enhance its eectiveness in meeting actual foreign threats. To do so, the next con-

servative Administration should:

Conduct an immediate, comprehensive review of all major active FBI

investigations and activities and terminate any that are unlawful

or contrary to the national interest.

This is an enormous task, but it

is necessary to re-earn the American people’s trust in the FBI and its work.

To conduct this review, the department should detail attorney appointees

with criminal, national security, or homeland security backgrounds to

catalogue any questionable activities and elevate them to appropriate DOJ

leadership consistent with the new chain of command (discussed below).

The department should also consider issuing a public report of the ﬁndings

from this review as appropriate.

Align the FBI’s placement within the department and the federal

government with its law enforcement and national security

purposes. DOJ veterans often opine that the FBI views itself as an

independent agency—accountable to no one and on par with the Attorney

General in terms of stature—but the fact remains that “[t]he Federal

Bureau of Investigation is located in the Department of Justice.”

It is

not independent from the department (just as Immigration and Customs

Enforcement is not independent from the Department of Homeland

Security) and does not deserve to be treated as if it were.

The next conservative Administration should direct the Attorney General

to remove the FBI from the Deputy Attorney General’s direct supervision

within the department’s organizational chart and instead place it under

the general supervision of the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal

Division and the supervision of the Assistant Attorney General for the

National Security Division, as applicable.

This can be accomplished

— 550 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

through a simple internal departmental reorganization and does not need to

be approved by Congress.

Such a structure would allow the FBI to play an important role in advising

the department’s leadership on emerging threats and updating notable

investigations through daily brieﬁngs conducted with the Criminal Division

and National Security Division leadership, but it would also place the FBI

under a politically accountable leader with fewer things to manage than the

Deputy Attorney General or the Attorney General have. All notiﬁcations and

approvals that currently run to the Deputy Attorney General or the Attorney

General should be evaluated and redirected in the ﬁrst instance, where

appropriate, to the relevant Assistant Attorney General.

Such a move would better align the FBI with the mission of the divisions

with which it most often interacts and emphasize the need for the areas on

which it should focus. In general, however, under no circumstances should

the FBI ever be able to go around the Attorney General or the department’s

leadership on any matter within its area of responsibility.

Prohibit the FBI from engaging, in general, in activities related

to combating the spread of so-called misinformation and

disinformation by Americans who are not tied to any plausible

criminal activity. The FBI, along with the rest of the government, needs

a hard reset on the appropriate scope of its legitimate activities. It must

not look to or rely on the past decade as precedent or legitimization for

continued action in certain spaces. This is especially true with respect to

activities that the FBI and the U.S. government writ large claim are eorts to

combat “misinformation,” “disinformation,” or “malinformation.”

The United States government and, by extension, the FBI have absolutely

no business policing speech, whether in the public square, in print, or

online. The First Amendment prohibits it. The United States is the world’s

last best hope for self-government,

and its survival relies on the ability

of our people to have healthy debate free from government intervention

and censorship. The government, through its ocials, is certainly able to

speak and provide information to the public. That is a healthy component

of an informed society. But government must never manipulate the scales

and censor information that is potentially harmful to it or its political

leadership. This is the way of totalitarian dictatorships, not of free

constitutional republics.

— 551 —

Department of Justice

The DOJ needs a hard ﬁrewall between its legitimate activities (monitoring

online activity for potential threats in its mission space, looking at social

media proﬁles for evidence of intent or other criminal activity, etc.) and

those in which it must not engage (asking or demanding public forums or

publishers to remove material based on the content and/or viewpoints

expressed or itself censoring speech).

Streamline the non–law enforcement functions within the FBI, such

as its Oce of General Counsel, and obtain those services from other

oces within the department. The next conservative Administration

should eliminate any oces within the FBI that it has the power to

eliminate without any action from Congress.

For example, few Americans

know that the FBI maintains a core of approximately 300 attorneys within

its Oce of General Counsel, an oce that has been involved in some of the

FBI’s most damaging recent scandals.

These attorneys are not necessary

to the functioning of the FBI in their current capacity. Legal advice should

come from attorneys at the DOJ, whether those attorneys are within the

Criminal Division, the National Security Division, the Justice Management

Division, or the Oce of Legal Counsel. Moving legal review outside the FBI

would serve as a crucial check on an agency that has recently pushed past

legal boundary after legal boundary. Similarly, the FBI does not need its own

Oce of Congressional Aairs separate and apart from the DOJ Oce of

Legislative Aairs, nor does it need its own Oce of Public Aairs.

Emphasize, fund, and reward ﬁeld oces while shrinking

headquarters sta. While the FBI has essential headquarters functions

that must be fulﬁlled and should likely be fulﬁlled by a team in Washington,

D.C., the next conservative Administration should make a priority of

deploying, funding, and rewarding the work of the ﬁeld oces to the

greatest extent possible. The Department of Justice must value badges over

bureaucracy, must rethink its internal reporting structures, and should aim

to realign the FBI’s resources accordingly.

Submit a legislative proposal to Congress to eliminate the 10-year

term for the Director. After J. Edgar Hoover’s decades-long term as FBI

Director came to an end following his death in 1972, and in light of oversight

conducted by Congress into alleged Intelligence Community and FBI

abuses in the 1970s, Congress limited the Director’s tenure to one “ten-

year term.”

The realities of the FBI’s abuses and overreach in recent years

demonstrate that further reform is still necessary.

— 552 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

The Director of the FBI must remain politically accountable to the

President in the same manner as the head of any other federal department

or agency. To ensure prompt political accountability and to rein in perceived

or actual abuses, the next conservative Administration should seek a

legislative change to align the FBI Director’s position with those of the

heads of all other major departments and agencies.

RENEWING THE DEPARTMENT’S FOCUS ON VIOLENT CRIME

Despite the DOJ’s pronouncements that violent crime continues to be a top pri-

ority, it has increased across the United States. The department’s leadership must

make actually reducing violent crime a priority across the United States—and it

must do so in partnership with state and local ocials in a manner that is tailored

to the needs and conditions in those states and localities.

Targeting Violent and Career Criminals, Not Parents. The next conserva-

tive Administration must ensure that the Department of Justice devotes signiﬁcant

eort to reducing violent crime nationwide. The Attorney General should require

all U.S. Attorneys to develop a jurisdictional-speciﬁc plan—whenever possible in

coordination with state and local law enforcement—to reduce violent crime within

each of their districts. Then the Attorney General should hold each U.S. Attorney

accountable for achieving actual results.

In recent years, federal and state ocials have succumbed to calls from

anti–law enforcement advocates for so-called criminal justice reform. The pleas-

ant-sounding terminology of reform masks the darker reality of this movement,

which is one that has supported dismantling eective federal, state, and local

law enforcement and stripped away some of the most fundamental tools that law

enforcement has long had at its disposal. This campaign is not just ill-advised; it

has clearly had real-world consequences in the form of catastrophic increases in

crime—particularly violent crime—nationwide. As discussed in the next section,

the Department of Justice has a special obligation to restore law and order in

such districts.

Juxtaposed against this increase in violent crime are things like Attorney Gen-

eral Merrick Garland’s October 4, 2021, memorandum directing the commitment

of signiﬁcant resources and energies to combating imaginary, politically conve-

nient threats of violence toward members of school boards and their stas during

the heat of the Virginia gubernatorial race.

There was no similar eort to inves-

tigate elected ocials and other public ocers who conspired with outside allies

to target and harass parents who were merely exercising their constitutional and

statutory rights.

If we are to continue to have informed and civil dialogue in the

United States on issues of public concern, the DOJ must enforce applicable civil

rights laws in an even-handed way when citizens’ livelihoods are threatened merely

because they have exercised their rights.

— 553 —

Department of Justice

Enhancing the Federal Focus on and Resources in Jurisdictions with

Rule-of-Law Deﬁciencies. A disturbing number of state and local jurisdictions

have enacted policies that directly undermine public safety, leave doubt about

whether criminals will be punished, and weaken the rule of law. While the prose-

cution of criminal oenses in most jurisdictions across the country must remain

the responsibility of state and local governments, the federal government owes a

special responsibility to Americans in jurisdictions where state and local prose-

cutors have abdicated this duty.

Jurisdictions suering from deﬁciencies in the rule of law warrant, as appropri-

ate within our federal system, greater attention and additional federal resources

that are sucient to protect the rights of American citizens and federal interests.

In the next conservative Administration, the DOJ, acting primarily through its U.S.

Attorneys, should therefore:

Use applicable federal laws to bring federal charges against

criminals when local jurisdictions wrongfully allow them to evade

responsibility for their conduct.

The department should also increase

the federal law enforcement presence in such jurisdictions and explore

innovative solutions to bring meaningful charges against criminals and

criminal organizations in such jurisdictions.

Where warranted and proper under federal law, initiate legal action

against local ocials—including District Attorneys—who deny

American citizens the “equal protection of the laws” by refusing to

prosecute criminal oenses in their jurisdictions. This holds true

particularly for jurisdictions that refuse to enforce the law against criminals

based on the Left’s favored deﬁning characteristics of the would-be oender

(race, so-called gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.) or other political

considerations (e.g., immigration status).

Pursue policies and legislation that encourage prosecution of

violent crimes as well as appropriate sentences for such oenses.

The Biden Administration has adopted policies that do not prevent armed

career criminals, who actually commit violent crimes, from committing

those crimes. A recent U.S. Sentencing Commission report shows that

armed career criminals are consistently sentenced below their minimum

sentencing guidelines range.

There are valid reasons for sentence reductions in particular cases (for

example, if the defendant has provided substantial assistance in prosecuting

other oenders). At the same time, the DOJ must ensure that its line

— 554 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

attorneys are consistently using the tools at their disposal in cases with

violent oenders, including pursuing mandatory minimum sentences under

the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA).

The department should also

support legislative eorts to provide further tools, such as the Restoring the

Armed Career Criminal Act, which Senators Tom Cotton (R–AR), Marsha

Blackburn (R–TN), and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R–MS) introduced in 2021 in

response to U.S. Supreme Court decisions neutering the ACCA.

Enforce the death penalty where appropriate and applicable. Capital

punishment is a sensitive matter, as it should be, but the current crime

wave makes deterrence vital at the federal, state, and local levels. However,

providing this punishment without ever enforcing it provides justice neither

for the victims’ families nor for the defendant. The next conservative

Administration should therefore do everything possible to obtain ﬁnality for

the 44 prisoners currently on federal death row. It should also pursue the

death penalty for applicable crimes—particularly heinous crimes involving

violence and sexual abuse of children—until Congress says otherwise

through legislation.

DISMANTLING DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL

CRIMINAL ENTERPRISES

Criminal organizations are as old as crime itself, but are more extensive,

sophisticated, and dangerous today than at any other point in history. The

Department of Justice has a key role in tackling transnational criminal orga-

nizations like Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Mexican drug cartels as well as

purely domestic criminal organizations like those built on the more traditional

maﬁa crime model as part of its obligation to ensure the safety and security of

the American people.

The department’s primary directive under the next Administration should be

to return to an unapologetic focus on dismantling these criminal organizations

and incarcerating their membership. Once this reprioritization occurs, the depart-

ment’s political leadership should take concrete steps to use agency reach and

resources to prevent these criminal organizations from operating and surviving.

Assaulting the business model of these criminal organizations—which are massive,

diversiﬁed enterprises with nationwide or international operations—is essential

for success. The next Administration will therefore need to:

Revitalize the DOJ’s use of the array of statutory tools that exist for

dealing with the threat of criminal organizations. The most potent

ones are the simplest. For example, the department should:

— 555 —

Department of Justice

1. Rigorously prosecute as much interstate drug activity as possible,

including simple possession of distributable quantities.

Recent eorts

to create the impression that drug possession crimes are not serious

oenses has contributed to the explosion of criminal organization

activities in the United States.

2. Aggressively deploy the Racketeer Inﬂuenced and Corrupt

Organizations Act (RICO),

which Congress expressly created to

empower the Department of Justice to treat patterns of intrastate-

level crimes, such as robbery, extortion, and murder, as federal

criminal conduct for criminal organizations and networks. The next

Administration can use existing tools while it works with Congress to

develop new tools.

Secure the border,

which is the key entry point for many criminal

organizations and their supplies, products, and employees. Mexico—

which is arguably functioning as a failed state run by drug cartels—is

the main point of transit for illegal drugs produced in Central and South

America, fentanyl precursors from the Chinese Communist Party–led

People’s Republic of China,

weapons, human smuggling and tracking,

and other contraband. Mexican drug cartels, including the dominant

Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), are the main

drivers of fentanyl production and distribution in the United States. The

southwestern land border is suciently porous that Mexican drug cartels

have operational control of large sections of the border, which facilitates

easy movement of product and personnel. These cartels are also violent and

not afraid to demonstrate force on both sides of the border. Their conduct

represents a clear and present danger to the United States and its citizens.

In addition to ﬁnalizing the southwestern land border wall, the next

Administration should take a creative and aggressive approach to tackling

these dangerous criminal organizations at the border. This could include

use of active-duty military personnel and National Guardsmen to assist

in arrest operations along the border—something that has not yet been

done. A new and forceful approach to interdiction will have a ripple eect

on the operations of these criminal organizations, which currently operate

freely without concern for criminal prosecution, and will lay the necessary

groundwork for initial prosecutions of these organizations and their leaders.

It is critical that the federal government staunch the ﬂow of drugs by

preventing the far-too-easy access to the United States that now exists.

— 556 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

There can be no serious dispute that the Biden Administration has opened

the southwest border to whomever wants to enter and that some of those

entrants are smuggling fentanyl into the country. More than 100,000

Americans died in a one-year period from opioid overdoses, and many of

them died speciﬁcally from having used fentanyl.

The federal government

should treat this problem as aggressively as necessary. Enforcing the

customs and immigration laws is a matter of life and death.

PURSUING A NATIONAL SECURITY AGENDA AIMED AT

EXTERNAL STATE AND NON-STATE ACTORS, NOT U.S.

CITIZENS EXERCISING THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS

The Department of Justice plays a vital role in protecting our national security,

and it must not refrain from engaging in public initiatives that identify our adver-

saries and educate the American people about their activities.

The DOJ’s China Initiative under President Trump reﬂected the department’s

priority of combating Chinese threats to our national security.

Because China

was accountable for approximately 80 percent of all prosecutions for economic

espionage and approximately 60 percent of all thefts of trade secrets, then-At-

torney General Je Sessions set key goals for the China Initiative that included

development of an enforcement strategy concerning researchers in labs and

universities who were being coopted into stealing critical U.S. technologies, iden-

tiﬁcation of opportunities to address supply-chain threats more eectively, and

education of colleges and universities about potential threats from Chinese inﬂu-

ence eorts on campus.

In February 2022, the Biden Administration terminated the department’s China

Initiative largely out of a concern for poor “optics.”

While the Biden Administra-

tion correctly identiﬁed China as America’s “only competitor with both the intent

to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic,

military, and technological power to do it,”

it folded in the face of political cor-

rectness and sent the message that liberal sensitivities outweighed bringing justice

to threats from China. The next conservative Administration should therefore:

Restart the China Initiative.

Pursue other programs to educate the American people about the

real and dangerous threats to our national security and economic

security that are posed by actors across the globe, most notably

China and Iran.

Ensure that it is agile enough to devote sucient resources and

attention to other emerging threats that involve federal interests

— 557 —

Department of Justice

such as increases in “sextortion,” ransomware, and the continued

proliferation of child pornography.

DEFENDING THE RULE OF LAW

The DOJ’s actions over the course of the Biden Administration exhibit scorn for

its stated mission: “to uphold the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to pro-

tect civil rights.”

The Biden Administration’s unprecedented politicization and

weaponization of the department therefore demand a comprehensive response

from the next Administration.

Restoration of the department’s values of independence, impartiality, honesty,

integrity, respect, and excellence must serve as ﬁrst principles for its eorts on all

fronts. Concretely, the DOJ must identify and address all individuals, policies, and

directives that have fueled the destruction of these core values and the American

people’s loss of trust in the department and its ocials. The next Administration

will need to exert signiﬁcant energy to dismantle the two-tiered system of justice

currently in place at the department while simultaneously applying the rule of law

evenly and with neutrality.

Speciﬁc examples of department corruption, such as the Russia collusion

hoax, will need to be tackled, exposed, and addressed head-on. This will require

not just winning in a court of law, but also demonstrating culpability to the public

and the media in a concrete and nonrefutable manner. These eorts will require

commitment and willpower, but they will be essential to restoring the trust of the

American people.

Promptly and Properly Eliminating Lawless Policies, Investigations, and

Cases, Including All Existing Consent Decrees. Few things undermine the

DOJ’s credibility more than brazenly partisan and ideologically driven prosecution

of an Administration’s perceived political enemies, yet the department has readily

indulged in such misadventures during the Biden Administration. Before even

entering the Robert F. Kennedy building on January 20, 2025, the next Adminis-

tration should:

Conduct a thorough review of all publicly available policies,

investigations, and cases.

In a manner consistent with applicable law, prepare a plan to end

immediately any policies, investigations, or cases that run contrary

to law or Administration policies.

Ensure that upon the next President’s inauguration, appointees at

the department obtain information about anything that was not

learned before taking oce and conduct the same analysis.

— 558 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

An egregious example of the need for such a review is provided by the depart-

ment’s use of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act

to harass

pro-life demonstrators while not pursuing similar investigations of shocking acts

of violence committed against pro-life pregnancy resource centers. On the morning

of September 23, 2022, pro-life activist Mark Houck was arrested by more than

15 FBI agents at his home in Pennsylvania in front of his wife and small children.

Agents came to his door with guns drawn to arrest the 48-year-old father of seven

whose alleged crime involved a minor altercation with an activist who was harass

ing one of his children in front of an abortion clinic almost one year before Mr.

Houck’s arrest by the FBI.

Similarly, Paul Vaughn, a 55-year-old father of 11, was

arrested at his home in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, by armed FBI agents for allegedly

participating in a peaceful protest at an abortion clinic one year earlier.

These arrests stand in stark contrast to the department’s virtual silence on the

wave of vandalism and violence directed at religiously aliated institutions, includ-

ing pregnancy resource centers, following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs

v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

The Catholic News Agency reported

more than one hundred such incidents as of September 2022.

By engaging in disparate and viewpoint-based enforcement of an already con-

troversial law like the FACE Act against pro-life activists, the DOJ has needlessly

undermined its credibility with law-abiding people of faith. The department should

make every eort to uphold equal protection of the law and avoid politically moti-

vated and viewpoint-based prosecutions. Speciﬁcally, it should:

Ensure that its review extends beyond ending the absurd double

standards embodied in the ongoing campaign of FACE Act

prosecutions and instead be a thorough and holistic review of all DOJ

activities, including all consent degrees and settlement agreements

currently in force.

Seek to terminate any unnecessary or outdated consent decree to

which the United States is a party.

Consider pursuing intervention in other matters where consent

decrees or settlement agreements continue to bind parties years or

decades after the fact.

As its review concludes, and consistent with applicable law, take

appropriate action in all cases, including those on appeal.

Enact policies and regulations that prohibit settlement payments to

third parties.

— 559 —

Department of Justice

Engaging in Zealous Advocacy for and Defense of the Constitution and

Lawful Administration Regulations and Policies. The Department of Jus-

tice has the exclusive responsibility for the “conduct of litigation in which the

United States, an agency, or ocer thereof”

is involved and has been charged

with the supervision of “all litigation to which the United States, an agency, or

ocer thereof is a party.”

However, in politically contentious cases, Assistant

United States Attorneys and other line prosecutors during conservative Admin-

istrations seek to inﬂuence outcomes of cases not because of any legal deﬁciency

in the case or policy being defended, but by refusing to take certain positions, by

writing public letters of protest, and by engaging in faux resignations from certain

internal appointments. This can cause the department to take positions that are

inconsistent with the interests of the President and his appointees in other places

throughout the Administration.

While the supervision of litigation is a DOJ responsibility, the department falls

under the direct supervision and control of the President of the United States as a

component of the executive branch. Thus, and putting aside criminal prosecutions

that can warrant dierent treatment, litigation decisions must be made consistent

with the President’s agenda. This can force line attorneys to take uncomfortable

positions in civil cases because those positions are more closely aligned with the

President’s policy agenda.

Ultimately, the department will have to make tough calls as it manages its litiga-

tion, but those calls must always be consistent with the President’s policy agenda

and the rule of law. A line attorney should never either directly or indirectly pursue

a policy agenda through litigation that is inconsistent with the agenda of his or her

client agency or the President. The department should also be cognizant of any

attempts to slow litigation and outlast the Administration to avoid ﬁnality. The

next conservative Administration should therefore:

Issue guidance to ensure that litigation decisions are consistent with

the President’s agenda and the rule of law.

Ensure that, consistent with this principle, the department’s

leadership is prepared to impose appropriate disciplinary action as

circumstances arise.

Arming the Separation of Powers. Federal courts have jurisdiction to deal

with a wide array of issues in law and equity in the United States. The increas-

ingly aggressive posture of federal courts does not change one constitutionally

immutable fact: All three branches of the federal government retain not just the

right, but the obligation to assess constitutionality. It is this obligation that is the

foundation of the separation of powers.

— 560 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

The next conservative Administration should embrace the Constitution and

understand the obligation of the executive branch to use its independent resources

and authorities to restrain the excesses of both the legislative and judicial branches.

This will mean ensuring that the leadership of the Department of Justice and its

components understand the separation of powers, that pushback among the

branches is a positive feature and not a defect of our system, and that the federal

system is strengthened, not weakened, by disagreement among the branches.

One example includes potentially seeking the overruling of Humphrey's Exec-

utor v. United States.

This case approved so-called independent agencies whose

directors are not removable by the President at will. The Supreme Court has

chipped away at Humphrey's Executor in cases like Seila Law v. Consumer Financial

Protection Bureau,

but the precedent remains. The next conservative Adminis-

tration should formally take the position that Humphrey's Executor violates the

Constitution's separation of powers.

Zealously Guarding Other Constitutional Protections. The next conserva-

tive Administration must ensure that the DOJ zealously guards the constitutional

rights of all Americans in all that it does. This extends not only to rights implicated

in the department’s criminal activities, but to all rights enjoyed by the American

people—such as the First Amendment. The department should reject any invi-

tation to limit these fundamental promises based on the political ideology of the

speech at issue.

A recent Supreme Court case illustrates the problems that arise when the DOJ

takes a cramped interpretation of the First Amendment in service of a political

ideology. In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, the department argued in favor of the

government’s ability to coerce and compel what the lower courts all found to be

pure speech.

The oral argument made clear the department’s view that it was

the viewpoint expressed that gave the government power to censor and compel

speech. During oral argument, the United States took the remarkable position

that government can compel a Christian website designer to imagine, create, and

publish a custom website celebrating same-sex marriage but cannot compel an

LGBT person to design a similar website celebrating opposite-sex marriage.

the government’s view, declining to create the latter website was based on an objec-

tion to the message, while the former was based on status rather than message,

but this argument inevitably turns on the viewpoint expressed. It means that the

government gets to decide which viewpoints are protected and which are not—a

frightening and blatantly unconstitutional proposition.

Just as troubling, the government’s arguments against free speech are not lim-

ited to the facts of 303 Creative. As Colorado admitted to the lower courts, all sorts

of artists and speakers like speechwriters, photographers, and videographers can be

compelled to design custom messages that violate their most fundamental convic-

tions as long as it serves a certain viewpoint that the government wants to promote.

— 561 —

Department of Justice

In fact, it was only a few years ago, in Masterpiece Cakeshop, that the govern-

ment acknowledged the constitutional problems involved in compelling artists

to speak government-favored messages. In that case, the United States acknowl-

edged “a basic First Amendment principle that ‘freedom of speech prohibits the

government from telling people what they must say.’”

The department had it

right when it argued that the government may not “compel the dissemination of

its own preferred message,” because the First Amendment protects the “individual

freedom of mind.”

It was also correct when it argued that “[a]n artist cannot be

forced to paint, a musician cannot be forced to play, and a poet cannot be forced

to write.”

The United States’ directly contrary position in 303 Creative is hard

to explain based on anything other than its support for the message the State of

Colorado was attempting to compel.

It is black letter law that no ocial “can prescribe what shall be orthodox…or

force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

Rather, the First

Amendment places “the decision as to what views shall be voiced largely into the

hands of each of us, in the hope that use of such freedom will ultimately produce a

more capable citizenry and more perfect polity.”

As the Supreme Court has noted,

government ocials have frequently sought to “coerce uniformity of sentiment

in support of some end thought essential to their time and country.”

In the face

of such attempts to coerce orthodoxy, the DOJ should maintain its commitment

to upholding the Constitution’s neutral principles of free speech, which commit

the government “to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth

will ultimately prevail.”

Pursuing Equal Protection for All Americans by Vigorously Enforcing

Applicable Federal Civil Rights Laws in Government, Education, and the

Private Sector. Entities across the private and public sectors in the United States

have been besieged in recent years by an unholy alliance of special interests, rad-

icals in government, and the far Left. This unholy alliance speaks in platitudes

about advancing the interests of certain segments of American society, but that

advancement comes at the expense of other Americans and in nearly all cases vio-

lates long-standing federal law.

Even though numerous federal laws prohibit discrimination based on notable

immutable characteristics such as race and sex,

the Biden Administration—

through the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and other federal entities—has enshrined

armative discrimination in all aspects of its operations under the guise of “equity.”

Federal agencies and their components have established so-called diversity, equity,

and inclusion (DEI) oces that have become the vehicles for this unlawful discrim-

ination, and all departments and agencies have created “equity” plans to carry out

these invidious schemes.

To reverse this trend, the next conservative Adminis-

tration should:

— 562 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Ensure that the DOJ spearheads an initiative demonstrating the

federal government’s commitment to nondiscrimination. The

department should also lead a whole-of-government recommitment to

nondiscrimination and should be working with all other federal agencies,

boards, and commissions to ensure that they are both complying with

constitutional and legal requirements and using their authorities and

funding to prevent discrimination not only internally, but also at the

state, local, and private-sector levels. This will require particularly close

coordination with several key agencies, including such obvious candidates

as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; the Departments

of Defense, Education, and Housing and Urban Development; and the

Securities and Exchange Commission. It will also require enforcing

contractual requirements that prohibit discrimination on federal

contractors.

Reorganize and refocus the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division to serve as the

vanguard for this return to lawfulness. The Attorney General and other

DOJ political leadership should provide the resources and moral support

needed for these eorts. The Civil Rights Division should spend its ﬁrst year

under the next Administration using the full force of federal prosecutorial

resources to investigate and prosecute all state and local governments,

institutions of higher education, corporations, and any other private

employers who are engaged in discrimination in violation of constitutional

and legal requirements.

Announcing a Campaign to Enforce the Criminal Prohibitions in 18 U.S.

Code §§ 1461 and 1462 Against Providers and Distributors of Abortion Pills

That Use the Mail. Federal law prohibits mailing “[e]very article, instrument,

substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner

calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion.”

Following

the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, there is now no federal prohibition on the

enforcement of this statute. The Department of Justice in the next conservative

Administration should therefore announce its intent to enforce federal law against

providers and distributors of such pills.

Reassigning Responsibility for Prosecuting Election-Related Oenses

from the Civil Rights Division to the Criminal Division. The Attorney Gen-

eral in the next conservative Administration should reassign responsibility for

prosecuting violations of 18 U.S. Code § 241

from the Civil Rights Division to

the Criminal Division where it belongs. Otherwise, voter registration fraud and

unlawful ballot correction will remain federal election oenses that are never

appropriately investigated and prosecuted.

— 563 —

Department of Justice

Voter fraud includes unlawful practices concerning voter registration and ballot

correction. When state legislatures are silent as to procedures for absentee ballot

curing or provide speciﬁc rules governing that curing, neither counties nor courts

may create a cure right where one does not exist, may not modify the law on curing,

and certainly cannot engage in creating consent orders with the force of law that

are inconsistent with the orders of other similarly situated counties.

The DOJ has ceded substantial discretion concerning voter suppression to

the Civil Rights Division. Since the Bush Administration, DOJ leadership has

determined that using the Election Crimes Branch to prosecute fraudulent voter

registration, including mail-in ballot fraud, was too politically costly.

The Crim-

inal Division’s Federal Prosecution of Election Oenses handbook advised that

schemes that violated equal protection constituted “voter suppression” prosecut-

able under 18 U.S. Code § 241 as part of the guidelines for which the department’s

criminal prosecutors were trained.

State-based investigations of election crimes

are supposed to be referred to the Public Integrity Section for review. Historically,

18 U.S. Code § 241 (conspiracy against rights) was used as a basis for investigating

state ocials whose statements or orders violated the equal protection rights of

voters or deliberately misinformed voters concerning the eligibility of their ballots.

Nevertheless, the Department of Justice has formalized the Civil Rights Divi-

sion’s (as opposed to the Criminal Division’s) jurisdiction over 18 U.S. Code § 241

investigations and prosecutions. The Criminal Division is no longer involved in

consultation or review of 18 U.S. Code § 241 investigations.

The Criminal Division

has accordingly advised states that “[i]n the case of a crime of violence or intimida-

tion,” they should “call 911 immediately and before contacting federal authorities”

because “[s]tate and local police have primary jurisdiction over polling places,”

despite clearly applicable federal law.

This is a mistake. With respect to the 2020 presidential election, there were no

DOJ investigations of the appropriateness or lawfulness of state election guidance.

Consider the state of Pennsylvania. The Secretary of State sent guidance to the

counties stating that:

This revised guidance addresses the issuance, voting and examination

of provisional ballots under the Election Code. Provisional ballots were

originally mandated by section 302 of the Help America Vote Act of 2002

(HAVA). Provisional ballot amendments included in Act 77 of 2019 went into

eect for the 2020 Primary election. Provisional ballot amendments included

in Act 12 of 2020 go into eect for the ﬁrst time on November 3, 2020.

HAVA, however, mandates provisional ballots only for eligible voters who were

not on a state’s voter registration list.

It does not apply to those who registered

for mail-in voting but whose ballots were rejected due to some form of spoliation.

— 564 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Pennsylvania Act 12 (amended in 2020) does not authorize curing by providing

provisional ballots for mail-in voters whose ballots were rejected. Act 12 requires,

as part of the mail-in application process, an adavit that:

[The elector] shall not be eligible to vote at a polling place on election day

unless the elector brings the elector’s mail-in ballot to the elector’s polling

place, remits the ballot and the envelope containing the declaration of the

elector to the judge of elections to be spoiled and signs a statement subject

to the penalties under 18 Pa.C.S. § 4904 (relating to unsworn falsiﬁcation to

authorities) to the same eect.

The law in Pennsylvania clearly states that no county may armatively provide

provisional ballots: The mail-in voter must vote in person and sign a new adavit.

In the 2020 election, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recognized that “the Election

Code contains no requirement that voters whose ballots are deemed inadequately

veriﬁed be apprised of this fact. Thus, unlike in-person voters, mail-in or absentee

voters are not provided any opportunity to cure perceived defects in a timely man-

ner.”

Given the Pennsylvania Secretary of State’s use of guidance to circumvent

state law, the Pennsylvania Secretary of State should have been (and still should be)

investigated and prosecuted for potential violations of 18 U.S. Code § 241.

Investigations and prosecutions under 18 U.S. Code § 241 are currently within

the jurisdictional oversight of the Civil Rights Division, not the Criminal Division.

Only by moving authority for 18 U.S. Code § 241 investigations and prosecutions

back to the Criminal Division will the rule of law be appropriately enforced.

Rejecting Third-Party Requests for Politically Motivated Investigations

or Prosecutions. The DOJ should reject demands from third-party groups that

ask it to threaten politically motivated investigation or prosecution of those engag-

ing in lawful and, in many cases, constitutionally protected activity. By acceding to

such demands, the department risks diminishing its credibility with the American

public. This risk is exacerbated by the fact that communications between govern-

ment ocials and third-party groups are generally unprotected by privilege and

subject to disclosure, whether via subpoena to the third-party group or via request

made pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act. These communications can

even be made public voluntarily by the third-party group.

A recent example illustrates the risks posed by such activity. On October 4, 2021,

Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memorandum to the Director of the

FBI, the Executive Oce for U.S. Attorneys, and the Assistant Attorney General,

Criminal Division, calling on the FBI to work with each U.S. Attorney to “con-

vene meetings with federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial leaders” to discuss

strategies for addressing “threats against school administrators, board members,

teachers, and sta.”

Subsequent reporting and investigation revealed that the

— 565 —

Department of Justice

memorandum was prompted by a September 29, 2021, letter sent by the National

School Boards Association (NSBA) to President Biden demanding a federal law

enforcement response to perceived threats to school board members and pub-

lic-school employees.

The NSBA letter made outlandish demands in response to protests that were

then occurring at school board meetings in response to COVID policies and revela-

tions about the use of critical race theory–infused curricula in classrooms. Among

the letter’s demands was a call for a federal investigation into parents’ actions (“hei-

nous actions” that “could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and

hate crimes”) under a variety of federal laws including the “Gun-Free Zones Act,

the PATRIOT Act in regards to domestic terrorism, the Matthew Shepard and

James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes and Prevention Act, the Violent Interference with

Federally Protected Rights statute, and the Conspiracy Against Rights statute”

and “an Executive Order to enforce all applicable federal laws for the protection

of students and public school district personnel, and any related measure.”

Both the Attorney General’s memorandum and the NSBA letter drew swift

public condemnation, including from 14 sitting state Attorneys General.

A sub-

sequent internal investigation commissioned by the NSBA revealed that ocials

at the White House had been in discussions with NSBA ocials about the contents

of the letter weeks before it was issued. The investigation also revealed that White

House ocials indicated they planned to raise the contents of the draft letter with

DOJ ocials a full week before the NSBA’s letter was issued.

This cooperation by a third-party group, the White House, and the DOJ to craft

and coordinate a response to an ill-advised and politically motivated letter under-

mines the department’s credibility as an impartial law enforcement agency. In the

words of the 14 state Attorneys General who wrote to oppose the department’s

memorandum, “potential collusion between the White House, the Department,

and the NSBA in the actual creation of the September 29 letter—as a pretext for

threats against parents—raises serious concerns.”

The DOJ should carefully scrutinize all requests for law enforcement assis-

tance and reject requests by third parties to engage in political grandstanding that

ignores the department’s traditional jurisdictional limits and that would trample

politically controversial but constitutionally protected activity.

Ensuring Proper Distribution of DOJ Grant Funds. DOJ grants are an

underutilized asset in most conservative Administrations. When used properly,

they can be highly eective in implementing the President’s priorities. The Oce

of Justice Programs (OJP) is comprised of six components and is responsible for

most DOJ grants to local law enforcement, juvenile justice, and victims of crime

as well as for criminal justice research and statistics. The opportunity to support

a President’s agenda may be greater through OJP grant funding than it is through

any of the federal government’s other grant-making components.

— 566 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Consistent with appropriations from Congress, the OJP dispenses approxi-

mately $7 billion in various grants. Block grants are given to a state to be awarded

pursuant to federal regulations. Some funds to support law enforcement and

victims of crime are awarded pursuant to block grants. But most OJP funds are

awarded through discretionary grants—speciﬁc programs written into the budget

by Congress.

Although Congress dictates the way in which many grant awards are to be

made, federal sta enjoy a tremendous amount of discretion in adding “conditions”

and “priority points.” Grants operate with a carrot and a stick. To receive grant

funding, a recipient must agree to certain conditions, which in many instances

include the President’s priorities. For instance, under an anti–human tracking

grant during the Obama Administration (approximately $110 million in 2020), an

awardee had to show a partnership with an LGBTQ organization and always have

an interpreter on site. These conditions worked to change culture and overlayed

President Obama’s priorities: support for the LGBTQ community and for more of

the funding to go to areas with large immigrant populations.

During the Trump Administration, a condition added to grants stated that an

awardee had to comply with all federal law (stock language), including federal law

regarding the exchange of information between federal and local authorities about

an individual’s immigration status. This condition prevented law enforcement

in “sanctuary cities” from receiving grant awards. While the Trump Administra-

tion suered a series of setbacks from several hostile courts, it obtained from the

Second Circuit Court of Appeals a decision upholding the department’s authority

to impose these conditions.

To ensure that taxpayer-funded grants are prioritized and distributed properly,

the next conservative Administration should:

Conduct an immediate, comprehensive review of all federal grant

disbursals to ensure not only that the programs are being properly

administered by the department, but also that the grant funding is

being received and used properly by recipients.

Order an overhaul of the DOJ grant application process, to include

more rigorous vetting of state, local, and private grant applicants and

inclusion of more pre-application criteria to ensure baseline ﬁtness

and eligibility for federal grant dollars. This long-overdue enhancement

of the grant application and issuance process will ensure that hard-earned

taxpayer dollars are going only to lawful actors who support federal law

enforcement and demonstrate the ability and willingness to engage in

lawful activities.

— 567 —

Department of Justice

Ensuring Proper Enforcement and Administration of Our Immigration

Laws. Although its role has changed over the years, most notably following the

passage of the Homeland Security Act of 2002,

the Department of Justice plays

a crucial role in the enforcement and adjudication of our immigration laws.

Its

leadership and energy, however, have not always reﬂected the importance placed

by Congress on the execution of that crucial mission. With a few notable exceptions,

successful fulﬁllment of the department’s responsibilities with respect to immi-

gration was largely neglected until the Trump Administration. The Department

of Homeland Security may be the largest federal department with immigration

responsibilities, but successful fulﬁllment of the responsibilities prescribed by

the immigration laws is not possible without bold and dedicated action by the

Department of Justice.

The DOJ and its leadership must intentionally prioritize fulﬁllment of the

department’s immigration-related responsibilities in the next conservative Admin-

istration. This will be no small task, as these responsibilities play out across nearly

every DOJ oce and component. If they hope to fulﬁll their responsibilities as

assigned by Congress and deliver results for the American people, the department

and the Attorney General should:

Issue guidance to all U.S. Attorneys emphasizing the importance

of prosecuting immigration oenses,

and immigration-related

oenses. The brunt of these oenses is born by districts along the

southwestern border with Mexico, but the simple fact remains that

immigration and immigration-related oenses are present in every

district across the country. Successfully pursuing the priorities outlined

in this chapter will require creative use of the various immigration and

immigration-related authorities in close partnership with the Department

of Homeland Security, the Department of State, and other appropriate

federal entities depending on the situation.

Pursue appropriate steps to assist the Department of Homeland

Security in obtaining information about criminal aliens in

jurisdictions across the United States, particularly those inside

“sanctuary” jurisdictions.

Examine and consider the appropriateness of withdrawing or

overturning every immigration decision rendered by Attorney

General Garland (and any successor Attorney General during

President Biden’s term). The Attorney General should pick up where the

Attorneys General under President Trump left o and exercise his or her

authority to adjudicate cases and provide guidance in appropriate cases to

— 568 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

correct erroneous decisions, provide clarity, and align Executive Oce for

Immigration Review (EOIR) decisions with the law.

At a minimum, pursue through rulemaking—and in partnership

with the Department of Homeland Security where appropriate—the

promulgation of every rule related to immigration that was issued

during the Trump Administration. Such rulemakings include guidance

on continuances in immigration court cases, eligibility for asylum, and

other related matters. However, the DOJ should not stop there: It should

continually evaluate its authorities and operational reality within the

immigration court system and promulgate regulations accordingly.

Commit sucient resources to the adjudication of cases in the

immigration court system in dierent environments (for example, in

the context of the Migrant Protection Protocols).

Pursue proactive litigation to advance the federal government’s

interests in areas where erroneous precedent curtails authorities

provided by Congress (for example, by pursuing the overturning of

the Flores Settlement Agreement).

Pursue aggressive enforcement of the immigration laws within the

Immigrant and Employee Rights Section of the Civil Rights Division

to ensure that no American citizen is discriminated against in the

employment context in favor of a temporary or foreign worker.

Ensure the deployment and use of appointees throughout the

department who are committed to successful achievement of the

department’s immigration-related missions. This includes personnel in

or overseeing not only the EOIR, but also the Oce of the Attorney General,

Oce of the Deputy Attorney General, Oce of the Associate Attorney

General, Oce of the Solicitor General, and nearly every other component/

oce throughout the department.

Pursue a more vigorous anti-fraud program within the EOIR. In

perhaps no other area of law are there more attorneys who commit acts

of fraud against their clients—advancing completely meritless arguments

in exchange for exorbitant fees—than there are in the area of immigration.

Fraud and unethical behavior are rampant in the immigration system and

must be addressed—not only to ensure that the federal government is

operating in a proper manner, but also for the sake of the aliens involved in

— 569 —

Department of Justice

the process as well as the integrity/credibility of the members of the private

immigration bar who do not engage in such conduct.

ADDITIONAL ESSENTIAL REFORMS

Aligning Departmental Resources with Leadership Priorities Across All

Components and U.S. Attorneys’ Oces. As the next Administration pursues

its objectives, it should use the department’s resources eciently in a manner

that delivers results for the American people. To accomplish this goal, it will be

necessary to:

Ensure the assignment of sucient political appointees throughout

the department. Ensuring adequate accountability throughout the DOJ

requires the intentional devotion of sucient resources by the Administra-

tion—not simply replicating what was done under prior Administrations and

reﬂected in the Plum Book.

The number of appointees serving throughout

the department in prior Administrations—particularly during the Trump

Administration—has not been sucient either to stop bad things from hap-

pening through proper management or to promote the President’s agenda.

It is not enough for political appointees to serve in obvious oces like the

Oce of the Attorney General or the Oce of the Deputy Attorney General.

The next conservative Administration must make every eort to obtain the

resources to support a vast expansion of the number of appointees in every

oce and component across the department—especially in the Civil Rights

Division, the FBI, and the EOIR.

End all nonessential details of department personnel—particularly

those detailed to congressional oces—until the department can

conduct a thorough review of its personnel needs. Considering all of

the many challenges facing the DOJ, the next conservative Administration

should terminate and recall all details of DOJ personnel shortly after the

President’s inauguration. After a thorough analysis of the department’s

resources and priorities is completed, details to other portions of the

executive branch and to Congress can resume.

Ensure accountability for personnel sanctioned or referred for

discipline after a ﬁnding of misconduct. The next conservative

Administration should complete a thorough review of any sanctions

or ﬁndings of misconduct issued over the four years preceding the

inauguration to ensure that the Biden Administration acted appropriately

in response to any such sanctions or ﬁndings.

— 570 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Undertake a comprehensive review of DOJ hiring practices. The next

conservative Administration should conduct a holistic review of hiring

practices employed across all DOJ oces and components to ensure that

those practices comply with applicable law and policy. All hiring committees

associated with hiring for career positions across the department should be

assessed for impartiality to ensure that individuals are hired based on merit,

aptitude, and legal skill and not based on association with or membership in

certain ideologically aligned groups or based on illegal considerations such

as race, religion, or sex.

Eliminating Redundant Oces and Consolidating Functions to Increase

Eciencies. The next conservative Administration should explore the possibility

of consolidating and aligning the functions of the DOJ’s various components and

oces in human resources, legal counsel, public relations, and other related areas.

While local access to appropriate personnel and resources is important, there are

ineciencies and redundancies across the department that result in a bureaucratic,

Rube Goldberg–style design that ultimately hinders the department’s mission.

From IT infrastructure to management functions to public relations, DOJ lead-

ership should explore consolidation and intradepartmental eciencies to obtain

the best possible support for its critical missions.

For example, the Department of Public Aairs has a dual structure of public

information ocers in which there are some political appointees who lead the

oce and provide support, but also career appointees who serve as public infor-

mation ocers for individual divisions (Criminal Division, National Security

Division, etc.). The career ocials handle the day-to-day work of the division,

which entails monitoring important cases, assisting in editing, and distribut-

ing press releases, and the political appointees will step in for larger issues that

advance the Administration’s initiatives. This could be made more ecient by

having political appointees for each division under the supervision of the Direc-

tor of Public Aairs.

Additionally, given the interplay of function between the Oce of Legislative

Aairs (OLA) and the Oce of Public Aairs, as well as the fact that the Assistant

Attorney General for the OLA is a Senate-conﬁrmed position, the two oces should

be folded into one for more eciency and proper coordination. Under an Oce

of Public and Legislative Aairs, the Assistant Attorney General’s portfolio would

encompass both, with one Director/Deputy for Public Aairs and one Director/

Deputy for Legislative Aairs.

Pursuing Other Changes in Reporting Chains to Ensure Consistency with

the Law and Administration Priorities. The next conservative Administration

should undertake a comprehensive review of the DOJ’s current organizational

chart and make decisions about its structure—consistent with any authority to do

— 571 —

Department of Justice

so outside of congressional action—to ensure the most ecient accomplishment

of the department’s missions. For example:

Is the current reporting structure for the Associate Attorney General’s Oce

the best and optimal for the achievement of the department’s mission?

Should all of the Deputy Attorney General’s direct reports continue to be

direct reports, or would a dierent structure achieve a better, more ecient

outcome in fulﬁlling the department’s mission?

What should the Oce of Legal Policy’s role be in the next conservative

Administration? Should it continue to be responsible for assisting with

judicial nominations, or should that function be assigned to the Oce of

Legislative Aairs, which interacts with Congress on a daily basis?

Pursuing Legislative Changes for Assistant United States Attorneys’

Compensation. To ensure that the department can attract and retain top legal

talent away from Washington, D.C., the next conservative Administration should

seek congressional reform of the pay scale used for Assistant United States

Attorneys in the ﬁeld. At a minimum, that reform should include a proposal to com-

pensate Assistant United States Attorneys on at least the same basis as attorneys

employed by Main Justice who are compensated under the GS scale. Ensuring that

the department can attract and retain top legal talent outside of the D.C. market is

essential and will help to emphasize the importance of the ﬁeld’s work in achieving

the department’s various missions.

Protecting the Integrity of the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National

Institute of Justice. The DOJ’s statistical and research arms should serve the Amer-

ican people and not special interests. The Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics

should focus the BJS on producing the statistics of greatest interest to everyday

Americans, and hence of policymakers, rather than those of particular interest to crim-

inal-justice academics. The Director should insist that such statistics be as accurate

as possible and presented as clearly as possible. The intellectually engaged, everyday

American citizen should be able to read and understand the BJS’s published statistics

and reports rather than having to trust “experts” because the statistics are not clear.

The BJS should focus on the core statistics involving crime and punishment,

such as those relating to serious crimes committed, imprisonment, time served,

recidivism, and the like. It should not pursue the niche political agendas of aca-

demics or advocates. Moreover, a clear line should be maintained between ocial

government statistics and third-party contractor reports. There should be no

reports that look like ocial BJS reports but are authored by private entities such

as the Urban Institute as happened under the Obama Administration.

— 572 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Research funded by the National Institute of Justice should follow similar

principles. The NIJ should fund high-quality, unbiased research on the topics

of greatest interest to everyday Americans and policymakers rather than agen-

da-driven research desired by advocates or academics.

The National Crime Victimization Survey, which is the nation’s largest crime

survey and predates the BJS (it dates to the Nixon Administration), is of particular

importance, and the department should prioritize and suciently fund it. This

survey provides the only comprehensive and credible alternative to police reports

for showing who commits crimes. The demographic information that crime victims

provide through the survey about who commits crimes against them enables such

reports as “Race and Ethnicity of Violent Crime Oenders and Arrestees, 2018,”

which was published in January 2021 and ﬁnds that police are arresting those who,

according to victims, actually commit crimes.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter involved contributions from members of the 2025

Presidential Transition Project. Most contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume—and in

the perfect cancel-proof world, all contributors of ideas would be listed—but the sta at America First Legal

Foundation deserves special mention for their assistance while juggling other responsibilities. The author alone

assumes responsibility for the content of this chapter, and no views expressed herein should be attributed to any

other individual.

— 573 —

Department of Justice

ENDNOTES

 Judiciary Act of 1789, ch. 20, sec. 35, 1 Stat. 73 (1789), https://judicial-discipline-reform.org/docs/Judiciary_

Act_1789.pdf (accessed February 3, 2023).

 An Act to Establish the Department of Justice, Public Law No. 41-97, 16 Stat. 162 (1870), https://www.justice.

gov/sites/default/ﬁles/jmd/legacy/2013/10/23/act-pl41-97.pdf (accessed February 3, 2023).

 John F. Fox, Jr., “The Birth of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau

of Investigation, “History,” July 2003, https://bit.ly/3G4LmD0 (accessed February 3, 2023).

 Trafalgar Group, “Nationwide Issues Survey August 2022,” pp. 19, 22, and 25, https://www.thetrafalgargroup.

org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/COSA-FBI_DOJ-Opinion-Full-Report-0824.pdf (accessed

February 3, 2023).

 John Solomon, “FBI Email Chain May Provide Most Damning Evidence of FISA Abuses Yet,” The Hill, December

5, 2018, https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/419901-fbi-email-chain-may-provide-most-damning-evidence-of-ﬁsa-

abuses-yet/ (accessed February 3, 2023); Post Editorial Board, “The FBI Knew RussiaGate Was a Lie—But Hid

That Truth,” New York Post, June 11, 2022, https://nypost.com/2022/06/11/the-fbi-knew-russiagate-was-a-lie-

but-hid-that-truth/ (accessed February 3, 2023).

 John Solomon, “Collusion Bombshell: DNC Lawyers Met with FBI on Russia Allegations Before Surveillance

Warrant,” The Hill, October 3, 2018, https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/409817-russia-collusion-bombshell-dnc-

lawyers-met-with-fbi-on-dossier-before/ (accessed February 3, 2023); Eric Tucker, “Ex-FBI Lawyer Admits to

False Statement During Russia Probe,” AP News, August 19, 2020, https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-

b9b3c7ef398d00d5dfee9170d66cefec (accessed February 3, 2023).

 Jesse O’Neill, “FBI Pressured Twitter, Sent Trove of Docs Hours Before Post Broke Hunter Laptop Story,” New

York Post, December 19, 2022, https://nypost.com/2022/12/19/fbi-reached-out-to-twitter-before-post-broke-

hunter-biden-laptop-story/ (accessed February 3, 2023).

 Memorandum from Attorney General Merrick Garland to Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation; Director

of the Executive Oce for U.S. Attorneys; Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division; and United States

Attorneys, “Subject: Partnership Among Federal, State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial Law Enforcement to

Address Threats Against School Administrators, Board Members, Teachers, and Sta,” October 4, 2021, https://

www.justice.gov/ag/page/ﬁle/1438986/download (accessed February 3, 2023) (cited hereafter as Garland

Memorandum, October 4, 2021).

 Dillon Burroughs, “25 States Have Now Left National School Boards Association as Nebraska Departs,” Daily

Wire, June 13, 2022, https://www.dailywire.com/news/25-states-have-now-left-national-school-boards-

association-as-nebraska-departs (accessed February 3, 2023).

 Brianna Herlily, “FBI Met Weekly with Big Tech Ahead of the 2020 Election, Agent Testiﬁes,” Fox News,

December 3, 2022, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-weekly-big-tech-ahead-2020-election-agent-

testiﬁes (accessed February 3, 2023); Allie Grin, “Latest ‘Twitter Files’ Show FBI Bullied Executives Over Not

Reporting ‘State Propaganda’ Enough, New York Post, December 18, 2022, https://nypost.com/2022/12/18/

latest-twitter-ﬁles-show-fbi-questioned-executives-over-users-spouting-state-propaganda/ (accessed

February 3, 2023).

 Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD), “In the end, the FBI's inﬂuence campaign aimed at executives

at news media, Twitter, & other social media companies worked: they censored & discredited the Hunter

Biden laptop story. By Dec. 2020, Baker and his colleagues even sent a note of thanks to the FBI for its work,”

Twitter, December 19, 2022, 1:35 PM), https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604908212628598784

(accessed February 3, 2023).

 Press release, “Eleven Charged with FACE Act Violations Stemming from 2021 Blockade of Mount Juliet

Reproductive Health Clinic,” U.S. Department of Justice, United States Attorney’s Oce, Middle District of

Tennessee, October 5, 2022, https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdtn/pr/eleven-charged-face-act-violations-

stemming-2021-blockade-mount-juliet-reproductive (accessed February 3, 2023); Kaelan Deese, “DOJ

Ocial Touts Prosecution of Anti-Abortion Advocates While Vandalized Pregnancy Centers Await Justice,”

Washington Examiner, December 14, 2022, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/doj-ocial-

admits-to-prosecuting-pro-life-advocates (accessed February 3, 2023); S. 636, Freedom of Access to Clinic

Entrances Act of 1994, Public Law No. 103-259, 103rd Congress, May 26, 1994, https://www.congress.gov/103/

statute/STATUTE-108/STATUTE-108-Pg694.pdf (accessed February 5, 2023).

— 574 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 Aruna Viswanatha and Sadie Gurman, “Almost Half of Federal Cases Against Portland Rioters Have Been

Dismissed,” The Wall Street Journal, updated April 15, 2021), https://www.wsj.com/articles/almost-half-

of-federal-cases-against-portland-rioters-have-been-dismissed-11618501979 (accessed February 3, 2023);

Just the News Sta, “Antifa-led Portland Rioter Charged with Assault Police [sic] Has Case Dismissed After

Community Service,” Just the News, updated December 30, 2021, https://justthenews.com/government/

courts-law/antifa-led-portland-rioter-charge-assault-police-has-case-dismissed-after (accessed

February 3, 2023).

 Press release, “Justice Department Sues Texas Over Senate Bill 8: Complaint Alleges Senate Bill 8 Violates the

Constitution by Eectively Banning Most Abortions,” U.S. Department of Justice, September 9, 2021, https://

www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-texas-over-senate-bill-8 (accessed February 3, 2023).

 Dorian Geiger, “DOJ Warns States Over Blocking Access to Gender-Arming Treatment,” Axios, March

31, 2022, https://www.axios.com/2022/03/31/doj-warns-states-blocking-gender-arming-care (accessed

February 3, 2023).

 Joyce White Vance, “The Justice Department Is Suing Georgia. Don’t Expect Garland to End There,” The

Washington Post, June 29, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/06/29/merrick-garland-

suing-georgia-voting/ (accessed February 3, 2023); David Nakamura and Devlin Barrett, “Justice Dept.

Sues Texas Over State Redistricting Maps, Citing Discrimination Against Latinos,” The Washington Post,

December 6, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/texas-maps-garland-latinos-

justice/2021/12/06/4011ce78-56aa-11ec-9a18-a506cf3aa31d_story.html (accessed February 3, 2023); Holmes

Lybrand and Paul LeBlanc, “Justice Department Sues Arizona Over New Election Law Requiring Proof of

Citizenship,” CNN, updated July 5, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/05/politics/arizona-election-law-

justice-department/index.html (accessed February 3, 2023).

 Zachary Pottle, “America’s Fentanyl Crisis Is Getting Worse,” Addiction Center, August 26, 2022, https://www.

addictioncenter.com/news/2022/08/americas-fentanyl-crisis/ (accessed February 3, 2023).

 Emily Jacobs, “Merrick Garland Speaks at DOJ Before Swearing-in by VP Kamala Harris,” New York Post,

updated March 11, 2021, https://nypost.com/2021/03/11/merrick-garland-speaks-at-doj-before-swearing-in-

by-kamala-harris/ (accessed February 3, 2023).

 Eliot H. Lumbard, “State and Local Government Crime Control,” Notre Dame Law Review,

Vol. 43, Issue 6 (1968), pp. 899–907, https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.

cgi?httpsredir=1&article=3119&context=ndlr (accessed February 3, 2023).

 Emma Colton, “Chip Roy Demands DOJ Explain Light Sentence for Floyd Riot Arsonist Who Killed Father of

5,” Fox News, February 10, 2022, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/chip-roy-light-sentence-george-ﬂoyd-

arsonist-riots-2020 (accessed February 3, 2023); Chris Enloe, “DOJ Asked for Lenient Sentence for 2020

Rioter Who Burned Down Pawn Shop, Killing One Man. Prosecutors Even Cited MLK,” Blaze Media News,

January 29, 2022, https://www.theblaze.com/news/doj-lenient-sentence-rioter-arson#toggle-gdpr (accessed

February 3, 2023); Chris Pandolfo, “House Republicans Release 1,000-Page Report Alleging Politicization in

the FBI, DOJ,” Fox News, November 4, 2022, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-republicans-release-

1000-page-report-alleging-politicization-fbi-doj (accessed February 3, 2023); Brooke Singman, “Cruz Slams

‘Politicized’ Biden DOJ for Appointing Trump Special Counsel: ‘Absolutely Disgraceful,’” Fox News, November19,

2022, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cruz-slams-biden-doj-appointing-special-counsel-investigate-

trump-absolutely-disgraceful (accessed February 3, 2023).

 8 U.S. Code § 1324 (Bringing in and harboring certain aliens), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1324

(accessed March 9, 2023); 8 U.S. Code § 1325 (Improper entry by alien), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/

text/8/1325 (accessed February 5, 2023); 8 U.S. Code § 1326 (Reentry of removed aliens), https://www.law.

cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1326 (accessed February 5, 2023); 8 U.S. Code § 1327 (Aiding or assisting certain

aliens to enter), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1327 (accessed February 5, 2023); 8 U.S. Code § 1328

(Importation of alien for immoral purpose), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1328 (accessed February

5, 2023; press release, “In Brief Filed with Supreme Court, AFL Hammers Biden Administration’s Termination

of MPP—Cites Alarming Statistic That Biden Administration Has Already Released More Than 750,000 Illegal

Aliens into the United States from the Border,” America First Legal Foundation, April 14, 2022, https://aﬂegal.org/

in-brief-ﬁled-with-supreme-court-aﬂ-hammers-biden-administrations-termination-of-mpp-citing-alarming-

statistic-that-biden-administration-has-already-released-more-than-750000-ille/ (accessed February 5, 2023).

— 575 —

Department of Justice

 Editorial Board, “About Those Domestic-Terrorist Parents,” The Wall Street Journal, October 26, 2021, https://www.

wsj.com/articles/about-those-domestic-terrorists-national-school-boards-association-merrick-garland-memo-

fbi-11635285900 (accessed February 3, 2023); John Malcom, “Are Parents Being Tagged as ‘Domestic Terrorists’

by the FBI? Justice Department Needs to Show Its Cards,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, November 18, 2021,

https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/are-parents-being-tagged-domestic-terrorists-the-

fbi-justice (accessed February 3, 2023); Victor Nava, “FBI Treated Twitter as a ‘Subsidiary,’ Flagged Tweets and

Accounts for ‘Misinformation,’” New York Post, updated December 16, 2022, https://nypost.com/2022/12/16/fbi-

treated-twitter-as-subsidiary-ﬂagged-tweets-for-misinformation/ (accessed February 3, 2023).

 Mary Margaret Olohan, “DOJ’s Kristen Clarke: A Pro-Abortion Activist Enforcing the Law Against Pro-Lifers,”

The Daily Signal, October 26, 2022, https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/10/26/dojs-kristen-clarke-pro-

abortion-activist-enforcing-law-pro-lifers/ ; Josh Gerstein, “DOJ Ocial Pressed on Targeting of Supreme

Court Justices,” Politico, July 28, 2022, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/28/doj-ocial-pressed-on-

targeting-of-supreme-court-justices-00048506 (accessed February 3, 2023).

 Solomon, “FBI Email Chain May Provide Most Damning Evidence of FISA Abuses Yet”; Post Editorial Board,

“The FBI Knew RussiaGate Was a Lie—But Hid That Truth”; O’Neill, “FBI Pressured Twitter, Sent Trove of Docs

Hours Before Post Broke Hunter Laptop Story.”

 U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, “History: The Nation Calls, 1908–1923,” https://

www.fbi.gov/history/brief-history/the-nation-calls (accessed February 3, 2023).

 Press release, “FBI and Law Enforcement Partners Arrest Nearly 6,000 Violent Criminals This Summer,” U.S.

Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, September 13, 2022, https://www.fbi.gov/news/

press-releases/press-releases/fbi-and-law-enforcement-partners-arrest-nearly-6000-violent-criminals-this-

summer (accessed February 3, 2023).

 See, for example, Joseph Goldstein, “As Seen in ‘Goodfellas’: Arrest Is Made in ’78 Lufthansa Robbery,” The

New York Times, January 23, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/nyregion/arrests-in-cold-case-

investigation-including-78-lufthansa-heist.html (accessed February 3, 2023).

 Danielle Wallace, “FBI Nationwide Operation Locates 121 Actively Missing Kids, Child Sex Tracking Victims,”

Fox News, August 15, 2022, https://www.foxnews.com/us/fbi-nationwide-operation-locates-actively-missing-

kids-child-sex-tracking-victims (accessed February 3, 2023).

 Adam Shaw, “FBI Stepped in After Suspected Chinese Spy Got Close to Swalwell, Other Politicians, Report

Finds,” Fox News, December 8, 2020, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-chinese-spy-swalwell-other-

politicians (accessed February 3, 2023).

 The precise scope and contours of this review warrant special consideration. A review of all ongoing drug

tracking investigations or speciﬁc violent crime investigations may not warrant the department’s attention

in the same way as high-proﬁle, politically sensitive investigations likely will. Nevertheless, the goal should be

as comprehensive a review as possible.

 28 U.S. Code § 531, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/531 (accessed February 3, 2023).

Emphasis added.

 The same could be said to apply to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and potentially to the U.S.

Marshals Service, although the USMS’s mission protecting the federal courts could present compelling reasons

why the department should maintain it as a direct report to the Deputy Attorney General.

 See, for example, Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers No. 1, October 27, 1787, https://founders.archives.

gov/documents/Hamilton/01-04-02-0152 (accessed February 3, 2023).

 An argument could also be made that the upper echelons of the FBI’s leadership should physically relocate

back to the Robert F. Kennedy building to ensure proper accountability and to emphasize organizational

reality: The FBI is a component of the department, not its equal, as outlined above.

 U.S. Department of Justice, Oce of the Inspector General, Audit of the Roles and Responsibilities of the

Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Oce of the General Counsel in National Security Matters, Report No. 22-116,

September 2022, https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/reports/22-116.pdf (accessed February 3, 2023).

 S. 2212, Crime Control Act of 1976, Public Law No. 94-503, October 15, 1976, § 203, 90 Stat. 2427 (codiﬁed as

amended at 28 U.S. Code § 532), https://www.congress.gov/94/statute/STATUTE-90/STATUTE-90-Pg2407.

pdf (accessed February 3, 2023).

 See “Enhancing Federal Focus and Resources in Jurisdictions with Rule-of-Law Deﬁciencies,” infra.

— 576 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 Garland Memorandum, October 4, 2021; press release, “America First Legal Seeks Two Federal Investigations

on Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Infamous Oct. 4th Memo Siccing the FBI on Concerned Parents,”

America First Legal Foundation, March 14, 2022, https://aﬂegal.org/america-ﬁrst-legal-seeks-two-federal-

investigations-on-attorney-general-merrick-garlands-infamous-oct-4th-memo-siccing-the-fbi-on-concerned-

parents/ (accessed February 3, 2023).

 Luke Rosiak, “In Aftermath of Enemies List, School Committee Pledges to ‘Silence the Opposition,’” Daily Wire,

March 27, 2021, https://www.dailywire.com/news/after-enemies-list-school-body-pledges-to-silence-the-

opposition (accessed February 3, 2023).

 The language of the Equal Protection Clause “reﬂects that ‘achieving equal protection against lawbreakers

was at the core of the Clause’s objectives.’” Lefebure v. D’Aquilla, 15 F.4th 650, 669 (5th Cir. 2021) (Graves, J.

dissenting) (quoting Lawrence Rosenthal, “Policing and Equal Protection,” Yale Law & Policy Review, Vol.

21, No. 53 (2003), p. 70) cert. denied, 212 L. Ed. 2d 791, 142 S. Ct. 2732 (2022)), https://casetext.com/case/

lefebure-v-daquilla-2 (accessed February 3, 2023).

 See, for example, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler’s actions in 2020 calling on federal ocials—executing their

mission to protect federal property and ocials—to leave the city, saying, “They’re not wanted here” despite

the fact that local reports found that “[o]ut of more than a thousand arrests reported by the Portland Police

Bureau and other local law enforcement since late May 2020, only about 8.4% of the cases are still open”

and that the “rest have been dismissed or listed as no complaint, which means authorities are not currently

pursuing charges.” BBC News, “Portland Protests: Mayor Demands Federal Ocers Leave City,” July 20, 2020,

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53466718 (accessed February 3, 2023), and Hannah Lambert,

“91% of Portland Protest Arrests Not Being Prosecuted,” Portland Tribune, January 5, 2021, https://archive.ph/

OSDbz (accessed February 3,2023).

 Figure 4, “Trend in Average Guideline Minimum and Average Sentence Imposed for Armed Career Criminals

Fiscal Years 2010–2019,” in U.S. Sentencing Commission, Federal Armed Career Criminals: Prevalence, Patterns,

and Pathways, March 2021, p. 26, https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/pdf/research-and-publications/

research-publications/2021/20210303_ACCA-Report.pdf (accessed February 3, 2023).

 18 U.S. Code § 924(e), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/924 (accessed February 3, 2023).

 S. 1586, Restoring the Armed Career Criminal Act, 117th Congress, introduced May 12, 2021, https://www.

congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/1586 (accessed February 6, 2023).

 This could require seeking the Supreme Court to overrule Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (2008), in

applicable cases, but the department should place a priority on doing so.

 21 U.S. Code § 801 et seq., https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/21/chapter-13/subchapter-I/part-A

(accessed February 3, 2023).

 18 U.S. Code §§ 1961–1968, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-96 (accessed

February 3, 2023).

 For more on this topic generally, see “Ensuring Enforcement and Administration of Our Immigration Laws,” infra.

 See Paul J. Larkin, “Twenty-First Century Illicit Drugs and Their Discontents: The Scourge of Illicit Fentanyl,”

Heritage Foundation Legal Memorandum No. 313, November 1, 2022), https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/

ﬁles/2022-11/LM313.pdf.

 Jessica Rendall, “100,000 People Died from Drug Overdoses in the US in One Year, a Record,” CNET,

November 18, 2021, https://www.cnet.com/health/medical/100000-people-died-from-drug-overdoses-in-

the-us-in-one-year-a-record/ (accessed February 3, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Justice, National Security Division, “Information About the Department of Justice’s

China Initiative and a Compilation of China-Related Prosecutions Since 2018,” last updated November 19,

2021, https://www.justice.gov/archives/nsd/information-about-department-justice-s-china-initiative-and-

compilation-china-related (accessed February 3, 2023).

 Ronn Blitzer and Jake Gibson, “Biden DOJ Ending National Security Initiative Aimed at Countering China amid

Complaints About Bias,” Fox News, February 23, 2022, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doj-ending-china-

initiative-national-security-program-bias (accessed February 3, 2023).

 National Security Strategy, The White House, October 2022, p. 23, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/

uploads/2022/10/Biden-Harris-Administrations-National-Security-Strategy-10.2022.pdf (accessed February 3,

2023). See also ibid., p. 8.

— 577 —

Department of Justice

 U.S. Department of Justice, “About DOJ: Our Mission,” https://www.justice.gov/about (accessed February 4, 2023).

 18 U.S. Code § 248, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/248 (accessed February 4, 2023).

 Danielle Wallace and Jake Gibson, “Pro-life Activist Mark Houck Pleads Not Guilty to Federal Charges After FBI

Arrest,” Fox News, September 27, 2022, https://www.foxnews.com/us/pro-life-activist-mark-houck-pleads-

not-guilty-federal-charges-fbi-arrest (accessed February 4, 2023).

 Patty Knap, “Paul Vaughn, Pro-life Father of 11 Arrested by FBI Speaks Out,” National Catholic Register,

October 18, 2022, https://www.ncregister.com/news/paul-vaughn-pro-life-father-of-11-arrested-by-fbi-speaks-

out (accessed February 4, 2023).

 597 U.S. ___ (2022), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/597/19-1392/case.pdf (accessed

February 4, 2023).

 Jonah McKeown, “TRACKER: Pro-Abortion Attacks in the U.S. Continue (Updated),” Catholic News Agency,

last updated September 22, 2022, https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251553/map-vandalism-

attacks-continue-at-pro-life-centers-across-us (accessed February 4, 2023).

 28 U.S. Code § 516, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/516 (accessed February 4, 2023).

 28 U.S. Code § 519, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/519 (accessed February 4, 2023).

 295 U.S. 602 (1935), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/295/602/ (accessed February 6, 2023).

 591 U.S. ___ (2020), https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-7_new_0pm1.pdf (accessed

February 6, 2023).

 See Brief for the United States, 303 Creative v. Aubrey Elenis, No. 21-476, August 2022, https://www.

supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-476/234119/20220819182151542_21-476%20303%20Creative%20LLC%20

v.%20Elenis%20FINAL.pdf (accessed February 4, 2023).

 Oral Argument Transcript, 303 Creative v. Aubrey Elenis, No. 21-476, December 5, 2022, https://

www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2022/21-476_8n59.pdf (accessed

February 4, 2023).

 Brief for the United States, Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, No. 16-111,

September 2017, p. 9, https://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/16-111-tsac-USA.pdf

(accessed February 4, 2023) (quoting Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society

International, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 2321, 2327 (2013), quoting in turn Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic & Institutional

Rights, Inc., 547 U.S. 47, 61 (2006)).

 Ibid., p. 10.

 Ibid., pp. 10–11.

 West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943), https://tile.loc.gov/storage-

services/service/ll/usrep/usrep319/usrep319624/usrep319624.pdf (accessed February 4, 2023).

 Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 24 (1971), https://constitutionallawreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/

Cohen-v_-California.pdf (accessed February 4, 2023).

 West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 640.

 McCullen v. Coakley, 573 U.S. 464, 476 (2014), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/573/12-1168/

case.pdf (accessed February 4, 2023) (quoting FCC v. League of Women Voters of California, 468 U. S. 364,

377 (1984)).

 See, for example, 42 U.S. Code § 2000d, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000d (accessed February

4, 2023); 42 U.S. Code § 2000e, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000e (accessed February 4,

2023); 20 U.S. Code § 1681, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/20/1681 (accessed February 4, 2023)

 See “Advancing Equity and Racial Justice Through the Federal Government,” The White House, https://www.

whitehouse.gov/equity/ (accessed February 4, 2023).

 18 U.S. Code § 1461, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1461 (accessed February 6, 2023). See also 18

U.S. Code § 1462, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1462 (accessed February 6, 2023).

 18 U.S. Code § 241, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/241 (accessed February 6, 2023).

 A similar argument could be advanced for the department’s other criminal law enforcement responsibilities

such as those within the Environmental and Natural Resources Division.

 See, for example, Paul Kiel, “Controversial USA Delivered ‘Voter Fraud’ Indictments Right on Time,” TPM

Muckraker, May 1, 2007, https://web.archive.org/web/20070503021505/http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/

archives/003107.php (accessed February 4, 2023).

— 578 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 See Craig C. Donsanto and Nancy L. Simmons, Federal Prosecution of Election Oenses, 7th Edition,

U.S. Department of Justice, May 2007 (revised August 2007), pp. 61–63, https://www.justice.gov/sites/

default/ﬁles/criminal/legacy/2013/09/30/electbook-rvs0807.pdf#page=79 (accessed February 4, 2023).

See also Richard C. Pilger, ed., Federal Prosecution of Election Oenses, 8th Edition, U.S. Department of

Justice, December 2017, pp. 56–58, https://www.justice.gov/criminal/ﬁle/1029066/download (accessed

February 4, 2023).

 See U.S. Department of Justice, “Capital Eligible Statutes Assigned by Section,” https://www.justice.

gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-71-capital-eligible-statutes-assigned-section (accessed

February 5, 2023).

 See U.S. Department of Justice, “Contact List: District Election Ocers,” October 31, 2022, p. 1, https://www.

justice.gov/criminal/ﬁle/1329606/download (accessed February 4, 2023).

 Pennsylvania Department of State, “Pennsylvania Provisional Voting Guidelines,” October 21, 2020, Version 1.1,

p. 2, https://www.dos.pa.gov/VotingElections/OtherServicesEvents/Documents/PADOS_ProvisionalBallots_

guidance_1.0.pdf#page=2 (accessed February 4, 2023).

 52 U.S. Code § 21082, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/52/21082 (accessed February 4, 2023).

 Pennsylvania General Assembly, SB 422, Pennsylvania Election Code—Omnibus Amendments, Act of

March 27, 2020, P.L. 41, No. 12, Section 1302-D, https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/LI/uconsCheck.

cfm?txtType=HTM&yr=2020&sessInd=0&smthLwInd=0&act=12 (accessed February 4, 2023).

 In re November 3, 2020 General Election, 240 A.3d 591 (Pa. 2020), https://www.leagle.com/decision/

inpaco20201026a01 (accessed February 4, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Justice, “Enforcement of Civil Rights Criminal Statutes,” https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-

8-3000-enforcement-civil-rights-criminal-statutes (accessed February 4, 2023); U.S. Department of Justice,

“Capital Eligible Statutes Assigned by Section,” updated January 17, 2020, https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/

criminal-resource-manual-71-capital-eligible-statutes-assigned-section (accessed February 4, 2023).

 Garland Memorandum, October 4, 2021.

 See Viola M. Garcia, President, NSBA, and Chip Slavin, Interim Executive Director and CEO, to President

Joseph R. Biden, “Re: Federal Assistance to Stop Threats and Acts of Violence Against Public Schoolchildren,

Public School Board Members, and Other Public School District Ocials and Educators,” September 29, 2021,

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21098209/nsba-letter-to-president-biden-concerning-threats-to-

public-schools-and-school-board-members-929211.pdf (accessed February 4, 2023). Emphasis in original.

 See letter from Todd Rokita, Indiana Attorney General; Steve Marshall, Alabama Attorney General; Treg R.

Taylor, Alaska Attorney General; Mark Brnovich, Arizona Attorney General; Leslie Rutledge, Arkansas Attorney

General; Christopher M. Carr, Georgia Attorney General; Derek Schmidt, Kansas Attorney General; Daniel

Cameron, Kentucky Attorney General; Eric S. Schmitt, Missouri Attorney General; Austin Knudsen, Montana

Attorney General; John M. O’Connor, Oklahoma Attorney General; Alan Wilson, South Carolina Attorney

General; Jason R. Ravnsborg, South Dakota Attorney General; and Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General to

President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., and Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General, “Re: NSBA’s Fraud

on the American People,” October 26, 2021, https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/global/

images/DOJ%20Letter%20based%20on%20NSBA%20Apology%20Letter%20%2010.26.21%20ﬁnal.pdf

(accessed February 4, 2023). Cited hereafter as Rokita et al. Letter, October 26, 2021.

 Philip G. Kiko, Final Report on the Events Surrounding the National School Boards Association’s

September 29, 2021, Letter to the President, n.d., https://www.nsba.org/-/media/Files/NSBA-Report.

pdf?la=en&hash=A001354D23C9AE88B54D398270C9790D91B01FF9 (accessed February 4, 2023); news release,

“NSBA Announces Completion of Independent Review; Takes Action Based on Findings,” National School Boards

Association, May 20, 2022, https://www.nsba.org/News/2022/independent-review#:~:text=In%20February%20

2022%2C%20the%20National%20School%20Boards%20Association,and%20assistance%20with%20events%20

at%20school%20board%20meetings. (accessed February 4, 2023).

 Rokita et al. Letter, October 26, 2021.

 State of New York, State of Connecticut, State of New Jersey, State of Washington, Commonwealth

of Massachusetts, Commonwealth of Virginia, State of Rhode Island, City of New York v. United States

Department of Justice, 964 F.3d 150 (2d Cir. 2020), https://casetext.com/case/new-york-v-us-dept-of-justice-1

(accessed February 4, 2023).

— 579 —

Department of Justice

 H.R. 5005, Homeland Security Act of 2002, Public Law No. 107-296, 107th Congress, November 25, 2002, 116

Stat. 2135, https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ296/PLAW-107publ296.pdf (accessed February 3, 2023).

 See, for example, 8 U.S. Code §§ 1103(a)(1) and 1103(g), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1103

(accessed February 3, 2023).

 See, for example, 8 U.S. Code §§ 1324–1326, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/chapter-12/

subchapter-II/part-VIII (accessed February 3, 2023).

 Press release, “Justice, Labor Departments Reach Settlements with Facebook Resolving Claims of

Discrimination Against U.S. Workers and Potential Regulatory Recruitment Violations,” U.S. Department

of Justice, October 19, 2021, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-labor-departments-reach-settlements-

facebook-resolving-claims-discrimination-against (accessed February 3, 2023).

 “Every four years, just after the Presidential election, the ‘United States Government Policy and Supporting

Positions,’ commonly known as the Plum Book, is published, alternately, by the Senate Committee on

Homeland Security and Governmental Aairs and the House Committee on Oversight and Government

Reform.” Senate Committee Print No. 114-26, United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions,

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Aairs, U.S. Senate, 114th Cong., 2nd Sess., December

1, 2016, p. iii, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-PLUMBOOK-2016/pdf/GPO-PLUMBOOK-2016.pdf

(accessed February 5, 2023).

 Allen J. Beck, “Race and Ethnicity of Violent Crime Oenders and Arrestees, 2018,” U.S. Department of Justice,

Oce of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Statistical Brief No. NCJ 255969, January 2021, https://

bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/revcoa18.pdf (accessed February 3, 2023).

— 581 —

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

AND RELATED AGENCIES

Jonathan Berry

MISSION STATEMENT

At the heart of The Conservative Promise is the resolve to reclaim the role of

each American worker as the protagonist in his or her own life and to restore the

family as the centerpiece of American life. The role that labor policy plays in that

promise is twofold: Give workers the support they need for rewarding, well-paying,

and self-driven careers, and restore the family-supporting job as the centerpiece of

the American economy. The Judeo-Christian tradition, stretching back to Genesis,

has always recognized fruitful work as integral to human dignity, as service to God,

neighbor, and family. And Americans have long been known for their work ethic.

While it is primarily the culture’s responsibility to arm the dignity of work, our

federal labor and employment agencies have an important role to play by protect-

ing workers, setting boundaries for the healthy functioning of labor markets, and

ultimately encouraging wages and conditions for jobs that can support a family.

OVERVIEW

The labor agencies covered in this chapter include the Department of Labor

(DOL), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the National

Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the National Mediation Board (NMB), the Federal

Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), and the Pension Beneﬁt Guaranty

Corporation (PBGC). Congress has provided these agencies with the authority to

enforce a wide range of federal statutes regulating workplace conduct, workforce

development, employee beneﬁts, labor organization and bargaining, and interna-

tional labor conditions.

— 582 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

In the sweep of American history, these authorities are relatively new. They largely

come from Congress’s attempts in the middle of the 20th century to resolve major

political questions brought about by labor conﬂict, the civil rights movement, and the

emergence of the modern workplace. The 21st century has brought about new chal-

lenges, ranging from collapsing manufacturing sector employment and a decrease in

family-supporting jobs, to the massive expansion of an increasingly radical human-re-

sources bureaucracy. In many cases, these challenges are as signiﬁcant as the 20th

century labor crises and workplace changes that the agencies were developed to manage.

But the agencies have failed to respond to these challenges. Despite signiﬁcant

progress by the Trump Administration, a massive administrative state now hangs

over productive industry and labor organization, acting as a damper on social and

economic life. And under the Biden Administration, that administrative state has

imposed the most assertive left-wing social-engineering agenda in the agencies’

history and ratcheted up regulatory costs on small businesses and other productive

industry. The agencies’ authorities have been abused by the Left to favor human

resources bureaucracies, climate-change activists, and union bosses—all against

the interest of American workers.

NEEDED REFORMS

Reverse the DEI Revolution in Labor Policy. Under the Obama and Biden

Administrations, labor policy was yet another target of the Diversity, Equity, and

Inclusion (DEI) revolution. Under this managerialist left-wing race and gender ideol-

ogy, every aspect of labor policy became a vehicle with which to advance race, sex, and

other classiﬁcations and discriminate against conservative and religious viewpoints

on these subjects and others, including pro-life views. The next Administration

should eliminate every one of these wrongful and burdensome ideological projects.

Eliminate Racial Classiﬁcations and Critical Race Theory Trainings. The

Biden Administration has pushed “racial equity” in every area of our national life,

including in employment, and has condoned the use of racial classiﬁcations and

racial preferences under the guise of DEI and critical race theory, which categorizes

individuals as oppressors and victims based on race. Nondiscrimination and equal-

ity are the law; DEI is not. Title VII ﬂatly prohibits discrimination in employment

on the basis of race, color, and national origin. The President should:

Issue an executive order banning, and Congress should pass a law

prohibiting the federal government from using taxpayer dollars to

fund, all critical race theory training (CRT).

Direct DOJ and EEOC to enforce Title VII. The President should

direct the Department of Justice and Equal Employment Opportunity

Commission to enforce Title VII to prohibit racial classiﬁcations and quotas,

— 583 —

Department of Labor and Related Agencies

including human-resources classiﬁcations and DEI trainings that promote

critical race theory.

Eliminate EEO-1 data collection. The Equal Employment Opportunity

Commission collects EEO-1 data on employment statistics based on race/

ethnicity, which data can then be used to support a charge of discrimination

under a disparate impact theory. This could lead to racial quotas to remedy

alleged race discrimination. (The Oce of Federal Contract Compliance

Programs (OFCCP) also has a right to the data EEOC collects.) Crudely

categorizing employees by race or ethnicity fails to recognize the diversity

of the American workforce and forces individuals into categories that do not

fully reﬂect their racial and ethnic heritage.

Amend Title VII. The next Administration should work with Congress

to amend Title VII to prohibit the Equal Employment Opportunity

Commission from collecting EEO-1 data and any other racial classiﬁcations

in employment for both private and public workplaces.

Eliminate disparate impact liability. With interracial marriages in

America increasing, many Americans do not ﬁt neatly into crude racial

categories.

Under disparate impact theory, moreover, discriminatory

motive or intent is irrelevant; the outcome is what matters. But all

workplaces have disparities.

Congress should:

Eliminate disparate impact as a valid theory of discrimination for

race and other bases under Title VII and other laws. Disparities do not

(and should not legally) imply discrimination per se.

The President should:

Sign an executive order explicitly forbidding OFCCP from using

disparate impact in its analysis.

Eliminate OFCCP. The Oce of Federal Contract Compliance Programs

(OFCCP) exists to enforce Executive Order (EO) 11246.

That order was

originally signed in 1965 to require federal contractors (and subcontractors)

to commit to nondiscrimination. It gave enforcement authority to

the Department of Labor, up to and including debarment from federal

contracting. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has since

— 584 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

grown, often making OFCCP’s authority redundant and imposing a second

regulatory agency under whose rules businesses must operate. In addition,

under EO 11246, the President and DOL can force a huge swath of American

employers to comply with rules and regulations based on novel anti-

discrimination theories (such as sexual orientation and gender identity

theories) that Congress had never imposed by statute.

Rescind EO 11246. The President should eliminate OFCCP by simply

rescinding EO 11246. Federal contractors would still be bound by statutory

nondiscrimination law but would no longer work under overlapping

regimes. (Contractors’ residual obligations under Section 503 of the

Rehabilitation Act and Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act

(VEVRAA) could be enforced by EEOC or DOL.) Contractors also would be

less subject to the changing political whims of a President that might impose

signiﬁcant new costs or burdens on the contractors.

Sex Discrimination. The Biden Administration, LGBT advocates, and some

federal courts have attempted to expand the scope and deﬁnition of sex discrimi-

nation, based in part on the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County.

Bostock held that “an employer who ﬁres someone simply for being homosexual

or transgender” violates Title VII’s prohibition against sex discrimination. The

Court explicitly limited its holding to the hiring/ﬁring context in Title VII and

did not purport to address other Title VII issues, such as bathrooms, locker rooms,

and dress codes, or other laws prohibiting sex discrimination. Notably, the Court

focused on the status of the employees and used the term “transgender status”

rather than the broader and amorphous term “gender identity.”

Restrict the application of Bostock. The new Administration should

restrict Bostock’s application of sex discrimination protections to sexual

orientation and transgender status in the context of hiring and ﬁring.

Withdraw unlawful “notices” and “guidances.” The President should

direct agencies to withdraw unlawful “notices” and “guidances” purporting

to apply Bostock’s reasoning broadly outside hiring and ﬁring.

Rescind regulations prohibiting discrimination on the basis

of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and

sex characteristics. The President should direct agencies to rescind

regulations interpreting sex discrimination provisions as prohibiting

discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity,

transgender status, sex characteristics, etc.

— 585 —

Department of Labor and Related Agencies

Direct agencies to refocus enforcement of sex discrimination laws.

The President should direct agencies to focus their enforcement of sex

discrimination laws on the biological binary meaning of “sex.”

PRO-LIFE MEASURES

Promote pro-life workplace accommodations for mothers. Federal

law should protect life and promote pro-family policies. Current law, the

Pregnancy Discrimination Act,

provides nondiscrimination protections

in the workplace for pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA)

requires employers to make

reasonable accommodations for women “to the known limitations related

to the pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions,” unless “the

accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the operation of

the [employer’s] business.” The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

also provides nondiscrimination and accommodation protections in the

workplace for certain pregnancy-related disability.

None of these laws

requires an employer provide health insurance beneﬁts for elective abortion.

Pass a law requiring equal (or greater) beneﬁts for pro-life support

for mothers and clarifying abortion exclusions. Congress should pass a

law requiring that to the extent an employer provides employee beneﬁts for

abortion, it must provide equal or greater beneﬁts for pregnancy, childbirth,

maternity, and adoption. That law should also clarify that no employer is

required to provide any accommodations or beneﬁts for abortion.

Keep anti-life “beneﬁts” out of beneﬁt plans. Some beneﬁts attorneys

and pro-choice advocates have argued since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs

v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision

that the longstanding

doctrine of Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA)

preemption should block individual states’ eorts to prohibit employers

from helping employees procure abortions via oering various kinds of

coverage under employee-sponsored beneﬁt plans. ERISA should not be

allowed to trump states’ ability to protect innocent human life in the womb.

Congress and DOL should clarify that ERISA does not preempt states’

power to restrict abortion, surrogacy, or other anti-life “beneﬁts.”

RELIGION

Provide robust protections for religious employers. America’s religious

diversity means that workplaces include people of many faiths and that

many employers are faith-based. Nevertheless, the Biden Administration

has been hostile to people of faith, especially those with traditional beliefs

— 586 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

about marriage, gender, and sexuality. The new Administration should

enact policies with robust respect for religious exercise in the workplace,

including under the First Amendment, the Religious Freedom Restoration

Act of 1993 (RFRA),

Title VII, and federal conscience protection laws.

Issue an executive order protecting religious employers and

employees. The President should make clear via executive order that

religious employers are free to run their businesses according to their

religious beliefs, general nondiscrimination laws notwithstanding, and

support participation of religious employees and employers as federal

contractors and in federal activities and programs.

Clarify Title VII’s religious organization exemptions. Congress should

clarify Title VII’s religious organization exemptions to make it more explicit

that those employers may make employment decisions based on religion

regardless of nondiscrimination laws.

Provide Robust Accommodations for Religious Employees. Title VII

requires reasonable accommodations for an employee’s sincerely held

religious beliefs, observances, or practices unless it poses an undue hardship

on the employer’s business. These accommodation protections also apply to

issues related to marriage, gender, and sexuality.

Unless the Supreme Court overrules its bad precedent, Congress should

clarify that undue hardship means “signiﬁcant diculty or expenses,” not

“more than a de minimis cost” as the Court has previously held.

General EEOC Reforms. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commis-

sion (EEOC) does not have rulemaking authority under Title VII and other

laws it enforces, yet it issues “guidance,” “technical assistance,” and other

documents, including some that push new policy positions. EEOC should

disclaim its regulatory pretensions and abide by the guidance reforms dis-

cussed below.

EEOC should disclaim its regulatory pretensions.

Arm decision-making via majority vote of Commissioners. EEOC

should arm as policy the Title VII requirement that it exercise substantive

power via majority vote of Commissioners, not by unilateral Chair action or

by delegation to sta.

— 587 —

Department of Labor and Related Agencies

Disclaim power to enter into consent decrees. EEOC should disclaim

power to enter into consent decrees that require employer actions that it

could not require under the laws it enforces.

Reorient enforcement priorities. EEOC should reorient its enforcement

priorities toward claims of failure to accommodate disability, religion, and

pregnancy (but not abortion).

Refocusing Labor Regulation on the Good of the Family. The DEI revo-

lution in labor aected not only the administrative state, but it has also targeted

much of the private sector. Owing to the combination of regulatory pressure and

eager human resources oces in the private sector, much of American labor and

employment policy has become institutionally oriented toward “woke” goals.

Retracting regulations that support this revolution is a good ﬁrst step, but more

is needed. We must replace “woke” nonsense with a healthy vision of the role of

labor policy in our society, starting with the American family.

Allow workers to accumulate paid time o. Lower- and middle-income

workers are more likely be in jobs that are subject to overtime laws that require

employers to pay time-and-a-half for working more than 40 hours a week.

Congress should enact the Working Families Flexibility Act. The

Working Families Flexibility Act would allow employees in the private

sector the ability to choose between receiving time-and-a-half pay or

accumulating time-and-a-half paid time o (a choice that many public

sector workers already have). For example, if an individual worked two

hours of overtime every week for a year, he or she could accumulate four

weeks of paid time o to use for paid family leave, vacation, or any reason.

Congress should incentivize on-site childcare. Across the spectrum of

professionalized childcare options, on-site care puts the least stress on the

parent-child bond.

Congress should amend the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to

clarify that an employer’s expenses in providing on-site childcare are

not part of an employee’s regular rate of pay.

DOL should commit to honest study of the challenges for women

in the world of professional work. The Women’s Bureau at DOL

tends towards a politicized research and engagement agenda that puts

predetermined conclusions ahead of empirical study.

— 588 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

The Bureau should rededicate its research budget towards open

inquiry, especially to disentangle the inﬂuences on women’s

workforce participation and to understand the true causes of

earnings gaps between men and women.

Equalize retirement savings access across married households. The

limit on individual contributions to a 401(k), 403(b), or similar work-based

retirement account is $22,500 for 2023. Individuals who do not work or do

not have access to a work-based retirement account can save up to $6,500

in an IRA. This individual-based system creates a disadvantage for married

couples with only one spouse who works (or with two working spouses, one

of whom earns less than the maximum retirement account contribution).

To equalize access to tax-free retirement savings for married

couples, the limit for married couples on 401(k) and similar work-

based retirement savings accounts should be double the limit for

individuals, regardless of the allocation of work between the couple.

Family Statistics. Every month, DOL’s Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys tens

of thousands of households to generate detailed estimates of labor market condi-

tions and price levels. And every quarter, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau

of Economic Analysis estimates the change in the entire economy’s output to the

fraction of a percentage point. Yet data on the state of the American family and its

economic welfare are released at best annually, and generally a year or more after

the fact. Metrics like marriage and fertility rates, the share of children living with

both biological parents, the cost of a standard basket of middle-class essentials,

and the share of families whose highest-income worker earns more than twice the

poverty threshold should be measured and reported monthly and in real-time and

incorporated in releases for other labor statistics.

Congress should establish an Assistant Commissioner for Family

Statistics within the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Congress should require the Bureau to establish a pilot survey

with a sample comparable to the BLS Current Population Survey

that would publish monthly estimates for measures of the

American family’s wellbeing, and appropriate sucient funds for

that purpose.

Congress should require that the Consumer Price Index market

basket include measurable family-essential goods.

— 589 —

Department of Labor and Related Agencies

Alternative View. While metrics on the state of American families and civil soci-

ety are important and useful, monthly statistics would be of little additional value

and could end up causing unnecessary confusion and concern. Funding should be

oriented towards improving the timeliness of annual family statistics.

Sabbath Rest. God ordained the Sabbath as a day of rest, and until very recently

the Judeo-Christian tradition sought to honor that mandate by moral and legal

regulation of work on that day. Moreover, a shared day o makes it possible for

families and communities to enjoy time o together, rather than as atomized

individuals, and provides a healthier cadence of life for everyone. Unfortunately,

that communal day of rest has eroded under the pressures of consumerism and

secularism, especially for low-income workers.

Congress should encourage communal rest by amending the Fair

Labor Standards Act (FLSA)

to require that workers be paid time and

a half for hours worked on the Sabbath. That day would default to Sunday,

except for employers with a sincere religious observance of a Sabbath at a

dierent time (e.g., Friday sundown to Saturday sundown); the obligation

would transfer to that period instead. Houses of worship (to the limited

extent they may have FLSA-covered employees) and employers legally

required to operate around the clock (such as hospitals and ﬁrst responders)

would be exempt, as would workers otherwise exempt from overtime.

Alternative View. While some conservatives believe that the government should

encourage certain religious observance by making it more expensive for employers

and consumers to not partake in those observances, other conservatives believe

that the government’s role is to protect the free exercise of religion by eliminating

barriers as opposed to erecting them. Whereas imposing overtime rules on the Sab-

bath would lead to higher costs and limited access to goods and services and reduce

work available on the Sabbath (while also incentivizing some people—through

higher wages—to desire to work on the Sabbath), the proper role of government

in helping to enable individuals to practice their religion is to reduce barriers to

work options and to fruitful employer and employee relations. The result: ample

job options that do not require work on the Sabbath so that individuals in roles

that sometimes do require Sabbath work are empowered to negotiate directly with

their employer to achieve their desired schedule.

Teleworking. COVID made telework ubiquitous, but the law and regulations

are still stuck in an era when telework was unique.

Congress should clarify that overtime for telework applies only if the

employee exceeds 10 hours of work in a speciﬁc day (and the total

hours for the week exceed 40).

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

DOL should clarify that an employee given the option to telework

need only record time if the quantity of work assigned for that day

exceeds the usual amount of work that employee performs so that

the employee need not track every time he logs in and out and the

employer need not do so either.

DOL should clarify that a home oce is not subject to OSHA

regulations and that time to set up a home oce is not compensable

time or eligible for overtime calculations. DOL should likewise

clarify that reimbursement for home oce expenses is not part of an

employee’s regular rate, even if those reimbursements are repetitive

(such as for internet or cell phone service).

Making Family-Sustaining Work Accessible. Our national work ethic is an

American hallmark. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “America is the land of labor.”

Much of American life is mediated by Americans coming together to take responsi-

bility for solving problems and helping their communities. Our labor agenda must

allow community institutions, including small businesses, schools and universities,

religious organizations, and worker organizations, to thrive.

Protect ﬂexible work options and worker independence (independent contractors).

Roughly 60 million Americans across all income groups, ages, education levels,

races, and household types participate in independent work, including full-time,

part-time, or as a “side hustle.” People choose independent work for a variety of

reasons, including ﬂexibility, earnings potential, and the desire to be one’s own boss.

An economic analysis of data from one million Uber drivers found that they valued

the ﬂexibility of the platform at 40 percent of their earnings, and the average Uber

driver would not work at all if he or she had to submit to a taxi-cab schedule. The

value of ﬂexibility extends beyond ride-sharing and other platform work; more

than half of people who did independent work in 2021 said they cannot work a

traditional job because of personal or family circumstances such as their health

or caring for a child or family member.

Independent workers, or contractors, are also critical to entrepreneurship

and small-business growth and success. On average, employers with four or fewer

employees rely on seven contractors to run their business. Without the ability to

hire those contractors, many small businesses could not compete with larger ones

that can aord to employ workers in-house.

Businesses and workers currently must navigate many dierent deﬁnitions

of who is and who is not an employee (or an independent contractor) based on

federal and state employment, compensation, tort, tax, and pension laws. This

complexity often leads to confusion, improper classiﬁcation, and costly litigation.

The Trump Administration ﬁnalized rules to provide clarity on which workers

— 591 —

Department of Labor and Related Agencies

qualify as an independent contractor or employee under the FLSA and NLRA. The

Biden Administration is replacing those rules with vague and expansive deﬁnitions

that would add uncertainty, increase costs, and reduce options for Americans who

want to work independently.

NLRB and DOL should return to their 2019 and 2021 independent

contractor rules that provided much-needed clarity for workers

and employers.

Congress should establish a bright-line test—based on the level of

control an individual exercises over his or her work—to determine

whether a payee is an employee or an independent contractor, across

all relevant laws. This would prevent continued uncertainty as well as

provide continuity across federal laws.

Congress should provide a safe harbor from employer-employee status

for companies that oer independent workers access to earned beneﬁts.

Doing so would increase access among independent contractors to traditional

pooled workplace beneﬁts such as health care and retirement savings accounts.

Protect Small Businesses and Entrepreneurship (Joint Employer). Millions of busi-

nesses across America engage in mutually beneﬁcial aliation arrangements with

other businesses. These arrangements include janitorial services, stang ﬁrms,

construction contractors and subcontractors, technology support services, and

many other vendor and contracting services. They also include the nearly 775,000

independently owned franchise businesses, which employ 8.2 million workers

across the United States. The franchise structure oers a proven business model for

individuals who want to own and operate their own small business. An Obama-era

regulation changed the deﬁnition of a joint employer to make corporate franchi-

sors jointly liable for employees of individual franchisee owners, even without the

franchisor exercising any direct control over those employees. The Biden Admin-

istration is advancing an even more expansive deﬁnition of a joint employer that

would upend the franchise business model, taking away ownership and income

opportunities from small-business entrepreneurs, costing jobs, and raising prices.

DOL and NLRB should return to the long-standing approach to

deﬁning joint employers based on direct and immediate control.

Congress should enact the Save Local Business Act, which would

codify the long-standing deﬁnition that has existed outside the

Obama-era and Biden-proposed rules.

— 592 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Overtime Pay Threshold. Overtime pay is one of the most challenging aspects

of the Fair Labor Standards Act rules. “Nonexempt workers” (e.g., workers whose

job duties fall within the law’s power or whose total pay is low enough) must be

paid overtime (150 percent of the “regular rate”) for every hour over 40 in a work-

week. Overtime requirements may discourage employers from oering certain

fringe beneﬁts such as reimbursement for education, childcare, or even free meals

because the beneﬁts’ value may be included in the “regular rate” that must be

paid at 150 percent for all overtime hours. And because some of these fringe ben-

eﬁts may be more valuable (and often come with tax preferences that beneﬁt the

worker), the goal should be to set a threshold to ensure lower-income workers have

the protections of overtime pay without discouraging employers from oering

these beneﬁts.

DOL should maintain an overtime threshold that does not punish

businesses in lower-cost regions (e.g., the southeast United

States). The Trump-era threshold is high enough to capture most

line workers in lower-cost regions. One possibility to consider (likely

requiring congressional action) would be to automatically update the

thresholds every ﬁve years using the Personal Consumption Expenditures

(PCE) as an inﬂation adjustment. This could reduce the likelihood of

a future Administration attempting to make signiﬁcant changes but

would also impose more adjustments on businesses as those automatic

increases take hold.

Congress should clarify that the “regular rate” for overtime pay is

based on the salary paid rather than all beneﬁts provided. This would

enable employers to oer additional beneﬁts to employees without fear that

those beneﬁts would dramatically increase overtime pay.

Congress should provide ﬂexibility to employers and employees

to calculate the overtime period over a longer number of weeks.

Speciﬁcally, employers and employees should be able to set a two- or four-

week period over which to calculate overtime. This would give workers

greater ﬂexibility to work more hours in one week and fewer hours in the

next and would not require the employer to pay them more for that same

total number of hours of work during the entire period.

Compliance-Assistance Programming. Labor agencies are often tempted to

encourage “over compliance” by companies subject to regulation by pursuing

“regulation through enforcement” strategies. Rather than giving regulated enti-

ties clear boundaries for what they can and cannot do under the law, the agencies

— 593 —

Department of Labor and Related Agencies

rely on the vagueness of the law to bring enforcement activity against businesses

that fail to meet an inspector or agency head’s personal standard. This is not fair

to regulated parties and results in disfavored companies bearing the brunt of the

agencies’ enforcement eorts even though their behavior may be within the main-

stream of employer behavior.

Labor agencies should provide compliance assistance to help

businesses and workers better understand the agencies’ position

on their own rules and should do so in a way that makes it easier

to follow those rules. This frees people to focus on their work rather

than slogging through an ever-growing body of laws, rules, and guidance

documents generated by the agencies.

Clear and Restrictive Rules on Guidance Documents. Federal agencies not only

issue regulations to ﬁll in gaps left by legislation, but also supplement those reg-

ulations with “guidance” documents that occupy a unique and often confusing

area between law and “helpful advice.” Unfortunately, wielded by overzealous

enforcement agents, such guidance, some of it even hidden from public view,

morphs into binding law used against unsuspecting employers. Guidance can be

a tricky thing and can be used for good or bad. It should be used to make compli-

cated regulations easier to understand, so that businesses can do their actual jobs

and focus on providing jobs to American workers and value to consumers (really,

compliance assistance). But guidance is often used to create new rules overnight

without following legal requirements—like giving the public an opportunity to

provide valuable input. This wrongful use of guidance hurts workers and those

who employ them. In October 2019, President Trump signed an executive order

ending this abusive practice and created a new, fairer system for American busi-

nesses and their employees. In response, DOL published its PRO Good Guidance

rule,

which expressly limits its use of guidance in enforcement actions and gives

the public the opportunity to submit comments to inﬂuence the department’s deci-

sions on creating, revising, and even rescinding guidance. Under this rule, agencies

cannot treat guidance as legally binding and must make all guidance documents

readily accessible on their searchable online databases. This rule was immediately

rescinded by the Biden Administration.

DOL should reinstitute the PRO Good Guidance rule via notice

and comment.

Congress should amend the Administrative Procedure Act

explicitly limit the use of guidance documents.

— 594 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Exemptions from Regulations for Small Business. Burdensome regulations have

anti-competitive eects. In general, larger, higher-margin businesses are better

able to absorb the costs of regulatory compliance than are small businesses, and

under the Biden Administration, big-business lobbies have armatively embraced

certain regulations (such as the COVID vaccine mandate for private employers) to

reduce competition from smaller businesses. Research suggests that labor regula-

tions may pose the highest aggregate regulatory cost for small businesses.

The labor agencies should exercise their available discretion and

duties under the Regulatory Flexibility Act

to exempt small entities

from regulations where possible.

Congress should enact legislation increasing the revenue thresholds

at which the National Labor Relations Board asserts jurisdiction over

employers to match changes in inﬂation that have occurred since

1935 and better reﬂect the deﬁnition of “small business” used by the

federal government.

Congress (and DOL, in its enforcement discretion) should exempt

small business, ﬁrst-time, non-willful violators from ﬁnes issued by

the Occupational Health and Safety Administration.

EDUCATION AND VOCATIONAL TRAINING

Apprenticeships. The next Administration should return to prior policy and

implement an industry-recognized apprenticeship program separate from the

Registered Apprenticeship Program (RAP) and explore how best to modernize,

streamline, and eliminate duplication in the RAP. For roughly 80 years, the RAP—

which requires conforming to government standards and includes federal funding,

tax credits, and other federal resources—has dominated apprenticeship programs

in the U.S. Organizations across the political spectrum have noted that the overly

burdensome requirements of RAPs have contributed to limiting them to legacy

trades, failing to meet growing industry demands such as in health care and tech-

nology. A 2017 study estimated that the number of occupations commonly ﬁlled

through apprenticeships could nearly triple (from 27 to 74), that the number of

job openings ﬁlled through apprenticeships could expand eightfold (to 3.2 million),

and that the occupations ripe for apprenticeship expansion could oer 20 percent

higher wages than traditional apprenticeship occupations.

The Trump Administration expanded apprenticeship options through the cre-

ation of the Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Program (IRAP), and more than

130 IRAPs were created. The Biden Administration rescinded the IRAP regulations.

— 595 —

Department of Labor and Related Agencies

Congress should expand apprenticeship programs outside of the RAP

model, re-creating the IRAP system by statute and allowing approved

entities such as trade associations and educational institutions to

recognize and oversee apprenticeship programs.

In addition, religious organizations should be encouraged to participate

in apprenticeship programs. America has a long history of religious

organizations working to advance the dignity of workers and provide

them with greater opportunity, from the many prominent Christian and

Jewish voices in the early labor movement to the “labor priests” who would

appear on picket lines to support their ﬂocks. Today, the role of religion in

helping workers has diminished, but a country committed to strengthening

civil society must ask more from religious organizations and make sure

that their important role is not impeded by regulatory roadblocks or the

bureaucratic status quo.

Encourage and enable religious organizations to participate in

apprenticeship programs, etc. Both DOL and NLRB should facilitate

religious organizations helping to strengthen working families via

apprenticeship programs, worker organizations, vocational training,

beneﬁts networks, etc.

Hazard-Order Regulations. Some young adults show an interest in inherently

dangerous jobs. Current rules forbid many young people, even if their family is

running the business, from working in such jobs. This results in worker shortages

in dangerous ﬁelds and often discourages otherwise interested young workers from

trying the more dangerous job. With parental consent and proper training, certain

young adults should be allowed to learn and work in more dangerous occupations.

This would give a green light to training programs and build skills in teenagers who

may want to work in these ﬁelds.

DOL should amend its hazard-order regulations to permit teenage

workers access to work in regulated jobs with proper training and

parental consent.

Workforce Training Grant Program. The federal government spends more

than $100 billion per year subsidizing higher education but close to zero supporting

people on non-college pathways.

Congress should create an employer grant worth up to $10,000

per year or pro-rated portion thereof for each worker engaged in

— 596 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

on-the-job training, deﬁned as some share of paid time spent in a

formal training program.

To qualify, a program—whether run by the employer, an industry

consortium, a community college, or a union—would need to deﬁne program

length, curriculum, career path, and credential and to report regularly on

outcomes for participants. Programs that fail to deliver promised results

would be disqualiﬁed from continued funding. Funding for employer grants

should come from existing higher education subsidies that are currently

disadvantaging alternative education options.

Federal “BA Box.” The American labor market continues to experience a glut

of college degrees. The country produces more college graduates than suitable jobs

for them to ﬁll. Meanwhile, employers exacerbate the problem, fueling demand

for college by needlessly requiring degrees for many jobs. In 2020, the Trump

Administration took an important step toward pro-worker, skills-based hiring

practices. Executive Order 13932, Modernizing and Reforming the Assessment and

Hiring of Federal Job Candidates,

directed the Oce of Personnel Management

to reduce degree-based practices in the federal civil service. Maryland’s Governor

Larry Hogan issued an executive order in 2022 to adopt this rule for Maryland state

employees, and Utah’s Governor Spencer Cox in December of 2022 announced

that Utah would do the same. Today, federal civil service job descriptions must

“be based on the speciﬁc skills and competencies required to perform those jobs,”

and may prescribe a “minimum educational requirement” only if it is otherwise

legally required. The same policies do not extend beyond the civil service. Federal

agencies continue to require college degrees for contract employees, and federal

contractors are rarely able to place workers without four-year degrees on federal

projects, regardless of their qualiﬁcations. Private employers consistently impose

a BA requirement on jobs even when existing workers in the role do not have one.

Adopt the civil service’s skills-based hiring standards for federal

contractors. The President should direct the Administrator for Federal

Procurement Policy to adopt the civil service’s skills-based hiring standards

for federal contractors and issue waivers from degree-based stang

requirements in existing contracts.

Prohibit the use of a BA requirement in job descriptions. Congress

should prohibit the inclusion of a BA requirement in job descriptions

for all private sector employers, or the use of a BA requirement to screen

applicants using algorithms, except where a BA from a particular type of

institution or in a particular ﬁeld is a bona ﬁde requirement of the position.

— 597 —

Department of Labor and Related Agencies

Alternative View. While the federal government has a duty to promote economy

and eciency in federal hiring and contracting, and thus should base decisions on

skills as opposed to degrees, it is not the federal government’s role to determine

whether private employers may or may not include degree requirements in job

descriptions and in their hiring decisions. The inappropriate reverence given to

degree requirements is a byproduct of the federal government’s heavy subsidi-

zation of BA degrees. Phasing down federal subsidies would be a better way to

eliminate barriers to jobs for individuals without BA degrees.

Federal Workforce Development Programs. Existing federally funded work-

force development and training programs should be reassessed to ensure they are

outcome-based and truly deliver value to taxpayers and job seekers.

As of 2019, the federal government spent approximately $17 billion annually on

43 federal employment and training programs administered across nine federal

agencies, many of which overlap with at least one other program. Many of these

programs track only inputs or individuals served, not outcomes or outputs, and do

not swiftly identify bad-actor grantees. The federal government should identify

underperforming programs and eliminate or redirect that funding to programs

with strong outcome-based metrics.

Evaluate and streamline workforce development programs, ensuring

evidence-based outcomes. In its reauthorization of the Workforce

Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA),

Congress should evaluate and

streamline the existing workforce development programs to ensure there

is no overlap or fragmentation between programs. Congress should also

ensure strong evidence-based outcomes for each program and tie federal

funding for those programs to the outcomes achieved.

Review employment and training programs to ensure outcome-

based metrics. DOL and other federal agencies with jurisdiction over

employment and training programs should review their programs and

utilize all available tools and authority to ensure these programs contain

strong outcome-based metrics. To the extent that agencies have this

authority, they should reevaluate funding for programs that do not meet

those evidence-based and outcomes-based requirements. Finally, strong

internal policies should be implemented to ensure bad-actor grantees are

identiﬁed and sanctioned expeditiously.

Federal Unemployment Insurance Program. In the post-pandemic land-

scape, the federal government should restore the Unemployment Insurance (UI)

program’s purpose with a particular focus on reestablishing program integrity and

accountability. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act

— 598 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

unemployment programs were defrauded of hundreds of billions of dollars, includ-

ing by state-sponsored hacking groups. Not all state agencies are yet through their

backlogs of appeals and fraud cases; the recovery of lost funds has been minimal;

and fraud has now spilled into the traditional UI programs. The CARES Act era

drastically altered the entire UI ecosystem: The federal–state partnership shifted

toward federal programs and funding, and the social insurance purpose of the

program was disconnected as beneﬁts were extended, expanded to more typically

uncovered populations, and made exponentially larger.

Congress should enact bipartisan commonsense UI program reforms,

including statutory authority for the Labor Oce of Inspector

General (OIG) to access all state UI records for the purposes of

investigation and requiring state agencies to crossmatch applicants

with the National Directory of New Hires.

Congress should also develop a framework (through commission of a

congressional report to serve as a blueprint) of technical standards

on broader tech topics like usability, state agency cybersecurity

postures, data taxonomy standardization, and/or identity

veriﬁcation standards.

Congress should provide DOL with more reasonable enforcement

tools for the UI system. Currently, DOL can either send a strongly worded

letter or revoke the entire Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA)

tax

credit, which would place an immediate 6 percent to 7 percent tax on all

covered employers.

DOL should review all actual or planned procurements against

the $2 billion (under the American Rescue Plan Act)

for UI fraud

detection, accessibility, and equity investments. These funds do not

have appropriations timelines and have very minimal statutory descriptions

of the intended purpose. DOL should also review and propose changes to

improve state monitoring programs including developing evidence-based

frameworks for evaluating the technical readiness and security postures of

the state agencies; strengthen its relationship with the OIG and Government

Accountability Oce (GAO), and support continued development of fraud

prosecution with DOJ, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and

the ﬁnancial services community; ensure administrative and IT funding is

outcome-based; and gather and publish best practices from state ocials,

industry partners, and other vendors who deliver UI services.

— 599 —

Department of Labor and Related Agencies

WORKER VOICE AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Non-Union Worker Voice and Representation. American workers lack a

meaningful voice in today’s workplace. Between 50 percent and 60 percent of

workers have less inﬂuence than they want on critical workplaces issues beyond

pay and beneﬁts. Even managers are twice as likely to say their employees have

too little inﬂuence rather than too much. But America’s one-size-ﬁts-all approach

undermines worker representation. Federal labor law oers no alternatives to

labor unions whose politicking and adversarial approach appeals to few, whereas

most workers report that they prefer a more cooperative model run jointly with

management that focuses solely on workplace issues. The next Administration

should make new options available to workers and push Congress to pass labor

reforms that create non-union “employee involvement organizations” as well as

a mechanism for worker representation on corporate boards.

Congress should reintroduce and pass the Teamwork for Employees

and Managers (TEAM) Act of 2022.

The TEAM Act:

1. Reforms the National Labor Relations Act’s (NLRA) Section 8(a)(2)

prohibition on formal worker–management cooperative organizations

like works councils.

2. Creates an “Employee Involvement Organization” (EIO) to facilitate

voluntary cooperation on critical issues like working conditions,

beneﬁts, and productivity.

3. Amends labor law to allow EIOs at large, publicly traded corporations

to elect a non-voting, supervisory member of their company’s board

of directors.

Alternative View. While some conservatives lament that workers lack sucient

voice in today’s workplace, others interpret the rise in independent and ﬂexible

work opportunities, signiﬁcant expansion in family-friendly policies like paid

family leave, and the decline in private sector unionization as indicators of workers’

increasing competency and control. Another way to help expand workers’ freedom

and voices in traditional workplaces is by allowing them to choose who represents

them in negotiations with their employer. The Worker’s Choice Act

would accom-

plish this by ending exclusive representation so that unions in right-to-work states

are no longer forced to represent workers who do not want to join them.

Union Transparency. Private-sector unions must ﬁle detailed ﬁnancial infor-

mation with DOL—on matters including union spending, income, loans, assets,

membership information, and employee salary—but unions composed entirely

— 600 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

of state or local employees are exempt from this ﬁling requirement. These dis-

closure requirements help workers and the public understand how union leaders

are raising and spending union dues; they also can serve as a vital source of infor-

mation that helps workers decide if the unions they are asked to join are good

stewards of the funds they collect. DOL, under both George W. Bush and Donald

Trump, tried rulemakings (known as the Intermediate Bodies Rule) that would

require some government unions to ﬁle the same information that is required of

private-sector unions.

Under President Trump, OLMS required unions to disclose involvement in

trusts that they either own a majority stake in or control. In the past, union trust

spending has been hidden, and it appears that trust assets have occasionally

been corruptly spent for the beneﬁt of private interests in union leadership—

such as $30,000 spent on a private party, $37,500 spent on a Montblanc pen,

condominiums for those in power, golf outings, and a Ferrari.

But the Biden

DOL eliminated a transparency rule requiring the filing of the T-1 Trust

Annual Report.

More generally, OLMS, which is charged with enforcing the law of union dis-

closure, has historically been underfunded when compared to other DOL agencies.

This relative lack of funding has made ensuring disclosure more dicult.

Enact transparency rules. The substance of the Intermediate Bodies Rule

should pass into law, either through rulemaking or through legislation. The

T-1 Trust Annual Report annual ﬁling requirement should be restored.

Increase funding levels. Congress should expand the funding of the Oce

of Labor-Management Standards.

Duty of Fair Representation. Unions have a duty of fair representation to

their members, yet they too often abuse that duty to use their members’ resources

on left-wing culture-war issues that are unrelated, and in fact often harmful, to

union members’ own interests.

The NLRB should take enforcement or amicus action advancing the

position that political conﬂicts of interest by union leadership can

support claims for breach of the duty of fair representation in a

manner analogous to ﬁnancial conﬂicts of interest and analogous to

breaches of the ﬁduciary duty of loyalty in other areas of law.

Interpreting “Protected Concerted Activity.” In an effort to prevent

employers from retaliating against workers who express a desire to unionize, cer-

tain activities are deemed “protected concerted activity” (under §7 of the NLRA).

— 601 —

Department of Labor and Related Agencies

The NLRB has issued extreme interpretations of these activities, such as deter-

mining that a business’s requiring its employees to be courteous to customers and

one another is an unlawful infringement on the free speech rights implicit in the

protected concerted activity protections in the NLRA.

Reverse unreasonable interpretations of “protected concerted

activity.” The NLRB should return to the 2019 Alstate Maintenance

interpretation of what does and does not constitute protected concerted

activity, including listing eight instances of lawful actions by employers.

Injunctive Relief and Worker Organizing Activities. Within the conﬁnes

of the more reasonable deﬁnition of protected concerted activity described above,

the NLRB should increase its pursuit of reinstatement injunctions. Firing work-

ers engaged in concerted activity has an immediate chilling eect on organizing,

but remedies under the NLRA typically come only much later and amount only

to backpay. In NLRA section 10(j), Congress empowered the NLRB to obtain

temporary injunctions that immediately reinstate workers to their jobs in these

circumstances. This provides a more meaningful remedy to the worker and creates

a signiﬁcant deterrent to unfair labor practices, because prompt reinstatement will

tend to reinforce the legitimacy of the organizing eort. The NLRB overwhelmingly

prevails when pursuing an injunction, succeeding 100 percent of the time in 2020

and 91 percent of the time in 2021.

Increase the use of 10( j) injunctive relief. The NLRB should increase

its use of 10(j) and should articulate guidelines for situations in which it

intends to seek injunctive relief; the board should delegate authority to

pursue such injunctions to the general counsel and the general counsel

should establish a policy of considering them expeditiously in all retaliation

cases identiﬁed by regional oces.

Dues-Funded Worker Centers. Under current law, both labor unions and

unionized employers must ﬁle ﬁnancial disclosures with DOL on an annual basis

to ward o potential fraud and corruption of the sort that has been seen recently

within the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of

America (UAW). However, worker centers, which have grown in number and inﬂu-

ence enormously over the past decade, are not required to ﬁle these disclosures.

Investigate worker centers and require ﬁnancial disclosures. DOL

should investigate worker centers that look and act like unions and bring

enforcement actions to require them to ﬁle the same ﬁnancial disclosures.

— 602 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Oce of Labor-Management Standards Initiative. Currently, the Oce of

Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) may investigate potential employer mal-

feasance with regard to union funds in the absence of any complaint by a worker

or union but may not do the same with regard to potential union malfeasance. If

OLMS has evidence that a union may be violating the law based on information

available to the agency (such as annual ﬁnancial disclosure reports, information

developed during an audit of a union’s books and records, or information obtained

from other government agencies) it should be permitted to open an investigation.

It should have the same enforcement tools available for both employers and unions.

Revise investigation standards. The Oce of Labor-Management

Standards should revise its investigation standards to authorize

investigations without receiving a formal complaint.

Persuader Rule. During the Obama Administration, DOL created signiﬁcant

regulatory burdens for employers with respect to the advice that employers receive

about union activity. As a general matter, employers who hire lawyers or other con-

sultants to advise employees about union issues must ﬁle disclosure forms with the

department, as must the lawyers and consultants themselves. Prior to the Obama

Administration, advice provided solely to the employer required no disclosure.

The Obama Administration attempted to eliminate this “advice exemption” with

a directive known as the “persuader rule,” which was successfully challenged in

court. In 2018, the Trump Administration formally rescinded the persuader rule.

DOL should rescind the persuader rule once again should the Biden

Administration revive it.

Unionizing the Workplace: Card Check vs. Secret Ballot. Under the

NLRA, instead of having a secret ballot election about the decision to unionize

a workplace, a union may instead collect signed pro-union cards from a majority

of the employees it wishes to represent and then ask the employer and National

Labor Relations Board for voluntary union recognition. That request gives the

employer the option to hold a secret-ballot election or to recognize the union with-

out any such election. This “card check” procedure is likely to induce employees

to provide their signed cards in ways that do not accurately reﬂect their true pref-

erences—ranging from a desire not to oend the signature requestor to a wish to

avoid intimidation and coercion to signing based on false information provided

by union organizers. In short, the card check procedure sidesteps many aspects of

democratic decision-making that free and fair elections conducted by secret ballot

are supposed to accomplish. Notably, the general counsel of the National Labor

Relations Board has recently proposed an esoteric legal theory that card-check

— 603 —

Department of Labor and Related Agencies

decision-making is required under the law, basing this theory on an old NLRB

case, Joy Silk, even though the Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected mandatory

card-check recognition.

Discard “card check.” Congress should discard “card check” as the basis of

union recognition and mandate the secret ballot exclusively.

Contract Bar Rule. Although current labor law allows a union to establish itself

at a workplace at more or less any time, the calendar for any attempt to decertify

a union is considerably more constrained. If a union is recognized as a collective

bargaining agent, then employees may not decertify it or substitute another union

for it for at least one year under federal law (the “certiﬁcation bar”). Similarly, when

a union reaches a collective bargaining agreement with an employer, it is immune

from a decertiﬁcation election for up to three years (the “contract bar”). A typical

consequence of these rules is that employees must often wait four years before

they are allowed a chance at decertiﬁcation. Employees then have only a 45-day

window to ﬁle a decertiﬁcation petition; if the employer and union sign a successor

contract, then the contract bar comes into play once again—meaning employees

with an interest in decertiﬁcation must wait another three years.

Eliminate the contract bar rule. NLRB should eliminate the contract bar

rule so that employees with an interest in decertiﬁcation have a reasonable

chance to achieve their goal.

Tailoring National Employment Rules. National employment laws like

the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)

and the Occupational Safety and Health

(OSH) Act

set out one-size-ﬁts-all “ﬂoors” regulating the employment rela-

tionship. These substantive worker protections often do not mesh well with the

procedural worker protections oered through the NLRA’s collective bargaining

process. Unions could play a powerful role in tailoring national employment rules

to the needs of a particular workplace if, in unionized workplaces, national rules

were treated as negotiable defaults rather than non-negotiable ﬂoors.

Congress should amend the NLRA to authorize collective bargaining

to treat national employment laws and regulations as negotiable

defaults. For example, this reform would allow a union to bless a relaxed

overtime trigger (e.g., 45 hours a week, or 80 hours over two weeks) in

exchange for ﬁrm employer commitments on predictable scheduling.

Alternative Policy. While some conservatives (including the author of this chap-

ter) believe that it would be a mistake to antagonize unions’ core interests, others

— 604 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

argue that the next Administration should end Project Labor Agreement require-

ments and repeal the Davis–Bacon Act. And while some conservatives have chosen

not to address massive federal subsidies for unionized labor, others believe that

current laws and regulations that pick winners and losers to the detriment of the

majority of construction workers and to all taxpayers should not be ignored.

Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) are short-term collective bargaining

agreements that apply to construction projects. There are a few reasons that con-

struction projects may beneﬁt from a PLA, and there are many reasons that even

when actively encouraged to do so public construction projects have declined

to use PLAs. Among the consequences: The majority of construction ﬁrms and

construction workers are not unionized and their temporary forced unionization

results in large-scale wage theft; construction companies are signiﬁcantly less

likely to bid on projects with PLAs; and PLAs consistently drive up construction

costs by 10 percent to 30 percent.

The Davis–Bacon Act

requires federally ﬁnanced construction projects to pay

“prevailing wages.” In theory, these wages should reﬂect going market rates for

construction labor in the relevant area. However, both the Government Account-

ability Oce and the Department of Labor’s Inspector General have repeatedly

criticized the Labor Department for using self-selected, statistically unrepresenta-

tive samples to calculate the prevailing-wage rates that drive up the cost of federal

construction by about 10 percent. The Davis–Bacon Act redistributes wealth from

hardworking Americans to those that beneﬁt from government-funded construc-

tion projects. Repealing the Davis–Bacon Act would increase worker freedom and

end a longstanding eective tax on American families.

End PLA requirements. Agencies should end all mandatory Project Labor

Agreement requirements and base federal procurement decisions on the

contractors that can deliver the best product at the lowest cost.

Repeal Davis–Bacon. Congress should enact the Davis–Bacon Repeal Act

and allow markets to determine market wages.

THE STATES

Worker-led Beneﬁts Experimentation. Workers depend on unemployment

beneﬁts to navigate inevitable market frictions and seek new employment oppor-

tunities. But existing unemployment insurance (UI) is bureaucratic, ineective,

and unaccountable. The outdated system’s myriad failures during the COVID-19

pandemic highlighted the need for innovations that respond to recipients’ needs.

The most promising avenue for innovation is to involve workers and private-sec-

tor organizations more directly, freed from unnecessary bureaucratic strictures.

Americans take for granted that unemployment beneﬁts must be administered by

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Department of Labor and Related Agencies

government agencies, but other Western market democracies feature eective and

popular beneﬁts administered by non-public worker organizations.

The next conservative Administration should encourage UI innovation by capi-

talizing on a key feature of the system and principle of conservative policymaking:

federalism. State governments already administer unemployment beneﬁts and

have broad discretion over their programs. Existing statutory language in the Social

Security Act

does not prohibit non-public organizations from administering the

program, nor does it speciﬁcally authorize states to do so. Further, the Adminis-

tration can replicate state-level experiments in welfare programs and empower

state ocials to adapt UI to local conditions and needs.

Approve non-public worker organizations as UI administrators. DOL

should approve, pursuant to § 303(a)(2) of the Social Security Act, non-

public worker organizations as administrators.

Oer waivers for suitable alternatives. DOL should oer waivers from

the standard requirements imposed on unemployment compensation by §

303(a) and § 303(d) of the Social Security Act to states that propose suitable

alternatives.

Require organizations to comply with restrictions on political

spending. DOL should establish as a precondition for receiving any public

funds a requirement that an organization comply with restrictions on

political spending as applied to 501(c)(3) charitable organizations.

Labor Law. The federal laws governing labor-management relations have

barely changed in generations, and reforms on the federal level have been almost

impossible to get through Congress. To modernize labor law, the Congress should:

Pass legislation allowing waivers for states and local governments.

To encourage experimentation and reform eorts at the state and local

levels, Congress should pass legislation allowing waivers from federal labor

laws like the NLRA and FLSA under certain conditions. State and local

governments seeking waivers would be required to demonstrate that their

reforms would accomplish the purpose of the underlying law, and not take

away any current rights held by workers or employers. In addition, waivers

would be limited to a ﬁve-year period, after which time they could be

modiﬁed, canceled, or renewed.

Excessive Occupational Regulation. Excessive occupational regulation—

most typically encountered as occupational licensing—creates underemployment

— 606 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

and wasted resources, and artiﬁcially increases consumer prices. It is a signiﬁcant

problem that is dicult to address at the federal level.

Congress should ensure that interstate compacts for occupational

license recognition that are federally funded do not require new or

additional qualiﬁcations (that is, qualiﬁcations that do not originate

from state governments themselves) for licensed professionals to

participate.

Congress should ensure that well-qualiﬁed licensees are not locked

out of the job market by restrictive government programs funded by

the federal government. (For instance, medical doctors must complete

residency training to practice, and because Medicare provides funding for

signiﬁcantly fewer residencies than there are doctors, sizable numbers of

MDs are locked out of the job market every year.)

Wagner–Peyser Stang Flexibility. State agencies that administer unem-

ployment beneﬁts and workforce development programs should be able to hire

the best people to do the job and should not be required to use state employees if a

contractor can do the job better. Further, the federal government should not force

a state to use non-union labor or union labor for these positions.

DOL should repromulgate the Trump-era stang ﬂexibility rule, and

Congress should codify it.

WORKER RETIREMENT SAVINGS, ESG,

AND PENSION REFORMS

Remove ESG considerations from ERISA. Environmental, Social,

Governance (ESG) investing is a relatively recent strategy promoted by

large asset managers that focuses not only on a company’s bottom line, but

also on the company’s compliance with liberal political views on climate

change, racial quotas, abortion, and other issues. The ESG movement has

focused especially on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. For example, ESG

proponents advocate for divestment from oil and gas companies or the

exercise of investor inﬂuence to reduce oil and gas production.

ESG considerations unrelated to investor risks and returns necessarily

sacriﬁce trust law’s traditional sole focus on investment returns for

collateral interests. And while individual investors may prefer to invest

in “green” companies, “woke” companies, or companies with greater board

diversity, and may even be willing to sacriﬁce some ﬁnancial gains to do

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Department of Labor and Related Agencies

so, the question relevant to DOL is whether, and under what conditions,

ﬁduciaries should be permitted to follow this path as well.

While Americans are free to invest their own savings however they wish,

in ERISA, Congress imposed strict duties on employer-sponsored worker

retirement plans as a prophylactic protection of workers’ retirement

security in general. Recognizing the unique status of employer-managed

retirement savings, in ERISA, Congress required that ﬁduciaries

exclusively seek the best interests of plan beneﬁciaries. Because ESG

investing necessarily puts other considerations before the interests of the

beneﬁciary, ESG investing by plan managers is an inappropriate strategy

under ERISA.

DOL should prohibit investing in ERISA plans on the basis of any

factors that are unrelated to investor risks and returns.

DOL should return to the Trump Administration’s approach of

permitting only the consideration of pecuniary factors in ERISA.

However, this approach should not preclude the consideration of legitimate

non-ESG factors, such as corporate governance, supply chain investment in

America, or family-supporting jobs.

DOL should consider taking enforcement and/or regulatory action to

subject investment in China to greater scrutiny under ERISA. Many

large retirement and pension plans remain invested in China despite its

lack of compliance with U.S. accounting standards and state control over all

aspects of private capital.

Alternative View. Some conservatives believe that ERISA plan investments

should be made solely on a pecuniary basis and the consideration of any non-pe-

cuniary factor, ESG or otherwise, should be prohibited. Additionally, other

conservatives believe that even though ESG investing is often not a sound ﬁnan-

cial strategy, it is not wrong for retirement plans to oer ESG investment options

so long as individuals explicitly acknowledge and choose to pursue investment

options that do not exclusively maximize pecuniary gains.

Thrift Savings Plan. The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) is the retirement savings

beneﬁt plan for most federal employees and many former employees. The TSP is

managed by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB). At over

$800 billion in assets under management, the TSP is one of the largest retirement

plans in the world.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

DOL should reverse eorts to politicize the TSP by removing “mutual

fund” windows that encourage ESG, and should clarify the ﬁduciary

duties of the TSP. Recent eorts by congressional Democrats and the

Biden Administration to politicize the TSP by oering selective “mutual

fund” windows that encourage ESG should be reversed by DOL, and the

ﬁduciary duties of the TSP should be clariﬁed by the department to preclude

ESG investments absent individual stock selection by the participant.

The TSP is managed under contract by private-sector fund managers. Its

current managers are BlackRock and State Street Global Advisers. Both of

these managers have demonstrated a public commitment to use the funds

they manage to advance ESG.

The federal government should follow the lead of multiple state

governments in removing their pension funds from fund managers

such as BlackRock and State Street Global Advisers, and contract

with a competitive, private-sector manager that will comply with its

ﬁduciary duties.

DOL should also consider bringing enforcement actions against

BlackRock and State Street Global Advisers for their violations of

ﬁduciary duty while managing the TSP.

Congress should enact legislation authorizing the FRTIB to exercise

its independent business judgment in exercising the proxy votes for

its holdings of the TSP and provide clear proxy voting guidelines for

the FRTIB to follow. The current proxy adviser market is dominated by

two ﬁrms, Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis, which use

heavily weighted ESG criteria in directing the proxy votes of pension plans.

If feasible, the new legislation should also oer a streamlined process for

other proxy advisers to compete for the TSP’s business.

As the principal retirement savings plan of America’s servicemen and

women, part of the FRTIB’s ﬁduciary duties in managing the TSP is a duty

not to invest in governments that are enemies of the United States. Yet the

FRTIB has repeatedly approved the investment of TSP funds in Chinese

military companies and state-owned enterprises. Under the Trump

Administration, DOL ordered the FRTIB to cease investments in China.

However, under the Biden Administration, the TSP has made available a

wide range of investments in China.

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Department of Labor and Related Agencies

DOL should exercise its oversight of the FRTIB to prohibit

investments in China.

Congress should enact legislation prohibiting investment of the

TSP in China.

PENSION REFORMS.

Public Pension Plan Disclosure. Residents of states that responsibly manage

their public pension plans (pension plans for State and local government employ-

ees) should not be responsible for bailing out states that do not do so. Money is

ultimately fungible, so federal aid to States can eectively be used to free up other

State funds for pension contributions. Although the federal government does not

impose funding rules on public pension plans, these plans should be required to

disclose the fair market value of plan assets and liabilities (using the Treasury

yield curve as the discount rate) on an annual basis. In the aggregate, these plans

were underfunded on a market basis by $6.501 trillion as of Fiscal Year (FY) 2021,

even though the plans reported underfunding of only $1.076 trillion using overly

optimistic assumptions.

Disclose the fair market value of plan assets and liabilities. Congress

should require public pension funds to disclose the fair market value of plan

assets and liabilities (using the Treasury yield curve as the discount rate) on

an annual basis.

Multiemployer Plans. At the request of multiemployer union pension plans,

the government has given such plans much more lenient rules and discretion over

funding than it has given to single-employer plans. Multiemployer plans have been

severely mismanaged, and the plans have abused the discretion and deference given

them by federal law and enforcement agencies to make promises that they cannot

keep. As a result, these plans are generally severely underfunded, with $757 billion

in aggregate underfunding, and a funding level of just 42 percent. The Biden Admin-

istration has provided a massive taxpayer bailout to some of these plans, but without

any needed reforms. Even worse, it gave out funds in excess of what the law allows.

Congress should reform multiemployer pensions to give participants

in these plans the same protections as those in single-employer plans.

Liabilities should be measured similarly to single-employer plans. Workers

should be able to earn beneﬁts at any employer in the plan, but liabilities

should be divided amongst employers, instead of the current illusory

joint and several liability under which no one is ultimately responsible

for making up underfunding. Troubled plans should be prohibited from

— 610 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

making new pension promises. More timely and detailed reporting

should be imposed.

Pension Beneﬁt Guaranty Corporation. The Pension Beneﬁt Guaranty Cor-

poration (PBGC) insures beneﬁts for private sector pension plans, with separate

single-employer and multiemployer insurance programs.

The PBGC’s annual report must be submitted on time, and with

timely data that uses fair-market value principles to calculate the

PBGC’s ﬁnances. The PBGC has been submitting portions of statutorily

required annual reports many months late and using out-of-date data. And

PBGC's data on plans is almost ﬁve years old. These problematic practices

make it dicult for Congress to become aware of serious problems in the

insurance programs, which received a bailout of over $85 billion in the 2021

American Rescue Plan Act.

The PBGC should use existing statutory authority to protect workers,

retirees, employers, and taxpayers by closely monitoring and taking

appropriate remedial action with regard to badly run and underfunded

multiemployer union pension plans, including termination where

appropriate. The PBGC's refusal to use such authority helped cause its

multiemployer program deﬁcit to go from less than $500 million in 2008 to

over $65 billion in 2017.

Congress should increase the variable rate premium on underfunding

and eliminate the per-participant cap in order to appropriately

take into account risk and limit the degree to which well-funded

pension plans must subsidize underfunded plans. Reforms should

proportionately reduce the ﬁxed per-participant premium to ease the

burden on well-funded plans and also increase premiums on multiemployer

plans to match single-employer plans.

Improving Access to Employee Stock Ownership Plans. Employee Stock

Ownership Plans (ESOPs) are ERISA-covered employee retirement savings

plans that allow employees to receive compensation in the form of equity in their

employer business. These arrangements enable employees to formally partici-

pate as investors in how their employers’ businesses are run. And they also align

employer–employee incentives by giving employees a greater ﬁnancial stake in the

success of their employers. With over half of small businesses owned by business

owners over the age of 55, ESOPs also create advantageous succession oppor-

tunities that support the continuity of local businesses and regional economic

— 611 —

Department of Labor and Related Agencies

development. Finally, ESOPs can enable greater investment returns for employees.

However, ESOPs have to date lacked clear rules under ERISA that recognize their

unique structure and beneﬁts, and this opacity can serve as a barrier to employers

considering adopting ESOPs.

Provide clear regulations for ESOP valuation and ﬁduciary conduct.

DOL should make it easier for employers to oer ESOPs by providing clear

regulations for ESOP valuation and ﬁduciary conduct that encourages the

participation of employee beneﬁciaries in corporate governance, while

recognizing the importance of ﬁnancial diversiﬁcation for retirement security.

Alternative View. Conservatives believe that it is important for American fami-

lies to have control over their savings and to be able to hold diversiﬁed assets. While

ESOPs can be a beneﬁcial part of a worker’s and family’s savings, some conserva-

tives believe that the government should not favor one form of investment over

another or make it harder for families to have a diversiﬁed investment portfolio.

PUTTING AMERICAN WORKERS FIRST

A labor agenda focused on the strength of American families must put American

workers ﬁrst. As the family necessarily puts the interests of its members ﬁrst, so

too the United States must put the interests of American workers ﬁrst.

Immigration. The H-2A visa, meant to allow temporary agricultural work-

ers into the United States, also suers frequent employer abuse. The low cost of

H-2A workers undercuts American workers in agricultural employment. The H-2A

program is not subject to any statutory numerical cap and has been expanding in

recent years, surpassing 200,000 visa issuances for the ﬁrst time in 2019.

Cap and phase down the H-2A visa program. Congress should

immediately cap this program at its current levels and establish a

schedule for its gradual and predictable phasedown over the subsequent

10 to 20 years, producing the necessary incentives for the industry to

invest in raising productivity, including through capital investment in

agricultural equipment, and increasing employment for Americans in the

agricultural sector.

Encourage the establishment of an industry consortium and match

funding. Congress should also encourage the establishment of an industry

consortium of agricultural equipment producers and other automation and

robotics ﬁrms interested in entering the sector and match funding invested

by the industry, with intellectual property developed within the consortium

freely available to all participants.

— 612 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Alternative View. Some conservatives believe that temporary worker programs

help to ﬁll jobs that Americans will not ﬁll, prevent illegal immigration by giving

farmers and others who hire low-skilled labor access to workers, and keep down

the prices of food and other products and services produced by the temporary

workers. Some credibly argue that, absent the H-2A program, many farmers would

have to drastically increase wages, raising the price of food for all Americans, and

that even such wage increases may not be sucient to attract enough temporary

American workers to complete the necessary farm tasks to get food products to

market since those jobs are, by their nature, seasonal. Those who share this view

argue that any plan to phase out the program should weigh the program’s current

costs (relatively low) and the program’s current beneﬁts (makes American farming

more proﬁtable and sustainable while keeping down food costs).

Phase out the H-2B visa program. The H-2B visa, for nonagricultural

seasonal workers, suers from many of the same harms and abuses as H-2A,

albeit of lesser scope because of its cap and distribution across many sectors.

Congress should immediately cap this program at its current levels and

establish a schedule for its gradual and predictable phasedown over no more

than 10 years.

Alternative View. As with the H-2A program, some conservatives see the H-2B

program as a valuable program that provides low-cost temporary workers in jobs

that American companies, by and large, cannot ﬁnd enough American workers to

ﬁll (e.g., tourist season childcare providers at ski resorts, swimming instructors at

summer camps, housekeepers and groundskeepers at amusement parks, and extra

summer cooks at restaurants that serve national park patrons).These seasonal

jobs are less desirable to Americans who predominantly prefer year-round work.

Labor shortages after the pandemic support this belief. Absent the H-2B program,

many of these seasonal businesses would be forced to cut their hours or even close

altogether. Any plan to phase out the program should weigh the program's current

costs (relatively low) and the program’s current beneﬁts (makes seasonal business

more feasible).

Hire American Requirements. When government purchases goods or ser-

vices, if at all possible, not only should the company be an American company

and the products be manufactured in America, but the companies should also be

encouraged to hire American workers. Likewise, private employers should be free

to prefer our own countrymen.

Congress should mandate that all new federal contracts require at

least 70 percent of the contractor’s employees to be U.S. citizens, with

the percentage increasing to at least 95 percent over a 10-year period.

— 613 —

Department of Labor and Related Agencies

Congress must amend the law so that employers can again have the

freedom to make hiring Americans a priority. Despite the signiﬁcant

advantages that preferring citizens over (work-authorized) aliens in hiring

would provide to American workers, businesses, and the country at large,

such a practice has been illegal since 1986.

This makes no sense.

Alternative View Some conservatives believe that the government has a duty to

limit its spending in order to limit how much it takes from American families. This

means that when the government spends money, it must ﬁnd the most econom-

ical and eective way to do so. Excessive government spending will be borne by

American workers and families through reduced incomes and purchasing power.

There may be good reasons to require a certain percentage of American workers on

federal contracts, but those decisions should be based on economy and eciency

as opposed to arbitrary quotas.

Visa Fraud. American businesses that commit visa fraud and hire illegal immi-

grants should not be the beneﬁciaries of federal spending. But a 2020 report by

the Department of Labor’s Oce of Inspector General (OIG) examined the depart-

ment’s process for excluding employers who commit visa fraud and abuse from

federal contracts and found much to be desired.

To protect the American workforce from unscrupulous immigration

lawyers, employers, and labor brokers, the department must

follow the recommendations of the OIG and institute more robust

investigations for suspected visa fraud and speedier debarments for

those found guilty.

INTERNATIONAL LABOR POLICY

Leveling the International Playing Field for Workers. As recent decades

of intense import competition and oshoring have made clear, American workers

suer when the U.S. opens its markets to foreign nations’ minimal labor standards

and exploitative conditions. While federal law already prohibits the importation of

goods produced with forced labor, the prohibitions are toothless without eective

means of enforcement and cover only the most basic of workers’ rights. The Trump

Administration and its United States Trade Representative (USTR) took unprece-

dented steps to redress the issue for workers. The U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement

(USMCA) contained the strongest and most far-reaching labor provisions of any

free trade agreement (FTA), with protections and commitments to reduce labor

abuses and raise wages. It also established new modes of enforcement.

For future FTAs, the USTR should replicate the labor provisions of USMCA,

especially the provisions to:

— 614 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Eliminate all forms of forced or compulsory labor.

Protect workers’ rights to organize and participate voluntarily in a

union without employer interference or discrimination.

Create a rapid-response mechanism to provide for an independent

panel investigation of denial of labor rights at covered facilities.

Shift the burden of proof by presuming that an alleged violation

aects trade and investment, unless otherwise demonstrated.

For future authorizations of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), the President

should urge Congress to:

Create mechanisms for supply-chain transparency.

Institute a general prohibition on forced labor conditions.

Investigate Foreign Labor Violations That Undermine American Work-

ers. The United States’ embrace of globalization has exposed American workers to

unfair competition from nations with cheap, abundant, and often exploited labor.

American workers have, as a consequence, seen their earning power erode. While

negotiating stronger trade agreements with robust labor provisions should be the

primary tool with which to regulate international labor competition, the federal

government can also take steps to identify the worst labor abuses and rule breakers.

DOL’s Bureau of International Labor Aairs (ILAB) plays a critical role in monitor-

ing and enforcing the labor provisions of U.S. trade agreements and trade preference

programs as well as investigating child labor and human tracking violations.

The next Administration should focus ILAB investigations on

foreign labor violations that do the most to damage American

workers’ earning power, speciﬁcally regimes that engage in child and

forced labor, fail to protect workers’ organizing rights, and permit

hazardous or otherwise exploitative working conditions.

Alternative/Additional View. Conservatives share a belief in protecting and pro-

moting American workers and their families and orienting international policies with

Americans’ interests ﬁrst. Some conservatives believe that the best way to put Amer-

ica ﬁrst is by making America more attractive. In addition to restrictions imposed

on other countries, removing existing barriers to American manufacturing, employ-

ment, and commerce can help American workers, entrepreneurs, and families.

— 615 —

Department of Labor and Related Agencies

ORGANIZATIONAL AGENDA

Budget

Reduce the agencies’ budgets to the low end of the historical

average. The Trump Administration’s FY 2020 request, $10.9 billion,

would provide a workable target for spending reductions for DOL,

for example.

Spending reductions should occur primarily in the Employment and

Training Administration (ETA).

Focus health and safety inspections on egregious oenders, as other

inspections are often abused and usurp state and local government

prerogatives.

Personnel

Maximize hiring of political appointees. At its best, the Trump

Administration Department of Labor worked with up to 150 political

appointees. That is still a tiny percentage of the department. The number of

political appointees should be maximized in order to improve the political

accountability of the department.

Appoint new EEOC and NLRB general counsels on Day One. The Biden

Administration broke signiﬁcant precedent by ﬁring the EEOC and NLRB

general counsels despite their term appointments. The next Administration

should do the same and expand on the Biden Administration’s new

precedent by refusing to acknowledge terms in other oces, where

applicable, and installing acting or full new ocers immediately.

Implement a hiring freeze for career ocials. A hiring freeze imposes

ﬁnancial discipline on agencies’ personnel costs and reduces agency bloat.

Oce of Compliance Initiatives

DOL should fully sta the Oce of Compliance Initiatives (OCI),

which was reopened by the Trump Administration after the Obama

Administration closed its predecessor down. OCI educates employers

and workers on their rights, responsibilities, and available recourse under

the many statutes, rules, and regulations administered by DOL. Most

businesses want to follow the law and OCI exists to make knowing the rules

easier, which leads to increased compliance.

— 616 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Improve Visa-Related Labor-Market Monitoring

DOL’s Oce of Foreign Labor Certiﬁcation plays an important role in the

approval of H-visa applications, but it is currently housed in the Employment and

Training Administration, which is DOL’s primary grant-making division.

OFLC should be moved out of ETA and made directly accountable to

the Secretary with a politically accountable Director.

CONCLUSION

The good of the American family is at the heart of conservative labor policy

recommendations. The longstanding tradition of a strong work ethic in American

culture must be encouraged and strengthened by policies that promote family-sus-

taining jobs. By eliminating the policies promoted by the DEI agenda, promoting

pro-life policies that support family life, expanding available apprenticeship

programs including by encouraging the role of religious organizations in appren-

ticeships, making family-sustaining jobs accessible, simplifying employment

requirements, and allowing employers to prefer American citizens when making

hiring decisions, among the other policy recommendations discussed above, we

can begin to secure a future in which the American worker, and by extension the

American family, can thrive and prosper.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Many contributors, listed at the front of this volume, deserve credit for this work, but Oren

Cass, Rachel Greszler, Rachel Morrison, Caleb Orr, and Jonathan Wolfson deserve special mention. The author alone

assumes responsibility for the content of this chapter, and no views expressed herein should be attributed to any

other individual.

— 617 —

Department of Labor and Related Agencies

ENDNOTES

 Gretchen Livingston and Anna Brown, “Intermarriage in the U.S. Fifty Years after Loving v. Virginia,” Pew

Research Center, May 18, 2017, https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/05/18/intermarriage-in-the-

u-s-50-years-after-loving-v-virginia/ (accessed March 4, 2023).

 President Lyndon B. Johnson, Executive Order 11246, “Equal Employment Opportunity,” https://www.

presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-11246-equal-employment-opportunity (accessed

March 7, 2023).

 Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, Public Law, 95-555. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act amended Title

VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

 Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, Public Law No. 117-328, div. II, 136 Stat. 4459 (2022).

 Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq.

 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, No. 19-1392, June 24, 2022, https://www.supremecourt.gov/

opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf (accessed March 7, 2023).

 Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, 29 U.S.C. Ch. 18 § 1001 et seq.

 Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, 42 U.S.C. Ch. 21B § 2000bb et seq.

 Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 29 U.S.C. § 203.

 Department of Labor, Promoting Regulatory Openness Through Good Guidance, Federal Register, Vol. 85, No.

168, August 28, 2020, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-08-28/pdf/2020-18500.pdf (accessed

March 7, 2023).

 Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. Ch. 5, subchapter 1, § 500 et seq.

 Regulatory Flexibility Act, 5 U.S.C. Ch. 6 § 601 et seq.

 Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13932, “Modernizing and Reforming the Assessment and Hiring of Federal

Job Candidates,” Federal Register, Vol. 85, No. 187 (July 1, 2020) pp. 39457–39459, https://www.federalregister.

gov/documents/2020/07/01/2020-14337/modernizing-and-reforming-the-assessment-and-hiring-of-federal-

job-candidates (accessed March 7, 2023).

 Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act, Public Law 113-128.

 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, S.3548, 116th Congress, 2nd Sess.

 Federal Unemployment Tax Act, I.R.C., Ch. 23.

 American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, Public Law 117-2.

 Teamwork for Employees and Managers (TEAM) Act of 2022, S. 3585, 117th Congress, 2nd Sess.

 Worker’s Choice Act of 2019, H.R. 5147, 116th Congress, 1st Sess.

 F. Vincent Vernuccio, “Back to Business,” October 8, 2020, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/

back-to-business (accessed March 4, 2023).

 Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 29 U.S.C. § 203.

 Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, 29 U.S.C. Ch. 15 § 651 et seq.

 Davis–Bacon Act of 1931, Public Law 71-798.

 Social Security Act of 1935, 42 U.S.C. Ch. 7.

 The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, Public Law 99-603.

— 619 —

DEPARTMENT OF

TRANSPORTATION

Diana Furchtgott-Roth

INTRODUCTION

America needs transportation that is more abundant and aordable as well as

digniﬁed, accessible, and family friendly. Transportation plays a vital role in the

prosperity and ﬂourishing of the United States. Americans use trucks, tankers,

and trains to keep our supply chains running and cars, transit, and planes to go

where we want to go.

Two hundred and forty years ago, Adam Smith recognized that connections

were a bedrock of society because they stimulate specialization, innovation, and

capital investment. In the following decades, America’s growth was made possible

by transportation—ﬁrst ports and transatlantic shipping, then roads, canals, and

eventually railroads pushing westward to create the nation we call home. Access

to transportation is part of what made our country great.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), with a requested ﬁscal year (FY)

2023 budget of $142 billion,

was originally intended simply to provide a policy

framework for transportation safety, rulemaking, and regulation. However, it has

evolved to believe that its role is “to deliver the world’s leading transportation

system”

—that is, to select individual projects and allocate taxpayer funds in the

actual planning, developing, and building of transportation assets. Such a role is

held more appropriately by transportation asset owners: primarily states, munic-

ipalities, and the private sector.

In addition to providing a safety and regulatory framework through its 11 sub-

components, known as modes, the department has become a de facto grantmaking

and lending organization. DOT provides approximately $50 billion in discretionary

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

and formula grants, known as obligations, annually in areas ranging from transit

systems to road construction to universities and has lent or subsidized more than

$60 billion since the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act

(TIFIA) program,

now managed by the Build America Bureau, was created in 1998.

This evolved role as a major, and often primary, funding and ﬁnancing source is far

from the department’s original policy framework. It also removes incentives for

state and local ocials to ensure that investments are worthwhile, because federal

money removes the need to get public buy-in to build and maintain infrastructure

projects as funding becomes “someone else’s money.”

Despite the department’s tremendous resources, congressional mandates and

funding priorities have made it dicult for DOT to focus on the pressing trans-

portation challenges that most directly aect average Americans, such as the high

cost of personal automobiles, especially in an era of high inﬂation; unpredictable

and expensive commercial shipping by rail, air, and sea; and infrastructure spend-

ing that does not match the types of transportation that most Americans prefer.

Transforming the department to address the varied needs of all Americans more

eectively remains a central challenge.

DOT is particularly dicult to manage because its 11 major components—nine

modal administrations, the Oce of the Secretary, and the Oce of the Inspector

General—all have their own sets of personnel including administrators, deputy

administrators, chiefs of sta, and general counsels. Most grants ﬂow through the

modes, such as the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administra-

tion, and Federal Aviation Administration.

The Oce of the Secretary contains its own grantmaking operation that funds

research and some special grants, as well as a major lending operation, the Build

America Bureau, that functions as an infrastructure bank. The Oce of the Sec-

retary has department-wide oces for such functions as Budget and Financial

Management, the General Counsel, Policy, the Oce of Research and Technology,

Government Aairs, Administration, the Oce of the Chief Information Ocer,

Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, Public Aairs, Drug and Alcohol

Policy and Compliance, and Civil Rights. The modal administrations include the:

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA);

Federal Highway Administration (FHWA);

Federal Railroad Administration (FRA);

National Highway Trac Safety Administration (NHTSA);

Federal Transit Administration (FTA);

— 621 —

Department of Transportation

Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation (GLS);

Maritime Administration (MARAD);

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA); and

Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).

DOT’s fundamental problem is that instead of being able to focus on providing

Americans with aordable and abundant transportation, it has become saddled

with congressional requirements that reduce the department to a de facto grant-

making organization. Yet there is little need for much of this grantmaking, for

two reasons:

New technology enables private companies to charge for transportation in

many areas, which could transform how innovation is ﬁnanced. It is vital to

consider the role of user fees and other pricing innovations with regard to

transportation infrastructure. Airport landing fees for aircraft, toll charges

on roads and bridges, and per-gallon taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel are

all examples of user charges that aect the decisions of transportation

system users. These changes could shift our nation’s transportation away

from being a top–down system that is misaligned with the needs of so

many Americans. Increasing private-sector ﬁnancing could revolutionize

travel and increase everyday mobility to its greatest potential in a way that

Americans prefer. Doing so would keep transportation decisions out of the

hands of bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., who are far removed from local

problems and preferences.

If funding must be federal, it would be more ecient for the U.S. Congress

to send transportation grants to each of the 50 states and allow each state

to purchase the transportation services that it thinks are best. Such an

approach would enable states to prioritize dierent types of transportation

according to the needs of their citizens. States that rely more on automotive

transportation, for example, could use their funding to meet those needs.

Meanwhile, many Americans continue to confront serious challenges with

their day-to-day transportation, including costs that have increased dramati-

cally in recent years. DOT in its current form is insuciently equipped to address

those problems. DOT’s discretionary grant-making processes should be abol-

ished, and funding should be focused on formulaic distributions to the states,

which know best their transportation needs and are incentivized to think of the

— 622 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

long-term maintenance costs. At a bare minimum, the number of grants should

be consolidated.

DOT would also reduce unnecessary burdens by returning to the Trump Admin-

istration’s “rule on rules” approach to regulations, implemented in late 2019 as RIN

2105-AE84.

This rule strengthened the Administration’s eort to remove outdated

regulations, ﬁnd cost-saving reforms, and clarify that guidance documents are

in fact guidance rather than mandatory impositions. The Biden Administration

unwisely moved away from this reform, and the next Administration should revive

it without delay.

BUILD AMERICA BUREAU

The Build America Bureau (BAB) resides within the Oce of the Secretary and

describes itself as “responsible for driving transportation infrastructure develop-

ment projects in the United States.”

This lofty-sounding goal in practice means

that the Bureau serves as the point of contact for distributing funds for transpor-

tation projects in the form of subsidized 30-year loans. For higher-quality projects

and in certain circumstances, these government loans may disintermediate the

private sector from providing similar ﬁnancing, albeit at higher costs.

At certain times in the economic cycle, and for many lower-quality projects with

more dubious economic return, similar loans from the private sector are simply

not available. Should the BAB continue to exist and potentially disintermediate

the private ﬁnancing sector, it must maintain underwriting discipline and continue

best practices of requiring rigorous ﬁnancial modeling and cushion for repayment

of loans in a variety of economic scenarios. In addition:

The BAB should ensure that these loans do not become grants in another

form by maintaining the requirement that all project borrowers be rated

at least investment grade by the major ratings agencies and that project

sponsors remain liable to ensure that all ﬁnancing is repaid, even in periods

of ﬁnancial stress and economic downturns.

Project sponsors should be required to show that projects have positive

economic value to taxpayers, and sponsors should guarantee that all federal

ﬁnancing will be repaid through properly structured loan terms, including a

minimum equity commitment from all project sponsors.

All projects should also be required to show repayment ability in various

interest rate environments, and the BAB should ensure that long-term loans

are structured appropriately with regard to the ﬁxing of interest rates and

hedging of interest rate risk on the part of the borrowers to avoid ﬁnancial

stress or default driven solely by rising interest rates.

— 623 —

Department of Transportation

Policymakers should maintain awareness and promote transparency

regarding the continued existence of this loan program and whether private

ﬁnanciers are being disintermediated by the subsidized BAB lending that

the private sector simply cannot match.

A cost-beneﬁt analysis of the federal government’s potential replacement

and disintermediation of the private ﬁnancing sector regarding

infrastructure loans, which is not currently performed, should be conducted

on a regular basis.

PUBLIC–PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

Much infrastructure could be funded through public–private partnerships (P3s),

a procurement method that uses private ﬁnancing to construct infrastructure. In

exchange for providing the ﬁnancing, the private partner typically retains the right

to operate the asset under requirements speciﬁed by the government in a contract

called a concession agreement. In addition, the private partner is given the right

either to collect fees from the users of the asset or to receive a periodic payment

from the government conditioned on the asset’s availability: If a highway is not

open to trac when it should be, for example, the government’s payment to the

private concessionaire is reduced.

The best practice for a government that is interested in using a P3 to deliver

a project is for the government ﬁrst to perform a value-for-money study, which

compares the costs and beneﬁts of procuring the asset under a typical procurement

against the costs and beneﬁts of utilizing a P3. Since private equity is involved, the

ﬁnancing costs for P3s are higher, but they also are frequently more than oset by

the private sector’s ability to generate eciencies and cost savings in the design,

construction, maintenance, and operation of the asset. If the value-for-money

study ﬁnds that the eciencies of a P3 and the value of risk shifted to the private

sector exceed the additional ﬁnancing costs, then utilizing a P3 is good public policy

because Americans have better infrastructure at a lower cost.

As well as providing better transportation facilities for Americans, P3s oer a

number of beneﬁts to governments. Speciﬁcally, they:

Provide access to some of the world’s best talent with vast experience in

delivering infrastructure,

Create incentives for innovation and creativity,

Shift unique project risks to companies that are familiar with

those risks, and

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Allow designers, contractors, and maintenance teams to work together

through the delivery of the process to focus on lifecycle costs as opposed to

just initial design and construction costs.

It should be noted that project funding and P3s are not synonymous. Policy-

makers and government leaders frequently mistake the ﬁnancing that P3s provide

for funding. A P3 allows the government to obtain equity from the private sector,

but that equity has to be paid back with interest. Like a loan, a P3 can be used to

accelerate revenues and provide needed capital to help pay the upfront costs of a

project, but also like a loan, the private P3 investors must be paid back for investors

to realize a ﬁnancial return.

Some mistakenly think that using a P3 would allow a road or bridge to be deliv-

ered without increases in tolls or taxes. It is important to remember that all funding

for governmental infrastructure comes from either taxes or user fees. P3 ﬁnancing

can be used to make those funding sources more ecient, but it cannot replace the

need for taxes or user fees to provide the funding for the project.

In addition, a poorly managed P3 procurement process (the process govern-

ment uses to identify the best private P3 partner) can result in excessive consultant

costs and years-long delays in delivery. While P3s can oer eciencies in delivering

the project, the P3 procurement process itself can be signiﬁcantly longer and more

expensive than traditional procurement processes.

Finally, and possibly most important, a P3 gives a private party the ability to

collect fees or payments over decades (a period well beyond the length of the

careers of the political appointees who sign contracts with private parties). Thus,

P3s create an opportunity for current governmental leaders to obtain a higher

upfront payment from the private party in exchange for greater user fees paid by

future generations who will use the asset. In other words, a governmental CEO

(governor, mayor, head of an authority) can use a P3 to impose unnecessarily high

costs on users decades in the future in exchange for upfront cash. It is important

that contracts be transparent in order to minimize this possibility.

A P3’s greatest public value is realized when the procurement model is used for

a project that is unusually risky or a type of project with which the government

has limited experience such as a tunnel or light rail line. P3s are an excellent tool

for transferring risk from the public sector to the private sector and can create

considerable value for the taxpaying public. However, a high degree of expertise

is required to ensure that the risk transfer warrants the higher ﬁnancing and pro-

curement costs that P3s impose.

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

As private companies develop a future of new, emerging technologies, one role

for DOT is driving clarity in the government’s role and setting standards for safety,

— 625 —

Department of Transportation

security, and privacy without hampering innovation. DOT can oversee the testing

and deployment of a wide variety of new technologies, allowing communities and

individuals to choose what best ﬁts their needs. It is the role of the private sector,

not the government, to pick winners and losers in technology development. If a

technology underperforms, the private sector should be liable, not the government.

The department should ensure a tech-neutral approach to addressing any

emerging transportation technology while keeping safety as the number one

priority. As part of this, it should work to facilitate the safe and full integration

of automated vehicles into the national transportation system. Over time, these

advanced technologies can save lives, transform personal mobility, and provide

additional transportation opportunities—including for people with disabili-

ties, aging populations, and communities where car ownership is expensive or

impractical.

NHTSA’s and FMCSA’s current regulations were written before the advent of

automated vehicles and driving systems. Both operating administrations have

issued Advance Notices of Proposed Rulemakings (ANPRMs) that begin the pro-

cess of updating their regulations to reﬂect this new technology. However, these

regulations have stalled under the Biden Administration, which has chosen to

use the department’s tools to get people to take transit and drive electric vehicles

instead of helping people to choose the transportation options that suit them best.

NHTSA should work to remove regulatory barriers by focusing on updating

vehicle standards as well as publishing performance-based rules for the

operations of automated vehicles (AVs).

FMCSA should work to clarify the regulations to align with DOT’s AV 3.0

guidance, which would allow the drivers to be safely removed from the

operations of a commercial motor vehicle.

From a nonregulatory point of view, DOT has pivoted from a successful focus

on the voluntary sharing of data to improve safety outcomes to adoption of a more

compulsory and antagonistic approach to mandating data collection and publica-

tion through a Standing General Order related to automated vehicles. This needs

to be reversed.

Many of these new and innovative technologies rely on wireless communica-

tions that depend on the availability and purchase of radio frequency spectrum,

a trend that is consistent with what we see in connectivity in our everyday lives.

There is a role for DOT in ensuring that in the ﬁght over spectrum, transportation

gets its fair share.

For technologies to work in transportation, and in particular to work for

transportation safety, they have to meet the unique needs of a transportation

— 626 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

environment. They need to account for rapidly moving and out-of-line-of-sight

vehicles as well as pedestrians, bicyclists, and other road users. They should

account for the potential for radio interference, and they should address security.

This is why in 1999, in response to a request from Congress, the Federal Com-

munications Commission allocated the 5.9 GHz band of spectrum to trac safety

and intelligent transportation systems (ITS). In 2020, the FCC took away 45 MHz

of the 75 MHz it had added, leaving only 30 MHz for transportation safety and

ITS. DOT needs to represent the transportation community and make the case

for needed spectrum to the public and Congress.

CORPORATE AVERAGE FUEL ECONOMY (CAFE) STANDARDS

One reason for the high numbers of injuries on American roadways is that

national fuel economy standards raise the price of cars, disincentivizing people

from purchasing newer, safer vehicles.

Congress requires the Secretary of Transportation to set national fuel econ-

omy standards for new motor vehicles sold in the United States. This mandate

was established in the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 (EPCA),

a law

passed in the wake of the Arab oil embargo to promote greater energy eciency

and lessen the national security threat of U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The stat-

ute directs DOT to prescribe the “maximum feasible” mileage requirements for

dierent categories of internal-combustion engine (ICE) automobiles for each

model year. The standards must be achievable using available ICE technologies

running on gasoline, diesel fuel, or similar combustible fuels and must not be set so

high as to prevent automakers from proﬁtably producing new vehicles at sucient

volume to meet consumer demand.

Congress recognized that the ICE-powered automobile has been instrumen-

tal to advancing the mobility and prosperity of the American people and that the

domestic mass production of new ICE vehicles generates millions of jobs and

remains critical to the overall health of the U.S. economy and the strength of the

nation’s industrial base. Accordingly, Congress took care to ensure that the mileage

requirements issued by DOT would not undermine the vitality of America’s auto

industry or interfere with the market economics that drives consumer demand

for new vehicles.

This rulemaking authority, which has been delegated by the Secretary to

the National Highway Trac Safety Administration, is exclusive to DOT. EPCA

expressly preempts states from adopting or enforcing any dierent requirement

“related to fuel economy standards” for new motor vehicles. While the statute

instructs DOT to consult with the Department of Energy and the Environmental

Protection Agency (EPA) in formulating its standards, no other federal agency,

including EPA, has clear authority to set fuel economy requirements in place of

NHTSA. The Clean Air Act

gives EPA general authority to establish emissions

— 627 —

Department of Transportation

limits for new motor vehicles for air pollutants that are found to pose a danger to

humans. However, there is no reason to believe Congress ever contemplated that

EPA’s authority to address automotive air pollution might be used to displace or

supersede NHTSA’s fuel economy mandate under EPCA.

Congress chose to assign the power to set fuel economy standards to DOT

rather than EPA. This was not only because DOT understands the technologies

and economics of the auto industry, but also because NHTSA is the nation’s leading

motor vehicle safety regulator, and Congress sought to ensure that fuel economy

requirements would not adversely aect highway safety. Unfortunately, the Biden

Administration has ﬂouted these statutory limitations in nearly every respect. The

predictable result is higher expected transportation costs for Americans.

In pursuit of an anti–fossil fuel climate agenda never approved by Congress,

the Biden Administration has raised fuel economy requirements to levels that

cannot realistically be met by most categories of ICE vehicles. The purpose

is to force the auto industry to transition away from traditional technologies

to the production of electric vehicles (EVs) and compel Americans to

accept costly EVs despite a clear and persistent consumer preference for

ICE-powered vehicles. In further support of this agenda, federal regulators

administer a scheme of generous fuel economy credits that subsidize EV

producers such as Tesla at the expense of legacy automakers.

Moreover, and contrary to Congress’s design, the Biden EPA has been

given preeminence in the regulation of fuel economy through the setting

of carbon dioxide emissions limits for new motor vehicles under the Clean

Air Act. Because carbon dioxide emissions levels correspond to mileage

in automobiles powered by fossil fuels, these EPA rules are de facto fuel

economy requirements that apply independently of NHTSA’s standards.

The Biden Administration has also granted California a special waiver under

the Clean Air Act that permits the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to

issue its own fuel economy directives, notwithstanding EPCA’s prohibition

on state standards. Under this waiver, CARB has ordered automakers to

phase out the sale of ICE-powered automobiles in California and transition

to the production of zero-emission vehicles by 2035. The Clean Air Act

allows other states to follow California’s requirements; thus, CARB is

eectively determining fuel economy policies for the entire nation.

As a result of these regulatory actions, automobiles will be signiﬁcantly more

expensive to produce, there will be fewer aordable new vehicle options for Amer-

ican families, and fewer new vehicles will be sold in the U.S. That will do more than

— 628 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

translate into a loss of auto industry jobs for American workers: It will also mean a

signiﬁcant increase in trac deaths and injuries. As fewer new cars are purchased,

the price of used cars will rise, and more Americans will be left driving older cars,

which trac statistics show are much less safe than newer vehicles. NHTSA itself

has acknowledged that the Biden Administration’s fuel economy standards will

generate hundreds of additional fatalities and thousands of additional injuries

on U.S. highways. Because older cars also produce more harmful air pollution, the

aging of America’s ﬂeet will also have negative consequences for air quality.

In addition, the Biden Administration’s eorts to accelerate EV sales by reg-

ulatory ﬁat work against the national security interests of the United States in

contravention of Congress’s goals under EPCA. Increasing the production of EVs

will make the U.S. more dependent on China and other foreign countries that

control the supply and processing of rare earth minerals that are needed for EV

batteries. And the faster deployment of EVs will put a major strain on America’s

vulnerable power grid, requiring large investments in critical infrastructure and

a big boost in the nation’s electricity production, including from gas-ﬁred and oil-

ﬁred power plants.

In exchange for all of these harmful eects—on trac safety, consumer choice,

American jobs, the nation’s air quality, and U.S. national security—the Biden fuel

economy regulations are predicted to have no meaningful eect on global tem-

perature trends over the long term.

The next Administration must return the federal fuel economy program to the

limits established by Congress. The standards issued by NHTSA must be reset at

reasonable levels that are technologically feasible for ICE automobiles and con-

sistent with an increase in domestic auto production and healthy growth in the

sale of safer and more aordable new vehicles. To achieve these goals, the next

Administration should:

Reduce proposed fuel economy levels. The Administration should

consider returning to the minimum average fuel economy levels speciﬁed

by Congress for model year 2020 vehicles: levels aimed at achieving a

ﬂeet-wide average of 35 miles per gallon. Consideration should be given

to maintaining the standards at those levels for the near term in order to

promote the objectives laid out by Congress.

Ensure that DOT again exercises priority in the setting of fuel

economy standards. Any EPA limits on carbon dioxide emissions, even

if authorized under the Clean Air Act, must support and work in harmony

with DOT standards and must not override them or usurp DOT’s regulatory

role under EPCA. For example, EPA could regulate air conditioning systems

and leave engine standards to DOT.

— 629 —

Department of Transportation

Revoke the special waiver granted to California by the Biden

Administration. California has no valid basis under the Clean Air Act to

claim an extraordinary or unique air quality impact from carbon dioxide

emissions, and EPCA is clear that under no circumstances may a state

agency regulate fuel economy in place of DOT. The federal government

should therefore exercise its preemptive authority over CARB and take all

steps necessary to invalidate any inconsistent fuel economy requirements

imposed by CARB, including its ban on sales of internal combustion engines.

FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has jurisdiction over the inter-

state highway system, which is vital for the transportation of goods and people

throughout the country. The FHWA, in conjunction with state DOTs, works to

ensure the quality and safety of highways and bridges.

However, over the course of decades, presidential Administrations and Con-

gress have caused the FHWA to go beyond its original mission. The variety of

infrastructure projects now eligible for funding through the FHWA include fer-

ryboat terminals, hiking trails, bicycle lanes, and local sidewalks. In many cases,

such projects should be the sole responsibility of local or state governments, not

dependent on FHWA funding. For local projects, federal involvement adds red

tape and bureaucratic delays rather than value.

The Biden Administration has broadened the FHWA’s scope by emphasizing the

priorities of progressive activists instead of pursuing practical goals. These policies

include a focus on “equity,” a nebulous concept that in practice means awarding

grants to favored identity groups, as well as imposing obligations on states concern-

ing carbon dioxide emissions from highway trac—areas not encompassed within

FHWA’s statutory authorities. Furthermore, the Biden Administration’s embrace

of the “Vision Zero” approach to safety often means actively seeking congestion

for automobiles to reduce speeds. Finally, the Administration has sought to use

a “guidance memo” to impose policies not enacted by Congress, most notably to

make it harder for growing states to expand highway capacity. Instead, the next

Administration should:

Seek to refocus the FHWA on maintaining and improving the

highway system.

Remove or reform rules and regulations that hamper state

governments.

Reduce the amount of federal involvement in local

infrastructure decisions.

— 630 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

AVIATION

Americans value the ability to travel safely and inexpensively by air. In the

United States, the private sector has developed the world’s safest, most eective

passenger and cargo air transport networks. Current policies threaten to undo that

legacy and to strangle the development of new technologies such as drones and

“advanced air mobility,” including small aircraft to serve as air taxis or to conduct

quiet vertical ﬂights.

Starting in the 1970s, deregulation and increased competition turned air travel

from a luxury to an aordable travel option enjoyed by most Americans. The United

States has four major airlines, each with roughly 20 percent of the domestic market.

They compete with each other over the vast majority of routes. Several smaller

carriers provide additional competition and other options for travelers.

The current Administration’s policies are self-contradictory. In order to pla

cate speciﬁc labor groups, the Biden Administration not only opposes the growth

of the major airlines, which would reduce the price of air travel, but also opposes

measures—such as low-fare foreign competition and joint ventures of smaller U.S.

carriers—that would increase competition.

Another problematic area is aviation consumer protection. Congress has autho-

rized DOT to prohibit speciﬁc “unfair and deceptive practices” in the airline industry

after undertaking a hearing process—authority exercised by the Oce of Aviation

Consumer Protection within the General Counsel’s Oce. Beginning with the Obama

Administration, this authority has been used to justify broad new regulations—in the

name of achieving “fair” competition—that would impose burdensome disclosure

mandates and other costly requirements without a sucient process for gathering

supporting evidence. The Trump Administration reformed the process for issuing

such “unfair and deceptive practices” rules,

but the Biden Administration promptly

reversed those reforms.

A new Administration should restore them.

In general, the next Administration should focus its eorts on making air

travel more aordable and abundant, increasing safety, increasing competition

to beneﬁt the ﬂying public, and removing obstacles to the rapid deployment of

emerging aviation technologies that hold the promise of improved safety, compe-

tition, opportunity, and growth. To achieve a more level playing ﬁeld and increase

options for the traveling public, the next Administration should:

Publicly indicate that a new Administration would support joint-

venture eorts by smaller carriers (for example, Jet Blue and

Spirit) to achieve scale necessary to reduce costs and compete more

eectively with the larger carriers.

Review foreign ownership and control limitations and, if necessary,

work with Congress to change existing statutes. Worldwide investors

— 631 —

Department of Transportation

are providing access to capital to foreign airlines for innovations and new

equipment purchases that U.S. airlines cannot match. The U.S. should

use the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)

process to keep out nefarious foreign actors while allowing investment

from investors in designated like-minded countries so long as U.S.-based

investors maintain plurality ownership.

Establish a New Entry Initiative that commits the federal

government to approving or rejecting the applications of new air

carriers within 12 months.

Initiate a rulemaking to allocate slot-pairs more consistently to

airlines at capacity-controlled airports on the primary basis of safety,

maximizing capacity, and competition.

In a perfect world, the market would dictate these options, but in the highly

regulated international aviation sector, the current incentives are to keep out com-

petitors. Slot regulations have not been updated since the 1990s.

Well-meaning legislation and the pilot shortage are adversely aecting aviation

safety. In the wake of the 2009 Colgan Airlines crash, all commercial pilots and

copilots were required to have 1,500 ﬂight hours. Today, facing a pilot shortage,

larger and safer twin-engine planes with two pilots are being phased out of service

at smaller airports and replaced by single-engine planes that have only one pilot.

This trend could be reversed if copilots were required to have fewer ﬂight hours

or could count certiﬁed simulator training.

Federal subsidies are also distorting the commercial market. The Essential

Air Service (EAS) program subsidizes ﬂights to 200 small airports that are not

otherwise commercially viable. The program was established in the 1970s as a

temporary measure to cushion deregulation. It has since been made permanent.

Finally ending the program would free hundreds of pilots to serve larger markets

with more passengers. A new Administration could reform regulations to encour-

age airports in lower-served areas of the nation.

International air travel is regulated and restricted by individual treaties between

the United States and other countries. The new Administration should remain

committed to the laudatory goal of “Open Skies.” However, many of the largest

emerging markets are not fully open, and our aviation policies should reﬂect that

reality and ensure that U.S. air carriers compete on a level playing ﬁeld. Speciﬁcally,

so long as U.S. carriers are not able to ﬂy over Russian airspace, the U.S. should not

allow foreign carriers serving markets in East Asia and South Asia to enjoy a com-

petitive advantage by continuing to allow them to ﬂy to the U.S. China has failed to

put in place several of the policies to which it has already agreed; the U.S. should

— 632 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

not oer additional negotiations until the Chinese implement the agreements

they have already signed.

The current Administration’s policies in several areas that aect aviation and

limit America’s future opportunities for growth are internally inconsistent. In

addition to a New Entry Initiative, the new Administration should establish an

interagency clearinghouse to drive consistent policies across the government on

spectrum, drones, and advanced air mobility.

FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION

With a budget of $18.6 billion requested for FY 2023

and an international

regulatory footprint, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is DOT’s most

visible mode. It needs reform. Air trac control (ATC) operations account for

two-thirds of FAA’s budget, and the Air Trac Organization (ATO) is far behind

its counterparts in Australia, Canada, and Western Europe in implementing

21st century technology. The FAA’s primary mission is ATC; its two smaller

functions are distributing federal airport grants and regulating all aspects of

aviation safety.

The FAA was once considered the world’s best government aviation agency.

Those days are long past. In the more than ﬁve decades since 1958 when the Federal

Aviation Agency (precursor to the Federal Aviation Administration) was formed,

there have been notable developments in air trac control technology, aircraft

avionics, and engine reliability, but despite many well-intentioned attempts, there

have been few changes in the FAA’s funding structure. The FAA is still improperly

organized and ﬁnanced, and the management reforms provided in the late 1990s

remain largely unused.

The FAA is 10 years older than DOT. It provides two separate and functionally

dierent services: the world’s largest and most complex Air Navigation Service

Provider (ANSP) and, at the same time, the world’s largest civil aviation regulatory

and certiﬁcatory agency. The ﬁrst is a 24/7/365 air trac service provider. The

second is an inherently governmental organization responsible for ensuring that

aerospace operators, vehicles, airports, and ANSPs are properly certiﬁed and follow

all FAA regulations. These two dierent organizations ought to run separately.

The FAA is the only modern Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in the world that

does not assess fees for its services. Its funding structure, subject to the annual

appropriations process, stiﬂes eciency and innovation—and the FAA does not

innovate well. It spends too much time and money on research and development

(R&D) and is not very good at either one. It should get out of the R&D business and

focus on testing, evaluating, and certifying private-sector innovation much more

quickly than it does today.

The FAA workforce needs to modernize. The agency needs safety and certiﬁ-

cation experts, not professional airframe and powerplant mechanics (A&Ps). It

— 633 —

Department of Transportation

needs to hire people trained to oversee mechanics, engineers, and pilots. It is time

to consider promoting the FAA’s top executive team from within and requiring

strict professional requirements for its top appointees. Organizations such as the

FAA whose sole responsibility is public safety should be fully auditable and led by

experts in their ﬁeld or industry with oversight from DOT leadership.

For 60 years, the FAA was the global leader in aerospace, from general aviation

to commercial space, but the U.S. lead has vanished. The FAA’s overly bureaucratic,

legalistic, byzantine, and more recently hyperpoliticized way of processing regu-

lations, adopting innovation, publishing rules, and procuring new technologies

has been eclipsed by foreign CAAs and ANSPs that are eagerly certifying drones

and creating environments in which new technologies and new entrants, such as

air taxis, can thrive. To regain America’s global leadership in aviation, the next

Administration should:

Separate the FAA from DOT or, at a minimum, separate the ATO

from the FAA.

Completely restructure the FAA’s funding system so that the nation’s

aviation system is not held prisoner to annual appropriations or used

as a political football to solve nonaviation problems.

Require the FAA to operate more like a business. The FAA has not made

good use of the unique authority it has been given in areas like personnel

and acquisition.

In Europe, conventional control towers are being replaced by digital/remote

towers with high-resolution cameras and other sensors on tall structures and at

points adjoining runways. In Germany and Scandinavia, as many as 15 small air-

ports can be controlled from one remote tower center. The FAA has yet to certify

a single digital/remote tower.

Text messaging between controllers and pilots is widespread over the oceans.

The ATO began to implement what is now called DataComm in 2002 but sus

pended the project in 2003. This was restarted at airport control towers in 2016,

but as of October 2022, it was available in only seven of the 20 high-altitude

control centers.

Current technology enables ﬂights to be managed “anywhere from anywhere,”

but the ATO resists consolidating its 20 aging centers into a much smaller

number—and lacks the funds to consolidate them. The FAA as regulator and

the ATO as trac manager have no plans in place to handle millions of drones

and other emerging technologies such as electric vertical take-o and landing

(eVTOL) aircraft.

— 634 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

These shortcomings have been documented over many decades by the Govern-

ment Accountability Oce and DOT Inspector General. One peer-reviewed study

for the Hudson Institute by scholar Robert Poole identiﬁed the ATO’s underlying

problems as including an overly cautious culture, a growing lack of technological

and managerial expertise, the inability to ﬁnance major capital projects with rev-

enue bonds, and overdependence on aerospace/defense contractors.

All of these problems are interrelated. Because of the ATO’s lack of top-notch

engineers and program managers, it has become dependent on aerospace contrac-

tors, unlike counterparts in Canada and the United Kingdom. Operating within the

constraints imposed by the annual congressional appropriations process—and with

no bonding authority—the ATO is forced to implement major projects piecemeal

over many years. The ATO’s overly cautious culture appears to stem from its being

embedded in a safety regulatory agency rather than being regulated at arm’s length

(as are airlines and airports).

Three organizational changes, all requiring legislation, oer the likelihood of

dealing with these problems based on the experiences of air trac providers in

Canada and Europe. They could be implemented one at a time or together.

Separate the ATO from the FAA and relocate it to separate

headquarters outside the District of Columbia.

Shift from aviation user taxes to fees for air trac services paid

directly to the ATO.

Allow the ATO to issue long-term revenue bonds for major projects.

Shorter-term reforms could include implementing user fees for unconventional

airspace users (for example, advanced air mobility, space launch, and recovery)

and giving the ATO a deadline after which it could not authorize or fund any more

nondigital/remote control towers. These reforms would also require legislation.

FEDERAL TRANSIT POLICY

The deﬁnition of “mobility” continues to evolve dramatically with the rise of

new multimodal concepts, traveler needs, and emerging capabilities. These fun-

damental changes in the way transportation services are oered also inﬂuence the

form of our communities.

New micromobility solutions, ridesharing, and a possible future that includes

autonomous vehicles mean that mobility options—particularly in urban areas—

can alter the nature of public transit, making it more aordable and ﬂexible for

Americans. Unfortunately, DOT now deﬁnes public transit only as transit pro-

vided by municipal governments. This means that when individuals change their

— 635 —

Department of Transportation

commutes from urban buses to rideshare or electric scooter, the use of public

transit decreases. A better deﬁnition for public transit (which also would require

congressional legislation) would be transit provided for the public rather than

transit provided by a public municipality.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a substantial decline in usage for all forms of

transportation. Mass transit has been the slowest mode to recover, with October

2022 ridership reaching only 64 percent of the level seen in October 2019. The

sustained increase in remote work has caused changes in commuting patterns.

Since facilitating travel for workers is one of the core functions of mass transit

systems, a permanent reduction in commuting raises questions about the viability

of ﬁxed-route mass transit, especially considering that transit systems required

substantial subsidization before the pandemic.

Regrettably, the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

authorized tens

of billions of dollars for the expansion of transit systems even as Americans were

moving away from them and into personal vehicles. Lower revenue from reduced

ridership is already driving transit agencies to a budgetary breaking point, and

added operational costs from system expansions will make this problem worse.

The Capital Investment Grants (CIG) program is another example of Washing-

ton’s tendency to fund transit expansion rather than maintaining or improving

current facilities. The CIG program, which began in 1991, funds only novel transit

projects. These can include new rail lines (regardless of the demand for preexisting

rail in the area) and costly operations such as streetcars.

Because Americans have demonstrated a strong preference for alternative

means of transportation, rather than throwing good money after bad by continuing

federal subsidies for transit expansion, there should be a focus on reducing costs

that make transit uneconomical. The Trump Administration urged Congress to

eliminate the CIG program, but the program has strong support on Capitol Hill.

At a minimum, a new conservative Administration should ensure that each CIG

project meets sound economic standards and a rigorous cost-beneﬁt analysis.

The largest expense in transit operational budgets is labor. Compensation costs

for transit workers exceed both regional and sector compensation averages. This

is driven by generous pension and health beneﬁts rather than by exorbitant wages.

Since workers value wages more than they value fringe beneﬁts, this has led to a

perverse situation in which transit agencies have high compensation costs yet are

struggling to attract workers.

The next Administration can remove the largest obstacle to reforming labor

costs. Section 10(c) of the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964

was initially

intended to protect bargaining rights for workers in privately owned transit sys-

tems that were being absorbed by government-operated agencies. The provision

has mutated into a requirement that any transit agency receiving federal funds

cannot reduce compensation, an interpretation that far exceeds the original statute.

— 636 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Returning to the original intent would allow transit agencies to adjust fringe ben-

eﬁts without fearing a federal lawsuit.

It is also vital to move away from using the Highway Trust Fund to prop up

mass transit. The fund was driven into insolvency (and repeated bailouts) through

decades of transfers to transit without any increase in transit usage to show for it.

With the federal government facing mounting debt, the best course of action would

be to remove federal subsidies for transit spending, allowing states and localities

to decide whether mass transit is a good investment for them.

FEDERAL RAILROAD POLICY

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is making decisions based on

political considerations that are at variance with its safety mission. Instead of

basing regulatory decisions on the costs and beneﬁts of the available alterna-

tives, FRA is promoting actions that favor the status quo and inhibit the use of

technology to improve railroad safety. FRA should be making decisions based

on objective evidence of the most cost-eective way to accomplish the agency’s

safety goals.

FRA’s singular focus on job preservation is contrary to FRA’s mission, and it

has a deleterious eect on the morale of FRA’s professional sta, as shown by

the annual employee surveys conducted by the Oce of Personnel Management.

FRA needs to communicate clearly to its career employees a new commitment to

making decisions that are consistent with the agency’s safety mission.

FRA’s procedures call for decisions on waivers to be made by its Safety Board.

Appeals can be taken to the Administrator. However, FRA has deviated from these

procedures as the Administrator has injected himself into Safety Board decisions.

FRA needs to review its actions with respect to speciﬁc proceedings where the

agency’s direction cannot be justiﬁed. For example:

FRA’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on crew size is not

based on safety considerations; it is designed to reduce ﬂexibility by

making it impossible for railroads to operate with crews of fewer than

two in circumstances where there is no operational need for the second

crew member.

Although FRA could adopt a modern inspection program that takes

advantage of technological ways to inspect track, it is refusing to amend

50-year-old track inspection requirements, leaving customers with

higher costs.

FRA is refusing to take ﬁnal action on a rulemaking proceeding that would

modernize brake inspection requirements by taking advantage of the ability

— 637 —

Department of Transportation

to track brake inspections on rolling stock electronically instead of by using

paper air brake slips, which would enable extending the interval between

brake inspections for trains and eliminating restrictions on the ability to

place/remove blocks of cars in trains.

FRA will be proposing certiﬁcation requirements for dispatchers and signal

employees despite the failure of the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee

(RSAC) to identify any safety beneﬁt.

FRA is planning to propose emergency escape breathing apparatus

requirements for train crews even though FRA sta long ago concluded

that the costs of these requirements would far outweigh their very

minimal beneﬁts.

It is vital that the integrity of FRA’s research program be preserved. In 2022,

FRA switched the management of the Transportation Technology Center (TTC)

in Pueblo, Colorado, from a subsidiary of the Association of American Railroads

(AAR) to Ensco, Inc. FRA seems determined to direct research to TTC, even when

there are better choices with respect to the research in question, in an eort to

support TTC ﬁnancially and justify its decision to change management at TTC.

This change in approach threatens the collaborative approach to research between

FRA and the railroads that has existed for decades. FRA should make its decisions

on where to spend its research dollars solely on the merits of improving the safety

and eciency of the railroad industry.

MARITIME POLICY

The Maritime Administration (MARAD) was established by President Harry

Truman in 1950 and was transferred to DOT in 1981. A principal function is “main-

tain[ing] the overall health of the U.S. Merchant Marine,”

which is important

both to national defense and to foreign and domestic commerce. MARAD is also

in charge of the United States Merchant Marine Academy and operates ships and

funding for the six state maritime academies.

MARAD would be better served by being transferred from DOT to the Depart-

ment of Homeland Security (DHS). MARAD is the only DOT modal administration

that does not regulate the industry that it represents: The maritime industry is

regulated by the U.S. Coast Guard (ships and personnel) and by the Federal Mari-

time Commission (cargo rates and competitive practices).

Furthermore, MARAD has responsibilities both in peacetime commerce and

operationally in wartime/crisis sealift through its responsibility to manage the

National Defense Reserve Fleet and 45-ship Ready Reserve Force for the U.S. Navy.

These missions are unique to MARAD within DOT. As a result, MARAD’s missions

— 638 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

and purpose, and therefore its funding priorities, are not well understood and his-

torically have been minimalized in planning and budgeting.

MARAD, including its subordinate Service Academy (the U.S. Merchant Marine

Academy) should be transferred to the Department of Defense (if the Coast Guard

is located there because DHS has been eliminated) or to the Department of Home-

land Security. In this way, the two agencies charged with oversight and regulation

of the Maritime sector—MARAD and the United States Coast Guard—would be

aligned under the same department where operational eciencies could be real-

ized more easily.

Serious consideration should be given to repealing or substantially reforming

the Jones Act,

which would require legislation. The economic costs of the Jones

Act, which is notionally in place to promote a robust Merchant Marine, vastly

exceed its eect on the supply of domestic ships. For instance, no liquiﬁed natural

gas (LNG) can be shipped from Alaska to the lower 48 states because there are no

U.S.-ﬂagged ships that carry LNG. If there are genuine concerns about U.S. ﬂeet

capacity in the absence of the Jones Act, it would be possible to do so through an

expansion of the Defense Reserve Fleet.

Another DHS agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is a

frequent user of MARAD Ready Reserve Force shipping during disaster assistance

missions. Transferring MARAD to DHS would make coordination and requisition

of those vessels a smoother and more rapid process. DHS has responsibility for

reviewing and approving Jones Act waivers. This process ﬁrst requires a market

survey of available shipping tonnage that is completed by MARAD. The processing

of Jones Act waiver requests would be streamlined if both agencies were in the

same department.

Finally, DHS as a department is experienced in administering and budgeting for

the operation of an existing federal service academy, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy,

which is similar to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in size. There would be

increased eciencies and better alignment of the missions of these two institutions

if they were under one single department that has equity in the industries served

by these academies.

CONCLUSION

Americans need more abundant and aordable transportation. They need more

aordable and safer cars as well as physical aspects of transportation such as roads,

bridges, airports, ports, and rail lines. The Department of Transportation should

be evaluating which aspects of transportation are contributing to the economic

competitiveness of the United States and the well-being of Americans—and that

therefore should continue to be funded.

All too often, DOT’s mission is described as reducing the number of trips, using

less fuel, and raising the costs of travel to Americans through increased use of

— 639 —

Department of Transportation

renewables. These goals are not compatible with what should be DOT’s purpose:

to make travel easier and less expensive. That is what the American people want,

and that is what DOT should provide.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in the

2025 Presidential Transition Project. All contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume, but Steven

Bradbury, David Ditch, and Robert Poole deserve special mention. The author alone assumes responsibility for the

content of this chapter, and no views expressed herein should be attributed to any other individual.

— 640 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

 U.S. Department of Transportation, 2023 Budget Highlights, p. 1, https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.

gov/ﬁles/2022-03/Budget_Highlights_FY2023.pdf (accessed March 3, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Transportation, DEIA [Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility] Strategic Plan FY22–

FY26, p. 2, https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/ﬁles/2022-09/DOT%20DEIA%20Strategic%20Plan.

pdf (accessed March 3, 2023).

 23 U.S. Code §§ 601–609, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/23 (accessed March 3, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Transportation, Oce of the Secretary, “Administrative Rulemaking, Guidance, and

Enforcement Procedures,” Final Rule, Federal Register, Vol. 84, No. 248 (December 27, 2019), pp. 71714–71734,

https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/ﬁles/docs/regulations/361831/fed-reg-published-ﬁnal-admin-

rule.pdf (accessed March 3, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Transportation, Build America Bureau, “About the Build America Bureau,” last updated

October 24, 2022, https://www.transportation.gov/buildamerica/about (accessed March 3, 2023).

 S. 622, Energy Policy and Conservation Act, Public Law No. 94-163, 94th Congress, December 22, 1995, https://

www.congress.gov/94/statute/STATUTE-89/STATUTE-89-Pg871.pdf (accessed March 3, 2023).

 42 U.S. Code Chapter 85, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/chapter-85 (accessed March 3, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Trac Safety Administration, “Corporate Average

Fuel Economy Standards for Model Years 2024–2026 Passenger Cars and Light Trucks,” Final Rule, Federal

02/pdf/2022-07200.pdf (accessed March 10, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Transportation, Oce of the Secretary, “Deﬁning Unfair or Deceptive Practices,” Final

Rule, Federal Register, Vol. 85, No. 235 (December 7, 2020), pp. 78707–78718, https://www.transportation.gov/

sites/dot.gov/ﬁles/2020-12/Deﬁning%20Unfair%20or%20Deceptive%20Practices%20Final%20Rule%20-%20

85%20FR%2078707.pdf (accessed March 3, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Transportation, Oce of the Secretary, “Procedures in Regulating Unfair or Deceptive

Practices,” Final Rule, Federal Register, Vol. 87, No. 22 (February 2, 2022), pp. 5655–5659, https://www.

govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-02-02/pdf/2022-01589.pdf (accessed March 3, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration, Budget Estimates Fiscal Year 2023, p. 1,

https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/ﬁles/2022-04/FAA_Budget_Estimates_FY2023.pdf (accessed

March 3, 2023).

 Robert W. Poole, Jr., Organization and Innovation in Air Trac Control, Hudson Institute Initiative on

Future Innovation, November 2013, https://www.hudson.org/sites/default/ﬁles/researchattachments/

attachment/1199/poole_hi_res.pdf (accessed March 3, 2023). Also published subsequently as Reason

Foundation Policy Study No. 431, January 2014, https://reason.org/wp-content/uploads/ﬁles/air_trac_

control_organization_innovation.pdf (accessed March 3, 2023).

 H.R. 3684, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Public Law No. 117-58, 117th Congress, November 15, 2021,

https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ58/PLAW-117publ58.pdf (accessed March 3, 2023).

 S. 6, Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964, Public Law 88-365, 88th Congress, July 9, 1964, https://www.

govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-78/pdf/STATUTE-78-Pg302-2.pdf (accessed March 3, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Transportation, Maritime Administration, “About Us,” last updated March 23, 2022, https://

www.maritime.dot.gov/about-us (accessed March 4, 2023).

 H.R. 10378, Merchant Marine Act of 1920, Public Law 66-261, 66th Congress, June 5, 1920, https://govtrackus.

s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/41/STATUTE-41-Pg988.pdf (accessed March 3, 2023).

— 641 —

DEPARTMENT OF

VETERANS AFFAIRS

Brooks D. Tucker

MISSION STATEMENT

The Department of Veterans Aairs (VA) is the primary provider of health care,

beneﬁts, and memorial aairs for America’s veterans and their families. The VA

has the noble responsibility to render exceptional and timely support and services

with respect, compassion, and competence. The veteran is at the forefront of every

VA process and interaction. The VA must continually strive to be recognized as a

“best in class,” “Veteran-centric”

system with an organizational ethos inspired

by and accountable to the needs and problems of veterans, not subservient to the

parochial preferences of a bureaucracy.

OVERVIEW

At the end of the Obama Administration, the VA was held in low esteem both

by the veterans it served and by the employees who served these former warriors.

Eroding morale caused by the downstream eects of a health care access crisis

in 2014 led to the resignation of Secretary Eric Shinseki and extensive oversight

investigations by Congress from 2015–2016.

By 2020, however, the VA had become one of the most respected U.S. agencies.

This signiﬁcant progress was due in part to the leadership of Secretary Robert Wilkie

(2018–2021) and his team of political appointees and career senior executives, many

of them veterans, who led the eort to ensure that the VA became “Veteran-centric”

in its governance decisions and fostered a more positive work environment.

This mindset translated into a department that was better attuned to employees’

and veterans’ needs and experiences in the daily operations of health care, beneﬁts,

— 642 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

and memorial aairs. During that period, the VA received the largest number of

watershed congressional authorizations to reform its health care and beneﬁts that

it had received since the post–Vietnam War years along with historic increases in

annual appropriations, which have tripled since the last full year of the George W.

Bush Administration.

The current VA leadership team of Biden appointees has adopted some of their

predecessors’ governance processes. However, they have not sustained the previous

Administration’s commitment to a genuine “Veteran-centric” philosophy, most nota-

bly with respect to the delivery of health care, and harbor a bias toward expanding the

unionized federal employee workforce that has not always been aligned with a focus

on “Veteran-centric” care. There also is growing concern in Congress and the veteran

community that the VA is poorly managing and in some cases disregarding provisions

of the VA MISSION [Maintaining Internal Systems and Strengthening Integrated Out-

side Networks] Act of 2018

that codify broad access for veterans to non-VA health care

providers. Eorts to expand disability beneﬁts to large populations without adequate

planning have caused an erosion of veterans’ trust in the VA enterprise.

Additionally, the current VA leadership is focusing very publicly on “social

equity and inclusion” within departmental policy discussions toward ends that

will aect only a small minority of the veterans who use the VA. For the ﬁrst time,

the VA is allowing access to abortion services, a medical procedure unrelated to

military service that the VA lacks the legal authority and clinical proﬁciency to

perform. In addition to continuing the grotesque culture of violence against the

child in the womb, these sociopolitical initiatives and ideological indoctrinations

distract from the department’s core missions.

DEPARTMENTAL HISTORY

Following the Civil War, state veterans homes were established to provide med-

ical and hospital treatment for all injuries and diseases. When the United States

entered World War I in 1917, “Congress established a new system of Veterans

beneﬁts, including programs for disability compensation, insurance for service

personnel and Veterans, and vocational rehabilitation for the disabled”

that was

overseen by three dierent federal programs: the Veterans Bureau, the Department

of the Interior’s Bureau of Pensions, and the National Home for Disabled Volunteer

Soldiers. In 1921, Congress combined those programs into the Veterans Bureau.

Following World War II, a national VA hospital system, much of which remains

operational today, was established to care for millions of returning veterans.

Following the Vietnam War, the VA’s federally owned and operated hospital

network expanded again to meet the needs of the volunteer and draftee population.

In the past two decades, the VA has purposely transitioned to leasing medical prop-

erties rather than building expensive new facilities that can take years to complete

and often experience budget overruns. As the nature of health care has evolved

— 643 —

Department of Veterans Aairs

with a growth in same-day surgical procedures and outpatient care, so has the VA,

and in 2018 Congress added access to private-sector urgent care outlets as one of

the VA’s health care beneﬁts.

Today, the VA operates 172 inpatient VA Medical Centers (VAMCs), which are

an average of 60 years old, and 1,113 Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs),

which are newer facilities designed to meet the needs of veterans closer to home.

The VA also manages a Community Care Network (CCN) through contracts with

Optum and TriWest, third-party health care administrators responsible for build-

ing and maintaining a robust population of community providers to meet the needs

of veterans referred for care outside of the VA system. Currently, approximately

6.4 million veterans out of 18 million nationally (and out of the 9.1 million who are

enrolled) use the VA for health care; the remainder use employer-sponsored plans,

Tricare, Medicare, and Medicaid.

The disability beneﬁts system evolved signiﬁcantly in the years between the

Cold War era and the global war on terrorism, a period when the VA enrolled large

numbers of veterans from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam who were seeking

disability beneﬁts and health care. Disability compensation is the largest VA beneﬁt,

but there also are dozens of others, the next largest of which are the GI Bill and

the Home Loan Guaranty. These beneﬁts are administered through 56 Regional

Beneﬁts Oces (RBOs) and hundreds of satellite sites around the country.

The Agent Orange Act of 1991

signiﬁcantly expanded the scope of disability ben-

eﬁts for those who had deployed to Vietnam, and the cost of those beneﬁts began to

increase dramatically as the Vietnam generation of veterans aged and began to expe-

rience adverse health conditions, some of which were presumed to have been caused

by defoliant chemicals used in Southeast Asia. In 2016 and 2017, a burdensome

backlog of appeals of denied disability claims from multiple wartime generations—a

backlog numbering in the hundreds of thousands—led to a joint eort by the VA, Vet-

eran Service Organizations (VSOs), and Congress to pass legislation that streamlined

appeal processes. Implemented in 2017, this historic “good governance” success has

helped the VA to reduce the number of these appeals dramatically.

The Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our Promise to Address

Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act of 2022

addressed adverse health outcomes

presumed to be the result of veterans’ exposure to airborne toxins during the global

war on terrorism and further expanded disability beneﬁts to the most recent gen-

eration of veterans. These ambitious authorities, like the 1991 authorities, have

the potential to overwhelm the VA’s ability to process new disability claims and

adjudicate appeals. Currently, the VA is seeking to hire large numbers of personnel

to process these claims while exploring the use of an automated process to accel-

erate claims reviews and decisions. The ever-present lag in the hiring and training

of new employees could result in major problems with the timely adjudication of

beneﬁts well into the next Administration in 2025.

— 644 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

In sum, the VA for the foreseeable future will experience signiﬁcant ﬁscal,

human capital, and infrastructure crosswinds and risks. Budgets are at historic

highs, and with a workforce now above 400,000, the VA is contending with a

lack of new veteran enrollees to oset the declining population of older veterans.

Recruitment of medical and beneﬁts personnel has become more challenging.

Veterans are migrating from the northern states to the southern and western

states for retirement and employment. Meanwhile, VA information technol-

ogy (IT) is struggling to keep pace with the evolution of patient care and record

keeping. Consequently, VA leaders in the next Administration must be wise and

courageous political strategists, experienced managers to run day-to-day oper-

ations more eectively, innovators to address the changing veteran landscape,

and agile “ﬁxers” to mitigate and repair systemic problems created or ignored

by the present leadership team.

VETERANS HEALTH ADMINISTRATION (VHA)

Needed Reforms

Rescind all departmental clinical policy directives that are contrary to

principles of conservative governance starting with abortion services

and gender reassignment surgery. Neither aligns with service-connected

conditions that would warrant VA’s providing this type of clinical care, and

both follow the Left’s pernicious trend of abusing the role of government to

further its own agenda.

Focus on the eects of shifting veteran demographics. At least during the

next decade, the VA will experience a signiﬁcant generational shift in its

overall patient population. Of the approximately 18 million veterans alive

today, roughly 9.1 million are enrolled for VA health care, and 6.4 million of

these enrollees use VA health care consistently. These 6.4 million veterans

are split almost evenly between those who are over age 65 and those

who are under age 65, but the share of VA’s health care dollars is spent

predominantly in the over-65 cohort. That share increases signiﬁcantly as

veterans live longer and use the VHA system at a higher rate.

VHA enrollments of new users are increasingly at risk of being exceeded by

the deaths of current enrollees, primarily because signiﬁcant numbers of

the Vietnam generation are reaching their life expectancy. The generational

transition from Vietnam-era veterans to post-9/11 veterans will take

several years to complete. The ongoing demographic transition is a catalyst

for needed assessments of how the VA can improve the delivery of care

to a numerically declining and dierently dispersed national population

— 645 —

Department of Veterans Aairs

of veterans—a population that is more active, reaching middle age or

retirement age, and migrating for lifestyle and career reasons.

At the center of the VHA’s evolution during this generational transition

is an ongoing tension, some of it politically contrived, between Direct

Care for Veterans provided from inside the VHA system and Community

Care for Veterans who are referred to private providers participating in

the VHA’s two Community Care Networks (CCNs). In recent years, the

budget for Community Care has grown as demand from veterans has

risen sharply, sometimes outpacing the budgets for Community Care at

individual VAMCs.

The Trump Administration made Community Care part of its “Veteran-

centric” approach to ensure that veterans would be able to participate more

fully in their health care decisions and have options if or when the VHA was

unable to meet their needs. The Biden Administration has watered down

that eort, has sought various procedural ways to slow the rate of referrals

to private doctors, and at some facilities is reportedly manipulating the

Community Care access standards required by the VA MISSION Act of 2018.

If the makeup of Congress is favorable in 2025, the next Administration

should rapidly and explicitly codify VA MISSION Act access standards

in legislation to prevent the VA from avoiding or watering down the

requirements in the future.

First and foremost, a veterans bill of rights is needed so that veterans and

VA sta know exactly what beneﬁts veterans are entitled to receive, with a

clear process for the adjudication of disputes, and so that sta ensure that

all veterans are informed of their eligibility for Community Care. Currently,

veterans are not routinely and consistently told that they are eligible for

Community Care unless they request information or are given a referral.

To strengthen Community Care, the next Administration should create new

Secretarial directives to implement the VA MISSION Act properly. Sections

for consideration and areas for reform include the following:

1. Sections 101 and 103 (Community Care eligibility for access standards

and the best medical interest of the veteran).

2. Section 104 (Community Care access standards and standards for

quality of care).

— 646 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

3. Section 121 (developing and administering an education program that

teaches veterans about their health care options available from the

Department of Veterans Aairs).

4. Section 152 (returning the Oce for Innovation of Care and Payment to

the Oce of Enterprise Integration with a joint governance process set

up with the VHA).

5. Section 161 (overhauling Family Caregiver Program expansion, which

has gone poorly, so that it focuses on consistency of eligibility and

awareness that the most severely wounded or injured may require the

program indeﬁnitely).

Require the VHA to report publicly on all aspects of its operation, including

quality, safety, patient experience, timeliness, and cost-eectiveness, using

standards similar to those in the Medicare Accountable Care Organization

program so that the government may monitor and achieve continuous

improvement in the VA system more eectively.

Encourage VA Medical Centers to seek out relevant academic and private-

sector input in their communities to improve the overall patient experience.

Budget

Conduct an independent audit of the VA similar to the 2018 Department of

Defense (DOD) audit to identify IT, management, ﬁnancial, contracting, and

other deﬁciencies.

Assess the misalignment of VHA facilities and rising infrastructure costs. The

VHA operates 172 inpatient medical facilities nationally that are an average of

60 years old. Some of these facilities are underutilized and inadequately staed.

Facilities in certain urban and rural areas are seeing signiﬁcant declines in the

veteran population and strong competition for fresh medical sta.

In 2018, Congress authorized an Asset Infrastructure Review (AIR) of

national VHA medical markets to provide insight into where the VA

health care budget should be responsibly allocated to serve veterans most

eectively. However, the Senate Veterans Aairs Committee lacked the

political will to act on the White House’s nominations of commission

members, and this ultimately led to termination of the AIR process.

The next Administration should seek out agile, creative, and politically

acceptable operational solutions to this aging infrastructure status quo,

— 647 —

Department of Veterans Aairs

reimagine the health care footprint in some locales, and spur a realignment

of capacity through budgetary allocations. Speciﬁcally:

1. Embrace the expansion of Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs) as

an avenue to maintain a VA footprint in challenging medical markets without

investing further in obsolete and unaordable VA health care campuses.

2. Explore the potential to pilot facility-sharing partnerships between the

VA and strained local health care systems to reduce costs by leveraging

limited talent and resources.

Personnel

Extend the term of the Under Secretary for Health (USH) to ﬁve years.

Additionally, authority should be given to reappoint this individual for a

second ﬁve-year term both to allow for continuity and to protect the USH

from political transition.

Establish a Senior Executive Service (SES) position of VHA Care System

Chief Information Ocer (CIO), selected by and reporting to the chief of the

VHA Care System with a dotted line to the VA CIO.

Identify a workﬂow process to bring wait times in compliance with VA

MISSION Act–required time frames wherever possible.

1. Assess the daily clinical appointment load for physicians and clinical

sta in medical facilities where wait times for care are well outside of

the time frames required by the VA MISSION Act.

2. Require VHA facilities to increase the number of patients seen each day

to equal the number seen by DOD medical facilities: approximately 19

patients per provider per day. Currently, VA facilities may be seeing as

few as six patients per provider per day.

3. Consider a pilot program to extend weekday appointment hours and

oer Saturday appointment options to veterans if a facility continues to

demonstrate that it has excess capacity and is experiencing delays in the

delivery of care for veterans.

4. Identify clinical services that are consistently in high demand but

require cost-prohibitive compensation to recruit and retain talent, and

examine exceptions for higher competitive pay.

— 648 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

5. Assess the medical facilities where Community Care is readily

available but referrals for Community Care are below the averages in

other similar markets, referrals expiring are above the average, and/

or canceled appointments are above the average. Identify reasons

and factors and consider possible ways to improve timeliness and

responsiveness for veterans.

6. Further explore how to leverage telehealth to reduce personnel costs

across the enterprise and serve veterans. Continue to pursue expansion

of broadband services to remote and rural areas.

7. Assess recruitment and retention in highly competitive medical markets

to identify common limiting factors for attracting high-demand,

specialized occupations.

8. Consider aggressively recruiting retired physicians who desire to

serve veterans.

9. Consider expanding VA tuition assistance in exchange for reciprocal

service in rural or understaed VAMCs.

10. Examine the surpluses or deﬁcits in mental health professionals

throughout the enterprise, recognizing that the department needs a

blend of social workers, therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists with

a focus on attracting high-quality talent.

Conduct a high-priority assessment of Electronic Health Record (EHR)

transition delays and functionality problems. VA innovation in health

care for the next 20 years and beyond will rest squarely on the timely

implementation of the new VHA EHR in coordination with the DOD’s

parallel pacing eort. The VA’s EHR rollout has been blocked by technical

delays at local facilities where personnel have raised safety concerns and

infrastructure has not been modernized to accept the new system.

VETERANS BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION (VBA)

Needed Reforms

The most evident and ongoing concern is the complexity of beneﬁts, which

can lead to confusion for the veteran and, if not mitigated early in the veteran’s

interactions, long-term distrust of and animosity toward the VA. Wholesale ben-

eﬁts reform is unnecessary and politically a “third rail,” but eective managerial

— 649 —

Department of Veterans Aairs

approaches and technology tools that currently exist in the private sector could

be employed to improve existing VBA activities.

This problem is most pronounced in the disability claims process, which needs

more and better management attention focused on streamlining the procedures

involved in processing claims and administering beneﬁts. The VA must improve

timeliness of claim adjudication and beneﬁts delivery: Veterans want the VBA

to provide timely responses to requests for beneﬁts support, render empathetic

customer service and understandable explanations of those beneﬁts, and deliver

those beneﬁts without frustrating delays (weeks, not months).

Identify performance targets for beneﬁts, report publicly on actual

performance each quarter, and use these metrics to drive consistent

improvement.

Develop a new pilot “Express 30” commitment for a veteran’s ﬁrst fully

developed disability compensation claim and organize the VBA to complete

the ﬁrst claim in 30 days.

Hire more private companies to perform disability medical examinations.

Delays in completing the examinations could be eliminated with more

external capacity.

Increase automation. Hiring additional sta to process claims is costly,

is inﬂexible, and has yielded mixed results. Attempting to change laws

and regulations simply to adjudicate claims would be a herculean eort

given their complexity. The best way to provide beneﬁts faster and more

accurately is by using technology to perform most of the work. Technology

currently exists in the private sector, but the VBA lacks the expertise

to use it. This would be more of an organizational challenge than a

technology hurdle.

Reduce improper payment and fraud. About $500 million is improperly

paid out each year. Better tools, training, and management could reduce this

substantially, but rule changes at the departmental level would be needed.

Budget

The VA’s Schedule for Rating Disabilities (VASRD) has assigned disability

ratings to a growing number of health conditions over time; some are tenuously

related or wholly unrelated to military service. The further growth in presumptive

service-connected medical conditions pursued by Congress and Veteran Service

Organizations, begun with Agent Orange and most recently for Burn Pits/Airborne

— 650 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Toxins, has led to historic increases in mandatory VBA spending in recent years.

The VA has a time-phased plan to reassess the VASRD and its ratings for com-

pensation, but this internal process can be slow and laborious, requires Oce of

Management and Budget (OMB) approvals, and can become politically charged

both in Congress and with VSOs.

The next Administration should explore how VASRD reviews could be

accelerated with clearance from OMB to target signiﬁcant cost savings from

revising disability rating awards for future claimants while preserving them

fully or partially for existing claimants.

The VBA’s Information Technology top-line budget should be reexamined

and reassessed in light of the need for expanded automation across

the enterprise.

Traditionally, VHA captures the large majority of VA IT funding. The VBA

needs to make the case for a larger IT budget with clear requirements to

support that request.

Personnel

Pursue reforms of the Human Capital Management process and operations

within the VBA to build a more blended workforce with more contractors to

process claims. This would free federal employees to perform other duties

and be involved solely with the ﬁnal decision to award beneﬁts.

Improve the VBA acquisition workforce. The VBA needs more world-class

contractor support. Currently, few of the top companies have contracts with

the VBA, and the VBA needs to conduct more outreach to the private sector

through senior leader engagement and industry conferences.

To identify more eective and ecient ways to complete claims, establish a

knowledge exchange program with top-tier private-sector companies that

do similar work. The VBA is fundamentally a ﬁnancial services organization.

A signiﬁcant amount of its work has a private-sector analogue that could be

leveraged to improve service to veterans.

For most of its existence, the VBA has been a risk-averse, insular, paper-based

organization, implementing technology only over the past decade. This

insularity has led to a predominantly “build it ourselves” approach, partly

because VBA sta has limited experience or insight into current private-

sector tools and methods and partly because the VBA struggles to compete

— 651 —

Department of Veterans Aairs

with the VHA for IT funding. Senior executive leadership needs more

innovators and trail blazers—qualities that have sometimes been lacking

in the VBA’s senior ranks. Recruiting a more relevantly knowledgeable and

technologically savvy team, along with robust political control of the VA, could

bring about better solutions to the VBA’s workﬂow challenges.

HUMAN RESOURCES AND ADMINISTRATION (HRA)

Needed Reforms

Rescind all delegations of authority promulgated by the VA under the prior

Administration.

Transfer all career SES out of PA/PAS-designated positions on the ﬁrst day

and ensure political control of the VA.

Take a close and analytically critical look at where hybrid and remote work

is a net positive as a functional necessity and where in-person collaboration

and presence will help to instill a strong work ethic and a more cohesive

environment for productivity from the Oce of the Secretary across the

headquarters enterprise.

The COVID-19 pandemic spurred a signiﬁcant shift to hybrid and telework

options for large segments of the sta in the Washington headquarters, in its sat-

ellites, and at some VBA Regional Oces. The “remote work” expectation has

been ampliﬁed and formalized within the Biden Administration team at VA to

the extent that the current Secretary, Deputy Secretary, and their stas are not “in

oce” as a matter of a routine presence while VA sta in Washington, D.C., have

limited in-person meetings, relying more frequently on video conference calls. The

short-term and long-term eects of this policy on the department are unknown,

but generally, the policy may be undermining the cohesiveness and competencies

of some sta functions and diluting general organizational accountability and

responsiveness.

Budget

Expedite the acquisition of a new Human Resources Information

Technology (HRIT) system. The current system is not user-friendly; has

minimal fusion, middle-ware capacity; and is not conducive to data driven

personnel decisions. Personnel data needs to be organized and managed

to its full potential. The HRIT system, associated databases, and other

“shadow” personnel systems have no shortage of data; the problem comes

with eective management of the data.

— 652 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Broaden pay and beneﬁts in critical VA skill sets (beyond medical care

occupations) to be more competitive with private-sector industry. IT,

acquisition, cyber, and economists are some examples of skill sets that

are dicult for the VA to recruit, largely because of the limitations of

federal pay scales.

Continue to maximize the use of new VA hiring and pay authorities provided

by Congress in the RAISE Act

and PACT Act

as well as existing authorities in

student loan forgiveness and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

Personnel

Foster a culture that is mission (veteran) driven, alert, engaged, and

habitually responsive to the veteran, and structure an environment that

promotes a ﬂexible and agile workplace.

Increase employee satisfaction/experience to improve recruitment and

retention of VA personnel. Go beyond the traditional focus on the extrinsic

(monetary pay and bonuses) and seek creative ways to instill teamwork,

loyalty, and pride.

Train leaders and managers to promote an energized and productive

workplace culture and reward those who do it well. Ensure that senior

leaders (SES) set the proper example.

Focus more attention on hiring veterans and military spouses. The

percentage of veterans employed at VA has been declining.

Support the White House Oce of Presidential Personnel (PPO) in

identifying a fully vetted roster of candidates to assume all key positions at

VA well ahead of formal nominations. The VA is the second-largest federal

agency, yet it is authorized a woefully small number of PA/PAS positions

when compared to other agencies of lesser size. Congress and the Oce of

Personnel Management should be engaged on ways to provide authorities

for a higher number of non-career PA positions. The White House PPO can

be inclined to discount the VA’s importance, but given the political attention

that VA can generate for Congress and the media, PPO should understand

the importance of ﬁnding talented political appointees to serve at VA.

Increase the number and utilization of Limited Term Appointment Senior

Executive Service positions for up to three years to work on special projects

to ensure talent refreshment, talent acquisition, and ﬂexibility.

— 653 —

Department of Veterans Aairs

Manage the relationship with organized labor eectively and proactively.

1. Ensure that any agenda that includes labor/civil service reform in the VA

has a clear direction from the Secretarial level, support from the General

Counsel, alignment with the Assistant Secretary for Human Resources

and Administration, and a uniﬁed and strong political will to carry it out.

Without those elements, labor reforms are very dicult to accomplish.

2. Ensure that each senior leader in the process gets buy-in from reform-

minded career employees willing to accept and support change. Those

mid-level and senior-level managers exist, but they will need to be

identiﬁed early and shown trust and conﬁdence.

3. Ensure that the White House communicates the labor reform agenda

swiftly. Trump Administration executive orders on civil service reform

(ocial time, government-furnished oce space) were issued too late,

and departments and agencies were not prepared to execute them.

4. Anticipate the inevitable opportunities for legal challenges from

organized labor, and be prepared for them to happen and be dragged

out—which makes early, decisive timing all the more important.

5. Ensure that the White House is prepared to support a concerted

and deliberate eort on implementation to avoid perceptions of a

disconnected strategy and disaggregated eort.

6. Remain mindful of which labor contracts end, when they end, and what

the agency’s goals for renegotiation are. If not done eectively, contract

end dates will be missed or lack notiﬁcation. It is therefore essential to

have a clear strategy with respect to what leadership wants from a new

contract: Do not make the perfect the enemy of the good in contract

negotiations.

Work with Congress to sunset the Oce of Accountability and

Whistleblower Protection (OAWP). OAWP was well intentioned when

formed, but it is redundant with the activities of supervisors as well as

equal employment opportunity, Oce of the Inspector General, Oce of

Special Counsel, and other policies, programs, and procedures for holding

employees accountable. This redundancy results in lengthy investigations,

gaps in coverage, and an overall ineective method of employee and

supervisor accountability.

— 654 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Consider decoupling HRA and the Oce of Security and Preparedness

(OSP). When Congress directed that the OAWP be established, it did not

include authorities for a new Assistant Secretary position; consequently, the

OSP was combined with HRA to free a PAS position. The functions of HRA

and OSP are dissimilar and thus create an organization that is dicult to

sta with the talent needed to execute both missions eectively.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in

the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. All contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume,

but Darin Selnick, Paul R. Lawrence, and Christopher Anderson deserve special mention. The author alone

assumes responsibility for the content of this chapter, and no views expressed herein should be attributed to any

other individual.

— 655 —

Department of Veterans Aairs

ENDNOTES

 U.S. Department of Veterans Aairs, Veterans Health Division, VHA Directive 1003, “VHA Veteran Patient

Experience,” April 14, 2020, pp. 1 and B-1.

 S. 2372, VA Mission Act of 2018, Public Law No. 115-182, 115th Congress, June 6, 2018, https://www.congress.

gov/115/plaws/publ182/PLAW-115publ182.pdf (accessed January 30, 2023).

 U.S. Department of Veterans Aairs, VA History Oce, “VA History,” last updated May 27, 2021, https://www.

va.gov/HISTORY/VA_History/Overview.asp (accessed January 28, 2023).

 38 U.S. Code § 1116, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/38/1116 (accessed January 28, 2023).

 S. 3373, Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act of

2022 (Honoring Our PACT Act of 2022), Public Law No. 117-168, 117th Congress, August 10, 2022, https://www.

congress.gov/117/plaws/publ168/PLAW-117publ168.pdf (accessed January 28, 2023).

 H.R. 2471, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, Public Law No. 117-103, 117th Congress, March 15, 2022,

Division S, Title I, https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ103/PLAW-117publ103.pdf (accessed March 18,

2023). Known variously as the Department of Veterans Aairs Nurse and Physician Assistant Retention and

Income Security Enhancement Act and the VA Nurse and Physician Assistant RAISE Act.

 See note 5, supra.

— 657 —

he next Administration must prioritize the economic prosperity of ordi-

nary Americans. For several decades, establishment “elites” have failed

the citizenry by refusing to secure the border, outsourcing manufacturing

to China and elsewhere, spending recklessly, regulating constantly, and generally

controlling the country from the top down rather than letting it ﬂourish from the

bottom up. The proper role of government, as was articulated nearly 250 years

ago, is to secure our God-given, unalienable rights in order that we might enjoy

the pursuit of happiness, the beneﬁts of free enterprise, and the blessings of liberty.

Finding the right approach to trade policy is key to the fortunes of everyday

Americans. In Chapter 26, president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute Kent

Lassman and former White House director of trade and manufacturing policy Peter

Navarro debate what an eective conservative trade policy would look like. Lass-

man argues that the best trade policy is a humble, limited-government approach

that would encourage free trade with all nations. He maintains that aggressive

trade policies involve an increased government role that future leftist Administra-

tions will utilize to push “climate change” and “equity”-based activism. Focusing

more on gross domestic product (GDP) growth than on median income, he writes

that “people mistakenly believe that U.S. manufacturing and the U.S. economy

are in decline” when in truth “American manufacturing output is currently at an

all-time high.” Meanwhile, we continue to experience “record-setting real GDP”

despite our “long-run decline in manufacturing employment.”

Lassman does not think that an aggressive U.S. trade policy would lead to more

manufacturing jobs. Rather, he writes, “Federal Reserve research shows” that the

THE ECONOMY

Section Four

— 658 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Trump Administration’s steel taris, and the retaliatory taris levied by other

nations in response, “have cost about 75,000 manufacturing jobs while creating

only about 1,000 jobs in the steel industry.” Furthermore, he writes that “pro-

tectionism and similar progressive policies tend to weaken American security.”

Lassman maintains that “trade creates peace,” and if China weren’t so reliant upon

trade with the U.S., it would be “much more unstable and dangerous.” He thinks

American inﬂuence in China—“Internet memes, fashion, movies”—can “play a

vital role in helping to turn China from an authoritarian threat into a freer and

less hostile power.”

Ultimately, Lassman believes that we should lower or repeal taris—including

eliminating “the destructive Trump–Biden taris”—in order to make goods more

aordable for Americans. He thinks free trade will improve our economy, enhance

our national security, and keep future left-leaning Congresses from insisting that

future left-leaning Presidents “negotiate for as many trade-unrelated provisions

as possible to beneﬁt labor and green constituencies.”

Navarro disagrees with Lassman almost across the board. He writes, “Trade policy

can and must play an essential role in an American manufacturing and defense indus-

trial base renaissance,” which he says is crucial to our country’s future. But two forces

in particular “are pushing America in the opposite direction.” First, the World Trade

Organization’s (WTO) “most favored nation” rules encourage our trade partners to

adopt high taris, which lead to our “chronic” trade deﬁcits and make us “the globe’s

biggest trade loser and victim of unfair, unbalanced, and non-reciprocal trade.” For

example, Navarro writes, taris on imported automobiles are 2.5 percent in the U.S.,

10 percent in the European Union, and 15 percent in China. Second, China’s “eco-

nomic aggression” in the form of “taris, nontari barriers, dumping, counterfeiting

and piracy, and currency manipulation” further weakens our “manufacturing and

defense industrial base even as the fragility of globally dispersed supply chains has

been brought into sharp relief by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In contrast to Lassman, Navarro thinks that “trade deﬁcits matter a great deal.”

He writes that “oshoring not only suppresses the real wages of American blue-col-

lar workers and denies millions of Americans the opportunity to climb up the rungs

of the ladder to the middle class,” but it also “raises the specter of a manufacturing

and defense industrial base that, unlike our experience in World Wars I and II,

will not be able to provide the weapons and matériel that would be needed should

America enter another major world war.” Also, China controls “much of the world’s

pharmaceutical production and supply chains.” It is therefore essential, he writes,

that our trade policy be guided by “the principle of reciprocity,” whereby we coax

other countries into lowering their trade barriers if possible and raise ours as nec

essary. Moreover, he says we should “decouple” our economy from China’s.

China’s goal, Navarro says, is “to shift the world’s manufacturing and supply

chains” to its soil, thereby strengthening its “defense industrial base and associated

— 659 —

Section 4: The Economy

warﬁghting capabilities.” He writes, “Every year, more than 300,000 Communist

Chinese nationals attend U.S. universities or are hired at U.S. national laborato

ries, innovation centers, incubators, and think tanks.” Huawei, “an instrument of

Chinese military espionage,” is now partnering with UC Berkeley on research with

“important future military applications.” China is also engaged in what Warren

Buett calls “conquest by purchase,” as it uses revenues from its trade surpluses

“to buy American real estate, companies, and ﬁnancial assets.” In sum, Navarro

believes our current trade policy enriches our allies and adversaries while hurting

us, weakens our industrial base while strengthening China’s, and shortchanges

“Main Street manufacturers and workers.” Such non-reciprocal “free” trade is

slowly undermining our capabilities and our freedom.

A small component of trade policy involves the Export–Import Bank, and Jenni-

fer Hazelton and Veronique de Rugy debate its merits in Chapter 23. In support of

the bank, Hazelton writes, “EXIM provides ﬁnancing only when the private sector

will not.” She says, “Export credit is a strategy weapon in China’s whole-of-govern-

ment approach to enhance its global power.” China provided an estimated “$500

billion in export credit” in 2018, “approaching in that one year the total amount of

ﬁnancing EXIM has provided in its 90-year history.” Hazelton argues that when

large American companies can get a loan from EXIM rather than having to meet

the demands of export credit agencies in Europe or elsewhere, it helps American

small businesses, too. She writes that the U.S. “would be foolish to abandon this

ﬁeld of play.”

Opposing the bank, de Rugy writes, “EXIM operates in eect as a protectionist

agency that picks winners and losers in the market by providing political privileges

to ﬁrms that are already well-ﬁnanced.” She denies it promotes exports and argues

it hurts small businesses, which often have to compete against large businesses

that are able to get the loans. She writes that it also helps foreign companies, such

as state-run China Air, that buy U.S. exports from American companies such as

Boeing. The bottom line, she says, “is that the Bank should be abolished.”

In Chapter 21, former assistant secretary of commerce Thomas F. Gilman

describes the Department of Commerce as dominated by career sta who are unin-

terested in implementing the President’s priorities. The department clearly needs

far more political leadership, including at the Census Bureau, as Gilman notes.

The Census Bureau, unlike much of the federal government, has a constitution-

ally required mission. Yet the 2020 Census was at least somewhat compromised

by overly risk-averse COVID policies that prevented census ﬁeld representatives

from going door-to-door for much of that year. The Census Bureau’s website, one

of the worst in the federal government, buries crucial statistics where only aca-

demics or advocates are likely to ﬁnd them. In addition, Gilman writes that a new

Administration should ensure that the Bureau of Economic Aairs, also housed at

Commerce, “conducts its statistical analysis in a consistent and objective manner.”

— 660 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Moreover, the International Trade Administration—which “is centrally placed to

craft and implement U.S. trade policy”—should counter “the malign inﬂuence of

China and other U.S. adversaries” and strongly “defend against trade violations.”

In Chapter 22, William L. Walton, Stephen Moore, and David R. Burton note

that under the Biden Administration, the Treasury Department has failed to

achieve any of the agency’s core objectives. Under the leadership of Secretary Janet

Yellen, Treasury has placed “equity” and “climate change” among its top ﬁve pri-

orities. The next Administration must act decisively to curtail activities that fall

outside of Treasury’s mandate and primary mission. Treasury must refocus on its

core mission of promoting economic growth, prosperity, and economic stability.

The authors add that “Treasury should make balancing the federal budget a mis-

sion-critical objective.”

The authors propose legislation to reform the tax code, writing,

Tax policy has a powerful impact on the economy. The Treasury Department

should develop and promote tax reform legislation that will promote

prosperity. To accomplish this, tax reform should improve incentives to

work, save, and invest. This, in turn, is accomplished primarily by reducing

marginal tax rates, reducing the cost of capital, and broadening the tax base to

eliminate tax-induced economic distortions by eliminating special-interest

tax credits, deductions, and exclusions. Tax compliance costs will decline

precipitously if the tax system is substantially simpliﬁed. The Treasury

Department should also promote tax competition rather than supporting an

international tax cartel.

Chapter 22 includes proposals to reduce the intrusiveness and increase the

accountability of the Internal Revenue Service.

The chapter also explains how the interagency Committee on Foreign Invest-

ment in the United States (CFIUS), chaired by Treasury, should realign its priorities

to meet the United States’ current foreign policy threats, especially from China. It

explains how Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which manages

the anti-money laundering/countering the ﬁnancing of terrorism (AML-CFT)

programs, can be improved to reduce the burden on small ﬁrms and improve the

eectiveness of the AML-CFT regime.

In Chapter 25, Karen Kerrigan describes the Small Business Administration

(SBA) as a “sprawling, unaccountable agency” replete with “waste, fraud, and mis-

management” and guilty of “mission creep.” Moreover, its “initiatives aimed at

‘inclusivity’ are in fact creating exclusivity and stringent selectivity in deciding

what types of small businesses and entities can use SBA programs.” According to

Kerrigan, the Oce of Advocacy “is one of the bright spots within the SBA that a

conservative Administration could supercharge to dismantle extreme regulatory

— 661 —

Section 4: The Economy

policies and advance limited-government reforms that promote economic free-

dom and opportunity.” She recommends that it receive a big increase in funding

and stang and then undertake “a research agenda that includes measuring the

total cost that federal regulation imposes on small businesses.” This would be one

important step in making sure that “the SBA under a conservative Administration

would meet the needs of America’s small-business owners and entrepreneurs, not

special interests.”

Former White House director of the domestic policy council Paul Winfree

writes in Chapter 24 that the Federal Reserve actually causes “inﬂationary and

recessionary cycles.” He says, “A core problem with government control of mone-

tary policy is its exposure to two unavoidable political pressures: pressure to print

money to subsidize government deﬁcits and pressure to print money to boost the

economy artiﬁcially until the next election.” The Fed has also added a “moral

hazard” due to its “history of bailing out private ﬁrms when they engage in excess

speculation.” At a “minimum,” Winfree writes, “full employment” should be elim-

inated from the Federal Reserve’s mandate, “requiring it to focus on price stability

alone.” The Fed should not be allowed to incorporate “environmental, social, and

governance factors into its mandate.” It should be compelled “to specify its target

range for inﬂation.” Its last-resort lending practices, “which are directly respon-

sible for ‘too big to fail,’” should be curbed. Its mission, and alternatives to the Fed,

should be explored by a commission created for that purpose. And a central bank

digital currency, which “would provide unprecedented surveillance and potential

control of ﬁnancial transactions,” should be rejected.

Even more ambitiously, Winfree suggests that the next Administration should

think about proposing legislation that would “eectively abolish” the Federal

Reserve and replace it with “free banking,” whereby “neither interest rates nor

the supply of money” would be “controlled by government.” Free banking would

produce a “stable and sound” currency and a “strong” ﬁnancial system, “while

allowing lending to ﬂourish.” Alternatively, Winfree writes, the next Administra-

tion should “consider the feasibility of a return to the gold standard.”

— 663 —

DEPARTMENT OF

COMMERCE

Thomas F. Gilman

he Department of Commerce is charged with promoting economic growth,

innovation, and competitiveness while providing the data that American

businesses need to succeed. Intended to serve with clarity of purpose as

the voice of business in any President’s Cabinet, the Department of Commerce has

suered from decades of regulatory capture, ideological drift, and lack of focus. One

long-standing joke maintains that the department, with its lack of coherence, is a

holding company for the parts of the federal government that could not be housed

elsewhere. Thus, in the 1990s, calls emerged to abolish the department and either

spin o, zero-out, or consolidate its functions among other entities.

At the same time, the department has a higher proﬁle now than perhaps ever

in its history. It possesses key tools to address decades of poor decision-making

in Washington and is central to any plan to reverse the precipitous economic

decline sparked by the Biden Administration and to counter Communist China.

Both assertions can be equally true, that the department possesses the expertise,

programs, and authorities that will be crucial to the success of a conservative

presidency and that its role in the federal bureaucracy would beneﬁt from

streamlining and reform.

Many programs at the Department of Commerce overlap in whole or part with

other governmental programs, and consolidating and streamlining these could

increase both accountability and return on taxpayer investment. Any exercise in

government-wide budgeting and reform should review the department with an eye

toward consolidation, elimination, or privatization that examines the eciency,

eectiveness, and underlying philosophy of each individual component. Though

— 664 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

not an exhaustive set of proposals, the next conservative President should con-

sider whether:

The International Trade Administration (ITA) and parts of the Bureau of

Industry and Security (BIS) should be streamlined and moved to the Oce

of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), along with the Development

Finance Corporation; the U.S. Trade and Development Agency; the Export–

Import Bank; and other trade-related programs spread across the federal

government—as well as considering whether many of these programs

should exist within the federal government;

The Economic Development Administration’s grant programs, which

are among a broad set of duplicative and overlapping federal economic

development grant programs, should be consolidated with other programs

and/or eliminated;

The Bureau of Economic Analysis and Census Bureau, as well as the

Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, should be consolidated

into a more manageable, focused, and ecient statistical agency;

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Oce (USPTO) should be made into a

performance-based organization under the Oce of Management and

Budget (OMB);

Alternatively, the USPTO should be consolidated with the National

Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in a new U.S. Oce of

Patents, Trademarks, and Standards, with all non-mission-critical research

functions eliminated or moved to other, more focused, federal agencies; and

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other

agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.

Almost every element of the department can be viewed through this lens, but

with today’s political reality and multiple competing congressional committee

jurisdictions, drastic structural change to the department is neither imminent

nor likely. Thus, this chapter largely accepts the baseline of today’s department

and proposes a bold, but achievable, set of proposals for an incoming conservative

Administration.

Whatever the imperfections of the Department of Commerce, it is blessed with

many quality civil servants and strong statutory authorities that, directed properly,

— 665 —

Department of Commerce

can help ensure U.S. success in 2025 and beyond. With that in mind, this chapter

focuses primarily on policy, strategy, and occasionally tactics that are either imme-

diately implementable under strong leadership or are critical to mission success.

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY

The Oce of the Secretary (OS) is somewhat of a misnomer, as very few of the

thousands of employees working in the oce are dedicated to stang the secretary

and implementing Administration priorities. Rather, OS’s budget and full-time

equivalents have increasingly been allocated to fulﬁll ﬁnancial, human resources,

administrative, information technology, contracting, and facilities functions, using

outdated and inecient systems. The Trump Administration began implement-

ing key changes, such as updating ﬁnancial management tools, but more must be

done to digitize and modernize the department’s processes to free resources for

secretarial and presidential priorities.

The above drain on resources leaves the Secretary of Commerce to rely upon

a few dozen direct support sta, supplemented with detailees and indirect fund-

ing from each of the bureaus to execute the President’s agenda and manage the

diverse functions of the department. This structure empowers career sta in each

bureau and makes it harder to mandate change. As such, it is vitally important

that an incoming Administration fully sta OS with political appointees, send

all existing detailees back to their home bureaus on Day One, and replace those

detailees with trusted and knowledgeable career sta on an as-needed basis.

Department of Commerce leadership should also ﬁght to restore direct fund-

ing and additional political appointee positions to OS and its constituent parts

involved in implementing and communicating the Commerce Secretary’s and

President’s policy priorities.

Administration, Budget, and Appropriations. Recent practice has been for

career sta to serve as gatekeepers between department leadership and external

budget and appropriations partners at the OMB and on Capitol Hill. By serving

not just as a central point of contact but as the sole sta-level communicators of

departmental priorities, these career ocials can, have, and will slow down—and

even stop—changes in policy, even at the line-oce level.

Although the following is true at all agencies, it is particularly important at the

Department of Commerce that political leadership be immediately installed at the

Oce of the Chief Financial Ocer (CFO) and Assistant Secretary for Administra-

tion (ASA), and that political appointees receive a mandate to communicate with

external partners alongside career sta at every stage of the budget and appropri-

ations process. Political appointees must also monitor internal CFO operations

down to the operating division level to ensure that funds are not being diverted

to programs that do not align with Administration priorities, as has regularly hap-

pened in years past.

— 666 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Advisory Committees. Due to the nature of the Department of Commerce’s

portfolio, many of its advisory committees are populated by activists from organi-

zations openly hostile to conservative principles who use the committees to impede

conservative policy. Upon entering oce, all such committees should be reviewed

regarding whether they are required by statute and abolished if they are not. Mem-

bership of the remaining committees should be reconstituted to ensure they are

sources of genuine expert advice and productive contributions to the policy-making

process. Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) compliance and awareness of

any ways the committees have been written into regulations should be considered.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE ADMINISTRATION

The International Trade Administration is centrally placed to craft and

implement U.S. trade policy. Core to ITA’s mission is the expansion of trade and

investment and the fostering of job creation, innovation, and economic growth,

while also providing research and analysis that support USTR’s trade negotiations.

ITA carries out this mission on behalf of American workers, ranchers, and families.

As discussed elsewhere, historically, conservatives have argued that many fed-

eral government trade and investment-oriented functions amount to corporate

welfare or protectionism. There is a growing counterargument within the conser-

vative movement contending that, in a world in which managed trade is the norm

rather than the exception, and in which authoritarian governments, especially

China, continually seek to undermine U.S. interests, the U.S. cannot unilaterally

disarm. To do so would harm the cause of free trade in the long term, and, in any

event, Congress is not likely to drastically change the composition or authoriza-

tion of the ITA. Thus, a policy and management agenda that serves conservative

priorities is crucial.

In a conservative Administration, the ITA should operate with the follow-

ing priorities:

Counter the malign inﬂuence of China and other U.S. adversaries;

Enforce agreements vigorously and defend against trade violations;

Secure access to critical supply chains and technology; and

Enable the private sector to drive innovation and remain globally competitive.

It is important to note that a deeply entrenched set of career Senior Executive

Service ocials have managed the ITA for over a decade. While most are truly

non-partisan civil servants, some are not. Political leadership must manage accord-

ingly. Strong political leadership is needed in ITA’s policymaking positions from

— 667 —

Department of Commerce

Day One to ensure the bureau is fully implementing Administration policy. An

incoming Administration should ensure that Assistant Secretary and Deputy Assis-

tant Secretary positions are staed by appointees as quickly as possible.

Enforcement and Compliance. Strong enforcement of trade agreements is

an indispensable function of the ITA carried out by Enforcement & Compliance

(E&C). Free and fair trade is impossible without energetic enforcement of exist-

ing agreements and without strong defense against dumping and illegal subsidies.

Many free trade advocates consider antidumping and countervailing duty laws

(AD/CVD) to be protectionist and thus antithetical to the conservative free market

position. In their view, AD/CVD laws are overused, abused by certain industries,

and harmful to American economic competitiveness by increasing costs to down-

stream industries.

Other conservatives maintain that AD/CVD taris are not conventional taris,

but rather corrective actions meant to address anti-free market activities by other

governments—a scalpel, not a hammer. In the short term, this may mean higher

costs for U.S. businesses and consumers on a limited number of products from cer

tain oending countries, but those higher prices correct existing price distortions

in the marketplace and ultimately ensure the healthy operation of market forces

in the long term and a level playing ﬁeld for U.S. manufacturers.

Whatever the case, improvements to the current system must be made to both

protect U.S. consumers and companies from improperly applied duties and defend

against trade-distorting actions by other governments. Procedures governing the

day-to-day administration of proceedings, as well as policies driving critical deci-

sions in proceedings, require a fresh look. Ultimately, E&C’s mandate is to conduct

a rigorous but also fair, objective, and balanced review of the record in each pro-

ceeding and to make decisions without bias.

It is exceedingly unlikely that Congress would abolish or limit the activity of

E&C. Therefore, the proposals below are made under the assumption that an

incoming Administration will operate E&C within its current legal, institutional,

and political conﬁnes and set a path forward to wield E&C’s considerable power to

achieve the goals of a conservative Administration. These proposals can be broken

into three categories: process, policy, and addressing China.

Process

Re-establish and expand suspended in-person pandemic-related

veriﬁcations, particularly regarding the People’s Republic of China. Ensure

that veriﬁcations are rigorous.

Implement advanced analytics and artiﬁcial intelligence to identify

opportunities for self-initiation, detect circumvention, and prevent bad

actors from gaming the system.

— 668 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Accelerate front-end work on reviews as opposed to constantly pushing

against statutory deadlines.

Work with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other relevant

agencies to address circumvention and duty evasion, and promote policies

that encourage full duty collection to ensure the integrity of AD/CVD and

circumvention orders.

Work with CBP, the Department of Justice, the Department of Treasury,

and other relevant agencies to aggressively pursue importers of record and

other beneﬁciaries for unpaid duties, and consider policy changes to reduce

uncollected duties in the future.

Work, pursuant to the above, with interagency partners in AD/CVD cases to

either require foreign importers of record (IORs) to make cash deposits far in

excess of established duty rates at the time of entry of AD/CVD merchandise,

require IORs to register sucient U.S. assets to ensure timely payment of

duties, or otherwise prohibit IORs from importing AD/CVD merchandise.

Conduct a regulatory capture audit and put guardrails in place to address

improper exercise of bureaucratic prerogative.

Policy

Ensure senior policy and decision-making positions are always held by

political appointees.

Reverse the practice of giving the beneﬁt of the doubt to foreign companies

versus U.S. companies in AD/CVD proceedings.

Establish a policy for addressing companies that invest heavily in the U.S.

and thus have large import volumes, exposing them to AD/CVD petitions.

Establish an eective, fair, and objective process for self-initiation of AD/

CVD proceedings when industry lacks the resources or ability to act.

Addressing China

Revive the China-speciﬁc non-market economy unit.

Provide transparency in the surrogate country list development process.

— 669 —

Department of Commerce

Develop a new methodology to determine normal values in Chinese anti-

dumping cases because—given China’s size, economic might, and state

intervention in the economy—there is no comparable surrogate country to

use as a proxy for production costs.

In addition to these changes, continued support for steel and aluminum market

analysis and import monitoring remains crucial to the U.S. defense industrial base

and the health of global manufacturing. Without these functions, it is dicult to

address massive subsidization, overcapacity, and dumping by China.

Industry and Analysis. Industry and Analysis (I&A) consists of a team of econ-

omists and industry experts that provides important analysis to partners across

the government, including the White House and USTR, as well as the public.

As the Department of Commerce’s Committee on Foreign Investments in the

United States (CFIUS) lead, I&A performs crucial work to ensure that the proper

economic impact/supply chain analysis is brought to national security risk assess-

ments. This analysis is needed for CFIUS to be an eective tool in preventing China

and other adversaries from exploiting the U.S.’s open investment climate.

I&A also provides impact assessments and economic modeling for policy

options under Administration consideration; plays a critical role in identifying

trade barriers and providing industry-speciﬁc expertise for USTR during free trade

agreement (FTA) negotiations; and does indispensable work ensuring cross-bor-

der data ﬂows, particularly with Europe, remain open and relatively unrestricted.

However, outside of these functions, implementation of I&A’s mission as an

intellectual engine for U.S. trade and investment policy can often lack energy and

focus. For instance, the Top Market Reports that represent a large volume of I&A

work do not serve a speciﬁc strategic function and could be better replaced by

industry competitiveness assessments in critical sectors of the economy.

Strong and capable leadership is needed in I&A to ensure Administration pri-

orities permeate the organization and that sta support Administration priorities.

I&A produces a mandatory report to Congress regarding the Miscellaneous Tari

Bill, which focuses solely on U.S. capacity in the goods being considered for tari

exclusions and does not include highly relevant information on capacity among

FTA partners and close allies. The resulting ﬁnal report has thus been used to lobby

for tari reductions on thousands of imports from China without concern for any

other factors. This lack of priority given to FTA partners is troubling.

Going forward, I&A should be permanently restructured to perform supply-chain

analysis on an ongoing basis for the U.S. government, identifying potential vulner-

abilities like those exposed by the pandemic and resulting shortages in everything

from semiconductors to baby formula. Furthermore, permanent standing teams

should be established and staed by properly aligned political appointees and trusted

career sta to analyze and spur action on the following priority policy issues:

— 670 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Strategic decoupling from China;

Defense industrial base strength;

Critical supply chains (e.g., pharmaceuticals, medical devices, food); and

Emerging technologies (e.g., rare earth minerals, semiconductors, batteries,

artiﬁcial intelligence, quantum computing).

Global Markets and the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service. For more

than a decade, strategic planning at Global Markets (GM) and the U.S. and For-

eign Commercial Service (CS) has been consistently undermined by increased

costs associated with overseas sta and ﬂat or reduced budgets. The Trump

Administration introduced crucial, long-overdue business practices such as the

implementation of software to manage and track workﬂow, but a further strategic

overhaul of resource allocation is needed to set GM and the CS on a ﬁrm footing.

Currently, CS manages sta spread over 106 domestic oces in 77 countries

around the world. Abroad, several “partner posts” utilize interagency sta and

regionally located CS ocials to oer services without a permanent physical

in-country CS presence. Given the rapidly rising costs imposed by the State Depart-

ment on CS posts overseas, a drastic expansion of this model is likely needed.

CS resources should be distributed according to the following set of priorities:

Value in countering the malign inﬂuence of adversaries, particularly China;

Value in fostering U.S. innovation;

Value in maintaining access to critical supply chains and technology;

Diculty for U.S. companies in gaining market access without CS

involvement; and

Potential untapped export market size and likelihood of expansion.

Ultimately, dicult decisions must be made about the value of CS posts and

whether individual posts can be justiﬁed given current resources and the above

criteria. If the State Department deems the diplomatic value of a permanent

in-country CS post to be vital to the national interest, then State should bear more

of the cost of maintaining that post.

Global Markets should also consolidate and elevate the Advocacy Center and

SelectUSA as relatively low-cost tools to drive large-scale export transactions

— 671 —

Department of Commerce

and foreign direct investment (FDI). SelectUSA is a low-cost and eective tool in

attracting FDI to the U.S. and to re-shore manufacturing and research and devel-

opment. In a world in which corruption is rampant, these are among the most

eective tools in leveling the playing ﬁeld for U.S. communities and companies

seeking to engage with governments and potential overseas investors.

Given the value placed on senior-level engagement by many governments and

companies, this consolidated Oce of Trade and Investment Advocacy should be

headed by a Deputy Assistant Secretary. The new oce should also seek congres-

sional authorization to utilize its FDI-promotion tools to encourage reshoring by

U.S. businesses.

BUREAU OF INDUSTRY AND SECURITY

During the past two decades, technology transfer from America and its allies has

helped accelerate adversaries’ technological and weapons capabilities. This tech-

nology transfer on a massive scale has occurred because of adversaries’ exploitation

of the U.S.’s open economy and education system through both commercial trans-

actions and university and government research programs. Examples include the

People’s Republic of China’s dramatic leaps forward in semiconductor design and

fabrication, battery energy storage, nuclear weapons capabilities, artiﬁcial intel-

ligence, space and aerospace engineering, and hypersonic weapons deployment.

At the same time, the U.S. has systematically failed to protect critical assets.

Rather than promulgate policies to better prevent technology transfer, the U.S.

government has either ignored the problem or, worse, from 2008 through 2016

instituted a government-wide “Export Control Reform” process to loosen the

Export Administration Regulations (EAR) governing exports of dual-use items

to facilitate technology transfer to adversaries, either directly or indirectly through

third-country transfers.

Those reforms still present in the Department of Commerce’s EAR must be

reversed. The United States needs stronger rules to protect technology transfer

to adversaries while promoting technology integration and interoperability with

allies. Further, U.S. export control regulations should be utilized to prevent theft

of personally identiﬁable information and to encourage U.S. companies to shift

production out of China and further diversify their supply chains to better advance

U.S. national security interests.

For all the below recommendations, BIS needs to move unilaterally while it

works with allies to implement complementary export control policies. Waiting

to act until allies are ready to move in lockstep is not an option while America’s

national security is at risk.

Emerging and Foundational Technologies. The Export Control Reform Act

of 2018 (ECRA) gave BIS permanent statutory authority to regulate exports of

dual-use items (goods, software, and technology). ECRA also mandated that BIS

— 672 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

regulate exports of emerging and foundational technologies. Although the scope

of such technologies is vast, to date BIS has only controlled just over 40 of these

technologies. This does not meet the clear statutory intent of Congress that ECRA

be leveraged to ensure that the United States maintains a technological advantage

in technologies bearing upon national security interests.

Currently, BIS self-identiﬁes technologies that merit control under the EAR with

minimal input from other federal agencies. This mechanism should be improved.

BIS should create an open, transparent rulemaking process by which any industry

participant, private entity, or branch of the government may, at any time, submit

nominations for emerging/foundational technologies for control. Then, on a quarterly

basis, BIS should make public such recommendations (while holding the identity

of the submitter conﬁdential) for public input, followed by an explanation about its

ultimate decision to control or not control the items, its reasons, the level of controls

applied (stringent or permissive), and the relevant Export Control Classiﬁcation

Number (ECCN) under the Commerce Control List. Commerce should also institute a

mechanism whereby its decisions can be challenged, including on a conﬁdential basis.

Licensing Procedures: Adjudication and Transparency. Currently, if the

Departments of Defense, State, Commerce, and Energy disagree on an export

license decision, the disagreement may be escalated to the Operating Commit-

tee—and subsequently to the Advisory Committee on Export Policy led by BIS’s

Assistant Secretary for Export Administration. The Assistant Secretary does not

need to lead the dispute resolution, and this process should be revised by giving lead

authority to BIS’s Under Secretary, who is better able to account for diverging views.

Moreover, BIS’s authority to overrule other agency votes should be changed.

Each agency should have one equal vote and, if a licensing dispute remains unre-

solved, the ﬁnal decision should be elevated to the National Security Advisor and

the Secretaries of Defense, State, Commerce, and Energy.

Additionally, to improve congressional oversight of BIS’s license adjudication

process, BIS should provide speciﬁc congressional committees with data from the

Automated Export System on a quarterly basis. Electronic ﬁles should contain

U.S. exporter by name; product description (e.g., harmonized system code and

ECCN/U. S. Munitions List designation); end user and destination country; and

when a license was required, whether the license was granted or denied. BIS cur-

rently denies just 1.2 percent of export licenses. These data reporting requirements

can help Congress better determine whether BIS is adequately protecting national

security through appropriate use of export controls or whether additional direction

from Congress is required.

Improve End-Use Checks. The integrity of the export control system may be

validated only through adequate end-use checks. BIS must deny export licenses

to countries that do not permit adequate end-use checks (e.g., China/Russia) by

U.S. authorities. BIS should also strengthen the forensic audit capabilities of its

— 673 —

Department of Commerce

Export Enforcement ocers through improved and frequent training so they are

able to detect export-control violations.

EAR Revisions. The U.S. Government needs a new export control moderniza-

tion eort to tighten the EAR policies governing licenses to countries of concern,

including China and Russia (speciﬁcally, revise and/or reverse the 2008 through

2016 policies).

When authoritarian governments explain what they plan to do, believe them unless

hard evidence demonstrates otherwise. Case in point: China’s and Russia’s stated

civil–military fusion policies demand central government command-and-control

style systems in which every private entity serves the interests of the state and is

forced to provide technology, services, capacity, and data to the central govern-

ment and the military. Through this structure, commercial activities are routinely

weaponized by authoritarian regimes that repeatedly identify the U.S. as an enemy.

Accordingly, U.S. export control policies must be updated to reﬂect these realities

and the associated threats to national security.

Key priorities for EAR modernization for countries of concern should be:

Eliminating the “specially designed” licensing loophole;

Redesignating China and Russia to more highly prohibitive export licensing

groups (country groups D or E);

Eliminating license exceptions;

Broadening foreign direct product rules;

Reducing the de minimis threshold from 25 percent to 10 percent—or 0

percent for critical technologies;

Tightening the deemed export rules to prevent technology transfer to

foreign nationals from countries of concern;

Tightening the deﬁnition of “fundamental research” to address exploitation

of the open U.S. university system by authoritarian governments through

funding, students and researchers, and recruitment;

Eliminating license exceptions for sharing technology with controlled

entities/countries through standards-setting “activities” and bodies; and

Improving regulations regarding published information for

technology transfers.

— 674 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

The next few years will prove or disprove the assertion that the U.S. stands on

the precipice of a Cold War with China. Many believe that a Cold War has already

begun; if so, then strategic decoupling from China is necessary and, fundamentally,

any exports of goods, software, and technology to countries of concern, whether

directly or indirectly, should be prohibited or controlled in the absence of good

cause (e.g., humanitarian and medical aid, food aid).

Entity List and Sanctions. There are currently just over 500 Chinese and over

500 Russian companies on the Department of Commerce’s Entity List, which reg-

ulates exports of controlled and uncontrolled items to designated entities. Given

China’s Civil–Military Fusion Strategy and Russia’s massive war eorts facili-

tated by a broad range of the Russian economy, BIS must add more entities to the

Entity List and apply a license review “policy of denial” that prohibits exports to

these entities.

Entity List parties that violate export controls should be placed on the BIS

Denied Persons List (and thereby lose export privileges) and, if the violations are

signiﬁcant enough, they should also be sanctioned by the Department of Treasury.

Data Transfer and Apps Used for Surveillance. Department of Commerce

leadership should work across government agencies to address privacy and data

concerns arising out of “big tech” from national security and export control per-

spectives. In particular, they should draft and implement an executive order (EO)

based on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which expands export

control authority beyond ECRA’s scope (goods, software, technology) to regulate and

restrict exports of U.S. persons’ data to countries of concern. The EO should establish

a framework for the types of personal data subject to export controls and licensing

policy by country, and the BIS should implement the EO through regulations.

BIS should additionally designate app providers (such as WeChat and

Byte Dance/TikTok) known for undermining U.S. national security through data

collection, surveillance, and inﬂuence operations, to the Entity List. This listing

would prevent app users from program updates, which would quickly make these

apps non-operational in the United States.

NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION

Break Up NOAA. The single biggest Department of Commerce agency outside

of decennial census years is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,

which houses the National Weather Service, National Marine Fisheries Service,

and other components. NOAA garners $6.5 billion of the department’s $12 billion

annual operational budget and accounts for more than half of the department’s

personnel in non-decadal Census years (2021 ﬁgures).

NOAA consists of six main oces:

The National Weather Service (NWS);

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Department of Commerce

The National Ocean Service (NOS);

The Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR);

The

National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS);

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS); and

The Oce of Marine and Aviation Operations and NOAA Corps.

Together, these form a colossal operation that has become one of the main

drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future

U.S. prosperity. This industry’s mission emphasis on prediction and management

seems designed around the fatal conceit of planning for the unplannable. That is

not to say NOAA is useless, but its current organization corrupts its useful func-

tions. It should be broken up and downsized.

NOAA today boasts that it is a provider of environmental information services,

a provider of environmental stewardship services, and a leader in applied scientiﬁc

research. Each of these functions could be provided commercially, likely at lower

cost and higher quality.

Focus the NWS on Commercial Operations. Each day, Americans rely on

weather forecasts and warnings provided by local radio stations and colleges that

are produced not by the NWS, but by private companies such as AccuWeather.

Studies have found that the forecasts and warnings provided by the private com-

panies are more reliable than those provided by the NWS.

The NWS provides data the private companies use and should focus on its

data-gathering services. Because private companies rely on these data, the NWS

should fully commercialize its forecasting operations.

NOAA does not currently utilize commercial partnerships as some other

agencies do. Commercialization of weather technologies should be prioritized

to ensure that taxpayer dollars are invested in the most cost-ecient technol-

ogies for high quality research and weather data. Investing in dierent sizes of

commercial partners will increase competition while ensuring that the govern-

ment solutions provided by each contract is personalized to the needs of NOAA’s

weather programs.

The NWS should be a candidate to become a Performance-Based Organization

to better enforce organizational focus on core functions such as ecient delivery

of accurate, timely, and unbiased data to the public and to the private sector.

Review the Work of the National Hurricane Center and the National

Environmental Satellite Service. The National Hurricane Center and National

Environmental Satellite Service data centers provide important public safety and

— 676 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

business functions as well as academic functions, and are used by forecasting agen-

cies and scientists internationally. Data continuity is an important issue in climate

science. Data collected by the department should be presented neutrally, without

adjustments intended to support any one side in the climate debate.

Transfer NOS Survey Functions to the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Geo-

logical Survey. Survey operations have historically accounted for almost half the

NOS budget. These functions could be transferred to the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S.

Geological Survey to increase eciency. NOS’ expansion of the National Marine

Sanctuaries System should also be reviewed, as discussed below.

Streamline NMFS. Overlap exists between the National Marine Fisheries

Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Overly simpliﬁed, the NMFS handles

saltwater species while the Fish and Wildlife Service focuses on fresh water. The

goals of these two agencies should be streamlined.

Harmonize the Magnuson–Stevens Act with the National Marine Sanctuaries

Act. Under the auspices of NOS, marine sanctuaries (including no-ﬁshing zones)

are being established country-wide, often conﬂicting with the goals of the Magnu-

son–Stevens Act ﬁsheries management authorities of NOAA Fisheries, regional

ﬁshery management councils, and relevant states.

Withdraw the 30x30 Executive Order and Associated America the Beautiful Ini-

tiative. The 30x30 Executive Order and the American the Beautiful Initiative are

being used to advance an agenda to close vast areas of the ocean to commercial

activities, including ﬁshing, while rapidly advancing oshore wind energy devel-

opment to the detriment of ﬁsheries and other existing ocean-based industries.

Modify Regulations Implementing the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the

Endangered Species Act. These acts are currently being abused at a cost to ﬁsheries

and Native American subsistence activities around the U.S.

Allow a NEPA Exemption for Fisheries Actions. All the requirements for robust

analysis of the biological, economic, and social impacts of proposed regulatory

action in ﬁsheries are contained with the Magnuson–Stevens Act, the guiding Act

for ﬁsheries. NEPA overlays these requirements with onerous, redundant, and

time-consuming process requirements, which routinely cause unnecessary delays

in the promulgation of timely ﬁsheries management actions. The Department

of Commerce and the Council on Environmental Quality should collaborate to

reduce this redundancy.

Downsize the Oce of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. OAR provides

theoretical science, as opposed to the applied science of the National Hurricane

Center. OAR is, however, the source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism. The

preponderance of its climate-change research should be disbanded. OAR is a large

network of research laboratories, an undersea research center, and several joint

research institutes with universities. These operations should be reviewed with

an aim of consolidation and reduction of bloat.

— 677 —

Department of Commerce

Break Up the Oce of Marine and Aviation Operations and Reassign

Its Assets to Other Agencies During This Process. The Oce of Marine and

Aviation Operations, which provides the ships and planes used by NOAA agencies,

should be broken up and its assets reassigned to the General Services Administra-

tion or to other agencies.

Use Small Innovation Prizes and Competitions to Encourage High-Qual-

ity Research. Lowering the barriers of entry for startups and small businesses will

also provide greater innovation without excessive increases in spending. Reaching

beyond traditional partnerships for innovative engagement tools that encourage

entrepreneurial innovation will allow NOAA’s research programs to adapt more

quickly to the world’s changing needs. Multiple competitions should take place in

cities to attract a variety of innovators and investors to propel innovation forward

in a way that beneﬁts the needs of NOAA.

Ensure Appointees Agree with Administration Aims. Scientiﬁc agencies

like NOAA are vulnerable to obstructionism of an Administration’s aims if political

appointees are not wholly in sync with Administration policy. Particular attention

must be paid to appointments in this area.

Elevate the Oce of Space Commerce. The Oce of Space Commerce is

the executive branch advocate on behalf of the U.S. commercial space industry.

This oce should be the vehicle for a new Administration to set a robust and

uniﬁed whole-of-government commercial space policy that cements U.S. lead-

ership in one of the most crucial industries of the future. The Oce’s current

mission has been lost owing to its position within NESDIS, which sees no role

for itself in advancing the industry and the space economy, including ensuring

global competitiveness. OSC is, by law, the Department of Commerce’s lead on

space policy and must therefore link directly to all the bureaus and other orga-

nizations within the department. The Oce needs to be returned to OS, within

which it existed for the ﬁrst two decades of its existence. From OS, the Oce

could serve as a coordinating entity for the whole-of-government commercial

space policy desperately needed to secure America’s place as the global leader

in commercial space operations.

There presently exists no uniﬁed U.S. government policy on commercial space

operations, with the Federal Communications Commission largely responsible

for establishing space policy by default through its regulation of radio spectrum

licenses. Now that routine space operations are commercially viable, it is critical

that a new Administration establish reasonable government policies that ensure

the U.S. will continue to be the ﬂag of choice for commercial space activities. The

President should, by executive order, direct the Oce of Space Commerce, working

with the National Space Council, to establish a whole-of-government policy for

licensing and oversight of commercial space operations.

— 678 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

BUREAU OF ECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND THE OFFICE OF

THE UNDERSECRETARY FOR ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

The Oce of the Under Secretary for Economic Aairs is charged with conducting

economic analysis, promoting business and commerce, guiding data-driven deci-

sion-making and evidence-building activities, and increasing access to government

data while ensuring privacy and conﬁdentiality. The oce coordinates economic

analysis needs across the Department of Commerce, leads the department’s initia-

tives and programs related to data, data policy, and data management, and provides

policy direction and oversight for the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and the

Census Bureau. In addition to the Under Secretary for Economic Aairs, key sta

roles in the oce include the Chief Economist and the Chief Data Ocer.

The oce could be an eective tool for a new Administration if it focuses its

eorts on supporting the Department’s mission to ensure the conditions for eco-

nomic growth and opportunity—conducting economic analysis and producing

data for key departmental policy initiatives, as well as working across agencies to

support broader Administration goals. As the oce charged with providing policy

direction and oversight for BEA and the Census Bureau, new leadership should

take an early and active role within both bureaus.

BEA is a federal statistical agency under the Oce of the Undersecretary for

Economic Aairs. BEA’s mission is to promote a better understanding of the U.S.

economy by providing timely, relevant, and accurate economic accounts data in

an objective manner. BEA is responsible for producing economic indicators such

as the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), state and local GDP estimates, foreign

trade and investment statistics, industry data, and consumer spending numbers.

The data produced by BEA are used by government and business decision-mak-

ers to understand the state of the nation’s economy. A new Administration should

ensure that BEA conducts its statistical analysis in a consistent and objective

manner, with the Undersecretary for Economic Aairs taking a strong interest in

BEA’s operations and data products.

A new Administration should also study the feasibility of merging all statistical

agencies (Census Bureau, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Department of

Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, etc.) under one bureau to increase eciency

and better coordinate cross-departmental issues.

CENSUS BUREAU

The Census Bureau’s core mission is to execute the executive branch’s constitu-

tional mandate to conduct a census every 10 years, but its activities have steadily

grown and shifted to include the economic census, American Communities Survey,

and further functions outside of its core mission.

An incoming conservative Administration should focus on three areas: day-to-

day management, the decennial census, and other programs. Each of these will

— 679 —

Department of Commerce

need to be addressed at every stage of the transition and policy implementation

process and will require that both committed political appointees and like-minded

career employees are in immediately put in place to execute a conservative agenda.

These will need to be placed both in the Census Bureau and in key department-level

managerial positions, such as those in the CFO/ASA’s oce.

Day-to-Day Management

Command and control. Strong political leadership is needed to increase

eciency and align the Census Bureau’s mission with conservative

principles. Personnel is key to ensuring that a new Administration can guide

preparations for the 2030 census and oversee the continued operation

of the Bureau’s many surveys. To move bureaucracy on key priorities,

appointed sta should be in place at the Bureau as early as feasible after

a new President takes oce. This will require the Oce of Personnel

Management to allocate additional political appointee positions to the

Census Bureau.

Financial management, information technology, and human

resources. The new Administration must immediately conduct a review

to identify ways to better control costs and reverse recent failures of

investments intended to upgrade the ﬁnancial management, information

technology, and human resources systems of the Census Bureau.

Leveraging technology. The Census Bureau should focus on continuing

to incorporate technology into its day-to-day operations, as well as the

execution of its surveys, to reduce costs and provide more accurate and

timely data to the American public.

Prioritizing cybersecurity and protection of conﬁdential information.

Because much of the data collected by the Census Bureau include personal

and conﬁdential information, a focus on protecting data and implementing

proper data protocols is necessary to ensure compliance with the legal

requirements of Title 13.

Decennial Census

Fully vet existing planning and budgeting from Day One. Planning

and budgets for the 2030 decennial census will be ﬁnalized in fall 2025,

including many decisions on how to use, develop, and administer the count.

An incoming Administration should immediately audit the lifecycle cost

estimate (LCCE) for the 2030 census and conduct a new LCCE if necessary.

This will ensure that budget requests are accurate and up-to-date and

— 680 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

allow the new Administration to understand the decennial process in

greater detail.

Remove duplicative functions to increase eciency. As part of the

above review, ensure the decennial operational plan eliminates current

duplication among ongoing census operations (annual surveys, etc.) and

decennial operations in information technology, human resources, etc. This

overlap has been estimated to waste billions of dollars in the years leading

up to each decennial census.

Review the partnership program. This program, designed to promote

responsiveness to the census by employing trusted voices in various

communities, deserves careful scrutiny. A new Administration should work

to actively engage with conservative groups and voices to promote response

to the decennial census. Promoting response to the decennial census will

ensure that the most accurate counts are conducted, leading to a more

accurate apportionment of congressional representation and allocation

of federal funds. In 2020, lack of conservative participation was one factor

in an undercount in some areas of the country, aecting representation of

certain states.

Add a citizenship question. Despite ﬁnding that the Trump

Administration’s addition of the citizenship question to the 2020 decennial

census violated the Administrative Procedures Act, the Supreme Court

held that the Secretary of Commerce does have broad authority to add a

citizenship question to the decennial census. Any successful conservative

Administration must include a citizenship question in the census. Asking a

citizenship question is considered best practice even by the United Nations.

By law, the Census Bureau must deliver the decennial census subjects/

topics to Congress three years before Census Day (in this case, by April 1,

2027). Questions must be presented to Congress two years before Census

Day (April 1, 2028).

Review forthcoming changes to race and ethnicity questions. The

current Administration has announced its intent to change data collection

methods regarding race and ethnicity by combining the two questions

on the decennial questionnaire and increasing the number of available

options. A new conservative Administration should take control of this

process and thoroughly review any changes. There are concerns among

conservatives that the data under Biden Administration proposals could be

skewed to bolster progressive political agendas. Government data should be

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Department of Commerce

unbiased and trusted—and an incoming conservative Administration should

ensure that is the case. This work must be coordinated with the Oce of

Management and Budget, which governs federal data collection standards

via its statistical directives.

Reevaluate all decennial census questions. Determine how best to

optimize use of the decennial census to determine whether current or

additional questions provide added value in coordination with other

departments that utilize the information. Overly intrusive questions or less

crucial data should either be moved to another survey or removed from

Census programs entirely.

Other Census Programs

The American Communities Survey. After the decennial census, the next

biggest statistical survey conducted by the Census Bureau is the American

Communities Survey (ACS). As with the decennial census, each question

should be carefully reviewed to ensure the data are useful and that the

questions are not overly intrusive. There should be collaboration with other

departments that use the information collected on these surveys (e.g., the

Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security,

etc.) to determine how to optimize the use and collection of particular

information.

The Economic Census. This is the ocial ﬁve-year measurement of

American business and the economy. The ﬁrst Economic Census in a new

Administration will take place in 2027 and have a major eect on federal

spending and policy determinations. This survey collects business data that

are a key input for ongoing government statistics such as BEA’s GDP reports.

As with the decennial census and ACS, it should be carefully examined

to ensure the Economic Census is not overly intrusive. Additionally, the

Census Bureau should work with other federal agencies to determine

when data collection can be supplemented by industry and other federal

business indicators.

Pulse surveys. During the government’s early response to the COVID-19

pandemic, the Census Bureau began experimental pulse surveys. These

were designed to obtain data closer to real-time than typical census surveys.

These data could be a useful tool to the Department of Commerce and

other partners across government and provide a model for improving data

collection techniques or reducing the overall footprint of the Census Bureau.

— 682 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Supplemental Poverty Measure. The Census Bureau should review the

Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) to consider whether it provides an

accurate measure for use by the Council of Economic Advisers and others.

The ﬁndings from this review should also be taken into consideration when

constructing the Current Survey and other supplemental surveys, so that

the SPM can be better tracked on a trend basis and support better policy

decisions over time. This information would be particularly helpful in

determining how to combat homelessness in conjunction with Department

of Health and Human Services programs.

Abolish the National Advisory Committee and reevaluate all other

committees. The Census Bureau National Advisory Committee on Racial,

Ethnic, and Other Populations (NAC) was established by the Obama

Administration in 2012 and rechartered by the Biden Administration in

2022. The committee is a hotbed for left-wing activists intent upon injecting

racial and social-justice theory into the governing philosophy of the Census

Bureau. The NAC should immediately be abolished by the incoming

Administration. The NAC charter gives the Secretary of Commerce the

authority to terminate the committee. Since the Secretary of Commerce

established the NAC in 2012 under the FACA, the Secretary is authorized

to terminate the NAC. The new Administration should also reevaluate

and potentially abolish all non-statutory standing committees within the

Census Bureau, including the Census Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION

The Economic Development Administration (EDA) is charged with investing in

local communities to encourage and enable growth and innovation in the private

sector, with particular focus on distressed or underserved areas. Over time, it has

also served as a distribution mechanism for emergency relief funds (e.g., Hurricane

Maria and COVID-19).

In the Trump Administration, the EDA served an important role for the CARES

Act. It successfully disbursed approximately $1.5 billion in funding beginning in

May 2020 and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this task revealed

EDA’s shortcomings. On a capability level, EDA lacked the technical and ﬁnancial

systems and skills to disburse these funds in a compliant manner and required

external contracts for advisory support to hire the personnel needed to accom-

plish its goals.

Historically, EDA was a small bureau with an annual budget for $350 million

in Public Works grants annually. EDA’s decision-making is decentralized to its

six regional oces, which delayed the release of CARES Act funding by months.

But more broadly, EDA is an impediment to coordinated campaigns that advance

— 683 —

Department of Commerce

Administration priorities. Rather than implementing the new Department Organi-

zation Orders required to put conservative governance in place, it would be more

ecient to abolish EDA and reallocate its funding to other overlapping federal

grant programs.

If that proves unachievable, as has historically been the case due to political

considerations in Congress, EDA would beneﬁt from:

Consolidation of decision-making to the Assistant Secretary’s oce to

better align funding with conservative political purposes. For example,

funding initiatives in rural communities destroyed by the Biden

Administration’s attack on domestic energy production would be well

within the scope of EDA’s mission.

Leveraging of the direct hire authorities established in the Trump

Administration for special initiatives or disaster/recovery funding. Leaving

these programs to entrenched career employees with their ties to the

regional oces will do little to advance the conservative agenda.

Continuation of disaster funding with better coordinated capabilities and

decision-making in accordance with the points above (e.g., maintaining

contract vehicles for sta augmentation as needed).

Building on the initial success of Opportunity Zones, which incentivized

over $75 billion in private sector investment in distressed communities by

the end of 2020 with little up-front cost to the taxpayer.

MINORITY BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AGENCY

The Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) is the only federal agency

solely dedicated to the growth and competitiveness of minority-owned businesses.

The Minority Business Development Act of 2021 was signed into law as part of the

Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. This legislation made MBDA a

permanent federal agency, created a Senate-conﬁrmed Under Secretary position,

and expanded programs and outreach. The Act:

Authorizes the creation of regional oces and rural business centers,

increasing the number and scope of existing grant programs supporting

MBDA business centers;

Mandates grants to minority serving institutions to cultivate future

generations of minority entrepreneurs; and

— 684 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Establishes a Minority Business Advisory Council to advise the Under

Secretary on supporting minority-owned businesses.

MBDA was established in 1969 by President Richard Nixon under Executive

Order 11458

as the Oce of Minority Business Enterprise and the Advisory

Council for Minority Business Enterprise. Its purpose was to strengthen and

preserve minority business enterprises (MBEs) and to coordinate among

MBEs and other groups such as state and local governments and trade asso-

ciations. For over 50 years, the MBDA operated under executive order without

clear congressional authorization, but was regularly recognized and promoted

by every subsequent president, including Presidents Ronald Reagan and

Donald Trump.

MBDA has the appearance, on its face, of perpetuating racial bias by focusing

on minority advancement rather than economic need or other criteria. This is

why the Trump Administration proposed eliminating funding for the agency in

2017. Many conservatives ask why the government is funding this activity, which

often amounts to business and management consulting services oered by private

sector entities. Eventually, the Trump Administration changed course and pro-

posed that MBDA continue to exist as a permanently authorized entity focused

on policy rather than oering services. Despite this change, many conservatives

understandably see MBDA as problematic on a philosophical level.

Nonetheless, Congress has spoken recently on this issue and is unlikely to

change its position in the near term. In 2017, MBEs represented one-third of all

U.S.-owned businesses, with almost 9 million employees, generating $1.7 trillion

for the U.S. economy.

As such, a conservative Administration is best served by

approaching MBDA as a tool to be leveraged in the ﬁght to deliver economic oppor-

tunity to all Americans and to produce an economy centered on equal opportunity,

free markets, innovation, and growth.

Conservative leadership at MBDA should focus the organization on:

Conducting policy analysis on the beneﬁt of free markets, the evils

of socialism and Communism, and the destructive eect of taxes and

regulations on minority businesses;

Ensuring MBDA business centers operate eciently with strict oversight of

funding, clear metrics for success, and consequences for poor performance;

Creating policy-level operational priorities geared toward private sector

action over government action with public–private partnerships serving as a

necessary middle ground;

— 685 —

Department of Commerce

Establishing MBDA as a data and research clearinghouse for minority

business enterprises and policymakers;

Coordinating amongst Cabinet agencies, state and local government, and

trade associations to best leverage resources and encourage growth and

innovation; and

Evaluating the harmful eects of unfair trade practices on minority-owned

businesses and their employees.

U.S. PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Oce carries out a core constitutional man-

date from Section 8, Article 1: “The Congress shall have Power...[t]o promote the

Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors

and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discover-

ies.” Strong intellectual property (IP) protections form the bedrock of American

business and are a key factor in making the U.S. economy the most innovative

in the world. As such, a conservative Administration must constantly work to

strengthen IP rights and combat the incorrect view that strong IP rights some-

how limit innovation.

Political leadership in a new conservative Administration should:

Support like-minded countries as candidates for leadership in the World

Intellectual Property Organization and build strong relationships with

international partners to strengthen intellectual property rights.

Re-examine patent eligibility requirements in Section 101 of the Patent Act

and support internal and/or legislative reforms to enable U.S. leadership

in critical and emerging technologies such as quantum computing, 5G, and

artiﬁcial intelligence.

Take a balanced approach to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and

prioritize rapid and transparent processing of applications and appeals.

Work with Administration partners and Congress to ﬁnd and punish

trademark infringers and counterfeiters.

Oppose eorts to provide intellectual property waivers for cutting-edge

technologies, including for COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics, through

the World Trade Organization’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual

Property Rights agreement or any other mechanism.

— 686 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is charged with promoting

U.S. innovation and competitiveness by “advancing measurement science, standards,

and technology.”

NIST carries out cutting edge research, helps industry establish

standards and best practices, and is the nation’s foremost authority on measurements.

NIST’s atomic clock, for instance, maintains the ocial time of the United States.

An incoming Administration should evaluate the federal government’s civilian

research footprint and consolidate those functions while ensuring that any research

conducted with taxpayer dollars serves the national interest in a concrete way in

line with conservative principles. Beyond this, an incoming Administration should:

Privatize the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership. The

Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) establishes and

manages a network of centers focused on advising small- and medium-sized

manufacturers in order to improve processes and thereby strengthen the

U.S. industrial base. When Congress created the program, MEP centers were

intended to transition to self-sustaining private institutions after using

government funds to begin operations, but the prohibition on long-term

funding was abolished in 1998. MEP’s business advisory services would be

more properly carried out by the private sector. The next Administration

should propose legislation to zero out this $150 million program and fully

privatize existing MEP centers.

Transfer the Baldridge Performance Excellence Program. This

program’s “process” assists companies in improving management and

operations, a function more properly and eectively carried out by the

private sector. This program operates at a cost to taxpayers, despite

thousands of dollars in fees charged to each participating company or entity

and long-term plans to make the program self-sucient. Maintenance and

operation of the program should be entirely handed over to the Baldridge

Award Foundation to be run by non-government sta via fees.

Increase value to taxpayers. NIST should reinvigorate the Technology

Transfer and ROI (return on investment) initiatives begun under the Trump

Administration. These initiatives help speed the process of commercializing

science funded by the federal government.

Reestablish U.S. dominance in international standards. NIST should

explore ways to incentivize broader U.S. participation in standards-setting

bodies and the exclusion of participants from adversaries like China. Standards

are set to facilitate trade in countries that utilize those standards: Countries

— 687 —

Department of Commerce

that do not allow open access to their markets should not be setting the

standards for markets that do allow open access. The incoming Administration

should consider increased government-sponsored participation by private

companies and government employees with relevant expertise.

NATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION SERVICE

The independent National Telecommunications and Information Service

(NTIS) is charged with ensuring that federally funded research and data are

accessible to the public. NTIS operates through user fees but is largely obsolete

due to modern usage of the internet by federal agencies and researchers. NTIS’s

functions should be moved to NIST and consolidated with the Tech Transfer and

ROI initiatives.

NATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND

INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION

The National Telecommunications and Information Agency (NTIA) is the exec

utive branch’s statutory lead on telecommunications and information policy. It

focuses on broadband access, spectrum utilization, and other issues that are crucial

to the high-tech economy. For decades, NTIA has suered from organizational

malaise and will require strong and energetic leadership by political appointees

to implement conservative policies. The next Administration will face the primary

challenge of rapidly deploying 5G without compromising other priorities. Further

recommendations include:

Support free speech and hold big tech accountable. Immediately

conduct a thorough review of federal policy regarding free speech online

and provide policy solutions to address big tech’s censorship of speech.

Utilize new tools to eliminate threats to national security. Fully

implement the Trump Administration’s Information and Communications

Technology and Services (ICTS) Executive Order authorities in a way

that ensures long-term success and the legal viability of this new national

security tool.

Expand utilization of federal spectrum. Begin short term, temporary

leasing of government allocated spectrum to ensure optimum utilization

while preserving federal agency use rights.

Support the commercial space industry. Advocate for licensing decisions

at the Federal Communications Commission that continue to enable U.S.

dominance in the commercial space industry.

— 688 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Defend U.S. interests in international bodies. Strong representation at

the International Telecommunication Union should protect the interests

of both private and government users of spectrum. The U.S. has diering

needs from many other countries, for instance, because of U.S. government

satellites and commercial space industry. NTIA should work with the U.S.

delegation to ensure maximum adoption of the U.S. position.

Set fresh priorities in broadband grant programs. Reevaluate

broadband grant programs and, when possible, establish Administration

priorities in how each grant is structured. First and foremost, widespread

deployment of infrastructure is needed for 5G adoption in rural and exurban

areas, which will be a key factor in future economic competitiveness for

these under-served communities.

Review FirstNet. Evaluate the performance and long-term value

proposition of FirstNet in view of modern technologies that will render

it obsolete.

CONCLUSION

The above policies, strategies, and tactics will set a new Administration on

ﬁrm footing that allows the Department of Commerce to assist the President in

implementing a bold agenda that delivers economic prosperity and strong national

security to the American people. While many of the department’s functions fall

outside the remit of the federal government, its unique authorities in diverse areas

provide critical tools that can and should be brought to bear in implementing a

conservative governing philosophy that keeps Americans safe and provides oppor-

tunity for all.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This chapter includes invaluable input from over a dozen alumni of the Department of

Commerce and numerous other members of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. All contributors to this

chapter are listed at the front of this volume, but James Rockas, Nazak Nikakhtar, Louis Heinzer, Robert Burkett,

Iain Murray, Michael Gonzalez, David Legates, and Kristen Eichamer deserve special recognition. The author alone

assumes responsibility for the content of this chapter, and no views expressed herein should be attributed to any

other individual.

— 689 —

Department of Commerce

ENDNOTES

 Commerce Department Termination and Government Reorganization Act of 1995, S. Rep. 104–164, 104th

Cong., 1st Sess., October 20, 1995; Angela Antonelli, “Five Good Reasons to Close Down The Department

of Commerce,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1181, May 20, 1998, https://www.heritage.org/

budget-and-spending/report/ﬁve-good-reasons-close-down-the-department-commerce; and Competitive

Enterprise Institute, “Shrinking Government Bureaucracy: Reorganizing the Executive Branch to Boost

Economic Growth and Freedom,” August 2017, https://cei.org/shrinking-government-bureaucracy/ (accessed

December 16, 2022).

 News release, “Latest Study of 120 Million Forecasts Proves AccuWeather Forecasts Are More Accurate,”

AccuWeather, January 14, 2020, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/latest-study-of-120-million-

forecasts-proves-accuweather-forecasts-are-most-accurate-300986848.html (accessed December 16, 2022).

 In general, performance-based organizations are established to set forth clear measures of performance,

hold the head of the organization accountable for achieving results, and grant the head of the organization

authority to deviate from government rules if needed to achieve agreed-upon results.

 Federal Register, Vol. 34, No. 45 (March 7, 1969), pp. 4935–4938.

 U.S. Department of Commerce, Minority Business Development Agency, “The History of the MBDA,” https://

www.mbda.gov/about/history (accessed March 15, 2023).

 Ashley Winston, The Contribution of Minority Business Enterprises to the U.S. Economy, U.S. Department

of Commerce, Minority Business Development Agency, September 2021, p. 7, https://www.mbda.gov/sites/

default/ﬁles/2021-09/The%20Contribution%20of%20MBEs%20to%20US%20Economy%20Report%20%20

-%20September%202021.pdf (accessed March 2, 2023).

 35 U.S. Code § 101.

 National Institute of Standards and Technology, “About NIST,” https://www.nist.gov/about-nist (accessed

December 16, 2022).

 Donald J. Trump, “Executive Order on Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services

Supply Chain” Executive Order No. 13873, May 15, 2019, https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-

actions/executive-order-securing-information-communications-technology-services-supply-chain/ (accessed

March 20, 2023).

— 691 —

DEPARTMENT OF

THE TREASURY

William L. Walton,

Stephen Moore,

and David R. Burton

INTRODUCTION

The U.S. Treasury Department has a broad regulatory and policy reach. The

next Administration should make major policy changes to: (1) reduce regulatory

impediments to economic growth that reduce living standards and endanger pros-

perity; (2) reduce regulatory compliance costs that increase prices and cost jobs;

(3) promote ﬁscal responsibility; (4) promote the international competitiveness

of U.S. businesses; and (5) better respect the American people’s due process and

privacy rights.

These goals should be accomplished through: executive action (primar-

ily treasury orders and treasury directives) and departmental reorganization;

rulemakings; promoting constructive policies in Congress; actions in international

organizations; and treaties.

The primary subject matter focus of the incoming Administration’s Treasury

Department should be:

Tax policy and tax administration;

Fiscal responsibility;

Improved ﬁnancial regulation;

Addressing the economic and ﬁnancial aspects of the geopolitical threat

posed by China and other hostile countries;

— 692 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Reform of the anti-money laundering and beneﬁcial ownership

reporting systems;

Reversal of the racist “equity” agenda of the Biden Administration; and

Reversal of the economically destructive and ineective climate-related

ﬁnancial-risk agenda of the Biden Administration.

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TREASURY DEPARTMENT

The Biden Administration Treasury Department has failed badly in achieving

every one of the agency’s core objectives. The ﬁnancial aairs of the nation have

seldom been in worse condition, with the national debt expanding by more than $4

trillion in Biden’s ﬁrst two years in oce. No President in modern times—perhaps

ever—has been more ﬁscally reckless than has the Biden Administration.

The soundness and stability of U.S. currency, the dollar, has been put at risk

because of the worst inﬂation in four decades. American families have been

made poorer by Biden’s economic strategy of taxing, spending, borrowing,

regulating, and printing money. The average family has seen real annual earn-

ings fall about $6,000 during the Biden Administration.

In 2022, the average

American’s 401(k) plan dropped in value from $130,700 to $103,900—more

than 20 percent.

Why has the Biden Administration failed to achieve virtually all components of

its mission? Under the leadership of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the depart-

ment has made “equity” and “climate change” among its top ﬁve priorities. The

next Administration must act decisively to curtail activities that fall outside Trea-

sury’s mandate and primary mission. Treasury must refocus on its core missions

of promoting economic growth, prosperity, and economic stability.

For a clear statement of Treasury’s mission drift, one need look no further

than Secretary Yellen’s introduction in the Treasury Department’s Fiscal Year

2022–2026 Strategic Plan:

We will have to address the structural problems that have plagued our

economy for decades: the decline in labor force participation, income and

racial inequality, and serious underinvestment in crucial public goods like

childcare, education, and physical infrastructure. And then there are rising

challenges, like climate change, which, left unchecked, will undermine every

aspect of our economy from supply chains to the ﬁnancial system.

Treasury’s mission drift into a “woke” agenda, is exempliﬁed in a comparison

of Domestic Finance’s changed responsibilities from 2015 to 2023:

— 693 —

Department of the Treasury

[2015] Domestic Finance works to preserve conﬁdence in the U.S. Treasury

securities market, eectively manage federal ﬁscal operations, strengthen

ﬁnancial institutions and markets, promote access to credit, and improve

ﬁnancial access and education in service of America’s long-term economic

strength and stability.

[2023] Domestic Finance works to support equitable and sustainable

economic growth and ﬁnancial stability through policies to increase the

resilience of ﬁnancial institutions and markets and ﬁnancial wellbeing of

consumers, and to increase access to credit for small businesses and low-to-

moderate income communities.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT ORGANIZATION

The Treasury Department is one of the few executive agencies recognized in

the U.S. Constitution. It states:

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropri-

ations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and

Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

The Treasury Department was established by statute in 1789. Today, it is respon-

sible for ﬁnancing the federal government, promoting economic prosperity, and

ensuring the ﬁnancial security of the United States. In ﬁscal year 2022, Treasury

received discretionary appropriations of approximately $16.4 billion.

It also has

highly variable “mandatory” expenses (COVID-related CARES Act spending,

for example).

In ﬁscal year (FY) 2022, Treasury employed approximately 96,000 full-time

employees, including approximately 81,000 at the Internal Revenue Service

(IRS).

Approximately four-ﬁfths of Treasury’s discretionary funds are used for

IRS operations. The remaining amounts are for its oces, bureaus, and interna-

tional assistance programs.

Treasury is organized into various departmental oces,

seven bureaus,

and

four inspectors general.

Departmental Oces. Departmental oces are composed of divisions headed

by under-secretaries and assistant secretaries who are primarily responsible for

policy formulation and overall management of the Treasury Department.

Domestic Finance is run by the Under Secretary for Domestic Finance, to whom

the assistant secretaries for ﬁnancial markets, ﬁnancial stability, ﬁnancial institu-

tions and the ﬁscal assistant secretary report. Additionally, the Financial Stability

Oversight Council (FSOC) Secretariat and the Oce of Financial Research report

to the Under Secretary for Domestic Finance.

— 694 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI)

was created in 2004 as part of the larger reorganization of the U.S. government to

promote homeland security following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. TFI is charged with

the mission of disrupting international ﬁnancial support for terrorists, weapons of

mass destruction proliferation, narcotics tracking, money laundering, and other

national security threats. It is also responsible for implementing and enforcing

economic sanctions programs and supporting the wider law enforcement commu-

nity in investigating ﬁnancial crimes. It is led by the Under Secretary for Terrorism

and Financial Intelligence.

International Aairs protects and supports U.S. economic prosperity and

national security by working to foster the most favorable external environment for

sustained employment and economic growth in the United States. The most crucial

functions of the Oce of International Aairs relate to managing the U.S.–China

Strategic Dialogue; representing U.S. interests in the World Bank, International

Monetary Fund (IMF) and other multilateral development banks; and overseeing

the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS). It is led by the Under

Secretary for International Aairs.

Tax Policy formulates and develops tax policies and programs and works with

Congress to get them passed into law. It reviews and issues regulations drafted by

attorneys from the IRS’s Oce of Chief Counsel to administer the Internal Reve-

nue Code, negotiates tax information exchange agreements with the tax authorities

of foreign governments, participates in international tax organizations, and pro-

vides economic and legal policy analysis for domestic and international tax policy

decisions. This oce also provides revenue estimates for the President’s budget.

It is led by the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy.

Economic Policy reports on current and prospective economic developments

and assists in the determination of appropriate economic policies. This oce is

responsible for the review and analysis of domestic economic issues and develop-

ments in ﬁnancial markets.

The Treasurer of the United States is a statutory oce that has been assigned

varying duties in recent Administrations. In addition to performing public out

reach, treasurers have at times headed Treasury’s ﬁnancial education program

and overseen the U.S. Mint and Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

Four Inspectors General provide independent audits, investigations, and over-

sight of Treasury and its programs: The Oce of the Inspector General of the

Department of Treasury; Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration;

Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program; and the Special

Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery.

Treasury Bureaus. Seven Treasury Department bureaus comprise 98 percent

of the Treasury work force and are responsible for carrying out speciﬁc operations

assigned to the department.

— 695 —

Department of the Treasury

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau collects federal excise taxes

on alcohol, tobacco, ﬁrearms, and ammunition, and is responsible for enforcing

and administering laws covering the production, use, and distribution of alco-

hol products.

The Internal Revenue Service is the largest of the department’s bureaus, account-

ing for about 85 percent of Treasury’s personnel and about four-ﬁfths of its

appropriated budget. It administers and enforces U.S. tax laws.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing develops and produces U.S. currency notes.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is designed to protect

the ﬁnancial system from illicit use. It also administers the beneﬁcial ownership

reporting regime mandated by the Corporate Transparency Act.

The Bureau of the Fiscal Service provides central payment services to federal

program agencies, operates the U.S. government’s collections and deposit systems,

provides government-wide accounting and reporting services, manages the collec-

tion of delinquent debt owed to the U.S. government, borrows the money needed to

operate the government through the sale of U.S. Treasury securities (including the

state and local government series), and accounts for and services the public debt.

The United States Mint designs and mints U.S. circulating and bullion coins.

The Oce of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) charters, regulates, and

supervises national banks and federal savings associations (thrifts) to ensure that

they operate in a safe and sound manner, provide fair access to ﬁnancial services,

and comply with applicable laws and regulations. The OCC also supervises fed-

eral branches and agencies of foreign banks and has rulemaking authority for all

savings associations.

TAX POLICY

Tax policy has a powerful impact on the economy. The Treasury Department

should develop and promote tax reform legislation that will promote prosperity.

To accomplish this, tax reform should improve incentives to work, save, and invest.

This, in turn, is accomplished primarily by reducing marginal tax rates,

reducing

the cost of capital

and broadening the tax base to eliminate tax-induced economic

distortions by eliminating special-interest tax credits, deductions, and exclusions.

Tax compliance costs will decline precipitously if the tax system is substantially

simpliﬁed.

The Treasury Department should also promote tax competition rather

than supporting an international tax cartel.

Principles of Good Tax Policy. These are the principles governing

good tax policy.

First, the tax system should raise the revenue necessary to fund a limited

government for constitutionally appropriate activities. It should raise this

revenue such that it: (a) applies the least economically destructive forms of

— 696 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

taxation;

(b) has low tax rates on a broad, neutral tax base; (c) minimizes

interference with the operation of the free market and free enterprise; and

(d) minimizes the cost to taxpayers of compliance with and administration

of the tax system.

Second, the tax system should minimize its adverse impact on the family

and the core institutions of civil society.

Third, the tax system should be applied consistently—with special privileges

for none—and respect taxpayer due process and privacy rights.

The current tax system is inconsistent with these principles and needs to be

reformed to promote prosperity, reduce compliance costs, and improve fairness.

The incoming Administration should promote immediate intermediate reforms

to the existing system. It should then pursue fundamental tax reform.

Intermediate Tax Reform. The Treasury should work with Congress to sim-

plify the tax code by enacting a simple two-rate individual tax system of 15 percent

and 30 percent that eliminates most deductions, credits and exclusions. The 30

percent bracket should begin at or near the Social Security wage base to ensure

the combined income and payroll tax structure acts as a nearly ﬂat tax on wage

income beyond the standard deduction. The corporate income tax rate should

be reduced to 18 percent. The corporate income tax is the most damaging tax in

the U.S. tax system, and its primary economic burden falls on workers because

capital is more mobile than labor.

Capital gains and qualiﬁed dividends should

be taxed at 15 percent. Thus, the combined corporate income tax combined with

the capital gains or qualiﬁed dividends tax rate would be roughly equal to the top

individual income tax rate.

The system should allow immediate expensing for

capital expenditures and index capital gains taxes for inﬂation.

In addition, intermediate tax reform should repeal all tax increases that were

passed as part of the Inﬂation Reduction Act,

including the book minimum tax,

the stock buyback excise tax, the coal excise tax, the reinstated Superfund tax, and

excise taxes on drug manufacturers to compel them to comply with Medicare price

controls. The next Administration should also push for legislation to fully repeal

recently passed subsidies in the tax code, including the dozens of credits and tax

breaks for green energy companies in Subtitle D of the Inﬂation Reduction Act.

Universal Savings Accounts. All taxpayers should be allowed to contribute

up to $15,000 (adjusted for inﬂation) of post-tax earnings into Universal Savings

Accounts (USAs). The tax treatment of these accounts would be comparable to

Roth IRAs. USAs should be highly ﬂexible to allow Americans to save and invest as

they see ﬁt, including, for example, investments in a closely held business. Gains

from investments in USAs would be non-taxable and could be withdrawn at any

— 697 —

Department of the Treasury

time for any purpose. This would allow the vast majority of American families to

save and invest without facing a punitive double layer of taxation.

Entrepreneurship. To encourage entrepreneurship, the business loss limita-

tion should be increased to at least $500,000. Businesses should also be allowed to

fully carry forward net operating losses. Extra layers of taxes on investment and

capital should also be eliminated or reduced. The net investment income surtax

and the base erosion anti-abuse tax should be eliminated. The estate and gift tax

should be reduced to no higher than 20 percent, and the 2017 tax bill’s temporary

increase in the exemption amount from $5.5 million to $12.9 million (adjusted

for inﬂation) should be made permanent.

The tax on global intangible low-taxed

income should be reduced to no higher than 12.5 percent, with the 20 percent

haircut on related foreign tax credits reduced or eliminated.

All non-business tax deductions and exemptions that were temporarily sus-

pended by the 2017 tax bill should be permanently repealed, including the bicycle

commuting expense exclusion, non-military moving expense deductions, and the

miscellaneous itemized deductions.

The individual state and local tax deduction,

which was temporarily capped at $10,000, should be fully repealed. Deductions

related to educational expenses should be repealed. Special business tax pref-

erences, such as a special deduction for energy-ecient commercial building

properties, should be eliminated.

Wages vs. Beneﬁts. The current tax code has a strong bias that incentivizes

businesses to oer employees more generous beneﬁts and lower wages. This limits

the freedom of workers and their families to spend their compensation as they

see ﬁt—and it can trap workers in their current jobs due to the jobs’ beneﬁt pack-

ages. Wage income is taxed under the individual income tax and under the payroll

tax. However, most forms of non-wage beneﬁts are wholly exempt from both of

these taxes.

To reduce this tax bias against wages (as opposed to employee beneﬁts), the

next Administration should set a meaningful cap (no higher than $12,000 per year

per full-time equivalent employee—and preferably lower) on untaxed beneﬁts

that employers can claim as deductions. Employee beneﬁt expenses other than

tax-deferred retirement account contributions should count toward the limita-

tion, whether oered to speciﬁc employees or whether the costs relate to a shared

beneﬁt like building gym facilities for employees.

Tax-deferred retirement con-

tributions by employers should not count toward this limitation insofar as they

are fully taxable upon distribution. Only a percentage of Health Savings Accounts

(HSA) contributions (which are not taxed upon withdrawal) should count toward

the limitation.

The limitation on beneﬁt deductions should not be indexed to

increase with inﬂation.

Employers should also be denied deductions for health

insurance and other beneﬁts provided to employee dependents if the dependents

are aged 23 or older.

— 698 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Fundamental Tax Reform. Achieving fundamental tax reform oers the

prospect of a dramatic improvement in American living standards and an equally

dramatic reduction in tax compliance costs. Lobbyists, lawyers, beneﬁt consul-

tants, accountants, and tax preparers would see their incomes decline, however.

The federal income tax system heavily taxes capital and corporate income and

discourages work, savings, and investment.

The public ﬁnance literature is clear that a consumption tax would minimize

government’s distortion of private economic decisions and thus be the least eco-

nomically harmful way to raise federal tax revenues.

There are several forms that

a consumption tax could take, including a national sales tax, a business transfer

tax, a Hall–Rabushka ﬂat tax,

or a cash ﬂow tax.

Supermajority to Raise Taxes. Treasury should support legislation instituting

a three-ﬁfths vote threshold in the U.S. House and the Senate to raise income or

corporate tax rates to create a wall of protection for the new rate structure. Many

states have implemented such a supermajority vote requirement.

Tax Competition. Tax competition between states and countries is a positive

force for liberty and limited government.

The Biden Administration, under the

direction of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, has pushed for a global minimum

corporate tax that would increase taxation and the size of government in the U.S.

and around the world. This attempt to “harmonize” global tax rates is an attempt

to create a global tax cartel to quash tax competition and to increase the tax burden

globally. The U.S. should not outsource its tax policy to international organizations.

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The Organi-

zation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in conjunction with

the European Union, has long tried to end ﬁnancial privacy and impose regulations

on countries with low (or no) income taxes. In fact, on tax, environmental, corpo-

rate governance and employment issues, the OECD has become little more than

a taxpayer-funded left-wing think tank and lobbying organization.

The United

States provides about one-ﬁfth of OECD’s funding.

The U.S. should end its ﬁnan-

cial support and withdraw from the OECD.

TAX ADMINISTRATION

The Internal Revenue Service is a poorly managed, utterly unresponsive and

increasingly politicized agency, and has been for at least two decades. It is time for

meaningful reform to improve the eciency and fairness of tax administration,

better protect taxpayer rights, and achieve greater transparency and accountability.

A substantial number of the problems attributed to the IRS are actually a function

of congressional action that has made the Internal Revenue Code ridiculously

complex, imposed tremendous administrative burdens on both the public and the

IRS, and given massive non-tax missions to the IRS. But the culture, administrative

practices, and management at the IRS need to change.

— 699 —

Department of the Treasury

Doubling the IRS? The Inﬂation Reduction Act contains a radical $80 billion

expansion of the IRS—enough to double the size of its workforce.

Unless Congress

reverses this policy, the IRS will become much more intrusive and impose still

greater costs on the American people.

The Biden Administration has also sought to make the tax system’s adminis-

trative burden much worse in other ways. For example, it has proposed creating a

comprehensive ﬁnancial account information reporting regime that would apply to

all business and personal accounts with more than $600. Banks would be required

to collect the taxpayer identiﬁcation numbers of and ﬁle a revised Form 1099-K

for all aected payees, as well as provide additional information.

This massive

increase in the scope and breadth of information reporting should be unequivo-

cally opposed.

Management. The IRS has approximately 81,000 employees.

Of those, only

two are presidential appointments—the Commissioner and the Chief Counsel.

As a practical matter, it is impossible for these two ocials to overcome bureau-

cratic inertia and to implement policy changes that the IRS bureaucracy wants to

impede. That is why, notwithstanding decades of sound and fury, almost nothing

has changed at the IRS.

For the IRS to change and become more accountable, more transparent, and

better managed, there is a need to increase the number of Presidential appoint-

ments subject to Senate conﬁrmation, and not subject to Senate conﬁrmation, at

the IRS. At the very least, Congress should ensure that the Deputy Commissioner

for Services and Enforcement, the Deputy Commissioner for Operations Support,

the National Taxpayer Advocate, the Commissioner of the Wage and Investment

Division, the Commissioner of the Large Business and International Division,

the Commissioner of the Small Business Self-Employed Division, and the Com-

missioner of the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division are presidential

appointees.

Information Technology. Despite the investment of billions of dollars for at

least two decades, IRS information technology (IT) systems remain deﬁcient.

The IRS inadequately protects taxpayer information, its IT systems do not ade-

quately support operations or taxpayer services, and its matching and detection

algorithms are antiquated.

These problems are not primarily about resources. The IRS has spent approxi-

mately $27 billion on IT during the past decade, with $7 billion of that designated

as “development, modernization and enhancement.“

The problem is one of man-

agement. The bureaucracy is not up to the task, and neither Congress nor a long

line of IRS commissioners has forced changes.

A Deputy Commissioner for Operations Support with strong IT management

skills should be appointed by the IRS Commissioner or the President (once the

position is made a presidential appointment). The various subordinates to the

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Deputy Commissioner should be replaced. A thorough review of IT contracts

should be conducted. The Integrated Modernization Business Plan

should be

systematically reviewed and a version of it cost-eectively implemented. An over-

sight board composed of private sector IT experts should be established and given

the authority to conduct meaningful, contemporaneous oversight.

TAXPAYER RIGHTS AND PRIVACY

Legal protections for taxpayer rights and privacy have improved during the past

three decades, but they remain inadequate.

Congress should do more. For exam-

ple, interest on overpayments should be the same as interest on underpayments

rather than the government receiving a higher rate, the time limit for taxpayers

to sue for damages for improper collection actions should be extended, the juris-

diction of the Tax Court should be expanded, and the tax penalty system should

be reformed by rationalizing the penalty structure and reducing some of the most

punitive penalties.

The Oce of the Taxpayer Advocate was created by Congress to assist taxpay-

ers when the IRS bureaucracy is unresponsive or negligent. About 1.7 percent of

the IRS budget goes to this function.

Each year, the Oce handles more than

250,000 cases, helping taxpayers to deal with the IRS. Each year, it issues nearly

2000 taxpayer assistance orders, a form of administrative injunction, forcing the

rest of the IRS to stop taking unwarranted actions.

Congress should provide the Oce of the Taxpayer Advocate with greater

resources so that it may better assist taxpayers suering from wrongful IRS actions.

The oce should also be strengthened by, among other things:

Ensuring that the National Taxpayer Advocate can make his or her own

personnel decisions to protect its independence;

Ensuring NTA access to ﬁles, meetings, and other information needed to

assist taxpayers or investigate IRS administrative practices;

Requiring the IRS to address the NTA’s comments in ﬁnal rules

and including the NTA in deliberations prior to the release of a

proposed rule; and

Authorizing the NTA to ﬁle amicus briefs independently.

Administrative Burden. In 2021, Americans ﬁled 261 million tax returns and

an astounding 4.7 billion information returns (such as Form W-2s, Form 1098s

and Form 1099s).

Complying with tax law costs Americans more than $400 bil-

lion annually, or about 2 percent of gross domestic product.

Although the IRS

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Department of the Treasury

administers these reporting programs, most of this expense is mandated by Con-

gress, not the IRS.

One of the primary reasons that Congress mandates ever-increasing infor-

mation reporting is that the Treasury Department and the Joint Committee on

Taxation sta almost always overestimate how much revenue will be gained from

still more burdensome information reporting, and they do not estimate or report

private compliance costs. Congress and the Treasury Department must undertake

a serious review of the information reporting regime and reduce the burden on the

public—especially small businesses. Small businesses suer disproportionately

from complexity and administrative burdens. Costs do not increase linearly with

size, so elevated administrative costs have an adverse eect on the competitiveness

of small ﬁrms.

Budget. The operating budget of the IRS should be held constant in real terms.

The resources allocated to the Oce of the Taxpayer Advocate should be increased

by at least 20 percent (about $44 million). The Oce of Equity, Diversity, and

Inclusion should be closed. Provided that IT management is changed; an eective,

well-considered implementation plan is adopted; and serious oversight is put in

place, additional resources dedicated solely to IT modernization may be warranted.

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

The Treasury Department should withdraw from Senate consideration the

Protocol Amending the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax

Matters.

The protocol will lead to substantially more transnational identity theft,

crime, industrial espionage, ﬁnancial fraud, and suppression of political oppo-

nents and religious or ethnic minorities by authoritarian and corrupt governments,

including China, Colombia, Nigeria, and Russia. Unlike the original multilateral

convention, the amended convention is open to all governments—including many

that are either hostile to the United States, have serious corruption problems, or

have inadequate privacy protections. The new Administration should also oppose

the multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of

Financial Account Information.

International organizations such as the OECD, the World Bank, and the Inter-

national Monetary Fund espouse economic theories and policies that are inimical

to American free market and limited government principles. The global elites who

operate the IMF regularly advance higher taxes and big centralized government.

The IMF has intervened in American policy debates—and has even recommended

that the U.S. raise taxes. The IMF’s record of advancing global ﬁnancial stability

has been mixed at best. Its development assistance and lending programs in third-

world countries have more often than not retarded growth rather than advancing it.

The Treasury Department plays an important role in these international

institutions and should force reforms and new policies. The U.S., however, should

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

withdraw from both the World Bank and the IMF and terminate its ﬁnancial con-

tribution to both institutions.

If the U.S. is to provide economic assistance or humanitarian aid to other nations,

it should do so unilaterally—not through the pass-throughs of international aid orga-

nizations, non-governmental organizations, or other nations. These organizations

and countries simply create expensive middle-men, while U.S. funds are intercepted

before being distributed to those in need. Also, these foreign entities have interests

that do not coincide with American national security and economic interests.

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY

Treasury should make balancing the federal budget a mission-critical objective.

The federal budget absorbs enormous resources from the economy, both in money

taken from taxpayers and in money borrowed. The budget should be balanced by

driving down federal spending while maintaining a strong national defense and

not raising taxes.

To reduce interest payments on the debt, Treasury should lock in current rel-

atively low interest rates by issuing longer duration bonds, and even consider

creating a 50-year treasury bill. Most of the federal debt rolls over on average about

every three to four years. But interest rates, even with the latest Federal Reserve

rate increases, are still below the 5 percent historical average. Treasury would thus

save taxpayers money during the next several decades by issuing fewer short-term

notes that will probably have to be rolled over at higher rates in the future.

To promote transparency of ﬁnances, each year Americans should receive a

ﬁnancial statement of the U.S. government alerting citizens of the revenues, expen

ditures, deﬁcit, and debt for the preceding ﬁscal year. The statement should also

include this individual family’s pro-rata share of the debt based on family size.

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS

The Treasury must act more assertively in international ﬁnancial institutions to

protect and advance U.S. national interests—and oppose those that do not. It should

employ a carrot-and-stick approach by increasing its activity and commitment to

those ﬁnancial institutions that are willing and able to adjust to this new approach

and by zeroing out or potentially exiting those institutions that rely on U.S. capital

while advancing agendas that run counter to U.S. interests.

A major emphasis of eecting this change must be the addition of a large

new cadre of U.S. professionals and contractors at these international

ﬁnancial institutions.

The U.S. must insist on the hiring and support of this human capital as a

condition to future funding.

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Department of the Treasury

The U.S. should also examine increasing or decreasing its ownership levels

in these institutions in order to achieve maximum leverage.

CHINA AND OTHER GEOPOLITICAL THREATS

Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The interagency

Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States should realign its priorities

to meet the United States’ current foreign policy threats, especially from China.

On October 20, 2022, the Treasury Department, which chairs CFIUS, adopted

the ﬁrst-ever CFIUS Enforcement and Penalty Guidelines

on the committee’s

national security risk mitigation requirements. However, there are no clear rules

that guide CFIUS on mitigation monitoring, nor is there a published penalty sched-

ule to standardize accountability when CFIUS pursues a civil money penalty for

violators. In addition, Treasury—as chair of the committee—runs an opaque pro

cess that biases committee procedure toward corporate interests and away from

national security interests. Finally, the committee’s jurisdiction does not extend

over greenﬁeld investments that Chinese state-owned enterprises have historically

pursued in the United States, which leaves America vulnerable to an instrument

of Chinese economic statecraft.

Given these issues, the next steps for CFIUS should be to develop a more

coherent—and transparent—mitigation monitoring program to complement the

enforcement guidelines, give CFIUS agencies in charge of national security con-

cerns an equal voice at the table, and petition Congress to amend the law to cover

Chinese greenﬁeld investments.

CFIUS should publish a penalty schedule for violations of CFIUS reporting and

mitigation requirements. Publishing a penalty schedule for CFIUS violations will

reduce the discretion of the committee to waive penalties or impose mere “wrist

slap” costs on violators of the law. Additionally, a standardized penalty schedule

would likely increase the deterrence of CFIUS enforcement by reducing the per-

ception among parties to covered transactions that they can avoid enforcement

by the committee or secure special exceptions based on appeals to the commit-

tee’s discretion.

As a legal matter—and in application by CFIUS—mitigation monitoring has

developed as the Wild West. There are no clear rules that guide the entire com-

mittee on mitigation monitoring, nor is there the same level of oversight or

accountability within and among the agencies as applies when CFIUS reviews

a transaction or when it pursues a civil money penalty. Indeed, it is a credit to

transaction parties and the professionalism of the governmental ocials and con

tractors who conduct mitigation monitoring on behalf of the government that, by

and large, mitigation monitoring has worked adequately during the last several

decades. But dependency on the personality and capabilities of individuals creates

unnecessary risk both for CFIUS and for transaction parties.

— 704 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Congress should make the Department of Defense (DOD) a CFIUS co-chair

with the Department of Treasury. Making DOD an ocial CFIUS co-chair along

with Treasury will establish a balanced committee process by elevating national

security interests to an equal stature. The committee is currently imbalanced

toward the interests of corporate America because Treasury is the sole chair of

CFIUS and, in practice, runs a process that is not fully transparent and which biases

it from the national security interests represented by DOD and the Intelligence

Community (IC).

For example, Treasury representatives will consult with the Commerce Depart-

ment and the United States Trade Representative—which tend to favor permitting

covered transactions to occur with little to no mitigation requirements—and these

representatives will then obscure the results and purposes of such sidebar meet-

ings from DOD and IC representatives. This hampers DOD, IC, and sometimes

even State Department representatives from full participation in the process or

from advocating national security interests as well as they should.

Greenﬁeld Investments. Congress should close the loophole on greenﬁeld

investments and require CFIUS review of investments in U.S.-based greenﬁeld

assets by Chinese-controlled entities to assess any potential harm to U.S. national

and economic security. In the 2018 Foreign Risk and Review Modernization Act

(FIRRMA),

one important category of foreign transactions left out of the bill was

greenﬁeld investments, particularly by Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

Greenﬁeld investments by Chinese SOEs pose a unique threat, and they should be

met with the highest scrutiny by all levels of government.

Greenﬁeld investments result in the control of newly built facilities in the U.S.,

and they were not addressed in FIRRMA primarily because governors and state

governments embrace them. That is understandable; they typically bring the

promise of creating American jobs. However, the goal of such Chinese SOEs is to

siphon assets, technological innovation, and inﬂuence away from U.S. businesses

in order to expand the global presence of the Chinese Communist Party. While the

Chinese government keeps its domestic markets largely insulated from foreign

inﬂuence, it regularly invests in the U.S. and other countries under the “green-

ﬁeld” model. Firms fully owned by China’s Communist regime are increasingly

buying land, building factories, and taking advantage of state and local tax breaks

on American soil.

Treasury should examine creating a school of ﬁnancial warfare jointly with

DOD. If the U.S. is to rely on ﬁnancial weapons, tools, and strategies to prosecute

international defensive and oensive objectives, it must create a specially trained

group of experts dedicated to the study, training, testing, and preparedness of these

deterrents. Recent experience has demonstrated that the U.S. cannot depend on

the rapid development and deployment of untested, academically developed ﬁnan-

cial actions, stratagems, and weapons on an ad hoc basis.

— 705 —

Department of the Treasury

Treasury must also seriously evaluate U.S. foreign direct investment in China.

Particular focus should be paid to investments in CCP or other state-owned enter-

prises, investments that result in technology transfers from the U.S. to China,

investments that enhance China’s military capacity, and investments that pose

risks to critical U.S. supply chains by sourcing critical components or feedstocks

in China. An enhanced reporting system is warranted, and greater legal authority

and restrictions are appropriate.

IMPROVED FINANCIAL REGULATION

One of the priorities of the incoming Administration should be to restructure

the outdated and cumbersome ﬁnancial regulatory system in order to promote

ﬁnancial innovation, improve regulator eciency, reduce regulatory costs, close

regulatory gaps, eliminate regulatory arbitrage, provide clear statutory authority,

consolidate regulatory agencies or reduce the size of government, and increase

transparency.

Merging Functions. The new Administration should establish a more stream-

lined bank and supervision by supporting legislation to merge the Oce of the

Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the

National Credit Union Administration, and the Federal Reserve’s non-monetary

supervisory and regulatory functions.

U.S. banking law remains stuck in the 1930s regarding which functions ﬁnan-

cial companies should perform. It was never a good idea either to restrict banks

to taking deposits and making loans or to prevent investment banks from taking

deposits. Doing so makes markets less stable. All ﬁnancial intermediaries function

by pooling the ﬁnancial resources of those who want to save and funneling them

to others that are willing and able to pay for additional funds. This underlying

principle should guide U.S. ﬁnancial laws.

Policymakers should create new charters for ﬁnancial ﬁrms that eliminate activ-

ity restrictions and reduce regulations in return for straightforward higher equity

or risk-retention standards. Ultimately, these charters would replace government

regulation with competition and market discipline, thereby lowering the risk of

future ﬁnancial crises and improving the ability of individuals to create wealth.

Dodd–Frank Revisions. Congress should repeal Title I, Title II, and Title VIII

of the Dodd–Frank Act.

Title I of Dodd–Frank created the Financial Stability

Oversight Council, a kind of super-regulator tasked with identifying so-called

systemically important ﬁnancial institutions and singling them out for especially

stringent regulation. The problem, of course, is that this process eectively iden-

tiﬁes those ﬁrms regulators believe are “too big to fail.”

Title VIII of Dodd–Frank gives the FSOC similarly broad special-designation

authority for specialized ﬁnancial companies known as ﬁnancial market utilities.

Title II of Dodd–Frank established the controversial provision known as orderly

— 706 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

liquidation authority (OLA), the law’s alternative to bankruptcy for large ﬁnancial

ﬁrms. OLA was based on the faulty premise that large ﬁnancial institutions cannot

fail in a judicial bankruptcy proceeding without causing a ﬁnancial crisis. It gives

such companies access to subsidized funding and creates incentives for manage-

ment to overleverage and expand high-risk investments.

Congress should repeal

each of these provisions to guard against bailouts and too-big-to-fail problems.

Treasury plays a role in funding the conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie

Mac. It should work to end the conservatorships and move toward privatization of

these massive housing ﬁnance agencies. This would restore a sustainable housing

ﬁnance market with a robust private mortgage market that does not rely on explicit

or implicit taxpayer guarantees.

Direct government ownership has worsened the risks that government-spon-

sored enterprises (GSEs) pose to the mortgage market, and stock sales and other

reforms should be pursued. Treasury should take the lead in the next President’s

legislative vision guided by the following principles:

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (both GSEs) must he wound down in an

orderly manner.

The Common Securitization Platform

should be privatized and

broadly available.

Barriers to private investment must be removed to pave the way for a robust

private market.

The missions of the Federal Housing Administration and the Government

National Mortgage Association (“Ginnie Mae“) must he right-sized to serve

a deﬁned mission.

ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING AND BENEFICIAL

OWNERSHIP REPORTING REFORM

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is a relatively small bureau within

the Treasury Department with approximately 285 employees and a FY 2022 budget

of $173 million.

Although FinCEN makes a signiﬁcant contribution to law enforce-

ment eorts, it also does demonstrable, substantial and widespread economic harm

because it: (1) is largely oblivious to those adverse economic eects; (2) conducts

almost no meaningful cost-beneﬁt analysis or retrospective review of regulations;

(3) has been subject to extraordinarily lax oversight by both Congress and the Trea-

sury Department; and (4) demands total transparency by those it regulates but is

itself disturbingly and purposefully opaque. For example, FinCEN no longer issues

an annual report

and no longer publishes cash transaction report (CTR) data.

— 707 —

Department of the Treasury

There were 2 .7 million suspicious activity reports (SARs) ﬁled in 2021.

The

number of CTRs ﬁled were approximately 10 times that number.

In 2014, FinCEN

anti-money laundering/countering the ﬁnancing of terrorism (AML-CFT) rules

cost an estimated $5 billion to $8 billion per year.

Undoubtedly, this cost is now

substantially higher both because of inﬂation and because the rules have become

more onerous.

Yet there is little evidence that this massive expenditure of

resources is doing much good,

and there is no evidence regarding which aspects

of the AML-CFT regime are eective and which are not. The AML-CFT regime is a

major contributing factor causing the decline in the number of small broker-deal-

ers and the decline in the competitiveness of community banks.

Congress must require FinCEN to annually publish data regarding:

The number of SARs ﬁled;

The number of CTRs ﬁled;

The number of AML-CFT prosecutions, disaggregating those in which the

AML-CFT prosecution is stand-alone and in which the prosecution is an

add-on count connected to other predicate crime;

The number of AML-CFT convictions (similarly disaggregated);

The number and aggregate amount of AML-CFT ﬁnes imposed and the type

of institution upon which the ﬁne was imposed; and

Annual estimates of the aggregate costs imposed on private entities by the

AML-CFT regime.

Without this data, it is impossible for policymakers to make an informed judg-

ment about the eectiveness of the AML-CFT regime. Congress should also require

both FinCEN and the Government Accountability Oce to undertake separate

evaluations regarding which aspects of the AML-CFT regime are eective and

which are not. FinCEN should be required to undertake a thorough retrospec-

tive review of its regulations and various statutory requirements and report to

Congress on its ﬁndings in a publicly available report. Anecdotes and assurances

from FinCEN sta that all is well—but that even more onerous requirements are

needed—are not enough.

Congress should repeal the Corporate Transparency Act, and FinCEN should

withdraw its poorly written and overbroad beneﬁcial ownership reporting rule.

Both are targeted at the smallest businesses in the U.S. (those with 20 or fewer

employees) and will do nothing material to impede criminal ﬁnance.

The FinCEN

— 708 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

beneﬁcial ownership reporting rule will impose costs exceeding $1 billion annu-

ally and is exceedingly poorly drafted.

FinCEN itself estimates that more than

33 million businesses will be aected and that costs will be $547 million to $8.1

billion annually.

THE “EQUITY” AGENDA

Under the Biden Administration, the Treasury Department has appointed a

Counselor for Racial Equity, established an Advisory Committee on Racial Equity,

and created an oce for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility. All these

should be eliminated. Treasury has created several new oces to promote “equity”

and has made this its ﬁrst of ﬁve strategic goals in its Fiscal Year 2022–2226

Strategic Plan. “Equity” is identiﬁed as a cross-cutting theme in 15 of 19 of the

plan’s objectives.

The avowed purpose of these initiatives is to implement policies that delib-

erately favor some races or ethnicities over others. The casual acceptance and

rapid spread of racist policymaking in the federal government must be forcefully

opposed and reversed. The next conservative Administration should take arma-

tive steps to expose and eradicate the practice of critical race theory and diversity,

equity, and inclusion (DEI) throughout the Treasury Department.

These steps will include:

Identify every Treasury ocial who participated in DEI initiatives and

interview him or her for the purpose of determining the scope and nature of

these initiatives and to ensure that such initiatives are completely ended.

Make public immediately all communications relating to the work of the

Treasury’s critical race theory and DEI initiatives.

Treat the participation in any critical race theory or DEI initiative,

without objecting on constitutional or moral grounds, as per se grounds for

termination of employment.

Expose and make public all training materials and initiatives designed to

single out any race, ethnicity, or sex for special treatment.

The Administration should eliminate the 25-member Treasury Advisory Com-

mittee on Racial Equity.

CLIMATE-RELATED FINANCIAL RISK

Treasury has created a new departmental oce, “Climate Hub,” and has made

“combating climate change” one of the Biden Treasury Department’s top ﬁve

— 709 —

Department of the Treasury

principal goals. The next Administration should eliminate the Climate Hub Oce

and withdraw from climate change agreements that are inimical to the prosperity

of the United States.

The Climate Hub oce “coordinates Treasury’s work to inform, guide, incen-

tivize, and mobilize ﬁnancial ﬂows for climate mitigation and climate adaptation

and supports the broader alignment of the ﬁnancial system with a path to net-

zero emissions by mid-century.“

According to the Biden Administration’s Fiscal

Year 2022–2026 Strategic Plan for Treasury, the fourth of ﬁve Treasury strategic

goals reads:

Combat Climate Change

The United States and the world face a climate crisis and a narrowing

window of action to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. At the same

time, the transition to a low carbon economy represents a historic economic

opportunity for the U.S. and global economy. The U.S. federal government

must work alongside our domestic and international partners to respond

ambitiously to tackle the challenges of climate change, adapt to an already

changing climate, mitigate the risks, and position the global economy for

clean and sustainable growth.

Yet history shows that economic growth and technological/scientiﬁc advance

through human ingenuity are by far the best ways to prevent and mitigate extreme

weather events. Moreover, virtually all of the initiatives that the Biden Administra-

tion has adopted would, even if successful, have a de minimis impact on changing

global weather patterns, in part because most nations—notably China—are not

cooperating with climate summits and international agreements. Virtually all

nations, for example, that signed the Paris Agreement

have not met their treaty

obligations. Such routinely violated treaties weaken the U.S. economy with no o-

setting societal beneﬁts. To that end, the next conservative Administration should

withdraw the U.S. from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change

and

the Paris Agreement.

The next Administration should use Treasury’s tools and authority to promote

investment in domestic energy, including oil and gas. It should reverse support for

international public- (and private-) based eorts promoting Environmental, Social,

and Governance

and Principles for Responsible Investment,

both of which have

badly damaged U.S. energy security.

OTHER REFORMS

U.S. Coast Guard and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and

Explosives. Congress should examine whether to return the Treasury’s former

— 710 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

in-house law enforcement capabilities via the return of the United States Coast

Guard and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Bringing

these agencies back from the Department of Homeland Security and the Depart-

ment of Justice, respectively, would allow Treasury, in the case of U.S. Coast Guard,

to increase border security via a vigilance with respect to economic crimes (for

example, drug smuggling and tax evasion).

U.S. Trade and Development Agency. Congress should eliminate the U.S.

Trade and Development Agency (USTDA). The USTDA is intended to help com-

panies create U.S. jobs through the export of U.S. goods and services for priority

development projects in emerging economies. The USTDA links U.S. businesses

to export opportunities by funding project planning activities, pilot projects, and

reverse-trade missions while creating sustainable infrastructure and economic

growth in partner countries.

These activities more properly belong to the private sector. The best way to

promote trade and development is to reduce tari and non-tari trade barriers.

Another way is to reduce the federal budget deﬁcit, and thereby federal borrowing

from abroad, freeing more foreign dollars to be spent on U.S. exports instead of

federal treasury bonds.

Other Issues. Many Treasury Department issues cut across multiple parts of

Treasury or other governmental agencies. Several are discussed in this chapter,

but not all can be covered here in depth. Other issues of concern include China,

cybersecurity, digital assets, digital services taxes, international debt defaults, Iran,

Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds and private sector pensions, sanctions

policy, and treasury auction and debt issuance.

AUTHORS’ NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in the

2025 Presidential Transition Project. All contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume, but Monica

Crowley, Tom Dans, John Berlau, Austin Bramwell, Preston Brashers, Alexandra Harrison Gaiser, Nathan Hitchen,

Adam Korzeniewski, and Jonathan Moy deserve special mention. The authors alone assume responsibility for the

content of this chapter, and no views expressed herein should be attributed to any other individual.

— 711 —

Department of the Treasury

ENDNOTES

 EJ Antoni, “Biden Keeps Making Claims About the Economy That Just Aren’t True. These Facts Don’t Lie,”

Heritage Foundation Commentary, February 8, 2023, https://www.heritage.org/markets-and-ﬁnance/

commentary/biden-keeps-making-claims-about-the-economy-just-arent-true-these.

 “Fidelity 2022 Retirement Analysis: In the Midst of Inﬂation and Uncertainty, Retirement Account Balances

Are Rising,” table, “Average Retirement Account Balances,” February 23, 2023, https://newsroom.ﬁdelity.com/

pressreleases/ﬁdelity--2022-retirement-analysis--in-the-midst-of-inﬂation-and-uncertainty--retirement-

account-ba/s/095bb4a8-cf3a-484e-a911-bc0c61c460 (accessed March 22, 2023).

 See U.S. Department of the Treasury, Fiscal Year 2022–2026 Strategic Plan and Budget Request for FY 2023,

2022, https://home.treasury.gov/system/ﬁles/266/COMBINED-CJ-Web-Version-FY-2023.pdf (accessed

March 18, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Treasury, Agency Financial Report: Fiscal Year 2015, November 16, 2015, p.4 https://

home.treasury.gov/system/ﬁles/266/AFR-FY15-508.pdf (accessed March 19, 2023).

 Domestic Finance, U.S. Department of the Treasury https://home.treasury.gov/about/oces/domestic-ﬁnance.

 U.S. Constitution, art. I, sec. 9.

 Ibid., p. ES 1.

 Including direct and reimbursable employees. See ibid., “Fiscal Year Comparison of Full-Time Equivalent (FTE)

Stang (Direct and Reimbursable),” p. ES 4.

 U.S. Department of the Treasury, “Oces,” https://home.treasury.gov/about/oces (accessed March 18, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Treasury, “Bureaus,” https://home.treasury.gov/about/bureaus (accessed

March 18, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Treasury, Oce of the Inspector General, “Overview,” https://oig.treasury.gov

(accessed March 19, 2023).

 William M (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, Public Law 116–283,

§§ 6001–6511.

 See, for example, Timothy Vermeer, “The Impact of Individual Income Tax Changes on Economic Growth,” Tax

Foundation Fiscal Fact No. 793, June 2022, https://ﬁles.taxfoundation.org/20220610142519/The-Impact-of-

Individual-Income-Tax-Changes-on-Economic-Growth-2.pdf (accessed March 18, 2023), and Karel Mertens

and José Luis Montiel Olea, “Marginal Tax Rates and Income: New Time Series Evidence,” Quarterly Journal of

Economics, Vol. 133, No. 4 (November 2018), pp. 1803–1884.

 The current tax system is not neutral toward investment. This neutrality criterion is sometimes expressed as

ensuring that the private rate of return equals the social rate of return, that the tax system does not raise the

user cost of capital, that all factor incomes are taxed once and equally, that the tax system deﬁnes income

properly, or that the tax is a consumption tax. For the basic user cost of capital analysis with taxes, see Robert

E. Hall and Dale W. Jorgenson, “Tax Policy and Investment Behavior,” American Economic Review, Vol. 57, No.

3 (June, 1967), pp. 391–414, https://web.stanford.edu/~rehall/Tax-Policy-AER-June-1967.pdf (accessed March

19, 2023). See also Kevin A. Hassett and Kathryn Newmark, “Taxation and Business Behavior: A Review of the

Recent Literature,” in John W. Diamond and George R. Zodrow, eds., Fundamental Tax Reform: Issues, Choices,

and Implications (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), and Alan J. Auerbach, “Taxation and Capital Spending,”

University of California, Berkeley, September 2005, http://eml.berkeley.edu//~auerbach/capitalspending.pdf

(accessed March 19, 2023).

 Scott A. Hodge, “The Compliance Costs of IRS Regulations,” Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact No. 512, June 2016,

https://ﬁles.taxfoundation.org/legacy/docs/TaxFoundation_FF512.pdf (accessed March 19, 2023), and Jason J.

Fichtner and Jacob M. Feldman, “The Hidden Costs of Tax Compliance,” Mercatus Center, May 20, 2013, https://

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2267971 (accessed March 19, 2023).

 In formal terms, tax policy should seek to minimize the excess burden or deadweight loss of the tax system.

See John Creedy, “The Excess Burden of Taxation and Why it (Approximately) Quadruples When the Tax

Rate Doubles,” New Zealand Treasury Working Paper No. 03/29, December 2003, https://www.econstor.eu/

bitstream/10419/205534/1/twp2003-29.pdf (accessed March 19, 2023). See also, for example, N. Gregory

Mankiw, Principles of Economics, 4th ed. (South-Western College Pub, 2006), ch. 8, or many other textbooks

on price theory, microeconomics, or principles of economics.

— 712 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 For a detailed discussion, see David R. Burton, “Tax Reform: Eliminating the Double Taxation of Corporate

Income,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3216, May 18, 2017, https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/

ﬁles/2017-05/BG3216.pdf.

 One hundred dollars in corporate income less an 18 percent tax leaves $82. A 15 percent capital gains tax or

qualiﬁed dividends tax is $12.30, which leaves $69.70, for an eective marginal tax rate of 30 percent. This, of

course, abstracts away from certain timing issues.

 Inﬂation Reduction Act, Public Law 117–169.

 Ibid.

 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Public Law 115–97, § 11061, amending Internal Revenue Code § 2010(c). The amounts

before inﬂation adjustments are $5 million and $10 million, respectively. See also Internal Revenue Service,

“What’s New: Estate and Gift Tax, Basic Exclusion Amount for Year of Death,” https://www.irs.gov/businesses/

small-businesses-self-employed/whats-new-estate-and-gift-tax (accessed March 22, 2023).

 The eective tax rate on foreign-derived intangible income should remain equal to the tax rate on global

intangible low-taxed income.

 For miscellaneous itemized deductions, see Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S. Code § 67). Business deductions

that were suspended by the 2017 tax bill (other than those related to depreciation) should also be extended.

This includes the local lodging expense deduction and entertainment expense deductions. The 2017 tax bill’s

modiﬁcations to the deduction for personal casualty and theft losses should be made permanent. The Pease

limitation on itemized deductions should be permanently eliminated.

 Bonus depreciation provisions applied to speciﬁc industries should be maintained.

 Employer-provided childcare expenses should also count toward the limitation on beneﬁt deductions.

 HSAs are ﬂexible and portable, and they help contain costs by giving health care consumers skin in the game.

 For additional revenue to fund pro-growth tax cuts, lawmakers could gradually phase down the limitation on

beneﬁt deductions.

 Early versions of the 2017 tax bill envisioned reforming the corporate income tax into a destination-based

cash ﬂow tax, a form of consumption tax. A tax system that taxes labor and capital-factor incomes equally—

and only once—results in higher output and higher incomes. Usually, in the modern public ﬁnance literature,

this is called a consumption tax. On the economic superiority of consumptions taxes, see N. Gregory Mankiw

et al., “Optimal Taxation in Theory and Practice,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 23, No. 4 (2009), pp.

147–174, https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.23.4.147 (accessed March 19, 2023); Alan J. Auerbach,

“The Choice Between Income and Consumption Taxes: A Primer,” NBER Working Paper No. 12307, June 2006,

https://www.nber.org/system/ﬁles/working_papers/w12307/w12307.pdf (accessed March 19, 2023); and

Charles E. Walker and Mark A. Bloom eld, eds., The Consumption Tax: A Better Alternative? (Cambridge, MA:

Harper and Row, Ballinger, 1987).

 Hoover Institution, “Simplifying the Tax System: The History of the Flat Tax,” March 1, 2019, https://www.

hoover.org/research/simplifying-tax-system-history-ﬂat-tax (accessed March 20, 2023).

 David R. Burton, “Four Conservative Tax Plans with Equivalent Economic Results,” Heritage Foundation

Backgrounder No. 2978, December 7, 2022, https://www.heritage.org/taxes/report/four-conservative-tax-

plans-equivalent-economic-results. Consumption tax plans generally include carveouts that exempt very

low-income Americans from federal tax liability.

 Daniel J. Mitchell and Chris Edwards, Global Tax Revolution: The Rise of Tax Competition and the Battle to

Defend It (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2008); Preston Brashers, “Like Constitutional Checks and Balances,

Tax Competition Is a Bulwark Against Growth of Government,” March 17, 2022, https://www.heritage.org/

taxes/commentary/constitutional-checks-and-balances-tax-competition-bulwark-against-growth (accessed

March 19, 2023).

 James M. Robers et al., “Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD): What America

Should Do,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3593, March 16, 2021, https://www.heritage.org/

sites/default/ﬁles/2021-03/BG3593.pdf; Preston Brashers. “The OECD Crusade To Raise Taxes,” Heritage

Foundation Commentary, February 4, 2022, https://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/the-oecd-crusade-

raise-taxes; David Burton, “How the OECD is Promoting More Identity Theft, Crime, Industrial Espionage, and

Suppression of Political Dissidents,” July 15, 2016, Heritage Foundation Commentary, https://www.heritage.

org/taxes/commentary/how-the-oecd-promoting-more-identity-theft-crime-industrial-espionage-and;

— 713 —

Department of the Treasury

David R. Burton “Towards a Global Tax Cartel?” Policy, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Summer 2002–2003), Center for

Independent Studies (Australia), https://www.cis.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/images/stories/policy-

magazine/2002-summer/2002-18-4-david-r-burton.pdf (accessed March 19, 2023).

 Roberts et al., “Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).”

 See Inﬂation Reduction Act, § 10301. See also Preston Brashers, “IRS and Allies Downplay 87,000-Person

Hiring Binge,” The Daily Signal, August 12, 2022, https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/08/12/the-irs-and-its-

allies-downplay-87000-person-hiring-binge/ (accessed March 19, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Treasury, General Explanations of the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2022 Revenue

Proposals, May 2021, pp. 88–89, https://home.treasury.gov/system/ﬁles/131/General-Explanations-FY2022.pdf

(accessed March 19. 2023).

 See U.S. Department of the Treasury, Fiscal Year 2022–2026 Strategic Plan.

 U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Reform, Policy and Supporting Positions,

December 2020 (the “plumb book”), p. 127 https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-PLUMBOOK-2020/

pdf/GPO-PLUMBOOK-2020.pdf (accessed March 19, 2023).

 Internal Revenue Service, “Organization and Top Ocials,” https://www.irs.gov/pub/newsroom/marketing/

internet/irs-organization-chart.pdf (accessed March 19, 2023). See also Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S. Code §

7803(a)–(b)).

 For a summary of various GAO reports on various IRS IT problems, see Vijay A. D’Souza, “Information

Technology: IRS Needs to Address Operational Challenges and Opportunities to Improve Management,”

testimony before the Subcommittee on Government Operations, Committee on Oversight and Reform,

U.S. House of Representatives, October 7, 2020, GAO–21–178T, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-178t.

pdf (accessed March 19, 2023). Charles O. Rossotti was named IRS Commissioner by President Bill Clinton

primarily so that Rossotti could address widely acknowledged IT issues. He made some improvements

between 1997 and 2002, but despite large investments, he did not really resolve the IT problems at the IRS.

Since that time, the problems have worsened.

 D’Souza, “Information Technology,” ﬁgure 1, p. 5.

 Internal Revenue Service, IRS Integrated Modernization Business Plan, April 2019, https://www.irs.gov/pub/

irs-pdf/p5336.pdf (accessed March 20, 2023).

 See, for example, the Omnibus Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights, Public Law 100–647, Subtitle J of Title VI of

the Technical and Miscellaneous Revenue Act of 1988; Taxpayer Bill of Rights 2, Public Law 104–168; IRS

Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, Public Law 105–206, Title III; Consolidated Appropriations Act, Public

Law 114–113, Title IV, Subtitle A (adding Internal Revenue Code § 7803(a)(3) and other changes); and Taxpayer

First Act, Public Law 116–25, Title I.

 For a list of 68 proposed reforms, see National Taxpayer Advocate, 2022 Purple Book: Compilation of

Legislative Recommendations to Strengthen Taxpayer Rights and Improve Tax Administration, December 31,

2021, https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ARC21_PurpleBook.pdf (accessed

March 19, 2023). Most, though not all, of these proposals have merit. Regarding penalty reform, see Jeremiah

Coder, “Achieving Meaningful Civil Tax Penalty Reform and Making It Stick,” Akron Tax Journal, Vol. 27 (2012),

https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1153&context=akrontaxjournal (accessed

March 19, 2023).

 Internal Revenue Service, 2023 Congressional Budget Justiﬁcation & Annual Performance Report and

Plan, Rev. 3–2022, https://home.treasury.gov/system/ﬁles/266/Internal-Revenue-Service-FY-2023-CJ.pdf

(accessed March 19, 2023).

 Internal Revenue Service, 2021 IRS Data Book: October 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021, table 11, p. 26, https://

www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p55b.pdf (accessed March 19, 2023).

 Ibid., 2021 IRS Data Book, table 2, p. 4.

 Scott A. Hodge, “The Compliance Costs of IRS Regulations, Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact No. 512, June 2016

https://ﬁles.taxfoundation.org/legacy/docs/TaxFoundation_FF512.pdf (accessed March 19, 2023).

 Organization for Economic Cooperation, The Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance

in Tax Matters: Amended by the 2010 Protocol, https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/taxation/the-multilateral-

convention-on-mutual-administrative-assistance-in-tax-matters_9789264115606-en#page1 (accessed

March 20, 2023).

— 714 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 David Burton, “Two Little Known Tax Treaties Will Lead to Substantially More Identity Theft, Crime, Industrial

Espionage, and Suppression of Political Dissidents,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3087, December

21, 2015 ﬁle:///C:/Users/DRBar/Downloads/BG3087-3.pdf.

 U.S. Department of the Treasury, “CFIUS Enforcement and Penalty Guidelines,” https://home.treasury.

gov/policy-issues/international/the-committee-on-foreign-investment-in-the-united-states-cﬁus/cﬁus-

enforcement-and-penalty-guidelines (accessed March 20, 2023).

 John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019, Public Law 115–232. Title XVII, https://

home.treasury.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/2018-08/The-Foreign-Investment-Risk-Review-Modernization-Act-of-

2018-FIRRMA_0.pdf (accessed March 20, 2023).

 Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Public Law 111–203.

 Peter J. Wallison, “Title I and the Financial Stability Oversight Council,” in Norbert Michel, ed., The Case

Against Dodd–Frank: How the “Consumer Protection” Law Endangers Americans, https://www.heritage.org/

government-regulation/report/the-case-against-dodd-frank-how-the-consumer-protection-law-endangers.

 Norbert J. Michel, “Fixing the Dodd–Frank Derivatives Mess: Repealing Titles VII and VIII,” in Norbert Michel,

ed., The Case Against Dodd–Frank: How the “Consumer Protection” Law Endangers Americans, Heritage

Foundation, https://www.heritage.org/government-regulation/report/the-case-against-dodd-frank-how-the-

consumer-protection-law-endangers.

 Paul Kupiec, “Title II: Is Orderly Liquidation Authority Necessary to Fix ‘Too Big to Fail’?” in Michel, The Case

Against Dodd–Frank.

 Norbert J. Michel, “Money and Banking Provisions in the Financial CHOICE Act: A Major Step in the Right

Direction,” in Prosperity Unleashed: Smarter Financial Regulation (Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation,

2017), https://www.heritage.org/prosperity-unleashed#:~:text=Smarter%20ﬁnancial%20regulations%3A%20

solutions%20to,and%20accountable%20than%20ever%20before.

 Federal Housing Finance Agency, “Single Security Initiative and Common Securitization Platform,” https://

www.fhfa.gov/PolicyProgramsResearch/Policy/Pages/Securitization-Infrastructure.aspx (accessed

March 20, 2023).

 U.S. Department of the Treasury, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Congressional Budget Justiﬁcation

and Annual Performance Plan and Report, FY 2023, Table 1.1, p. 3, https://home.treasury.gov/system/

ﬁles/266/13.-FinCEN-FY-2023-CJ.pdf (accessed March 19, 2023).

 See Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, “Annual Report,” https://www.ﬁncen.gov/annual-report (accessed

March 19, 2023).

 Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, “Suspicious Activity Report Statistics (SAR Stats),” https://www.ﬁncen.

gov/reports/sar-stats (accessed March 19, 2023).

 David R. Burton and Norbert J. Michel, “Financial Privacy in a Free Society,” Heritage Foundation

Backgrounder No. 3157, September 23, 2016, table 1, p. 10, http://thf-reports.s3.amazonaws.

com/2016/BG3157.pdf.

 Ibid., table 2, p. 11.

 A recent report showed that just 14 surveyed ﬁnancial institutions spent $2.4 billion on AML/CFT compliance.

Bank Policy Institute, “Getting to Eectiveness: Report on U.S. Financial Institution Resources Devoted to

BSA/AML & Sanctions Compliance,” October 29, 2018, p. 4, https://bpi.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/

BPI_AML_Sanctions_Study_vF.pdf (accessed March 19, 2023).

 Burton and Michel, “Financial Privacy in a Free Society;” Norbert J. Michel and Jennifer J. Schulp, “Revising

the Bank Secrecy Act to Protect Privacy and Deter Criminals,” Cato Institute Policy Analysis No. 932, July 26,

2022 , https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/ﬁles/2022-07/PA_932_2.pdf (accessed March 19, 2023); Michael

Levi and Peter Reuter, “Money Laundering,” Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, Vol. 34 (2006); and

Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, “The Tenuous Relationship between the Fight Against Money Laundering and

the Disruption of Criminal Finance,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 93, No. 2 (Winter 2003)

https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7123&context=jclc (accessed

March 19, 2023).

 This would be in cooperation with the IRS because Form 8300 is a joint IRS-FinCEN endeavor.

 This data, as well as AML-CFT convictions, would published be in cooperation with the U.S.

Department of Justice.

— 715 —

Department of the Treasury

 On banks, credit unions, broker-dealers, and other ﬁnancial institutions as normally understood, but note that

31 U.S. Code §5312(a)(2) also deﬁnes “ﬁnancial institutions” to include money service businesses; insurance

companies; jewelers; pawnbrokers; travel agencies; dealers in automobiles, airplanes, and boats; persons

involved in real estate closings and settlements; casinos; and telegraph companies.

 David R. Burton, “The Corporate Transparency Act and the ILLICIT CASH Act,” Heritage Foundation

Backgrounder No. 3449, November 7, 2019, https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/ﬁles/2019-11/BG3449_0.

pdf, and David R. Burton to AnnaLou Tirol, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, “Re: Beneﬁcial Ownership

Information Reporting Requirements,” Comment, May 5, 2021 http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2022/

Regulatory_Comments/FINCEN-2021-0005-0132_attachment_1.pdf (accessed March 19, 2023).

 Burton comment, ibid.

 Federal Register, Vol. 87, No. 189, September 30, 2022, pp. 59498–59596.

 U.S. Department of the Treasury, Fiscal Year 2022–2026 Strategic Plan.

 Ibid.

 United Nations, “Paris Agreement,” 2015, https://unfccc.int/ﬁles/essential_background/convention/

application/pdf/english_paris_agreement.pdf (accessed March 20, 2023).

 United Nations, “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,” GE.5–62220, 1992, https://unfccc.

int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf (accessed March 20, 2023).

 “What Is ESG?” ESG Hurts, https://esghurts.com/ (accessed March 22, 2023), and Samuel Gregg, “Why

Business Should Dispense with ESG,” American Institute for Economic Research, December 4, 2022, https://

www.aier.org/article/why-business-should-dispense-with-esg/ (accessed March 22, 2023).

 PRI Association, “What are the Principles for Responsible Investment?” https://www.unpri.org/about-us/

what-are-the-principles-for-responsible-investment (accessed March 22, 2023). The PRI Association is a U.N.-

aliated non-governmental organization. See also PRI Association, “Articles of Association of PRI Association,”

Art. 9, November 14, 2016, https://d8g8t13e9vf2o.cloudfront.net/Uploads/g/e/r/2016-11-14-Articles-of-

Association-of-PRI-Association-.pdf (accessed March 22, 2023).

— 717 —

EXPORT–IMPORT BANK

THE EXPORT–IMPORT BANK SHOULD BE ABOLISHED

Veronique de Rugy

he Export–Import Bank of the United States (EXIM or the Bank) is a federal

agency that was established in 1934 to provide export subsidies through tax-

payer-backed ﬁnancing to private exporting corporations, as well as to foreign

companies buying U.S. exports, with the ostensible purpose of promoting American

exports, creating jobs, supporting small businesses, improving U.S. competitive-

ness, and protecting U.S. taxpayers.

In 1986, David Stockman, who served as Director of the Oce of Management

and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, wrote that:

Export subsidies are a mercantilist illusion, based on the illogical proposition

that a nation can raise its employment and GNP by giving away its goods for

less than what it costs to make them.… Export subsidies subtract from GNP

and jobs, not expand them…. Moreover, in 1981, the EXIM’s practice was to

bestow about two thirds of its subsidies on a handful of giant manufacturers,

including Boeing aircraft, General Electric, and Westinghouse.

Since then, very little has changed. EXIM operates in eect as a protectionist

agency that picks winners and losers in the market by providing political privi-

leges to ﬁrms that are already well-ﬁnanced. By doing so, it risks taxpayer funds

as it stymies economic growth. This reality is not altered by the argument that the

Bank could be a weapon to ﬁght China—an argument that rests on a misguided

— 718 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

understanding of what competitiveness is and how it is achieved and maintained.

The Bank should be abolished.

BACKGROUND

The Export–Import Bank was created in 1934 as an export credit agency (ECA)

to ﬁnance trade with the Soviet Union. It was reorganized as an independent gov-

ernment agency in 1945. President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 6581

gave it “the power to aid in ﬁnancing and to facilitate exports and imports and

the exchange of commodities between the United States and other Nations or the

agencies and nationals thereof” to create jobs in the United States.

EXIM has four main tools with which to pursue these goals: loan guarantees,

working capital guarantees, direct loans, and export-credit insurance. Importantly,

for four years starting at the end of 2015, the Bank became incapacitated. Lacking

a quorum for its board of directors, it could not extend ﬁnancing that exceeded $10

million per project. That put an end to about 85 percent of the Bank’s ﬁnancing

obligations. As the numbers below show, the Bank hasn’t yet recovered from that

long interruption.

Total Bank authorizations in recent years have gone from $12.6 billion in ﬁscal

year (FY) 2007

to $21.5 billion in FY 2014

to $5.2 billion in FY 2022.

A better

way to understand these numbers is to look at the amount of ﬁnancial exposure

the Bank has—that is, the risk the Bank takes for which taxpayers are ultimately

responsible. During this same period, the Bank’s total exposure increased from

$57.42 billion in FY 2007

to $112.1 billion in FY 2014

and then fell to $41.3 billion

in FY 2021

and $35.4 billion in FY 2022.

CLAIMS VS. THE FACTS

Supporters of EXIM make many claims about the beneﬁts that our nation and

citizens derive from having an Export Credit Agency. These claims, however, are

not supported by the facts.

The Bank is an example of government-granted privilege. Traditionally,

one of EXIM’s top 10 domestic beneﬁciaries is Boeing, which at a 40 percent share

of total loan authorizations dwarfs the 25 percent share for all small businesses that

received EXIM’s services combined.

On the foreign side, things are not much dif-

ferent: The subsidized ﬁnancing largely beneﬁts very large companies like Mexico’s

Pemex, Ireland’s Ryanair, and Emirates Airlines that either collect massive subsi-

dies as state-controlled entities or could easily access private ﬁnancing.

American

businesses that lack political connections are put at a competitive disadvantage by

their own government because they are forced to compete against both domestic

and foreign businesses that enjoy access to subsidized loans.

The Bank does not maintain or create jobs. EXIM’s supporters point to the

numbers of new jobs that they claim have been created through federal spending,

— 719 —

Export-Import Bank

but the unseen eects are ignored. For example, funding for one industry or ﬁrm

might take more jobs away from other industries and ﬁrms, resulting in a net job

loss even though jobs are created for the ﬁnanced ﬁrm. At best, it could be said that

the Bank redistributes employment from unsubsidized ﬁrms to subsidized ﬁrms.

However, with very rare exceptions, most exports ﬁnanced by EXIM would

have taken place without government support. Many companies have said so

themselves;

the procurement happens before the decision to get government

support; and, as noted above, most EXIM deals go to large companies with easy

access to capital. Thus, the agency is taking credit for jobs that would have existed

in any event.

The Bank does not promote exports. EXIM presidents commonly claim

that the agency’s mission is to support U.S. jobs by facilitating American exports

through its export-ﬁnancing tools. However, trade economists have long known

that export credit subsidies merely redistribute exporting opportunities to subsi-

dized ﬁrms instead of increasing the net number of exports—something that also

slows economic growth.

Even more telling is the performance of the U.S. economy and American exports

during the four years when EXIM lacked a board quorum (2015–2019) and was

barred from ﬁnalizing deals in excess of $10 million. During that time, EXIM autho-

rizations fell from $21 billion in FY 2014 to $3.6 billion in FY 2018 (adjusted for

inﬂation).

However, also during that time, regular big-ticket EXIM beneﬁciaries

continued to beneﬁt from their easy access to capital markets and still had the

ability to ﬁnance their export activities.

Further, U.S. exports were utterly unaected by the reductions in the Bank’s

activities.

U.S. unemployment fell to a level not seen in half a century, but exports

soared with ﬁnancing provided by commercial lenders. The only negative eco-

nomic impact from EXIM’s lack of a board quorum was its eect on the Bank

itself. This contradicts EXIM’s claim that its activities are crucial for the success

of U.S. exporters and economic growth. Instead, it shows that economic growth

is the best booster of U.S. exports and job creation and that it does not depend on

EXIM subsidies.

Subsidy-boosted exports do not boost economic growth. EXIM’s primary

reason for existing is to increase exports, as if more exports themselves represent

more jobs and economic growth. Recent expressions of this fallacious belief can be

found in a book by former EXIM President Fred Hochberg. According to Hochberg,

“We know that trade, and exports in particular, can have a big impact on jobs.”

While this is a common misconception about exports, it is one worth correcting.

As trade economists know, exports are a cost to the economy: They subtract from

GDP. Imports, on the other hand, add to GDP. If the U.S. could acquire all of the

imports that it currently gets without exporting anything in exchange, that would

be the best of all worlds. Unfortunately, one reason that foreigners are so eager

— 720 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

to sell us their goods is that they want our dollars to buy our debt, invest in the

country, and buy our exports. That is why exports drop when overall imports drop.

Exports promote U.S. economic growth only if the value of the resources used to

produce them is less than the value of what we receive as imports in exchange for

those exports. By subsidizing American exports, EXIM causes too many resources

to be devoted to producing exports. As a result, the total value of our exports is

made larger than it would otherwise be to obtain any given amount of imports.

In other words, EXIM thus compels American taxpayers to subsidize foreigners’

standards of living at no appreciable beneﬁt to the U.S.

Unfortunately, this misunderstanding and the constant glamorization of

exports and their impact on jobs and growth are used to justify government sup

port for some exports (on average, 98 percent of exports are not backed by EXIM

ﬁnancing). It also is extremely unfair. Because capital will tend to shift from unsub-

sidized companies to subsidized companies (taxpayers foot the bill if companies

backed by the Bank default), unsubsidized export companies face higher borrowing

costs, which could translate into fewer jobs in unsubsidized companies or lower

pay for their workers.

The Bank does not promote growth by leveling the playing ﬁeld. EXIM’s

charter stipulates that one of its missions is to support U.S. exports with the goal

of creating jobs and promoting economic growth through the provision of export

ﬁnancing via its loan-guarantee and insurance programs. In particular, EXIM is

to intervene in cases “where such support is necessary to level the competitive

playing ﬁeld for U.S. exporters due to ﬁnancing provided by foreign governments

to their exporters.”

As a result, EXIM for years has been focused primarily on what other countries’

ECAs are doing and how much ﬁnancing they are providing.

A reading of any of

EXIM’s Competitiveness Reports shows that the Bank frames the “competitive-

ness” of the U.S. economy and exporters in extremely narrow terms—speciﬁcally,

as the amount of business that foreign ECAs are doing relative to EXIM.

The report for 2020 features striking evidence of this mindset. For instance,

lamenting the “nearly four-year hiatus” during which the Bank lacked a board

quorum to approve large deals, EXIM’s leadership maintains that these years

“severely hindered EXIM’s ability to support the competitiveness of U.S. export-

ers.” During that time, foreign ECAs “fundamentally evolved their philosophy and

substantively expanded their roles,” and “the United States must work hard to keep

pace.” The Bank goes on to promise that it will “re-emerge from the years of being

out of the long-term export ﬁnance business and restore its standing as one of the

world’s most competitive ECAs.”

In other words, EXIM bureaucrats appear to believe that economic growth

and jobs result not from a favorable tax and regulatory environment, but from a

victory in hand-to-hand subsidy combat between government banks. The Bank’s

— 721 —

Export-Import Bank

Competitiveness Reports include a table that ranks countries by ECA ﬁnancing

volume. An adjacent map displays the most “competitive” ECAs around the world,

implying that the U.S., which ranked eighth in terms of volume in 2019 (the year

before the pandemic), is losing ground compared to more “hyperactive” (ranked

higher) ECAs.

The implication is that ECA export ﬁnancing improves the overall

health of the export market and thereby fuels economic and job growth—which

it does not do.

Consider Italy’s hyperactive ECA. In 2019, Italy was ranked ﬁrst among

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

countries in terms of volume and was highlighted in the report as an example

for other countries to follow. Yet the Italian ECA’s hyperactivity appears to

have had little impact on that country’s economic growth or employment.

Germany was the second-highest ranked OECD country on this list in 2019.

While Germany had respectable economic growth at the time of the report,

only 0.7 percent of its exports were backed by ECA ﬁnancing. These data

provide little support for the argument that Germany’s strong economic

performance has much, if anything, to do with the German ECA.

China by all accounts had a hyperactive ECA: It ranked ﬁrst on the list in

2019. ECA-backed exports in China represented 2.1 percent of exports

backed by government ﬁnancing. Whatever one perceives as China’s

economic successes, it is hard to argue that the main driver of China’s

exports is its ECA.

The report highlights the eighth-ranked U.S. for its unusually low level

of EXIM-backed exports. At the time of the report, the U.S. economy

was thriving, wages and employment were up, and the country still had

ﬂourishing trade—but it was also striving when EXIM was mostly dormant.

In other words, one cannot argue that the bustling economy was the result

of EXIM support.

Even in countries touted as leaders in relying on ECA ﬁnancing, ECA-backed

exports are never more than 4.7 percent of total exports. Moreover, even that is

an outlier. For 23 of the 28 countries on this list (including both China and the

U.S.), the share of exports backed by ECA ﬁnancing is less than 2 percent. This

fact suggests that—contrary to the claims of EXIM’s advocates—ECA ﬁnancing is

irrelevant to the overall health of the export market as well as to economic growth.

This is consistent with what economists know about the impact of subsidies on

economic growth.

— 722 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

The Bank does not support small businesses. Most of the Bank’s funding

goes to large corporations such as Boeing—a recipient of 68 percent of EXIM’s

loan guarantees and 30 percent of EXIM’s overall activities.

Over the years, 10

large domestic corporations have received roughly 65 percent of the Bank’s total

assistance (it is closer to 70 percent today). More than 99.9 percent of U.S. small

businesses receive no beneﬁts from EXIM and are often placed at a competitive

disadvantage by the subsidies doled out to larger competitors. In fact, the Bank’s

support for small businesses has declined from $2.3 billion in FY 2019

to “more

than $2.0 billion” in FY 2020

to only $1.6 billion in FY 2021.

This decline

occurred amid a pandemic that hit small businesses especially hard, and it con-

tinues today.

The Bank is not a good deal for taxpayers. The Bank’s accounting practices

are deﬁcient, and the Bank miscalculates its budget savings. While it claims that

its operations will save taxpayers $14 billion over the next decade, the Congres-

sional Budget Oce has found that EXIM programs will actually cost taxpayers

$2 billion.

Numerous audits done by the Bank’s internal inspector general

also show that the Bank’s risk analyses, default assumptions, internal reporting

procedures, and ﬁnancial reporting practices are not reliable enough to ensure

the safe stewardship of taxpayer funds and responsible management of EXIM’s

vast portfolio.

FAILING TO MEET THE CHINA CHALLENGE

These days, to get whatever expansion of government one wants or to jus-

tify a new government activity, one has only to declare that more government

intervention is needed to help ﬁght China. President Trump used this argument

to secure reauthorization of EXIM in 2019. Today, President Biden argues that

the Bank could be a powerful weapon in the government’s geoeconomic arsenal

against China.

The rationale is that this will prevent China from dominating the global market

with its subsidies and will boost American jobs and manufacturing. The prob-

lem is that cynics who support such policies make no eort to adopt a serious

strategic plan to achieve this goal. For instance, how can EXIM help us to ﬁght

China while state-owned Chinese companies like China Air have been some of the

companies most subsidized by EXIM?

Furthermore, it has now been four years

since Congress instructed EXIM to focus on China, but there has been no funda-

mental change in the way EXIM operates or the companies to which it extends

taxpayer-backed ﬁnancing: Deals related to the aircraft industry still dominate

the Bank’s portfolio.

In addition, there is no evidence that EXIM has altered its intense focus on

competing with other governments’ ECAs. If the Bank were serious about com-

peting against China, it would be targeting the low-income markets where China

— 723 —

Export-Import Bank

has been making its most important investments. Instead, its obsession with other

ECAs has caused EXIM to direct the vast majority of its funding to large foreign

companies in higher-income nations. Data available on the OECD website show

that the level of ECA ﬁnancing in high-income countries in 2019 was more than

double the amount in low-income countries.

The same was true for previous years.

In other words, EXIM and the ECAs of the OECD are competing in markets where

commercial lending is abundant—a trend that continues today.

The failure to deliver on its congressionally imposed obligation—however mis-

guided that obligation may be—is also noticeable in the fact that EXIM’s China

and Transformation Exports Program (CTEP) extended only $141.3 million in

ﬁnancing in FY 2022—a fraction of the $27 billion it is supposed to deliver by the

end of 2026.

The Bank’s eorts have also included a misplaced focus on emerging

technologies such as quantum computing and artiﬁcial intelligence, which do not

need EXIM ﬁnancing because their foreign sales attract commercial ﬁnancing

without government support. The lack of demand for EXIM products could also

be reﬂected in the Bank’s authorization of $5.2 billion in loan guarantees and sup-

port in FY 2022,

down from its FY 2012 peak of “over $35.7 billion” during the

Obama Administration.

This lack of activity also extends to the semiconductor industry, which has been

picked as a focal point for a governmentwide industrial policy eort to counter

China’s ambition to dominate that industry. Ironically, at the same time that some

want to become more like China to ﬁght China, China’s leaders are realizing that

their heavy-handed semiconductor subsidies are weakening the Chinese economy.

According to Bloomberg News:

Top [Chinese] ocials are discussing ways to move away from costly

subsidies that have so far borne little fruit and encouraged both graft and

American sanctions, people familiar with the matter said. While some

continue to push for incentives of as much as 1 trillion yuan ($US145 billion),

other policymakers have lost their taste for an investment-led approach that’s

not yielded the results anticipated, the people said.

This development is not surprising to those who understand basic economics.

The goal of using EXIM as a weapon against China was a bad idea in the ﬁrst place.

Even if it were a good idea, for it to succeed would have required that EXIM stop

serving the clients it has been serving for decades. That has not happened, and it

will not happen.

CONCLUSION

The Export–Import Bank should be abolished because it wastes taxpayer money,

adversely aects American businesses, and does not promote economic growth

— 724 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

eectively. Furthermore, any attempts to reorient the agency and make it a weapon

with which to ﬁght against China are going to fail. Economic ﬁghts and national

security ﬁghts are not won with subsidies.

THE CASE FOR THE EXPORT–IMPORT BANK

Jennifer Hazelton

n 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill extending the charter of the

Export–Import Bank (EXIM) by an additional six years. In a signing statement

attached to the bill, the President declared that “[t]his sends an important signal

to both our exporting community and foreign suppliers that American exporters

will continue to be able to compete vigorously for business throughout the world.”

As a candidate for President, Ronald Reagan was opposed to EXIM, but as Pres-

ident, he learned the challenges America’s businesses face when competing for

opportunities overseas, and his position on EXIM evolved. As President Reagan

once famously remarked, “Why would I want our businesses competing with two

hands tied behind their backs?” On January 30, 1984, the President said, “Exports

create and sustain jobs for millions of American workers and contribute to the

growth and strength of the United States economy. The Export–Import Bank con-

tributes in a signiﬁcant way to our nation’s export sales.”

President Reagan was exactly right. EXIM provides a mechanism that American

companies can use to vie for projects that would otherwise be out of reach, notably

deals that the banking industry won’t ﬁnance because of the risk associated with

the host country or because the host nation itself requires a sovereign guarantee

in order to submit a bid. EXIM is the only American vehicle that can provide that

sovereign guarantee.

Since Reagan’s presidency, the global economic order has shifted dramatically,

and a rising China has completely disrupted the export credit sector.

In Reagan’s era, export credit ﬁnancing was a means for nations to compete

for and win projects overseas in order to create more jobs at home. It was a

benign tool for economic expansion. China, however, has morphed export

credit ﬁnancing into a weapon of national security.

Where most nations have just one export credit agency (ECA), China

has three, all targeted for speciﬁc stages of economic and industrial

development. The amount of money China has put behind these three

instruments is staggering.

It is estimated that in 2018, China provided more than $500 billion in export

credit, approaching in that one year the total amount of ﬁnancing EXIM has

provided in its 90-year history.

— 725 —

Export-Import Bank

China’s export credit activity is greater than that of the ECAs of the

entire G7 combined. Today, China is the world’s largest ocial creditor,

maintaining a portfolio more than twice the size of the World Bank and

International Monetary Fund combined.

China’s highly aggressive Belt and Road Initiative, which has prompted

international criticism for ensnaring the developing world in “debt-trap

diplomacy,” has created a sphere of economic and strategic inﬂuence that

includes about 150 countries, rivaling the relationships of the United States

and her allies.

Unlike America and the G7 economies, China does not subscribe to the rules-

based order that has governed export credit ﬁnancing for nearly a century. As in

so many other things, China plays by its own rules and is opaque in how it operates,

weaponizing its export credit ﬁnancing deals by oering developing nations terms

that are often “too good to be true.” Once the project is underway, the Chinese have

been known to change the terms, making a project unaordable for the purchasing

country. These tactics have yielded China important strategic plunder like mines

and critical minerals, satellites, and even ports like those in Hambantota, Sri Lanka,

and Mombasa, Kenya.

Export credit is a strategic weapon in China’s whole-of-government approach

to enhance its global power, economic might, and national security. The only

country that has the economic heft to counter China’s aggressions in export credit

ﬁnancing is the United States. Not only do American companies risk losing out to

Chinese competitors for international opportunities if EXIM is not there to oer

support, but a United States without a functioning export credit agency also leaves

an unchecked China with a wide-open ﬁeld to claim jurisdiction over swaths of

ocean and shipping lanes, expand its economic inﬂuence, and create major changes

in the global balance of power.

In response to Chinese aggression in export credit, the ECAs of other coun-

tries have reacted defensively to change their policies and programs to avoid

losing access to large chunks of global markets. Many countries, including strong

U.S. allies like the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, and Italy, have changed the

mission of their ECAs from one of leveling the playing ﬁeld for their exporters

to hunting proactively for transactions for their businesses and advancing their

national strategic interests over the long term. In addition, foreign buyers, par-

ticularly those looking to build large international projects, have been indicating

that the availability of government-backed ﬁnancing is a core component of their

evaluation of bids and identiﬁcation of sourcing. Allied nations have taken steps

like lowering their content requirements in order to lure more deals, often at

U.S. expense.

— 726 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Meanwhile, U.S. content requirements have remained constant, and the United

States continues to abide by traditional Organisation for Economic Cooperation

and Development (OECD) rules. For example:

The United Kingdom oered Boeing ﬁnancing backed by Britain’s ECA if

Boeing would put Rolls Royce engines on its jets instead of GE engines.

Italy’s ECA oered General Electric export credit ﬁnancing in exchange for

moving the production of some of its turbine components from the United

States to Italy.

China’s tactics, as well as those of some of America’s allies, have been success-

ful in drawing manufacturing and the jobs associated with that production away

from U.S. soil. EXIM’s 2018 Competitiveness Report accurately documents how

extensively foreign ECAs have expanded programs aimed at embedding their small

and medium-sized exporters into the global supply chain to the detriment of U.S.

exporters, particularly small businesses.

To ignore these changes and leave the

United States without its own export ﬁnancing weapon is to resign the United

States to a reduced role in world geopolitical aairs and accept fewer jobs and

lower standards of living for many Americans.

Critics of EXIM employ a host of defamatory slurs like “crony capitalism” and

“Bank of Boeing.” The “Bank of Boeing” moniker is particularly misleading, as it

was born in the wake of the 2008 ﬁnancial crisis when the airline industry was par-

ticularly hard hit and private-sector ﬁnancing was not available for many airlines

looking to purchase Boeing aircraft. EXIM’s portfolio tends to be cyclical with

dierent industries relying on export credit ﬁnancing at dierent points in time,

depending on economic conditions.

The truth is that EXIM provides ﬁnancing only when the private sector will not

or cannot (a concept known as additionality). In addition:

When EXIM does provide ﬁnancing, usually in the form of a loan or loan

guarantee, the borrower pays interest rates that are driven by the market.

EXIM does not undercut the private sector. It does not solicit any

applications for ﬁnancing, and all applications are judged on the merits of

the transactions.

All transactions must have “reasonable assurance of repayment,” which

is why EXIM has an exceptionally low default rate, historically hovering

around 0.5 percent—a default rate that is the envy of private banking.

— 727 —

Export-Import Bank

When EXIM enters a deal, the American taxpayer is always protected

ﬁrst. If a deal goes into default, the U.S. taxpayer is paid back before any

other lender.

Borrowers are loathe to default on the United States of America.

This ability to manage risk successfully is why EXIM actually makes a proﬁt

for American taxpayers, described in government parlance as “negative subsidy,”

sending more than $9 billion to the U.S. Treasury for debt reduction since 1992.

The bank has also supported hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs, most of them in

manufacturing, during the past decade.

Export credit ﬁnancing has become a critical lever for macroeconomic growth

for many countries, allies and competitors of the U.S. alike. Other nations are using

ECAs strategically to inﬂuence decisions and procure economic opportunities,

hindering the participation of U.S. ﬁrms and costing American jobs, particularly

in manufacturing.

China’s aggressive actions in export ﬁnance bleed beyond economic advance-

ment and are clearly an eort to expand both its national security and its global

power. The United States would be foolish to abandon this ﬁeld of play, surren-

dering it to China and other nations, and to relinquish EXIM as a powerful tool in

America’s asymmetrical warfare toolbox.

— 728 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

 David A. Stockman, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed (New York: Harper & Row,

1986), pp. 113–114.

 President Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Executive Order 6581 Creating the Export–Import Bank of Washington,”

February 2, 1934, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-6581-creating-the-

export-import-bank-washington#:~:text=Executive%20Order%206581%20Creating%20The%20Export-

Import%20Bank%20of,by%20promoting%20the%20fullest%20possible%20utilization%20of%20 (accessed

February 23, 2023).

 Export–Import Bank of the United States, Annual Report 2007, p. 14, https://img.exim.gov/s3fs-public/

managed-documents/ar2007.pdf (accessed March 21, 2023).

 Export–Import Bank of the United States, Annual Report 2014, pp. 84 and 86, https://img.exim.gov/s3fs-

public/reports/annual/EXIM-2014-AR.pdf (accessed March 21, 2023).

 Export–Import Bank of the United States, Annual Management Report for the Year-Ended September 30,

2022, and September 30, 2021, pp. 1 and 7, https://img.exim.gov/s3fs-public/reports/annual/2022/EXIM%20

FY22%20AMR%20Final_SignO_508_v27_FINAL.pdf (accessed March 22, 2023).

 Export–Import Bank of the United States, Annual Report 2008, pp. 35 and 63, https://img.exim.gov/s3fs-

public/reports/annual/2008AnnualReport.pdf (accessed March 22, 2023).

 Export–Import Bank of the United States, Annual Report 2015, pp. 28 and 42, https://img.exim.gov/s3fs-

public/reports/annual/EXIM-2015-AR.pdf (accessed March 22, 2023).

 Export–Import Bank of the United States, Annual Management Report for the Year-Ended September 30,

2022, and September 30, 2021, pp. 1 and 18, https://img.exim.gov/s3fs-public/reports/annual/2022/EXIM%20

FY22%20AMR%20Final_SignO_508_v27_FINAL.pdf (accessed March 22, 2023).

 Ibid.

 Veronique de Rugy, “Export–Import Is Still Boeing’s Bank,” Mercatus Center at George Mason University Data

Visualization, March 3, 2015, https://www.mercatus.org/research/data-visualizations/export-import-still-

boeings-bank (accessed March 21, 2023).

 Veronique de Rugy, “The Export–Bank: Winners and Losers of Government-Granted Privilege,” Testimony

before the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Aairs, U.S. Senate, June 2, 2015, https://www.

mercatus.org/research/federal-testimonies/export-import-bank-winners-and-losers-government-granted-

privilege (accessed February 23, 2023).

 Veronique de Rugy, Nita Ghei, and Michael Wilt, “Should the US Export–Import Bank Be Reauthorized?”

Mercatus Center at George Mason University Policy Brief, July 28, 2015, https://www.mercatus.org/research/

policy-briefs/should-us-export-import-bank-be-reauthorized (accessed February 23, 2023).

 Veronique de Rugy, “Emirates to Ex–Im Bank: We’ll Be Just Fine Without You,” National Review, The Corner,

September 8, 2014, https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/emirates-ex-im-bank-well-be-just-ﬁne-without-

you-veronique-de-rugy/ (accessed February 22, 2023).

 Sallie James, “Time to X Out the Ex–Im Bank,” Cato Institute, Herbert A. Stieel Center for Trade Policy, Trade

Policy Analysis No. 47, July 6, 2011, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1960016 (accessed

February 22, 2023), and Salim Furth, “Export–Import Bank: What the Scholarship Says,” Heritage Foundation

Backgrounder No. 2934, August 7, 2014, https://www.heritage.org/trade/report/the-export-import-bank-

what-the-scholarship-says.

 Veronique de Rugy and Justin Leventhal, “Ex–Im Bank: A Comparative Analysis of Pre- and Post-Quorum

Lending,” Mercatus Center at George Mason University Policy Brief, April 23, 2019, pp. 1 and 2, https://www.

mercatus.org/research/policy-briefs/ex-im-bank-comparative-analysis-pre-and-post-quorum-lending

(accessed February 22, 2023).

 Ibid., p. 5.

 Fred P. Hochberg, Trade is Not a Four-Letter Word: How Six Everyday Products Make the Case for Trade (New

York: Simon & Schuster/Avid Reader Press, 2020), p. 71.

 Export–Import Bank of the United States, Agency Management Report for the Years Ended

September 30, 2020, and September 30, 2019, pp. 2 and 4, https://img.exim.gov/s3fs-public/reports/

annual/2020/508Compliant_EXIM%20Q4%20FY20%20AMR%20FINAL_Signo_updated12.1.2020.pdf

(accessed February 22, 2023).

— 729 —

Export-Import Bank

 Veronique de Rugy, “Ex–Im Bank Competitiveness Doesn’t Help Export Competitiveness,” testimony before

the Ex–Im Bank Advisory Committee, September 30, 2021, https://www.mercatus.org/research/federal-

testimonies/ex-im-bank-competitiveness-doesnt-help-export-competitiveness (accessed February 22, 2023).

 Export–Import Bank of the United States, Report to the U.S. Congress on Global Export Credit Competition

for the Period January 1, 2020 Through December 31, 2020, June 2021, p. 3, https://img.exim.gov/s3fs-public/

reports/competitiveness_reports/2020/EXIM_2020_CompetitivenessReport_Web-Ready_Single%20pages.

pdf (accessed February 23, 2023).

 Export–Import Bank of the United States, Report to the U.S. Congress on Global Export Credit Competition

for the Period January 1, 2019 Through December 31, 2019, June 2020, p. 38, https://img.exim.gov/s3fs-

public/reports/competitiveness_reports/2019/2019-EXIM-Competitiveness-Report-FINAL.pdf (accessed

February 22, 2023).

 De Rugy and Leventhal, “Ex–Im Bank: A Comparative Analysis of Pre- and Post-Quorum Lending,”

pp. 7 and 10.

 Export–Import Bank of the United States, Keeping America Strong: Export–Import Bank of the United States

2019 Annual Report, pp. 6 and 10, https://img.exim.gov/s3fs-public/reports/annual/2019/EXIM_2019%20

AnnualReport_508C_Web.pdf (accessed February 22, 2023).

 Export–Import Bank of the United States, All America: Export–Import Bank of the United States 2020 Annual

Report, pp. 7 and 42, https://img.exim.gov/s3fs-public/reports/competitiveness_reports/2019/2019-EXIM-

Competitiveness-Report-FINAL.pdf (accessed February 22, 2023).

 Export–Import Bank of the United States, Building a Better America: Export–Import Bank of the United States

2021 Annual Report, p. 22, https://img.exim.gov/s3fs-public/reports/annual/2021/EXIM_2021_AnnualReport.

pdf (accessed February 22, 2023).

 Congressional Budget Oce, “Fair-Value Estimates of the Cost of Selected Federal Credit Programs for

2015 to 2024,” May 2014, pp. 1 and 5, https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/cboﬁles/attachments/45383-

FairValue.pdf (accessed February 22, 2023).

 Export–Import Bank of the United States, Oce of Inspector General, Report on Portfolio Risk and Loss

Reserve Allocation Policies, OIG-INS-12-02, September 28, 2012, https://img.exim.gov/s3fs-public/oig/Final-

20Report-20Complete-20Portfolio-20Risk-20120928-1.pdf#:~:text=Date%3A%20September%2028%2C%20

2012%20I%20am%20pleased%20to,measure%2C%20price%2C%20and%20reserve%20for%20its%20

portfolio%20risk. (accessed March 21, 2023). See also Export–Import Bank of the United States, Oce of

Inspector General, Export–Import Bank’s Management of Direct Loans and Related Challenges, OIG-AR-13-05,

September 26, 2013, https://img.exim.gov/s3fs-public/oig/audit/OIG-Final-Report-Audit-of-Ex-Im-Bank-s-

Management-of-Direct-Loans-and-Related-Challenges-09-26-13-2.pdf (accessed March 21, 2023).

 Veronique de Rugy and Justin Leventhal, “The Ex–Im Bank Is More Responsible Without a Quorum,” Mercatus

Center at George Mason University Data Visualization, December 11, 2018, https://www.mercatus.org/research/

data-visualizations/ex-im-bank-more-responsible-without-quorum#:~:text=At%2063%20percent%20

without%20a%20quorum%2C%20the%20Ex-Im,is%20doing%20better%20without%20the%20Ex-Im%20

Bank%E2%80%99s%20aid (accessed February 22, 2023).

 Figure 3, “Arrangement Ocial Export Credits—Destination Countries by Income Level (Billion USD),” in

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, “Export Credit Statistics: Trends and Cashﬂow:

Trends in Arrangement Ocial Export Credits (2009–2019),” https://www.oecd.org/trade/topics/export-

credits/statistics/ (accessed March 21, 2023).

 Export–Import Bank of the United States, Building a Better America: Export–Import Bank of the United States

2021 Annual Report, pp. 19, 44, and 47.

 Export–Import Bank of the United States, Annual Management Report for the Year-Ended September 30,

2022, and September 30, 2021, pp. 1, 7 and 57.

 News release, “Ex–Im Bank FY 2012 Annual Report Details Fourth Consecutive Record-Breaking Year,” Export–

Import Bank of the United States, November 26, 2012, https://www.exim.gov/news/ex-im-bank-fy-2012-

annual-report-details-fourth-consecutive-record-breaking-year (accessed March 21, 2023).

 Bloomberg News, “China Retreats on Going Toe-to-Toe with US on Critical Tech,” The Sydney Morning Herald,

January 4, 2023, https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/china-retreats-on-going-toe-to-toe-with-

us-on-critical-tech-20230104-p5cae9.html (accessed February 23, 2023).

— 730 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 President Ronald Reagan, “Statement on Signing the Export–Import Bank Act Amendments of 1986,” October

15, 1986, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-signing-the-export-import-bank-act-

amendments-1986 (accessed February 22, 2023).

 Export–Import Bank of the United States, Report to the U.S. Congress on Global Export Credit Competition for

the Period January 1, 2018, Through December 31, 2018, June 2019, https://img.exim.gov/s3fs-public/reports/

competitiveness_reports/2019/EXIM2019CompetitivenessReport-ﬁnal.pdf (accessed February 18, 2023).

— 731 —

FEDERAL RESERVE

Paul Winfree

oney is the essential unit of measure for the voluntary exchanges that

constitute the market economy. Stable money allows people to work

freely, helps businesses grow, facilitates investment, supports saving

for retirement, and ultimately provides for economic growth. The federal govern-

ment has long made policy regarding the nation’s money on behalf of the people

through their elected representatives in Congress.

Over time, however, Congress

has delegated that responsibility ﬁrst to the Department of the Treasury and now

to the quasi-public Federal Reserve System.

The Federal Reserve was created by Congress in 1913 when most Americans lived

in rural areas and the largest industry was agriculture. The impetus was a series of

ﬁnancial crises caused both by irresponsible banks and other ﬁnancial institutions that

overextended credit and by poor regulations. The architects of the Federal Reserve

believed that a quasi-public clearinghouse acting as lender of last resort would reduce

ﬁnancial instability and end severe recessions. However, the Great Depression of the

1930s was needlessly prolonged in part because of the Federal Reserve’s inept manage-

ment of the money supply. More recessions followed in the post–World War II years.

In the decades since the Federal Reserve was created, there has been a down-

turn roughly every ﬁve years. This monetary dysfunction is related in part to the

impossibility of ﬁne-tuning the money supply in real time, as well as to the moral

hazard inherent in a political system that has demonstrated a history of bailing

out private ﬁrms when they engage in excess speculation.

Public control of money creation through the Federal Reserve System has

another major problem: Government can abuse this authority for its own advantage

— 732 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

by printing money to ﬁnance its operations. This necessitated the original Federal

Reserve’s decentralization and political independence. Not long after the central

bank’s creation, however, monetary decision-making power was transferred away

from regional member banks and consolidated in the Board of Governors.

The Federal Reserve’s independence is presumably supported by its mandate

to maintain stable prices. Yet central bank independence is challenged in two addi-

tional ways. First, like any other public institution, the Federal Reserve responds to

the potential for political oversight when faced with challenges.

Consequently, its

independence in conducting monetary policy is more assured when the economy is

experiencing sustained growth and when there is low unemployment and price stabil-

ity—but less so in a crisis.

Additionally, political pressure has led the Federal Reserve

to use its power to regulate banks as a way to promote politically favorable initiatives

including those aligned with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) objectives.

Even formal grants of power by Congress have not markedly improved Federal

Reserve actions. Congress gave the Federal Reserve greater regulatory authority

over banks after the stock market crash of 1929. During the Great Depression, the

Federal Reserve was given the power to set reserve requirements on banks and to

regulate loans for the purchase of securities. During the stagﬂation of the 1970s,

Congress expanded the Federal Reserve’s mandate to include “maximum employ-

ment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.”

In the wake of the

2008 global ﬁnancial crisis, the Federal Reserve’s banking and ﬁnancial regulatory

authorities were broadened even further. The Great Recession also led to innova-

tions by the central bank such as additional large-scale asset purchases.

Together, these expansions have created signiﬁcant risks associated with “too big

to fail” ﬁnancial institutions and have facilitated government debt creation.

Collec-

tively, such developments have eroded the Federal Reserve’s economic neutrality.

In essence, because of its vastly expanded discretionary powers with respect

to monetary and regulatory policy, the Fed lacks both operational eectiveness

and political independence. To protect the Federal Reserve’s independence and

to improve monetary policy outcomes, Congress should limit its mandate to the

sole objective of stable money.

This chapter provides a number of options aimed at achieving these goals along

with the costs and beneﬁts of each policy recommendation. These recommended

reforms are divided into two parts: broad institutional changes and changes involv-

ing the Federal Reserve’s management of the money supply.

BROAD RECOMMENDATIONS

Eliminate the “dual mandate.” The Federal Reserve was originally

created to “furnish an elastic currency” and rediscount commercial paper

so that the supply of credit could increase along with the demand for money

— 733 —

Federal Reserve

and bank credit. In the 1970s, the Federal Reserve’s mission was amended

to maintain macroeconomic stability following the abandonment of the

gold standard.

This included making the Federal Reserve responsible for

maintaining full employment, stable prices, and long-term interest rates.

Supporters of this more expansive mandate claim that monetary policy

is needed to help the economy avoid or escape recessions. Hence, even if

there is a built-in bias toward inﬂation, that bias is worth it to avoid the

pain of economic stagnation. This accommodationist view is wrong. In fact,

that same easy money causes the clustering of failures that can lead to a

recession. In other words, the dual mandate may inadvertently contribute

to recessions rather than ﬁxing them.

A far less harmful alternative is to focus the Federal Reserve on protecting

the dollar and restraining inﬂation. This can mitigate economic turmoil,

perhaps in conjunction with government spending. Fiscal policy can be

more eective if it is timely, targeted, and temporary.

An example from the

COVID-19 pandemic is the Paycheck Protection Program, which sustained

businesses far more eectively than near-zero interest rates, which mainly

aided asset markets and housing prices. It is also worth noting that the

problem of the dual mandate may worsen with new pressure on the Federal

Reserve to include environmental or redistributionist “equity” goals in its

policymaking, which will likely enable additional federal spending.

Limit the Federal Reserve’s lender-of-last-resort function. To protect

banks that over lend during easy money episodes, the Federal Reserve

was assigned a “lender of last resort” (LOLR) function. This amounts

to a standing bailout oer and encourages banks and nonbank ﬁnancial

institutions to engage in reckless lending or even speculation that both

exacerbates the boom-and-bust cycle and can lead to ﬁnancial crises such as

those of 1992

and 2008

with ensuing bailouts.

This function should be limited so that banks and other ﬁnancial

institutions behave more prudently, returning to their traditional role as

conservative lenders rather than taking risks that are too large and lead to

still another taxpayer bailout. Such a reform should be given plenty of lead

time so that banks can self-correct lending practices without disrupting a

ﬁnancial system that has grown accustomed to such activities.

Wind down the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. Until the 2008 crisis,

the Federal Reserve never held more than $1 trillion in assets, bought largely

— 734 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

to inﬂuence monetary policy.

Since then, these assets have exploded, and

the Federal Reserve now owns nearly $9 trillion of mainly federal debt

($5.5 trillion)

and mortgage-backed securities ($2.6 trillion).

There is

currently no government oversight of the types of assets that the Federal

Reserve purchases.

These purchases have two main eects: They encourage federal deﬁcits

and support politically favored markets, which include housing and even

corporate debt. Over half of COVID-era deﬁcits were monetized in this way

by the Federal Reserve’s purchase of Treasuries, and housing costs were

driven to historic highs by the Federal Reserve’s purchase of mortgage

securities. Together, this policy subsidizes government debt, starving

business borrowing, while rewarding those who buy homes and certain

corporations at the expense of the wider public.

Federal Reserve balance sheet purchases should be limited by Congress,

and the Federal Reserve’s existing balance sheet should be wound down as

quickly as is prudent to levels similar to what existed historically before the

2008 global ﬁnancial crisis.

Limit future balance sheet expansions to U.S. Treasuries. The Federal

Reserve should be prohibited from picking winners and losers among

asset classes. Above all, this means limiting Federal Reserve interventions

in the mortgage-backed securities market. It also means eliminating Fed

interventions in corporate and municipal debt markets.

Restricting the Fed’s open market operations to Treasuries has strong

economic support. The goal of monetary policy is to provide markets

with needed liquidity without inducing resource misallocations caused

by interfering with relative prices, including rates of return to securities.

However, Fed intervention in longer-term government debt, mortgage-

backed securities, and corporate and municipal debt can distort the

pricing process. This more closely resembles credit allocation than

liquidity provision.

The Fed’s mortgage-related activities are a paradigmatic case of what

monetary policy should not do. Consider the eects of monetary policy on

the housing market. Between February 2020 and August 2022, home prices

increased 42 percent.

Residential property prices in the United States

adjusted for inﬂation are now 5.8 percent above the prior all-time record

levels of 2006.

The home-price-to-median-income ratio is now 7.68, far

— 735 —

Federal Reserve

above the prior record high of 7.0 set in 2005.

The mortgage-payment-to-

income ratio hit 43.3 percent in August 2022—breaking the highs of the prior

housing bubble in 2008.

Mortgage payment on a median-priced home (with

a 20 percent down payment) jumped to $2,408 in the autumn of 2022 vs.

$1,404 just one year earlier as home prices continued to rise even as mortgage

rates more than doubled. Renters have not been spared: Median apartment

rental costs have jumped more than 24 percent since the start of 2021.

Numerous cities experienced rent increases well in excess of 30 percent.

A primary driver of higher costs during the past three years has been the

Federal Reserve’s purchases of mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Since

March 2020, the Federal Reserve has driven down mortgage interest rates

and fueled a rise in housing costs by purchasing $1.3 trillion of MBSs from

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae. The $2.7 trillion now owned by

the Federal Reserve is nearly double the levels of March 2020. The ﬂood of

capital from the Federal Reserve into MBSs increased the amount of capital

available for real estate purchases while lower interest rates on mortgage

borrowing—driven down in part by the Federal Reserve’s MBS purchases—

induced and enabled borrowers to take on even larger loans.

The Federal

Reserve should be precluded from any future purchases of MBSs and should

wind down its holdings either by selling o the assets or by allowing them to

mature without replacement.

Stop paying interest on excess reserves. Under this policy, also started

during the 2008 ﬁnancial crisis, the Federal Reserve eectively prints

money and then “borrows” it back from banks rather than those banks’

lending money to the public. This amounts to a transfer to Wall Street at

the expense of the American public and has driven such excess reserves

to $3.1 trillion, up seventyfold since 2007.

The Federal Reserve should

immediately end this practice and either sell o its balance sheet or simply

stop paying interest so that banks instead lend the money. Congress should

bring back the pre-2008 system, founded on open-market operations. This

minimizes the Fed’s power to engage in preferential credit allocation.

MONETARY RULE REFORM OPTIONS

While the above recommendations would reduce Federal Reserve manipulation

and subsidies, none would limit the inﬂationary and recessionary cycles caused by

the Federal Reserve. For that, major reform of the Federal Reserve’s core activity

of manipulating interest rates and money would be needed.

A core problem with government control of monetary policy is its exposure

to two unavoidable political pressures: pressure to print money to subsidize

— 736 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

government deﬁcits and pressure to print money to boost the economy artiﬁcially

until the next election. Because both will always exist with self-interested politi-

cians, the only permanent remedy is to take the monetary steering wheel out of

the Federal Reserve’s hands and return it to the people.

This could be done by abolishing the federal role in money altogether, allowing

the use of commodity money, or embracing a strict monetary-policy rule to ward

o political meddling. Of course, neither free banking nor a allowing commodi-

ty-backed money is currently being discussed, so we have formulated a menu of

reforms. Each option involves trade-os between how eectively it restrains the

Federal Reserve and how dicult each policy would be to implement, both polit-

ically for Congress and economically in terms of disruption to existing ﬁnancial

institutions. We present these options in decreasing order of eectiveness against

inﬂation and boom-and-bust recessionary cycles.

Free Banking. In free banking, neither interest rates nor the supply of money

is controlled by the government. The Federal Reserve is eectively abolished, and

the Department of the Treasury largely limits itself to handling the government’s

money. Regions of the U.S. actually had a similar system, known as the “Suolk

System,” from 1824 until the 1850s, and it minimized both inﬂation and economic

disruption while allowing lending to ﬂourish.

Under free banking, banks typically issue liabilities (for example, checking

accounts) denominated in dollars and backed by a valuable commodity. In the

19th century, this backing was commonly gold coins: Each dollar, for example, was

deﬁned as about 1/20 of an ounce of gold, redeemable on demand at the issuing

bank. Today, we might expect most banks to back with gold, although some might

prefer to back their notes with another currency or even by equities or other assets

such as real estate. Competition would determine the right mix of assets in banks’

portfolios as backing for their liabilities.

As in the Suolk System, competition keeps banks from overprinting or lending

irresponsibly. This is because any bank that issues more paper than it has assets

available would be subject to competitor banks’ presenting its notes for redemp-

tion. In the extreme, an overissuing bank could be liable to a bank run. Reckless

banks’ competitors have good incentives to police risk closely lest their own hold-

ings of competitor dollars become worthless.

In this way, free banking leads to stable and sound currencies and strong ﬁnan-

cial systems because customers will avoid the riskier issuers, driving them out

of the market. As a result of this stability and lack of inﬂation inherent in fully

backed currencies, free banking could dramatically strengthen and increase both

the dominant role of America’s ﬁnancial industry and the use of the U.S. dollar

as the global currency of choice.

In fact, under free banking, the norm is for the

dollar’s purchasing power to rise gently over time, reﬂecting gains in economic

productivity. This “supply-side deﬂation” does not cause economic busts. In fact,

— 737 —

Federal Reserve

by ensuring that cash earns a positive (inﬂation-adjusted) rate of return, it can pre-

vent households and businesses from holding ineciently small money balances.

Further beneﬁts of free banking include dramatic reduction of economic cycles,

an end to indirect ﬁnancing of federal spending, removal of the “lender of last

resort” permanent bailout function of central banks, and promotion of currency

competition.

This allows Americans many more ways to protect their savings.

Because free banking implies that ﬁnancial services and banking would be gov-

erned by general business laws against, for example, fraud or misrepresentation,

crony regulatory burdens that hurt customers would be dramatically eased, and

innovation would be encouraged.

Potential downsides of free banking stem from its greatest beneﬁt: It has mas-

sive political hurdles to clear. Economic theory predicts and economic history

conﬁrms that free banking is both stable and productive, but it is radically dierent

from the system we have now. Transitioning to free banking would require polit-

ical authorities, including Congress and the President, to coordinate on multiple

reforms simultaneously. Getting any of them wrong could imbalance an otherwise

functional system. Ironically, it is the very strength of a true free banking system

that makes transitioning to one so dicult.

Commodity-Backed Money. For most of U.S. history, the dollar was deﬁned in

terms of both gold and silver. The problem was that when the legal price diered

from the market price, the artiﬁcially undervalued currency would disappear from

circulation. There were times, for instance, when this mechanism put the U.S. on

a de facto silver standard. However, as a result, inﬂation was limited.

Given this track record, restoring a gold standard retains some appeal among

monetary reformers who do not wish to go so far as abolishing the Federal Reserve.

Both the 2012 and 2016 GOP platforms urged the establishment of a commis-

sion to consider the feasibility of a return to the gold standard,

and in October

2022, Representative Alexander Mooney (R–WV) introduced a bill to restore the

gold standard.

In economic eect, commodity-backing the dollar diers from free banking in

that the government (via the Fed) maintains both regulatory and bailout functions.

However, manipulation of money and credit is limited because new dollars are not

costless to the federal government: They must be backed by some hard asset like

gold. Compared to free banking, then, the beneﬁts of commodity-backed money

are reduced, but transition disruptions are also smaller.

The process of commodity backing is very straightforward: Treasury could

set the price of a dollar at today’s market price of $2,000 per ounce of gold. This

means that each Federal Reserve note could be redeemed at the Federal Reserve

and exchanged for 1/2000 ounce of gold—about $80, for example, for a gold coin the

weight of a dime. Private bank liabilities would be redeemable upon their issuers.

Banks could send those traded-in dollars to the Treasury for gold to replenish their

— 738 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

vaults. This creates a powerful self-policing mechanism: If the federal govern-

ment creates dollars too quickly, more people will doubt the peg and turn in their

gold to banks, which then will turn in their gold and drain the government’s gold.

This forces governments to rein in spending and inﬂation lest their gold reserves

become depleted.

One concern raised against commodity backing is that there is not enough gold

in the federal government for all the dollars in existence. This is solved by making

sure that the initial peg on gold is correct. Also, in reality, a very small number of

users trade for gold as long as they believe the government will stick to the price

peg. The mere fact that people could exchange dollars for gold is what acts as the

enforcer. After all, if one is conﬁdent that a dollar will still be worth 1/2000 ounce

of gold in a year, it is much easier to walk about with paper dollars and use credit

cards than it is to mail tiny $80 coins. People would redeem en masse only if they

feared the government would not be able control itself, for which the only solution

is for the government to control itself.

Beyond full backing, alternate paths to gold backing might involve gold-con-

vertible Treasury instruments

or allowing a parallel gold standard to operate

temporarily alongside the current ﬁat dollar.

These could ease adoption while

minimizing disruption, but they should be temporary so that we can quickly enjoy

the beneﬁts of gold’s ability to police government spending. In addition, Congress

could simply allow individuals to use commodity-backed money without fully

replacing the current system.

Among downsides to a commodity standard, there is no guarantee that the gov-

ernment will stick to the price peg. Also, allowing a commodity standard to operate

along with a ﬁat dollar opens both up for a speculative attack. Another downside is

that even under a commodity standard, the Federal Reserve can still inﬂuence the

economy via interest rate or other interventions. Therefore, at best, a commodity

standard is not a full solution to returning to free banking. We have good reasons

to worry that central banks and the gold standard are fundamentally incompati-

ble—as the disastrous experience of the Western nations on their “managed gold

standards” between World War I and World War II showed.

K-Percent Rule. Under this rule, proposed by Milton Friedman in 1960,

the

Federal Reserve would create money at a ﬁxed rate—say 3 percent per year. By

oering the inﬂation beneﬁts of gold without the potential disruption to the ﬁnan-

cial system, a K-Percent Rule could be a more politically viable alternative to gold.

The principal ﬂaw is that unlike commodities, a K-Percent Rule is not ﬁxed

by physical costs: It could change according to political pressures or random

economic ﬂuctuations. Importantly, ﬁnancial innovation could destabilize the

market’s demand for liquidity, as happened with changes in consumer credit pat-

terns in the 1970s. When this happens, a given K-Percent Rule that previously

delivered stability could become destabilizing. In addition, monetary policy when

— 739 —

Federal Reserve

Friedman proposed the K-Percent Rule was very dierent from monetary policy

today. Adopting a K-Percent Rule would require considering what transitions need

to take place.

Inﬂation-Targeting Rules. Inﬂation targeting is the current de facto Federal

Reserve rule.

Under inﬂation targeting, the Federal Reserve chooses a target inﬂa-

tion rate—essentially the highest it thinks the public will accept—and then tries

to engineer the money supply to achieve that goal. Chairman Jerome Powell and

others before him have used 2 percent as their target inﬂation rate, although some

are now ﬂoating 3 percent or 4 percent.

The result can be boom-and-bust cycles

of inﬂation and recession driven by disruptive policy manipulations both because

the Federal Reserve is liable to political pressure and because making economic

predictions is very dicult if not impossible.

Inﬂation and Growth–Targeting Rules. Inﬂation and growth targeting is a

popular proposal for reforming the Federal Reserve. Two of the most prominent

versions of inﬂation and growth targeting are a Taylor Rule and Nominal GDP

(NGDP) Targeting. Both oer similar costs and beneﬁts.

Economists generally believe that the economy’s long-term real growth trend

is determined by non-monetary factors. The Fed’s job is to minimize ﬂuctuations

around that trend nominal growth rate. Speculative booms and destructive busts

caused by swings in total spending should be avoided. NGDP targeting stabilizes

total nominal spending directly. The Taylor Rule does so indirectly, operating

through the federal funds rate.

NGDP targeting keeps total nominal spending growth on a steady path. If the

demand for money (liquidity) rises, the Fed meets it by increasing the money

supply; if the demand for money falls, the Fed responds by reducing the money

supply. This minimizes the eects of demand shocks on the economy. For example,

if the long-run growth rate of the U.S. economy is 3 percent and the Fed has a 5 per-

cent NGDP growth target, it expands the money supply enough to boost nominal

income by 5 percent each year, which translates into 3 percent real growth and 2

percent inﬂation. How much money must be created each year depends on how

fast money demand is growing.

The Taylor Rule works similarly. It says the Fed should raise its policy rate

when inﬂation and real output growth are above trend and lower its policy rate

when inﬂation and real output growth are below trend. Whereas NGDP targeting

focuses directly on stable demand as an outcome, the Taylor Rule focuses on the

Fed’s more reliable policy levers.

The problem with both rules is the knowledge burden they place on central

bankers. These rules state that the Fed should neutralize demand shocks but

not respond to supply shocks, which means that it should “see through” demand

shocks by tolerating higher (or lower) inﬂation. In theory, this has much to recom-

mend it. In practice, it can be very dicult to distinguish between demand-side

— 740 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

destabilization and supply-side destabilization in real time. There also are political

considerations: Fed ocials may not be willing to curb unjustiﬁed economic booms

and all too willing to suppress necessary economic restructuring following a bust.

Either rule likely outperforms a strict inﬂation target and greatly outperforms

the Fed’s current pseudo-inﬂation target. While NGDP targeting and the Taylor

Rule have much to commend them, they might be harder to explain and justify to

the public. Inﬂation targeting has an intelligibility advantage: Voters know what

it means to stabilize the dollar’s purchasing power. Capable elected ocials must

persuade the public that the advantages of NGDP targeting and the Taylor Rule,

especially in terms of supporting labor markets, outweigh the disadvantages.

MINIMUM EFFECTIVE REFORMS

Because Washington operates on two-year election cycles, any monetary reform

must take account of disruption to ﬁnancial markets and the economy at large.

Free banking and commodity-backed money oer economic beneﬁts by limiting

government manipulation, inﬂation, and recessionary cycles while dramatically

reducing federal deﬁcits, but given potential disruption to the ﬁnancial system, a

K-Percent Rule may be a more feasible option. The other rules discussed (inﬂa-

tion targeting, NGDP targeting, and the Taylor Rule) are more complicated but

also more ﬂexible. While their economic beneﬁts are signiﬁcant, public opinion

expressed through the lawmaking process in the Constitution should ultimately

determine the monetary-institutional order in a free society.

The minimum of eective reforms includes the following:

Eliminate “full employment” from the Fed’s mandate, requiring it to

focus on price stability alone.

Have elected ocials compel the Fed to specify its target range for

inﬂation and inform the public of a concrete intended growth path.

There should be no more “ﬂexible average inﬂation targeting,” which

amounts to ex post justiﬁcation for bad policy.

Focus any regulatory activities on maintaining bank capital

adequacy. Elected ocials must clamp down on the Fed’s incorporation of

environmental, social, and governance factors into its mandate, including by

amending its ﬁnancial stability mandate.

Curb the Fed’s excessive last-resort lending practices. These practices

are directly responsible for “too big to fail” and the institutionalization of

moral hazard in our ﬁnancial system.

— 741 —

Federal Reserve

Appoint a commission to explore the mission of the Federal Reserve,

alternatives to the Federal Reserve system, and the nation’s ﬁnancial

regulatory apparatus.

Prevent the institution of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). A

CBDC would provide unprecedented surveillance and potential control of

ﬁnancial transactions without providing added beneﬁts available through

existing technologies.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in the

2025 Presidential Transition Project. All contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume, but

Alexander Salter, Judy Shelton, and Peter St Onge, deserve special mention. The chapter reﬂects input from all the

contributors, however, no views expressed herein should be attributed to any speciﬁc individual.

— 742 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

 U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution (accessed January 23, 2023).

 For example, Alexander Salter and Daniel Smith (2019) show that Federal Reserve Chairs become more

favorable toward monetary discretion once they are conﬁrmed compared to previous stances. Alexander

William Salter and Daniel J. Smith, “Political Economists or Political Economists? The Role of Political

Environments in the Formation of Fed Policy Under Burns, Greenspan, and Bernanke,” Quarterly Review of

Economics and Finance, Vol. 71 (February 2019), pp. 1–13.

 Sarah Binder, “The Federal Reserve as a ‘Political’ Institution,” American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Bulletin, Vol. LXIX, No. 3 (Spring 2016), pp. 47–49, https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/ﬁles/bulletin/

downloads/bulletin_Spring2016.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023). See also Charles L. Weise, “Political

Pressures on Monetary Policy During the US Great Inﬂation,” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics,

Vol. 4, No. 2 (April 2012), pp. 33–64, https://www.haverford.edu/sites/default/ﬁles/Department/Economics/

Weise_Political_Pressures_on%20Monetary_Policy.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023).

 The Federal Reserve’s ﬁnancial stability mandate is poorly deﬁned. The Fed has taken advantage of the

statutory vagueness and proceeded as if it has the authority to engage in these activities, although it is highly

questionable whether this is permissible.

 12 U.S.C. § 225a, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/12/225a (accessed January 23, 2023).

 See Peter J. Boettke, Alexander William Salter, and Daniel J. Smith, Money and the Rule of Law: Generality

and Predictability in Monetary Institutions (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2021).

 George Selgin, William D. Lastrapes, and Lawrence H. White, “Has the Fed Been a Failure?” Journal of

Macroeconomics, Vol. 34, No. 3 (September 2012), pp. 569–596, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/

article/abs/pii/S0164070412000304 (accessed January 24, 2023).

 This includes federal programs that automatically provide for adjustments as the economy contracts (for

example, unemployment insurance or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).

 Mark Segal, “Fed to Launch Climate Risk Resilience Tests with Big Banks,” ESG Today, September 30,

2022, https://www.esgtoday.com/fed-to-launch-climate-risk-resilience-tests-with-big-banks/ (accessed

January 23, 2023).

 Kenneth J. Robinson, “Savings and Loan Crisis 1980–1989,” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Federal Reserve

History, November 22, 2013, https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/savings-and-loan-crisis (accessed

January 23, 2023).

 Russell Roberts, “Gambling with Other People’s Money: How Perverted Incentives Caused the Financial Crisis,”

Mercatus Center at George Mason University, May 2010, https://www.mercatus.org/system/ﬁles/RUSS-ﬁnal.

pdf (accessed January 24, 2023).

 Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Credit and Liquidity Programs Balance Sheet Data

Series, 2007–2022, https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm (accessed

January 24, 2023).

 Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, U.S. Treasury Securities Data Series (TREAST), 2004–2022,

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TREAST (accessed January 24, 2023).

 Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Mortgage-Backed Securities Data Series (WSHOMCB),

2004–2022, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WSHOMCB (accessed January 24, 2023).

 Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Total Assets (Less Eliminations from Consolidation) Data

Series (WALCL), 2004–2022, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL (accessed January 24, 2023).

 Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, “S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, S&P/Case–Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index

(CSUSHPINSA),” https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CSUSHPINSA (accessed January 24, 2023). The Case–Shiller

Home Price Index tracks home prices given a constant level of quality. See S&P Dow Jones Indices, “Real Estate:

S&P CoreLogic Case–Shiller Home Price Indices,” https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/index-family/indicators/sp-

corelogic-case-shiller/sp-corelogic-case-shiller-composite/#overview (accessed January 24, 2023).

 Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, “Real Residential Property Prices for United States (QUSR628BIS),” https://

fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QUSR368BIS (accessed January 24, 2023).

 Longterm Trends, “Home Price to Income Ratio (US & UK): Home Price to Median Household Income

Ratio (US),” https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-income-ratio/ (accessed

January 24, 2023).

— 743 —

Federal Reserve

 Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, “Metro Area Home Ownership Aordability Monitor (HOAM) Index,”

October 2022, https://www.atlantafed.org/center-for-housing-and-policy/data-and-tools/home-ownership-

aordability-monitor.aspx (accessed January 24, 2023).

 Apartment List Research Team, “Apartment List National Rent Report,” January 4, 2023, https://www.

apartmentlist.com/research/national-rent-data (accessed January 24, 2023).

 Primary drivers of rising real estate prices nationally also include government subsidies and government

guarantees through government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs)—namely, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. “The

unpriced implicit guarantee, which reduced interest rates for mortgage borrowers, helped cause more of the

economy’s capital to be invested in housing than might otherwise have been the case.” Congressional Budget

Oce, “Transitioning to Alternative Structures for Housing Finance: An Update,” August 2018, p. 7, https://

www.cbo.gov/system/ﬁles/2018-08/54218-GSEupdate.pdf (accessed January 24, 2023).

 Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Reserves of Depository Institutions Data Series

(TOTRESNS), 1960–2022, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TOTRESNS (accessed January 24, 2023).

 George A. Selgin, The Theory of Free Banking: Money Supply Under Competitive Note Issue (Totowa, NJ:

Rowman & Littleﬁeld, 1998). See also Alexander William Salter and Andrew T. Young, “A Theory of Self-

Enforcing Monetary Constitutions with Reference to the Suolk System, 1825–1858,” Journal of Economic

Behavior & Organization, Vol. 156 (December 2018), pp 13–22.

 Reforms should also strengthen the incentives of bank depositors (customers) and bank shareholders

(owners) to monitor bank portfolios. Deposit insurance undermines the former, as even President Franklin

Roosevelt recognized. Bailouts and last-resort lending undermine the latter.

 Under the current system, banks are supplying the U.S. dollars. Legislation would been needed that includes a

mechanism for supplying the correct number of U.S. dollars along with their own notes.

 F. A. Hayek, Denationalization of Money: An Analysis of the Theory and Current Practice of Concurrent

Currencies (London, UK: Institute of Economic Aairs, 1976).

 Kate Davidson, “GOP Platform Includes Proposal to Study Return to Gold Standard,” The Wall Street Journal,

July 20, 2016, https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-platform-includes-proposal-to-study-return-to-gold-

standard-1469047214?mod=article_inline (accessed January 24, 2023).

 H.R. 9157, To Deﬁne the Dollar as a Fixed Weight of Gold, and for Other Purposes (Gold Standard Restoration

Act), 117th Congress, introduced October 7, 2022, https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/hr9157/BILLS-117hr9157ih.

pdf (accessed January 24, 2023).

 Judy Shelton, “Gold and Government,” Cato Journal, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Spring/Summer 2012), pp. 333–347,

https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/ﬁles/serials/ﬁles/cato-journal/2012/7/v32n2-9.pdf?mod=article_inline

(accessed January 24, 2023).

 Lawrence H. White, “Making the Transition to a New Gold Standard,” Cato Journal, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Spring/

Summer 2012), pp. 411–421, https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/ﬁles/serials/ﬁles/cato-journal/2012/7/v32n2-

14.pdf (accessed January 24, 2023).

 Juha Kilponen and Kai Leitemo, “Model Uncertainty and Delegation: A Case for Friedman’s k-Percent Money

Growth Rule?” Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Vol. 40, No. 2/3 (March–April 2008), pp. 547–556.

 Adam Shapiro and Daniel J. Wilson, “The Evolution of the FOMC’s Explicit Inﬂation Target,” Federal Reserve

Bank of San Francisco, FRBSF Economic Letter No. 2019–12, April 15, 2019, https://www.frbsf.org/wp-content/

uploads/sites/4/el2019-12.pdf (accessed January 24, 2023).

 WSJ Pro, “Research Says a 3% Fed Inﬂation Target Could Boost Job Market,” The Wall Street Journal, August

18, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/research-says-a-3-fed-inﬂation-target-could-boost-job-market-

11629308829#:~:text=Research%20Says%20a%203%25%20Fed%20Inﬂation%20Target%20Could%2-

0Boost%20Job%20Market,-Aug.&text=Two%20former%20high%2Dlevel%20Federal,help%20bolster%20

the%20job%20market (accessed January 24, 2023). See also Oliver Blanchard, “It Is Time to Revisit the 2%

Inﬂation Target,” Financial Times, November 28, 2022, https://www.ft.com/content/02c8a9ac-b71d-4cef-a6-

cac120d25588 (accessed January 24, 2023).

 Alexander William Salter, “CBDC in the USA: Not Now, Not Ever,” American Institute for Economic

Research, December, 13, 2022, https://www.aier.org/article/cbdc-in-the-usa-not-now-not-ever/ (accessed

February 1, 2022).

— 745 —

SMALL BUSINESS

ADMINISTRATION

Karen Kerrigan

MISSION STATEMENT

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) supports U.S. entrepreneurship

and small business growth by strengthening free enterprise through policy advo-

cacy and facilitating programs that help entrepreneurs to launch and grow their

businesses and compete eectively in the global marketplace.

OVERVIEW

Created almost 70 years ago, the SBA was launched under the Small Business

Act with a mission to “aid, counsel, assist and protect, insofar as is possible, the

interests of small business concerns.”

According to its current mission statement:

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) helps Americans start, grow,

and build resilient businesses.

SBA was created in 1953 as an independent agency of the federal government

to aid, counsel, assist and protect the interests of small business concerns;

preserve free competitive enterprise; and maintain and strengthen the overall

economy of our nation.

The SBA’s founding mission has evolved over time as programs have been

expanded or implemented, subject to the philosophical grounding of each Admin-

istration as well as assorted economic challenges and the occurrence of natural

disasters. Because of its distinct role in the federal government, the SBA became

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

the default agency for providing disaster loans to small businesses, homeowners,

renters, and organizations. As a result, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars have

been funneled through the agency to businesses and individuals over the years.

Some SBA programs are eective; others are not. The largest program in SBA’s

history, the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), has been credited with saving

millions of jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A conservative Administration

would rightly focus on saving small businesses during such a crisis. At the same

time, however, various SBA programs have generated waste, fraud, and misman-

agement of taxpayer dollars.

For example, and more recently, more than $1 trillion in COVID-19 relief was

distributed through the SBA.

The SBA’s EIDL (Economic Injury Disaster Loan)

Advance program in particular shows the dangers that can come with direct

government lending. EIDL Advance provided direct cash grants and loans to

small businesses. The SBA Oce of Inspector General “identiﬁed $78.1 billion in

potentially fraudulent EIDL loans and grants paid to ineligible entities,”

which

represented more than half of all funds spent through the program. Although PPP

worked through private lenders and as a result experienced relatively less fraud

than EIDL experienced, it is estimated “that at least 70,000 [PPP] loans were

potentially fraudulent.”

ORIGIN, HISTORY, AND CORE FUNCTIONS

In 1954, the agency began to execute such core functions as “making and

guaranteeing loans for small businesses,” “ensuring that small businesses earn

a ‘fair proportion’ of government contracts and sales of surplus property,” and

“provid[ing] business owners with management and business training.”

In 1970, President Richard Nixon’s Executive Order 11518 enhanced the agen-

cy’s advocacy role by providing for the “increased representation of the interests

of small business concerns before departments and agencies of the United States

Government.”

This advocacy role was strengthened with the adoption of the Small

Business Amendments of 1974,

which established the Chief Counsel for Advocacy,

and was then reinforced and expanded in 1976 with the creation of the Oce of

Advocacy, providing additional resources to ensure that small businesses had a

voice in the regulatory process.

In 1980, the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA)

further strengthened the Oce

of Advocacy’s role, providing accountability across federal agencies to ensure that

they considered the impact of their rulemakings on small businesses. The RFA

requires federal agencies “to consider the eects of their regulations on small

businesses and other small entities,”

and the Oce of Advocacy is charged with

ensuring that federal agencies abide by the law and is required to provide an annual

report to the President and the Senate and House Committees on Small Business.

In addition, the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act (TFTEA) of 2016

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Small Business Administration

established a new role for the Oce of Advocacy: “to facilitate greater consider-

ation of small business economic issues during international trade negotiations.”

This small oce has been relatively eective over the years—and more produc-

tive during periods when a strong Chief Counsel for Advocacy has been installed

to utilize the Oce of Advocacy’s authority aggressively to provide a check on

regulatory overreach. The oce is one of the bright spots within the SBA that a

conservative Administration could supercharge to dismantle extreme regulatory

policies and advance limited-government reforms that promote economic freedom

and opportunity.

Currently, the SBA’s four core functions include:

Access to capital. SBA maintains assorted ﬁnancing and lending

programs for small businesses, from microlending to debt and equity

investment capital.

Entrepreneurial development programs. SBA provides “free” or low-

cost training at more than 1,800 locations and through online platforms

and webinars.

Government contracting support programs. Through goals established

by the SBA for federal departments and agencies, the broader goal is to

ensure that small businesses win 23 percent of prime contracts.

Advocacy. This independent oce within the SBA works to ensure

that federal agencies consider small businesses’ concerns and impact in

rulemakings. The oce also conducts small-business research.

BUDGETARY FLUCTUATION

SBA’s budget and programs have expanded signiﬁcantly under some Admin

istrations and have been scaled back under others. President Ronald Reagan cut

the SBA’s budget by more than 30 percent, and his annual budgets regularly pro-

posed to eliminate the agency altogether.

Under President George W. Bush, SBA

Administrator Hector Barreto said that SBA’s goal was “to do more with less,”

but this changed because of Hurricane Katrina and a surge in disaster funding.

In 2016, President Barack Obama considered streamlining and combining SBA

programs and other business-related agencies and programs under one entity at

the U.S. Department of Commerce, but opposition within the small-business lobby

in Washington scuttled the eort.

In general, SBA budget ﬂuctuations have been driven by several factors such as

eorts by Administrations either to cut or to greatly expand programs, the need to

boost disaster assistance because of economic or weather-related events, business

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

loan credit subsidy costs, and miscellaneous program “enhancements” to support

small businesses through economic challenges or circumstances. As noted by the

Congressional Research Service:

Overall, the SBA’s appropriations have ranged from a high of over $761.9

billion in FY2020 to a low of $571.8 million in FY2007. Much of this volatility

is due to signiﬁcant variation in supplemental appropriations for disaster

assistance to address economic damages caused by major hurricanes and for

SBA lending program enhancements to help small businesses access capital

during and immediately following recessions. For example, in FY2020, the

SBA received over $760.9 billion in supplemental appropriations to assist

small businesses adversely aected by the novel coronavirus (COVID-

19) pandemic.

The CRS further notes that “[o]verall, since FY2000, appropriations for SBA’s

other programs, excluding supplemental appropriations, have increased at a pace

that exceeds inﬂation.”

In terms of current loan volume, the SBA “reached nearly $43 billion in fund-

ing to small businesses, providing more than 62,000 traditional loans through its

7(a), 504, and Microloan lending partners and over 1,200 investments through

SBA licensed Small Business Investment Companies (SBICs) for Fiscal Year (FY)

2022.”

The agency’s total budgetary resources for FY 2022 amount to $44.25

billion, which represents 0.4 percent of the FY 2022 U.S. federal budget.

HISTORY OF MISMANAGEMENT

Throughout its history, various SBA programs and practices have generated

negative news headlines and scathing Government Accountability Oce (GAO)

and Inspector General (IG) reports that have centered on mismanagement, lack

of competent personnel and/or systems, and waste, fraud and abuse.

From the 8a

program

to Hurricane Katrina

to the more current COVID-19 (EIDL) program

and PPP lending program,

the SBA has managed to maintain its lending role even

when repeated system failures have aected its distribution of funds.

Congress has been somewhat responsive, pressuring the SBA to clean up

fraud-related matters within its COVID-19 lending and grant programs.

Repub-

licans in the U.S. House of Representatives have gone farther, specifying that the

SBA needs to improve transparency and accountability and deal with mission creep,

the expansion of unauthorized programs, and structural and reporting deﬁciencies

that have allowed mismanagement and fraud to reoccur, largely through massive

supplemental appropriations.

The SBA is led by an Administrator (currently a member of the President’s

Cabinet) and a Deputy Administrator. Senate-conﬁrmed appointees include

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Small Business Administration

the Administrator, Deputy Administrator, Chief Counsel for Advocacy, and

Inspector General.

Entrepreneurs and small businesses require limited-government policies that

do not impede their risk-taking and growth. A future Administration can leverage

and strengthen core SBA functions that have been fairly eective at reining in

and calling attention to costly regulations and policies that are harmful to small

businesses. This core advocacy function is aided both by statutory authority and

by a network of small-business organizations and allies that support limited-gov-

ernment policies.

Moreover, an eective SBA Administrator and leadership team can work and

advocate across the federal government to ensure that extreme regulatory poli-

cies—or anticompetitive rules and actions that may favor big businesses over small

businesses or international competitors over American small businesses—are

dismantled or do not progress when proposed.

MISSION CREEP AND ENLARGEMENT

As noted, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have evidenced con-

cern about SBA mission creep and the need to make a sprawling, unaccountable

agency more focused and operationally sound. Moreover, there is unease that the

agency has moved from being open to any eligible small business searching for sup-

port to being hyperfocused on “disproportionately impacted,” politically favored,

or geographically situated small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Today, initiatives aimed at “inclusivity” are in fact creating exclusivity and

stringent selectivity in deciding what types of small businesses and entities can

use SBA programs. For example, even though the SBA under President Donald

Trump proposed a rule to remove all of the unconstitutional religious exclusions

from its regulations

to conform with Supreme Court decisions that have made

their unconstitutionality clear, the SBA has not acted on the proposed rule and

still uses religious exclusions in determining eligibility for business loans. Several

other speciﬁc concerns include but are not limited to:

The SBA’s request to become a “designated voter agency” in response to

President Biden’s executive order on “Promoting Access to Voting.”

The creation of duplicative channels and “pilot programs” for the delivery of

business training rather than working through existing counseling partners.

The programs are largely duplicative of private, state and local government,

and educational system oerings.

A push to expand direct government lending.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

THE SBA IN A CONSERVATIVE ADMINISTRATION

Reforming and restructuring the SBA under a conservative Administration

would meet the needs of America’s small-business owners and entrepreneurs,

not special interests in Washington, D.C. Entrepreneurs believe the SBA is fairly

archaic in its operations and programming and must be transformed to serve

small businesses in the modern economy eectively.

Therefore, a restructured

and reformed SBA would end the long-term deﬁciencies, practices, and problems

that have prolonged the decades-long cycle of waste, fraud, and mismanagement.

Moreover, the SBA Administrator and leadership can provide signiﬁcant value to

all small businesses by strongly advocating for their policy needs and fostering an

agencywide culture that values all small-business owners and does not exclude

certain groups. Under a conservative Administration, success would yield:

A highly qualiﬁed SBA Administrator and leadership team that can

competently run the agency and enthusiastically advocate for the policy

issues and needs of small-business owners and entrepreneurs.

A tighter, more focused SBA that concentrates on congressionally

authorized programs.

An accountable SBA Administrator and sta who report regularly to

Congress, respond on a timely basis to requests from individual Members

of Congress, and satisfactorily implement or respond to IG and GAO

recommendations.

A full accounting of and an end to waste, fraud, and abuse in all COVID-19

relief programs, including the PPP and EIDL programs, and action that

follows the rule of law by ensuring that loan recipients who are not eligible

for loan forgiveness or who falsiﬁed loan applications either pay back the

funds or are referred to law enforcement.

An end to SBA direct lending.

An approach to small-business lending and capital programs that supports

a resilient small-business supply chain (for example, by ﬁnancing

technological upgrades and capital expenditures).

Outreach to all small businesses and those that are eligible for program

support across sectors and geographic areas. Through congressionally

authorized programs and collaboration with partners and business

associations, the SBA could use the latest technology and platforms to

— 751 —

Small Business Administration

implement relevant initiatives to reach small businesses. Programs would

be nonduplicative and implemented on a ﬁrst-come, ﬁrst-served basis.

A modern, revamped, and streamlined SBA that better utilizes current

technology and platforms for operations, for reporting, and in its programs

to reach, service, and engage small businesses.

An Oce of Advocacy that is strengthened by a renewed mandate and

additional resources to protect against overregulation along with a research

agenda that includes measuring the total cost that federal regulation

imposes on small businesses.

Accountability and Managerial Practice. The SBA lacks accountability and

managerial practices to measure the eectiveness, success, and integrity of its

various programs. As a future Administration evaluates agency structure and the

particulars of how the SBA is spending appropriated funds, it should immediately

require actions and procedures to compel a culture of accountability and perfor-

mance. Speciﬁcally:

Require performance metrics and internal procedures to safeguard

taxpayer dollars and program integrity. As noted in an October 2022

IG report, failure to adopt procedures that would reliably capture data and

information for various programs, coupled with signiﬁcant challenges and

weaknesses regarding IT investments, systems development, and security

controls, presents signiﬁcant risks to program integrity and increased

risk of waste, fraud, and abuse.

Addressing these shortcomings and risks

should be a priority challenge and action item for the next Administration.

As underscored by the Inspector General in his introduction to the report,

“Pandemic response has, in many instances, magniﬁed the challenging

systemic issues in SBA’s mission-related work.”

Review all internal government watchdog recommendations and

require that SBA management implement or address outstanding

and ongoing OIG and GAO recommendations within a speciﬁed

time frame (ideally within 90 days of a recommendation) and on an

ongoing basis.

Strengthening the Oce of Advocacy. The SBA Oce of Advocacy (Advo-

cacy) is “an independent oce” within the SBA.

It accounts for about one

one-thousandth of SBA spending and 0.75 percent of SBA personnel. Under the

Regulatory Flexibility Act, both under its current authority and with suggested

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

reforms, the Oce of Advocacy could be a powerful weapon against the adminis-

trative state’s regulatory extremism.

Amend the RFA so that all agencies are required to provide a copy

of any proposed rule (other than bona ﬁde emergency rules) along

with initial regulatory ﬂexibility analysis to the Oce of Advocacy

at least 60 days before a notice of proposed rulemaking is submitted

for publication in the Federal Register. The Oce of Advocacy would

submit comments to agencies within 30 days, and each agency would have

to consider these comments, make changes in the proposed rule based

on those comments, or explain in a revised regulatory ﬂexibility analysis

why it chose not to change the proposed rule. The Oce of Advocacy’s

pre-proposing comments would be published on the agencies’ and its

own websites.

RFA economic analysis should be expanded to include indirect costs

along with direct costs. In addition, the next Administration should

require other agencies to seek Advocacy’s input. Currently, other agencies

deny Advocacy the ability to enforce their duty to consider the eect of

regulations on small entities by construing their regulations as not having

signiﬁcant economic impact, which would otherwise serve as a trigger for

Advocacy’s input. Congress should presumptively exempt small businesses

from new agency rules to force agencies to seek Advocacy’s input and

permit new rules to apply to small businesses only with Advocacy signo

under speciﬁed criteria.

Increase the Oce of Advocacy’s budget by at least 50 percent ($4.6

million). This would allow Advocacy to hire approximately 25 attorneys,

economists, and scientists and enhance its role in the regulatory process.

Explicitly direct federal agencies to comply with the RFA. This would

be similar to the approach adopted by President Trump in his January and

February 2017 executive orders directing agencies to relieve the cost and

burden of regulation on business.

Advocacy should organize regional

roundtables, onsite small-business visits, and an online platform to hear

directly from small businesses and entities as it did from June 2017 through

September 2018.

This activity produced 26 letters to federal agencies

and highlighted speciﬁc regulations that need reform and how Congress

had addressed the most burdensome rules through the Congressional

Review Act.

— 753 —

Small Business Administration

COVID-19 Lending Program Accountability and Cleanup. A major

immediate priority for the next Administration should be a ﬁnal accounting and

accelerated cleanup of fraudulent COVID-19 loan and grant activity. As noted by

the SBA IG, “managing COVID-19 stimulus lending is the greatest overall challenge

facing SBA, and it may likely continue to be for many years as the agency grapples

with fraud in the programs….”

The next Administration should:

Consider bringing in private-sector support and expertise to close

out these programs. Forgiveness and fraud must be dealt with as swiftly

as possible, and law enforcement ocials must pursue fraud vigorously.

Entities receiving PPP loans that did not meet eligibility for forgiveness

must be required to pay back the money.

For example, under the CARES Act,

PPP loan applicants generally were

eligible only if, together with all their aliates, they had no more than 500

employees. Numerous Planned Parenthood aliates self-certiﬁed eligibility

for PPP loans during the initial wave of loans that were governed by the

CARES Act’s size requirement. Many Senators and Representatives asserted

that these Planned Parenthood organizations were ineligible because—

considered together with their aliates—they exceeded the maximum

eligible size.

The Trump Administration SBA notiﬁed several Planned

Parenthood PPP recipients of its preliminary determination of their

ineligibility and of SBA’s authority to take various actions against applicants

that falsely certiﬁed their eligibility.

To date, despite continued oversight attempts by Members of Congress,

the SBA has taken no action on the Planned Parenthood loans other

than to forgive them, and in 2021, it approved new PPP loans to Planned

Parenthood aliates.

Cooperate with ongoing congressional oversight eorts and

determine whether SBA has authority to reverse the forgiveness

decisions. If it does have that authority, the SBA should reverse the

forgiveness decisions for the subject loans, reiterate its preliminary

determinations of ineligibility, investigate the matter more thoroughly, and

take all appropriate action when its investigation concludes. Regardless of

whether it reverses its forgiveness, if its investigation uncovers evidence

that Planned Parenthood aliates or any other loan recipients knowingly

misrepresented their eligibility in their applications, the SBA should make

appropriate referrals to the Department of Justice.

— 754 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Disaster Loan Program and Direct Lending. The SBA’s disaster loan pro-

gram provides low-interest loans to personal, business, and nonproﬁt borrowers

following a federally declared disaster. The program suers from problems of

coordination with Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) disas-

ter assistance. For example, disaster relief applicants have an incentive to avoid

being approved for SBA disaster loans in order to increase the amount of FEMA

assistance for which they are eligible. Moreover, the availability of disaster loans

reduces individuals’ incentives to purchase disaster-related insurance. More than

90 percent of SBA disaster loans are loans to individuals such as homeowners, not

to small businesses.

In view of the challenges the SBA has experienced in its administration of this

program, as well as the fraud and abuse in the EIDL COVID-19–related program

and the IG’s concern that the systemic problems within this lending program

undermine the SBA’s work, the next Administration should:

Work with Congress to assess the extent to which disaster loans

should be oered by another agency rather than the SBA and explore

private-sector channels for administering the loans.

Specify clearly that no new direct lending programs will be

developed at the SBA.

Eligibility of Religious Entities for SBA Loans. Current SBA regulations

and SBA Form 1971

make certain religious entities ineligible to participate in

several SBA loan programs. The Trump Administration proposed a rule that would

remove the provisions on the ground that they violate the First Amendment.

Subsequent Supreme Court decisions have made their unconstitutionality clearer.

In an April 3, 2020, letter to Congress pursuant to 28 U.S. Code § 530D,

the

Trump Administration SBA advised that two such provisions violate the Free Exer-

cise Clause of the First Amendment and that it therefore would not enforce them.

On January 19, 2021, the Trump Administration SBA proposed a rule to remove

all of the unconstitutional religious exclusions from its regulations.

The SBA has

not acted on the proposed rule.

A similar religious exclusion once appeared in the regulation governing eligibil-

ity for SBA Business Loan Programs,

but it was removed in a June 2022 ﬁnal rule

that noted tension with the First Amendment and Supreme Court precedent.

That

ﬁnal rule announced that the SBA would nonetheless continue to make religious

eligibility determinations for business loan applicants to comply with putative

Establishment Clause requirements,

but Supreme Court precedent and Oce of

Legal Counsel memoranda refute the notion that large government-backed loan

programs raise any Establishment Clause concerns.

— 755 —

Small Business Administration

The SBA uses the same “Religious Eligibility Worksheet,” SBA Form 1971, to

make eligibility determinations for all aected programs, including the Business

Loan Programs. Thus, the SBA continues to act as though the unconstitutional

regulation were still in place, and there is no Establishment Clause basis for doing

so. The next Administration should immediately:

Notify Congress under 28 U.S. Code § 530D that it will not enforce

these unconstitutional regulations.

Take down SBA Form 1971.

Finalize the Trump Administration’s proposed rule or publish its own

updated proposed rule to remove the unconstitutional regulations.

Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology

Transfer Programs. The SBA “coordinates and monitors the Small Business

Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) pro-

grams for all federal agencies with extramural budgets for research or research and

development (R/R&D) in excess of the expenditures established in sections 9(f )

and 9(n) of the Small Business Act.”

The SBIR and STTR Extension Act of 2022

extended these programs from September 30, 2022, through September 30, 2025.

SBIR requires that 3.2 percent of spending by agencies with extramural R&D

budgets of $100 million or more must be directed to small businesses. STTR allo-

cates 0.45 percent of federal research spending to small ﬁrms.

Research has shown

that this small portion of federal R&D spending is disproportionately eective.

The SBIR program has consistently demonstrated its ability to fund advanced

technologies through to private-market viability and invests more in America’s

heartland than venture capital invests.

SBIR and STTR have overcome the tendency of federal contracting ocers

to deal only with large ﬁrms that are familiar to them and have the expertise and

lobbying clout to navigate the federal procurement process. The next Adminis-

tration should:

Continue the SBIR and SBTT programs as they successfully fund the

next wave of technological innovation to compete with Big Tech.

Urge Congress to expand the amount that other agencies are required

to set aside from their general R&D budgets for the SBIR program.

Ensure the enactment of stricter rules requiring that SBIR funds

must be expended on capital investments in the United States.

— 756 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Domestic Manufacturing and Small Business. Small businesses in the

manufacturing sector face shortfalls in access to capital.

As manufacturing

employment, domestic business investment, and non–information technology

output have declined,

expectations for market returns and the capital available

to small manufacturing enterprises have diminished. This is especially true for

capital-intensive sectors like transportation and energy that require large up-front

investments and relatively lower-margin sectors like plastics, textiles, furniture,

and agriculture. Yet these industries and others like them traditionally have been

the backbone of American manufacturing employment. They also are sources of

self-suciency and resilience at a time when global supply chains are increas-

ingly uncertain.

The public policy problems that are caused by declining small manufacturing

are especially acute when it comes to the production of advanced technologies.

Other agencies and programs invest immense taxpayer resources in basic science

and research. Over time, that research results in some breakthrough technologies,

but when it is time to put these breakthroughs into practice by manufacturing

goods and services, much of the necessary productive capacity is oshore.

For

many technologies, the American economy lacks the capacity to “scale up” inno-

vations that might not be immediately proﬁtable. Instead, those technologies are

put into practice abroad. In this way, foreign companies and foreign productive

sites buy and implement taxpayer-funded American technologies.

The SBA’s existing programs should be reformed to expand the private market

for capital in small-manufacturer expansion. The next Administration should:

Ask Congress to make available a category of Section 7(a) loans with

a larger available principal that is used to ﬁnance manufacturing

facility construction and equipment upgrading. The proposed SBA

Reauthorization and Improvement Act of 2019, for example, would

have increased the maximum loan principal to $50 million for advanced

manufacturing construction and upgrading.

The Section 7(a) loan

program operates through private lenders and guarantees a portion of

private-sector loans made to qualifying small businesses. The maximum

principal available is $5 million, but small businesses in capital-intensive

sectors require signiﬁcantly larger amounts of capital to ﬁnance up-front

capital costs.

Reform the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program

to refocus its support on small businesses rather than technology

startups only. The SBIC program operates through private venture capital

and private equity funds by providing eligible funds with guaranteed debt

ﬁnancing to support investments in small businesses. However, the program

— 757 —

Small Business Administration

largely duplicates private-sector venture capital to the extent that the sector

receiving much of its support is software and information technology, which

already receive the lion’s share of venture capital investment.

In addition, Congress should reform the SBIC program to make its

ﬁnancing more favorable to capital-intense investments and small

manufacturers. The Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection,

and Schools (HEALS) Act, introduced in 2020,

and American Innovation

and Manufacturing Act, introduced in 2021,

would allow SBIC to oer

longer-term ﬁnancing to manufacturers and make the program more

ﬁscally sustainable.

Small-Business Size Standard Modernization. Many small-business pro-

grams both inside and outside the SBA use the SBA’s deﬁnition of “small business.”

Under the Small Business Act, the SBA is tasked with deﬁning what counts as a

small business and ensuring that the deﬁnition varies from industry to industry to

reﬂect dierences in regular size by industry. However, the SBA’s small-business

size standards reﬂect a one-size-ﬁts-all approach under which all businesses within

its size standard are considered small businesses for all eligible purposes, from gov-

ernment contracting preferences to eligibility for SBA loans through private banks.

At the same time, the SBA is an outlier among competing economies in not

considering medium-sized enterprises along with small businesses, often referred

to collectively as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Medium-sized and

regional businesses are increasingly critical to maintaining competition. The next

Administration should:

Encourage Congress to create a “medium-sized business”

classiﬁcation with its eligibility for programs conﬁned to access

to capital programs from projects for which credit elsewhere

does not exist.

SBA POLICY PRIORITIES FOR 2025 AND BEYOND

Legislation. The new Administration can support SBA reform legislation pro-

posed in Congress that aligns with key measures outlined in this chapter. It also

can support legislative initiatives that would help SBA to focus on its core statutory

activities such as capital access, federal contracting opportunities, and regulatory

advocacy. For example:

The IMPROVE the SBA Act

would strengthen accountability, transparency,

and oversight of the SBA and aligns with many of the reforms outlined in

this chapter.

— 758 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

The Small Business Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act

would

require federal agencies to perform more thorough RFA economic analysis

and provide a rationale for proposed regulations. It also would waive ﬁnes

for certain ﬁrst-time paperwork violations.

The Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act

(SBREFA) panel

process allows small businesses to provide input on agency rulemakings,

gives participating small businesses greater procedural rights, and allows for

judicial review of agency violations of the SBREFA panel process. SBREFA

panel requirements should be extended to all federal agencies.

The Fair and Open Competition Act

would disallow the use of project labor

agreements (PLAs) in federal contracting as required in President Biden’s

Executive Order 14063,

which puts small businesses at a competitive

disadvantage and works against the SBA’s governmentwide contracting goal

for small businesses.

The JOBS Act 4.0

would advance regulatory improvements and

modernization of various Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules

to enhance capital formation and access.

ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES AND BUDGET

Administrator and Key Sta. The position of Administrator should not be

considered a symbolic or messaging-related position as some past Administrations

have viewed it. Rather, the Administrator should have the requisite experience,

skills, and knowledge to ensure that the SBA fulﬁlls its statutory authorities.

Because much of the SBA’s statutory authority relates to ﬁnancing and reg-

ulatory policy, and in order to make the SBA a more eective agency within the

Administration, the Administrator and his or her key sta should have experience

in small-business ﬁnance and investment and/or administrative law. For example,

during the COVID-19 pandemic, the SBA was often forced to outsource key deci-

sions and administrative follow-through to the Department of the Treasury. The

SBA Administrator and leadership team must share the President’s mission and

vision and execute the Administration’s policies eectively.

Budget

The next Administration should undertake a comprehensive review of the

eectiveness of its various loan and grant programs and provide a report to

Congress within six months. The report should rank programs by cost-eective-

ness. In the interim, the roughly $1 billion overall agency budget should be held

constant until the report is considered, after which Congress should terminate

— 759 —

Small Business Administration

ineective programs, consolidate duplicative functions, and reallocate resources

to more eective programs (such as the Oce of Advocacy) or consider reducing

the SBA budget.

Personnel Challenges

The SBA continues to expand programs and initiatives without ﬁrst document-

ing the eectiveness of existing programs or whether they involve areas in which

the agency lacks sta expertise. For example, the SBA wants to expand the number

of licensed Small Business Lending Companies (SBLCs), implement a new “Mis-

sion-Based SBLC,” and remove a requirement for loan authorization within the

7(a) and 504 Loan programs and rely solely on a lender’s documents.

Various IG reports have noted that the lack of skilled employees within the

SBA has fueled fraud and mismanagement in COVID-19 lending programs, and

congressional leaders have expressed alarm about these “changes that haphazardly

overextend the SBA’s responsibilities at a time when they are devastated by fraud

and underperforming on their core mission of serving the nation’s 33 million small

businesses.”

A conservative Administration should rein in these idealistic and

impractical eorts, get current programs under control and properly staed with

people who can manage and perform competently, and outsource eorts where

private-sector expertise is appropriate and more ecient.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in the

2025 Presidential Transition Project. All contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume, but David

Burton and Caleb Orr deserve special mention. The author alone assumes responsibility for the content of this

chapter, and no views expressed herein should be attributed to any other individual.

— 760 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

 H.R. 7953, Small Business Act, Public Law 85-536, 85th Congress, July 18, 1958, § 2, https://uscode.ecfr.io/

statutes/pl/85/536.pdf (accessed February 17, 2023), amended by H.R. 4877, One Stop Shop for Small

Business Compliance Act of 2021, Public Law 117-188, 117th Congress, October 20, 2022, https://www.congress.

gov/117/plaws/publ188/PLAW-117publ188.pdf (accessed February 17, 2023).

 U.S. Small Business Administration, “About SBA: Organization: Mission,” https://www.sba.gov/about-sba/

organization (accessed February 19, 2023).

 Michael Faulkender, Robert Jackman, and Stephen I. Miran, “The Job-Preservation Eects of Paycheck

Protection Program Loans,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, Oce of Economic Policy, Working Paper

No. 2020-01, December 2020, p. 9, https://home.treasury.gov/system/ﬁles/226/Job-Preservation-Eects-

Paycheck-Protection-Program-Loans.pdf (accessed February 16, 2023).

 Kate Rogers, Scott Zamost, Karina Hernandez, and Jennifer Schlesinger, “As Pandemic Aid Was Rushed

to Main Street, Criminals Seized on Covid Relief Programs,” CNBC, April 15, 2021, https://www.cnbc.

com/2021/04/15/as-pandemic-aid-was-rushed-to-main-street-criminals-seized-on-ppp-eidl-.html (accessed

February 16, 2023).

 Kevin Brewer, “Bills Extend Statute of Limitation for Prosecuting PPP, EIDL Fraud,” Journal of Accountancy,

August 10, 2022, https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/news/2022/aug/bills-extend-statute-limitation-

prosecuting-ppp-eidl-fraud.html (accessed February 16, 2023).

 Sacha Pfeier, “Virtually All PPP Loans Have Been Forgiven with Limited Scrutiny,” NPR, October 12, 2022,

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/12/1128207464/ppp-loans-loan-forgiveness-small-business#:~:text=As%20

COVID-19%20shutdowns%20threatened,early%20days%20of%20the%20pandemic (accessed

February 16, 2023).

 U.S. Small Business Administration, “About SBA: Organization: SBA History,” https://www.sba.gov/about-sba/

organization (accessed February 19, 2023).

 President Richard Nixon, Executive Order 11518, “Providing for the Increased Representation of the Interests

of Small Business Concerns Before Departments and Agencies of the United States Government,” March 20,

1970, in Federal Register, Vol. 35, No. 56 (March 21, 1970), pp. 4939–4940, https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/

service/ll/fedreg/fr035/fr035056/fr035056.pdf (accessed February 18, 2023).

 S. 3331, Small Business Amendments of 1974, Public Law 93-386, 93rd Congress, August 23, 1974, https://www.

congress.gov/93/statute/STATUTE-88/STATUTE-88-Pg742.pdf (accessed February 19, 2023).

 S. 299, Regulatory Flexibility Act, Public Law No. 96-354, 96th Congress, September 19, 1980, https://www.

congress.gov/96/statute/STATUTE-94/STATUTE-94-Pg1164.pdf (accessed February 19, 2023).

 Maeve P. Carey, “The Regulatory Flex Act: An Overview,” Congressional Research Service In Focus No. IF11900,

August 16, 2021, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11900 (accessed February 18, 2023).

 U.S. Small Business Administration, Oce of Advocacy, “The Regulatory Flexibility Act,” https://advocacy.sba.

gov/resources/the-regulatory-ﬂexibility-act/ (accessed February 18, 2023).

 H.R. 644, Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, Public Law No. 114-125, 114th Congress,

February 24, 2026, https://www.congress.gov/114/statute/STATUTE-130/STATUTE-130-Pg122.pdf (accessed

March 21, 2023).

 U.S. Small Business Administration, Oce of Advocacy, “Advocacy Releases Trade Report,” December 21, 2018,

https://advocacy.sba.gov/2018/12/21/advocacy-releases-trade-report/ (accessed March 21, 2023).

 Associated Press, “Reagan Oers $994-Billion ‘Hard-Choices’ 1987 Budget,” Los Angeles Times,

February 5, 1986, http://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-02-05-mn-4369-story.html (accessed

February 18, 2023).

 Testimony of Hon. Hector V. Barreto, Administrator, Small Business Administration, in hearing, The President’s

FY 2006 Budget Request for the Small Business Administration, Committee on Small Business and

Entrepreneurship, U.S. Senate, 109th Congress, 1st Session, February 17, 2005, p. 8, https://books.google.com/

books?id=UwD-2ICa8k8C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

(accessed February 18, 2023). See also Report No. 109-49, Summary of Legislative and Oversight Activities

During the 108th Congress, Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, U.S. Senate, 109th Congress,

1st Session, March 30, 2005, p. 21, https://www.congress.gov/109/crpt/srpt49/CRPT-109srpt49.pdf (accessed

February 18, 2023).

— 761 —

Small Business Administration

 Editorial, “The Small Business Administration Needs Reforming,” The Washington Post, December 18, 2016,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-sba-needs-reforming/2016/12/18/b639fc4c-c159-11e6-8422-

eac61c0ef74d_story.html (accessed February 18, 2023).

 Robert Jay Dilger, Anthony A. Cilluo, and R. Corinne Blackford, “Small Business Administration Funding:

Overview and Recent Trends,” Congressional Research Service Report for Members and Committees of

Congress No. R43486, updated July 14, 2022, Summary, https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R43846.pdf (accessed

November 18, 2022).

 Ibid., p. 2. Emphasis added.

 Press release, “SBA Announces End-of-Year Capital Benchmarks Showing Historic Support for Small

Businesses Under Administrator Guzman,” U.S. Small Business Administration, December 13, 2022, https://

www.sba.gov/article/2022/dec/13/sba-announces-end-year-capital-benchmarks-showing-historic-support-

small-businesses-under?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery (accessed February 18, 2023).

 USASpending,gov, “Agency Proﬁle: Small Business Administration (SBA),” data through September 29, 2022,

https://www.usaspending.gov/agency/small-business-administration?fy=2022 (accessed February 18, 2023).

 Testimony and prepared statement of Tad DeHaven, Budget Analyst, Cato Institute, in hearing, An

Examination of SBA Programs: Eliminating Ineciencies, Duplications, Fraud, and Abuse, Committee on Small

Business and Entrepreneurship, U.S. Senate, 112th Congress, 1st Session, June 16, 2011, pp. 80–90, https://www.

govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-112shrg88373/pdf/CHRG-112shrg88373.pdf (accessed February 18, 2023).

 Sarah Westwood, “Feds Gave $400 Million in Contracts to Ineligible Firms,” Washington Examiner, September

28, 2014, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feds-gave-400-million-in-contracts-to-ineligible-ﬁrms

(accessed February 18, 2023).

 Keith Girard, “Inside the SBA’s Monumental Katrina Loan Scandal,” AllBusiness.com, https://www.allbusiness.

com/inside-the-sbas-monumental-katrina-loan-scandal-11793824-1.html (accessed February 18, 2023).

 Arnold & Porter, “CARES Act Fraud Tracker,” last updated January 2, 2023, https://www.arnoldporter.com/en/

general/cares-act-fraud-tracker (accessed February 18, 2023).

 Jay Edwards, “Bipartisan Call to Crack Down on COVID-19 PPP/EIDL Fraud, Prosecute Fraudsters to the

Fullest Extent of the Law,” WRNJ Radio (Hackettstown, New Jersey), October 21, 2022, https://wrnjradio.com/

bipartisan-call-to-crack-down-on-covid-19-ppp-eidl-fraud-prosecute-fraudsters-to-the-fullest-extent-of-the-

law/ (accessed March 21, 2023).

 See, for example, H.R. 7628, IMPROVE the SBA Act, 117th Congress, introduced April 28, 2022, https://www.

congress.gov/117/bills/hr7628/BILLS-117hr7628ih.pdf (accessed February 18, 2023).

 In varying degrees, almost every small-business advocacy organization and trade association engages

with the SBA. During periods of hyper-regulatory activity fueled by an activist Administration, the small-

business community engages more frequently with the Oce of Advocacy through its roundtables and

other mechanisms in the hope of warding o costly and intrusive rulemakings. A future conservative

Administration can look to the following groups, among others, for support in advancing both SBA

and broader policy reform: American Hotel and Lodging Association; Asian American Hotel Owners

Association; Association of Builders and Contractors; Associated Equipment Distributors; Ceramic Tile

Distributors Association; Consumer Technology Association; Family Business Coalition; Foodservice

Equipment Distributors Association; Heating, Air-conditioning, and Refrigeration Distributors International;

Independent Bakers Association; Independent Community Bankers Association; Independent Electrical

Contractors’ International Association of Plastics Distributors; International Franchise Association;

Metals Service Center Institute; National Association of Electrical Distributors; National Association of

Manufacturers; National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors; National Fastener Distributors Association;

National Marine Distributors Association; National Federation of Independent Business; National Ready Mix

Concrete Association; National Small Business Association; Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council;

and U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Additionally, the small-business community is diverse and broad,

and several key groups strongly support SBA lending but vigorously oppose tax, regulatory, and spending

policies that are intrusiveness or costly to business. Conservative think tanks and taxpayer organizations

like The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the National Taxpayers Union, Citizens Against

Government Waste, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, and Americans for Tax Reform (among others) also

have a stake in an improved and cost-eective SBA.

— 762 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 U.S. Small Business Administration, “Ensuring Equal Treatment for Faith-Based Organizations in SBA’s Loan

and Disaster Assistance Programs,” Proposed Rule, Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 11 (January 19, 2021), pp.

5036–5040, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/01/19/2021-00446/ensuring-equal-treatment-

for-faith-based-organizations-in-sbas-loan-and-disaster-assistance-programs (accessed February 18, 2023).

 President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Executive Order 14019, “Promoting Access to Voting,” March 7, 2021, in

Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 45 (March 10, 2021), pp. 13623–13627, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/

FR-2021-03-10/pdf/2021-05087.pdf (accessed February 19, 2023). See also press release, “Small Business

Committee Republicans: The SBA Should Stay Out of Elections and Focus on Our Small Businesses,” Small

Business Committee Republicans, Committee on Small Business, U.S. House of Representatives, April 4, 2022,

https://republicans-smallbusiness.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=404061 (accessed

February 18, 2023).

 Press release, “SBA Administrator Guzman, Biden–Harris Administration Announce Community Navigator

Pilot Program Grantees,” U.S. Small Business Administration, October 28, 2021, https://www.sba.gov/

article/2021/oct/28/sba-administrator-guzman-biden-harris-administration-announce-community-navigator-

pilot-program (accessed February 18, 2023).

 John Reosti, “SBA Hasn’t Given Up on Direct Lending,” American Banker, May 2, 2022, https://www.

americanbanker.com/creditunions/news/sba-hasnt-given-up-on-direct-lending (accessed February 18, 2023).

 Goldman Sachs, 10,000 Small Businesses Voices, “22 Years Is Too Long: Support Small Businesses.

Reauthorize the SBA,” Open Letter to Congress, November 16, 2022, https://www.goldmansachs.com/

citizenship/10000-small-businesses/US/voices/reauthorize-the-sba-letter/index.html (accessed February 18,

2023). According to Goldman Sachs, the letter “was published in Politico on Wednesday, November 16 to kick

of a broader campaign to prioritize small businesses and modernize the SBA in the next Congress” and “was

signed by over 3,000 small business owners from all 50 states.” Ibid.

 See, for example, “Challenge 3: SBA Faces Signiﬁcant Challenges in IT Investment, System Development, and

Security Controls,” in U.S. Small Business Administration, Oce of Inspector General, Top Management and

Performance Challenges Facing the Small Business Administration in Fiscal Year 2023, Report 23-01, October

14, 2022, pp. 16–19, https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/2022-10/SBA%20OIG%20Report%2023-01_0.pdf

(accessed February 18, 2023).

 Ibid., p. iv.

 Appendix M, “Oce of Advocacy’s Legislative Priorities,” and Appendix Q, “Memorandum of Understanding

Between the Small Business Administration and the Oce of Advocacy,” in U.S. Small Business

Administration, Oce of Advocacy, Background Paper, Oce of Advocacy, 2017–2020, January 2021, pp. 192

and 197, https://cdn.advocacy.sba.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/09101916/Background-Paper-Oce-of-

Advocacy-2017-2020-web.pdf (accessed February 18, 2023).

 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13771, “Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs,”

January 30, 2017, in Federal Register, Vol. 82, No. 22 (February 3, 2017), pp. 9339–9341, https://www.govinfo.

gov/content/pkg/FR-2017-02-03/pdf/2017-02451.pdf (accessed February 19, 2023), and President Donald

J. Trump, Executive Order 13777, “Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda,” February 24, 2017, in Federal

01/pdf/2017-04107.pdf (accessed February 19, 2023).

 U.S. Small Business Administration, Oce of Advocacy, What Small Businesses Are Saying and What

Advocacy Is Doing About It: Progress Report on the Oce of Advocacy’s Regional Regulatory Reform

Roundtables, June 2017–September 2018, December 2018, https://cdn.advocacy.sba.gov/wp-content/

uploads/2018/12/20091536/What-Small-Businesses-Are-Saying-What-Advocacy-Is-Doing.pdf April 2020,

https://advocacy.sba.gov/regulatory-reform/ (accessed February 18, 2023December 10, 2022). See also U.S.

Small Business Administration, Oce of Advocacy, Reforming Regulations and Listening to Small Business:

Second Progress Report on the Oce of Advocacy’s Regional Regulatory Roundtables, June 2017–December

2019, https://cdn.advocacy.sba.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/20141200/2nd-Progress-Report-on-Reg-

Reform-Roundtables.pdf (accessed February 18, 2023).

 U.S. Small Business Administration, Oce of Advocacy, What Small Businesses Are Saying and What

Advocacy Is Doing About It: Progress Report on the Oce of Advocacy’s Regional Regulatory Reform

Roundtables, June 2017–September 2018, pp. 32 and 43.

— 763 —

Small Business Administration

 U.S. Small Business Administration, Oce of Inspector General, Top Management and Performance

Challenges Facing the Small Business Administration in Fiscal Year 2023, p. iv.

 H.R. 748, CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act, Public Law No. 116-136, 116th

Congress, March 27, 2020, https://www.congress.gov/116/plaws/publ136/PLAW-116publ136.pdf (accessed

February 19, 2023).

 Sarah McCammon, “Planned Parenthood Asked to Return Funds from Paycheck Protection Program,” NPR,

May 21, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/05/21/859991359/planned-parenthood-asked-to-return-funds-

from-paycheck-protection-program (accessed February 18, 2023).

 Letter from William Manger, Associate Administrator, U.S. Small Business Administration, to Laura Meyers,

Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, “Re: Notice of Investigation and Request for Records,”

May 19, 2020, https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/6922122/SBA-Letter-Planned-Parenthood-DC.pdf

(accessed February 18, 2023).

 Press release, “Lankford, HSGAC Republicans Demand Details on Illegal PPP Loans to Planned Parenthood

Aliates,” Oce of U.S. Senator James Lankford, April 28, 2022, https://www.lankford.senate.gov/news/press-

releases/lankford-hsgac-republicans-demand-details-on-illegal-ppp-loans-to-planned-parenthood-aliates

(accessed February 18, 2023).

 Press release, “Romney, Colleagues Request Information from SBA Administrator Guzman on Illegal PPP

Loans Given to Planned Parenthood Aliates,” Oce of U.S. Senator Mitt Romney, April 28, 2022, https://

www.romney.senate.gov/romney-colleagues-request-information-from-sba-administrator-guzman-on-

illegal-ppp-loans-given-to-planned-parenthood-aliates/ (accessed February 18, 2023).

 13 C.F.R. §§ 109.400(b)(11), https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/13/109.400; 123.301(g), https://www.law.

cornell.edu/cfr/text/13/123.301; 123.502(n), https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/13/123.502; and 123.702(b)(6),

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/13/123.702 (all accessed February 19, 2023).

 U.S. Small Business Administration, “Religious Eligibility Worksheet for all 7(a) and 504 Loan

Programs” SBA Form 1971, http://www.sba.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/2020-11/sba-form-1971.pdf (accessed

February 18, 2023).

 U.S. Small Business Administration, “Ensuring Equal Treatment for Faith-Based Organizations in SBA’s Loan

and Disaster Assistance Program.”

 See, for example, Carson v. Makin, 596 U.S. ___ (2022), https://www.supremecourt.gov/

opinions/21pdf/20-1088_dbﬁ.pdf (accessed February 19, 2023).

 28 U.S. Code § 530d, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/530D (accessed February 19, 2023).

 U.S. Small Business Administration, “Ensuring Equal Treatment for Faith-Based Organizations in SBA’s Loan

and Disaster Assistance Program.”

 13 CFR 120.110(k), https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/13/120.110 (accessed February 19, 2023).

 U.S. Small Business Administration, “Regulatory Reform Initiative: Streamlining and Modernizing the 7(a),

Microloan, and 504 Loan Programs to Reduce Regulatory Burden,” Final Rule, Federal Register, Vol. 87, No.

125 (June 30, 2022), pp. 38900–38910, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/06/30/2022-13483/

regulatory-reform-initiative-streamlining-and-modernizing-the-7a-microloan-and-504-loan-programs-to

(accessed February 18, 2023).

 Ibid.

 U.S. Department of Justice, Oce of Legal Counsel “Religious Restrictions on Capital Financing for

Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” Memorandum Opinion for the Acting General Counsel,

Department of Education, August 15, 2019, https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/opinions/

attachments/2021/01/01/2019-08-15-hbcu-capﬁn-2.pdf. (accessed February 18, 2023).

 U.S. Small Business Administration, Oce of Investment and Innovation, SBIR and STTR Annual Report, Fiscal

Year 2019, p. 8, https://www.sbir.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/SBA_Final_FY19_SBIR_STTR_Annual_Report.pdf

(accessed February 18, 2023).

 S. 4900, SBIR and STTR Extension Act of 2022, Public Law No. 117–183, 117th Congress, September 30, 2022,

https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ183/PLAW-117publ183.pdf (accessed February 18, 2023).

 U.S. Small Business Administration, Oce of Investment and Innovation, SBIR and STTR Annual Report, Fiscal

Year 2019, pp. 6, 40, and 108.

— 764 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 Peter L. Singer, “Federally Supported Innovations: 22 Examples of Major Technology Advances that Stem from

Federal Support,” Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, February 2014, https://wrnjradio.com/

bipartisan-call-to-crack-down-on-covid-19-ppp-eidl-fraud-prosecute-fraudsters-to-the-fullest-extent-of-the-

law/ (accessed March 21, 2023).

 Wells King, “Uncle Sam’s Top-Performing Venture Fund,” American Compass Case Study, November 2022,

https://americancompass.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/AC-Case-Study_SBIR_ﬁnal2.pdf (accessed

February 18, 2023).

 Elisabeth B. Reynolds, Hiram M. Samel, and Joyce Lawrence, “Learning by Building: Complementary Assets

and the Migration of Capabilities in U.S. Innovative Firms,” MIT Industrial Performance Center Working

Paper No. MIT-IPC-13-001, March 2013, https://ipc.mit.edu/sites/default/ﬁles/2019-01/13-001.pdf (accessed

February 18, 2023).

 American Compass, “Where’s The Growth? Assessing the Results of the Globalization Experiment,” March

2022, pp. 3–5, https://americancompass.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/AC-Atlas-Wheres-the-Growth.pdf

(accessed February 18, 2023).

 Sridhar Kota and Tom Mahoney, “Innovation Should Be Made in the U.S.A.,” The Wall Street Journal,

November 15, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/innovation-should-be-made-in-the-u-s-a-11573833987

(accessed February 18, 2023).

 S. ___, SBA Reauthorization and Improvement Act of 2019, 116th Congress, 1st Session, Title III, §

303, https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/_cache/ﬁles/80533629-2905-433f-a588-7c4e032f7347/

C096ED9C1EBA68E041CFDA143E01C66C.mir19891.pdf (accessed February 18, 2023).

 David Adler, “Financing Advanced Manufacturing: Why VCs Aren’t the Answer,” American Aairs, Vol. III, No.

2 (Summer 2019), https://americanaairsjournal.org/2019/05/ﬁnancing-advanced-manufacturing-why-vcs-

arent-the-answer/ (accessed February 18, 2023).

 National Association of Manufacturers, “Overview of the Senate HEALS Act,” July 28, 2020, https://documents.

nam.org/comm/HEALSActInfo.pdf (accessed February 19, 2023). See also remarks by Senator Mitch

McConnell, “HEALS Act,” Congressional Record, Vol. 166, No. 132 (July 27, 2020), pp. S4491–S4492, https://

www.congress.gov/116/crec/2020/07/27/CREC-2020-07-27-pt1-PgS4491-7.pdf (accessed February 20, 2023).

 S. 1059, American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, 117th Congress, introduced March 25, 2021, https://

www.crfb.org/blogs/whats-11-trillion-heals-act https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/s1059/BILLS-117s1059is.pdf

(accessed February 18, 2023).

 H.R. 7628, IMPROVE (Improve Management, Programs, Resources, and Oversight for Vital Entrepreneurs)

the SBA Act, 117th Congress, introduced April 28, 2022, https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/hr7628/BILLS-

117hr7628ih.pdf (accessed February 19, 2023).

 S. 1120, Small Business Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act, 116th Congress, introduced April 10, 2019,

https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/s1120/BILLS-116s1120is.pdf (accessed February 19, 2023).

 H.R. 3136, Contract with America Advancement Act of 1996, Public Law No. 104-121, 104th Congress,

March 29, 1996, Title II, https://www.congress.gov/104/plaws/publ121/PLAW-104publ121.pdf (accessed

February 19, 2023).

 S. 403, Fair and Open Competition Act, 117th Congress, introduced February 24, 2021, https://www.

congress.gov/117/bills/s403/BILLS-117s403is.pdf (accessed February 19, 2023), and H.R. 1284, Fair and Open

Competition Act, 117th Congress, introduced February 24, 2021, https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/hr1284/

BILLS-117hr1284ih.pdf (accessed February 19, 2023.

 President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Executive Order 14063, “Use of Project Labor Agreements for Federal

Construction Projects,” February 4, 2022, in Federal Register, Vol. 87, No. 27 (February 9, 2022), pp.

7363–7366, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-02-09/pdf/2022-02869.pdf (accessed

February 19, 2023).

 “The JOBS Act 4.0: Section-by-Section,” Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Aairs, U.S. Senate,

https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/the_jobs_act_4.0sectionbysection.pdf (accessed

February 19, 2023).

 Press release, “Luetkeymeyer: SBA Lacks Infrastructure and Expertise to Expand Number of Small Business

Lending Companies,” Committee on Small Business, U.S. House of Representatives, November 7, 2022, https://

smallbusiness.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=404376 (accessed February 18, 2023).

— 765 —

TRADE

THE CASE FOR FAIR TRADE

Peter Navarro

For decades the world has struggled with a shifting maze of punitive taris,

export subsidies, quotas, dollar-locked currencies, and the like. Many

of these import-inhibiting and export-encouraging devices have long

been employed by major exporting countries trying to amass ever larger

[trade] surpluses.

Warren Buett, CEO, Berkshire Hathaway

The Chinese government is implementing a comprehensive, long-term

industrial strategy to ensure its global dominance…. Beijing’s ultimate goal

is for domestic companies to replace foreign companies as designers and

manufacturers of key technology and products ﬁrst at home, then abroad.

U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission

The United States of America is the world’s dominant superpower and remains

the world’s arsenal of democracy. To maintain that global positioning—and thereby

best protect the homeland and our own democratic institutions—it is critical that

the United States strengthen its manufacturing and defense industrial base at the

same time that it increases the reliability and resilience of its globally dispersed

— 766 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

supply chains. That will necessarily require the onshoring of a signiﬁcant portion

of production currently oshored by American multinational corporations.

Trade policy can and must play an essential role in an American manufacturing

and defense industrial base renaissance. However, several major challenges in the

international trading environment are pushing America in the opposite direction.

The ﬁrst challenge is rooted in MFN: the “most favored nation” rule of the World

Trade Organization (WTO). According to the MFN rule, WTO members must apply

the lowest taris that they apply to the products of any one country to the products

of every other country.

However, WTO members can charge higher taris if they

apply these nonreciprocal taris to all countries.

The practical result has been the systematic exploitation of American farmers,

ranchers, manufacturers, and workers through higher taris institutionalized by

MFN. In turn, this unfair and nonreciprocal trade has resulted in chronic U.S. trade

deﬁcits with much of the rest of the world. This systemic trade imbalance serves as

a brake and bridle on both GDP growth and real wages in the American economy

while encumbering the U.S. with signiﬁcant foreign debt.

The second challenge is part of the broader existential threat posed by the

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in its quest for global dominance. That chal-

lenge is rooted in the CCP’s continued economic aggression, which begins with

mercantilist and protectionist trade policy tools such as taris, nontari barriers,

dumping, counterfeiting and piracy, and currency manipulation. However, Com-

munist China’s economic aggression also extends to an intricate set of industrial

policies and technology transfer–forcing policies that have dramatically skewed

the international trading arena.

Both the unfair, unbalanced, and nonreciprocal trade institutionalized by the

WTO and Communist China’s economic aggression are weakening America’s man-

ufacturing and defense industrial base even as the fragility of globally dispersed

supply chains has been brought into sharp relief by the COVID-19 pandemic with

its associated lockdowns and other disruptions and by the Russian invasion of

Ukraine. Russian revanchism, in particular, has demonstrated once again how bad

actors on the world stage can use trade policy (for example, export restraints on

natural gas) as a weapon of war.

LAYING THE TRADE DEFICIT PREDICATE

The great football coach Bill Parcells once said, “You are what your record says

you are.” America’s record on trade—speciﬁcally American’s chronic and ever-ex-

panding trade deﬁcit—says that America is the globe’s biggest trade loser and a

victim of unfair, unbalanced, and nonreciprocal trade.

During the ﬁrst year of the Biden Administration, the overall U.S. trade deﬁ-

cit, including goods and services, soared by 29 percent, from $654 billion in 2020

to $845 billion in 2021.

Over the same time period, imports of consumer goods,

— 767 —

Trade

capital goods, and the category of foods, feeds, and beverages were the highest on

record, and imports of industrial supplies and materials were the highest since 2014.

As for the U.S. trade deﬁcit in goods, which primarily measures manufacturing

output,

Table 1 catalogues that deﬁcit for the top 13 countries plus the European

Union (EU) in ﬁscal year (FY) 2022. Note that the trade deﬁcit in goods with Com-

munist China is by far the largest: It accounts for fully one-third of that deﬁcit and

is more than twice the size of the deﬁcit with the EU.

These trade deﬁcit statistics implicitly measure the large amounts of Ameri-

ca’s manufacturing and defense industrial base and supply chains that have been

oshored to foreign lands. Such oshoring not only suppresses the real wages of

American blue-collar workers and denies millions of Americans the opportunity

to climb up the rungs of the ladder to the middle class, but also raises the specter of

a manufacturing and defense industrial base that, unlike our experience in World

Wars I and II, will not be able to provide the weapons and matériel that would be

needed should America enter another major world war or seek to assist a major ally

like Europe, Japan, or Taiwan. It is wise to recall Stalin’s admonition that “quantity

SOURCE: Exhibit 14, “U.S. Trade in Goods by Selected Countries and Areas: 2022,” in press release, “Monthly U.S.

International Trade in Goods and Services, October 2022,” U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau,

December 6, 2022, https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/ft900/ft900_2210.pdf (accessed

March 21, 2023).

TABLE 1

America’s Trade Deﬁ cit in Goods and Services

with Major Trading Partners

FY 2022 FIGURES FOR SELECTED AREAS, IN BILLIONS OF DOLLARS

A heritage.org

Country Deﬁ cit

Communist China -

European Union -

Mexico -

Vietnam -

Canada -

Japan -

Ireland -

Taiwan -

Country Deﬁ cit

South Korea -

Thailand -

India -

Malaysia -

Switzerland -

Indonesia -

Total -

— 768 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

has a quality of its own.” In World War II in particular, it was not just the brave

soldiers, sailors, and pilots who beat the Nazis and Imperial Japan. It was America’s

factories—its “arsenal of democracy”—that overwhelmed the Axis forces.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, almost certainly spawned in a CCP

biological weapons lab in Wuhan, China,

global supply chains have been under

signiﬁcant pressures from lockdown policies, energy price shocks, and other dis-

ruptions, including labor market disruptions. At the height of the pandemic, the

rising geopolitical risk associated with globalized supply chains was underscored

when Communist China, which controls much of the world’s pharmaceutical pro-

duction and supply chains, threatened to plunge America “into a mighty sea of

coronavirus” through pharmaceutical export controls

if American politicians

dared to investigate what happened at the Wuhan lab.

Add all this up, and America’s trade situation and massive trade imbalances

pose not only a severe economic security threat, but also a national security threat.

As President Donald Trump indicated in announcing his 2017 National Security

Strategy, “economic security is national security.”

CHALLENGE #1: UNFAIR AND NONRECIPROCAL

TRADE INSTITUTIONALIZED IN WTO RULES

Tonight, I am also asking you to pass the United States Reciprocal Trade

Act, so that if another country places an unfair tari on an American product,

we can charge them the exact same tari on the exact same product that

they sell to us.

President Donald J. Trump, 2019 State of the Union Address

The World Trade Organization, with its 164 members, governs international

trade rules. Under its most favored nation (MFN) rule, each WTO member must

apply the lowest taris it applies to the products of any one country to the products

of every other WTO country. Importantly, nothing in the MFN rule requires a WTO

member to provide equal—that is, reciprocal or mirror—tari rates to its trading

partners. Rather, under MFN, WTO members can charge systematically higher

taris to other countries to the extent negotiated in their WTO tari schedules

so long as they apply those same higher taris to all countries.

As a poster child for the kind of nonreciprocal taris that American manufactur-

ers often face, the MFN tari for automobiles applied by the U.S. is only 2.5 percent.

In contrast, the EU charges 10 percent, Communist China 15 percent, and Brazil 35

percent. Similarly, while the U.S. applies an MFN tari rate of 6.2 percent on the

rice it buys from Malaysia, Malaysia applies an ad-valorem equivalent tari of 40

percent on rice from the U.S. Meanwhile, European milk producers are shielded

— 769 —

Trade

by 67 percent taris while American milk producers beneﬁt only from a 15 percent

tari on foreign imports.

From the perspective of strategic game theory, the WTO’s MFN rule provides

little or no incentive for higher-tari countries to lower their taris. Rather, under

these conditions, the dominant strategy of any relatively high-tari country is

simply to maintain those high taris while free riding o the lower-tari countries.

The U.S. is disproportionately harmed by the WTO’s nonreciprocal tari regime.

The countries that are hurt most by the WTO’s nonreciprocal tari regime are

those like the United States that charge the lowest taris on average. This point is

illustrated in Table 2, which reports information on nonreciprocal taris that are

applied under the MFN rule on product lines at the six-digit level of the Harmo-

nized Commodity Description and Coding System (HS6).

Table 2 presents results for a broad sample of 132 countries that account for

more than 60 percent of total U.S. trade and 98 percent of U.S. trade that is not cov-

ered by free trade agreements (FTAs). Within this broad sample of 132 countries,

U.S. exporters face higher taris in 467,015 dierent cases compared to 141,736

cases in which the U.S. charges higher nonreciprocal rates. In other words, U.S.

exporters face higher taris more than three times as often as the U.S. applies

higher taris.

Moreover, when American exporters face higher taris, the nonreciprocal tar-

is are typically much higher. As row 4 of Table 2 indicates, in the 467,015 cases in

which foreign partners charge higher taris, the average rate applied by the foreign

partners is 12.3 percentage points above the rate applied by the U.S. In contrast,

NOTE: HS6—Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System.

SOURCE: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, “Trade Analysis Information System,” https://

databank.worldbank.org/source/unctad-%5E-trade-analysis-information-system-(trains) (accessed March 21, 2023).

TABLE 2

Nonreciprocal Tari Rates Under “Most Favored Nation” Rule

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-Country Sample

Foreign

Partner Applies

Higher Tari

US Applies

Higher Tari

US and Foreign

Partner Apply

Same Tari

Number of HS Product Lines   

Percent of HS Product Lines   

Tari Di erential   

— 770 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

in the 141,736 cases in which the U.S. charges the higher tari, the average U.S.

applied rate is only 8.7 percentage points higher than the average applied tari of

the foreign partner.

Separately, Communist China levies higher taris on 10 products for every

one Chinese product that is subject to a U.S.-applied higher tari.

India’s ratio is

even higher at 13 to one. Further, both Communist China and India also feature

signiﬁcant nontari barriers. Collectively, these higher nonreciprocal taris in

Communist China and India block American exporters from selling goods at com-

petitive prices to more than one-third of the world’s population.

Trade Deﬁcit Impacts of the U.S. Reciprocal Trade Act. Under current

United States laws and regulations, an American President has limited ability

to ﬁght back against the higher MFN taris now being levied against American

workers, farmers, ranchers, and manufacturers. Accordingly, behind the WTO’s

protective MFN shield, America’s free-riding trading partners have little or no

incentive to come to the bargaining table to negotiate lower taris.

To address this nonreciprocity stalemate, President Trump urged Congress in

his 2019 State of the Union address to pass the United States Reciprocal Trade Act

(USRTA).

Under the USRTA, the President would have the authority to bring any

American trading partner that is currently applying higher nonreciprocal taris to

the negotiating table. If that trading partner refused to lower taris to U.S. levels,

the President then would have the authority to raise U.S. taris to match or “mirror”

the foreign partner’s taris.

The USRTA was introduced on January 24, 2019, by then-Representative Sean

Duy (R–WI). The following month, a Harvard–Harris poll of 1,792 registered

voters found that 80 percent of respondents supported the USRTA.

As Repre-

sentative Duy noted at the time, the purpose of granting the President these

authorities was not to raise taris. Rather, it was to give the President, working in

close consultation with Congress, a sophisticated and targeted tool that he could

use to force other countries to lower their taris and nontari barriers.

Following the introduction of the USRTA, the White House Oce of Trade and

Manufacturing Policy (which the author directed) ran simulations to estimate the

impact that implementation of the USRTA might have on the overall U.S. trade

deﬁcit in goods and the large bilateral trade deﬁcits the U.S. runs with many of its

major trading partners. The sample consisted of the same 132 trading partners used

in Table 2 above.

The results underscore the unfair and unbalanced nonreciprocal

trade the U.S. is forced to accept under WTO MFN rules.

Two Scenarios. Scenario One in Table 3 assumes that our trading partners

lower their applied tari rates on speciﬁc products to U.S. levels in cases where

their applied taris are higher. Scenario Two assumes that our trading partners

refuse to lower their tari rates to match those of the U.S. Instead, in order to

uphold the principle of reciprocity, the U.S. raises its taris to mirror levels. To

— 771 —

Trade

calculate the trade deﬁcit reductions under Scenario One and Scenario Two, the

analysis relied on the World Bank’s SMART tari simulator. Table 3 provides the

simulation results.

In Scenario One, if all 132 countries were to lower their higher nonreciprocal

taris to U.S. levels, the overall U.S. trade deﬁcit in goods would be reduced by

$58.3 billion, or about 9.4 percent of that deﬁcit. In contrast, in Scenario Two, if

these countries were to refuse to reciprocate and the U.S. were to raise its taris

to mirror those countries’ levels, the reduction in the U.S. trade deﬁcit would

be slightly larger: an estimated $63.6 billion, or 10.2 percent of the deﬁcit. This

suggests that implementing the USRTA would help to create between 350,000

and 380,000 jobs.

The slightly larger reduction in the trade deﬁcit in Scenario Two as a result

of the U.S. raising its taris to mirror those of its partners, as opposed to foreign

countries lowering their taris to U.S. levels, may seem surprising to those who are

steeped in Ricardian dogma and the textbook lessons of free trade. However, this

result speaks to the fact that so many of America’s trading partners are applying

signiﬁcantly higher taris to thousands of American products.

Estimated Impacts on Key U.S. Bilateral Trade Deﬁcits. If the USRTA were

enacted, a President would likely have to prioritize which countries he should

negotiate with ﬁrst. One way to create such a priority list would be to choose those

countries that have relatively large trade deﬁcits with the U.S. and apply relatively

high taris. This is illustrated in Figure 1, which maps bilateral trade deﬁcits

REDUCTION IN US TRADE DEFICIT WITH WORLD

Metric

Scenario One

Partner Countries

Match US Tari Rate

Scenario Two

US Matches Partner

Tari Rates

In Billions of Dollars  

As Percentage of  Deﬁ cit  

NOTE: USRTA—U.S. Reciprocal Trade Act.

SOURCE: White House O ce of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, The United States Reciprocal Trade Act: Estimated

Job & Trade Deﬁ cit E ects, May 2029, p. 18, https://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/RTAReport.

pdf?mod=article_inline (accessed March 21, 2023).

TABLE 3

Trade Deﬁ cit Reductions Under Alternative USRTA Scenarios

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— 772 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

against tari dierentials for eight major U.S. trading partners, which account for

47.6 percent of total U.S. trade and 88.6 percent of the U.S. trade deﬁcit in goods.

Figure 1 shows that the USRTA priority list would include the countries in

red—Communist China and India—along with trading partners in the yellow zone.

This yellow zone includes the European Union, which features a very high deﬁcit,

along with Thailand, Taiwan, and Vietnam, which feature particularly high tari

dierentials.

Table 4 estimates the improvement in the U.S. trade deﬁcit under Scenario

One, in which partner countries match the U.S. tari rate under pressure from















        

India

Thailand

Taiwan

Vietnam

Malaysia Japan

E.U.

China

BILATERAL TRADE DEFICIT  IN BILLIONS OF US DOLLARS

AVERAGE MOST-FREE-NATION DIFFERENTIAL SIMPLE MEAN

A heritage.org

SOURCE: White House Oce of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, The United States Reciprocal Trade Act: Estimated

Job & Trade Deﬁcit Eects, May 2019, p. 20, https://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/RTAReport.pdf?

mod=article_inline (accessed March 21, 2023).

FIGURE 1

Mapping Bilateral Trade Deﬁcits Against Tari Dierentials

■ Largest bilateral trade deﬁcit and/or largest tari dierential

■ Second-to-largest bilateral trade deﬁcit and/or second-to-largest bilateral tari dierential

■ Smallest bilateral trade deﬁcit and/or smallest tari dierential

— 773 —

Trade

the American President, and then under Scenario Two, in which the U.S. matches

the taris of partners that refuse to lower their taris. Columns 2 and 4 in Table 4,

when the USRTA is applied ﬁrst to Communist China and then to the EU, show the

largest absolute dollar reductions in bilateral trade deﬁcits. This results in bilat-

eral deﬁcit reductions in Scenario One of $18.5 billion for China and $8.0 billion

for the EU. In Scenario Two, the impacts for Communist China and the EU are

substantially larger: $70.6 billion and $25.3 billion, respectively.

Note further that the largest relative dollar reductions in percent terms come

from applying the USRTA ﬁrst to India and then to Taiwan and Vietnam. For exam-

ple, if India were to reduce its taris to U.S. levels, as in Scenario One, this would

reduce the bilateral trade deﬁcit with India by 24 percent. If the U.S. raised its

taris to mirror India’s levels, the result would be a far more dramatic 88 percent

SCENARIO ONE

PARTNER COUNTRIES

MATCH US TARIFF RATE

SCENARIO TWO

US MATCHES PARTNER

TARIFF RATES

Country

Projected

Change in

Bilateral Trade

Balance

( Billions)

Bilateral

Deﬁ cit

Reduction

as Share of

 Bilateral

Deﬁ cit

Projected

Change in

Bilateral Trade

Balance

( Billions)

Bilateral

Deﬁ cit

Reduction

as Share of

 Bilateral

Deﬁ cit

India    

Taiwan    

Vietnam    

Thailand    

Communist China    

European Union    

Total    

SOURCE: White House O ce of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, The United States Reciprocal Trade Act: Estimated

Job & Trade Deﬁ cit E ects, May 2029, p. 21, https://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/RTAReport.

pdf?mod=article_inline (accessed March 21, 2023).

TABLE 4

Trade Deﬁ cit Reductions for Target Countries

A heritage.org

— 774 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Chinas Acts Policies

and Practices of

Economic Aggression

Protect

Chinas Home

Market from

Competition

and Imports

Expand China’s

Share of Global

Markets

Secure and

Control

Core Natural

Resources

Globally

Dominate

Traditional

Manufacturing

Industries

Acquire Key

Technologies

and IP from

Other Countries

and the US

Capture

Emerging

High-Tech

Industries that

Drive Future

Growth and

Advancements

in Defense

Industry

Adverse Administrative

Approvals and Licensing

Processes

% % %

Anti-monopoly Law Extortion

% % % %

Bid-Rig Foreign Government

Procurement Contracts

% % %

“Brand Forcing” — Forced

Use of Chinese Brands

Burdensome and

Intrusive Testing

% % %

Chinese Communist Party Co-

opts Corporate Governance

% % %

Chinese Nationals

as Non-Traditional

Information Collectors

% % % %

TABLE 5

Communist China’s Categories of Economic Aggression (Page 1 of 8)

— 775 —

Trade

Chinas Acts Policies

and Practices of

Economic Aggression

Protect

Chinas Home

Market from

Competition

and Imports

Expand China’s

Share of Global

Markets

Secure and

Control

Core Natural

Resources

Globally

Dominate

Traditional

Manufacturing

Industries

Acquire Key

Technologies

and IP from

Other Countries

and the US

Capture

Emerging

High-Tech

Industries that

Drive Future

Growth and

Advancements

in Defense

Industry

Claim Sovereign Immunity on

US Soil to Prevent Litigation

Consolidate State-

Owned Enterprises into

National Champions

% % % % % %

Counterfeiting and Piracy

Steals Intellectual Property

% % %

Currency Manipulation

and Undervaluation

% % %

Cyber-Enabled

Espionage and Theft

% % % %

Data Localization Mandates

% % %

“Debt-Trap” Financing to

Developing Countries

% %

TABLE 5

Communist China’s Categories of Economic Aggression (Page 2 of 8)

— 776 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Chinas Acts Policies

and Practices of

Economic Aggression

Protect

Chinas Home

Market from

Competition

and Imports

Expand China’s

Share of Global

Markets

Secure and

Control

Core Natural

Resources

Globally

Dominate

Traditional

Manufacturing

Industries

Acquire Key

Technologies

and IP from

Other Countries

and the US

Capture

Emerging

High-Tech

Industries that

Drive Future

Growth and

Advancements

in Defense

Industry

Delays in Regulatory Approvals

% % %

Discriminatory

Catalogues and Lists

% % %

Discriminatory Patent and

Other IP Rights Restrictions

% % % %

Dumping Below Cost

Into Foreign Markets

% % %

Evasion of US Export

Control Laws

% %

Expert Review Panels

Force Disclosure of

Proprietary Information

% % %

Export Restraints Restrict

Access to Raw Materials

% % % % %

TABLE 5

Communist China’s Categories of Economic Aggression (Page 3 of 8)

— 777 —

Trade

Chinas Acts Policies

and Practices of

Economic Aggression

Protect

Chinas Home

Market from

Competition

and Imports

Expand China’s

Share of Global

Markets

Secure and

Control

Core Natural

Resources

Globally

Dominate

Traditional

Manufacturing

Industries

Acquire Key

Technologies

and IP from

Other Countries

and the US

Capture

Emerging

High-Tech

Industries that

Drive Future

Growth and

Advancements

in Defense

Industry

Financial Support to Boost

Exports and Promote

Import Substitution

% % % %

Forced Research and

Development (“R&D

Localization”)

% %

Foreign Ownership Restrictions

Force Technology and IP Transfer

% % %

Government Procurement

Restrictions

Indigenous Technology

Standards

% % %

“Junk Patent” Lawsuits

Lack of Transparency

TABLE 5

Communist China’s Categories of Economic Aggression (Page 4 of 8)

— 778 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Chinas Acts Policies

and Practices of

Economic Aggression

Protect

Chinas Home

Market from

Competition

and Imports

Expand China’s

Share of Global

Markets

Secure and

Control

Core Natural

Resources

Globally

Dominate

Traditional

Manufacturing

Industries

Acquire Key

Technologies

and IP from

Other Countries

and the US

Capture

Emerging

High-Tech

Industries that

Drive Future

Growth and

Advancements

in Defense

Industry

Lax and Inconsistent Labor Laws

% % %

Monopsony Purchasing Power

% %

Move the Regulatory Goalposts

% % %

Open Source Collection of

Science and Technology

Information

% %

Overcapacity Drives

Out Foreign Rivals

% % %

Physical Theft of

Technologies and IP Through

Economic Espionage

% % % %

Placement of Chinese Employees

with Foreign Joint Ventures

Price Controls to Restrict Imports

TABLE 5

Communist China’s Categories of Economic Aggression (Page 5 of 8)

— 779 —

Trade

Chinas Acts Policies

and Practices of

Economic Aggression

Protect

Chinas Home

Market from

Competition

and Imports

Expand China’s

Share of Global

Markets

Secure and

Control

Core Natural

Resources

Globally

Dominate

Traditional

Manufacturing

Industries

Acquire Key

Technologies

and IP from

Other Countries

and the US

Capture

Emerging

High-Tech

Industries that

Drive Future

Growth and

Advancements

in Defense

Industry

“Product Hop” and “Country

Hop” to Evade Antidumping

and Countervailing Duties

% %

Promise Cooperation on

Regional Security Issues

as Bargaining Chip

% % %

Quotas and Tari -Rate Quotas

Recruitment of Science

Technology Business

and Finance Talent

% % %

Retaliation and

Retaliatory Threats

% % % %

Reverse Engineering

% %

TABLE 5

Communist China’s Categories of Economic Aggression (Page 6 of 8)

— 780 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Chinas Acts Policies

and Practices of

Economic Aggression

Protect

Chinas Home

Market from

Competition

and Imports

Expand China’s

Share of Global

Markets

Secure and

Control

Core Natural

Resources

Globally

Dominate

Traditional

Manufacturing

Industries

Acquire Key

Technologies

and IP from

Other Countries

and the US

Capture

Emerging

High-Tech

Industries that

Drive Future

Growth and

Advancements

in Defense

Industry

Sanitary and Phytosanitary

Standards Raise Non-

Tari Barriers

% % %

Secure and Controllable

Technology Standards

% % %

Security Reviews Force

Technology and IP Transfer

% %

Structuring Transactions to

Avoid CFIUS Review of Chinese

Investment in the US

% %

Subsidized Factor

Inputs — Capital Energy

Utilities and Land

% %

Tari s

TABLE 5

Communist China’s Categories of Economic Aggression (Page 7 of 8)

— 781 —

Trade

Chinas Acts Policies

and Practices of

Economic Aggression

Protect

Chinas Home

Market from

Competition

and Imports

Expand China’s

Share of Global

Markets

Secure and

Control

Core Natural

Resources

Globally

Dominate

Traditional

Manufacturing

Industries

Acquire Key

Technologies

and IP from

Other Countries

and the US

Capture

Emerging

High-Tech

Industries that

Drive Future

Growth and

Advancements

in Defense

Industry

Technology-Seeking

State-Directed Foreign

Direct Investment

% % %

Traditional Spycraft

% % %

Transship to Evade Antidumping

and Countervailing Duties

Value-Added Tax Adjustments

and Rebates Subsidize

Chinese Exports

% %

Weak and Laxly Enforced

Environmental Laws

% %

TABLE 5

Communist China’s Categories of Economic Aggression (Page 8 of 8)

SOURCE: White House O ce of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, How China’s Economic Aggression Threatens the Technologies

and Intellectual Property of the United States and the World, June 2018, https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/

uploads/2018/06/FINAL-China-Technology-Report-6.18.18-PDF.pdf (accessed March 21, 2023).

A heritage.org

— 782 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

reduction in the U.S. bilateral trade deﬁcit with India. Similarly, if Taiwan were to

reduce its taris to U.S. levels, the size of the U.S. bilateral trade deﬁcit with Taiwan

would fall by 6 percent. If the U.S. imposed a mirror tari, its bilateral trade deﬁcit

with Taiwan would fall by 59 percent.

These results again underscore the high degree of unfair, unbalanced, and

nonreciprocal trade that currently exists between the U.S. and much of the rest

of the world, which penalizes American farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, and

workers because of the WTO-MFN conundrum. These simulations also demon-

strate that implementation of the USRTA most likely would substantially reduce

the U.S. trade deﬁcit while creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs. These

beneﬁts notwithstanding, however, the U.S. would still face a substantial over-

all trade deﬁcit and substantial bilateral trade deﬁcits with many of its major

trading partners.

Why might this be so? Because under WTO rules, America still faces numerous

nonreciprocal nontari barriers around the world. For example, one of America’s

largest trading partners, Japan, runs a signiﬁcant bilateral trade surplus in goods

with the U.S.—more than $70 billion a year. While Japan has relatively low taris,

it ranks high on the nontari barrier scale. In such cases, which are numerous, pas-

sage of the USRTA would likely also be very helpful in reducing nontari barriers.

This is because under the powers provided by the USRTA, if a foreign country

imposes signiﬁcantly higher nontari barriers, then the President has the authority

to “negotiate and seek to enter into an agreement” that “commits the country to…

eliminate [its] nontari barriers.”

If the country refuses to come to the negoti-

ating table and lower its nontari barriers, the President has the authority to levy

reciprocal duties to oset or mirror those barriers.

In summary, passage of the USRTA would go a long way toward leveling the

playing ﬁeld for American farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, and workers who are

now forced to compete in an intrinsically unfair, unbalanced, and nonreciprocal

WTO-MFN system.

Nor is the USRTA necessarily the only possible legislative way to address this

issue. In 2017, then-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R–WI) and then-House Ways and

Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R–TX) proposed a “border adjust-

ment tax.” The proposed border adjustment would have eliminated the ability of

corporations to deduct the cost of imports while eliminating the tax on income

attributable to exports. This border adjustment tax would have shifted the U.S.

corporate income tax from an origin-based tax applying to the production of goods

and services in the United States to a destination-based tax applying to the con-

sumption of goods and services in the U.S.

This tax—strongly opposed by American multinational corporations and big-

box retailers—not only would have leveled the playing ﬁeld with respect to WTO

rules, but also would have provided an innovative alternative to the application of

— 783 —

Trade

taris.

A conservative Administration might do well to look at such a tax as part

of its trade agenda.

CHALLENGE #2: COMMUNIST CHINA’S ECONOMIC

AGGRESSION AND QUEST FOR WORLD DOMINATION

Among all of its bilateral trade relationships, America’s relationship with Com-

munist China is the most fraught with diculty. The problem is not just that the

relentlessly mercantilist and protectionist trade policies that China has pursued

ever since its accession to the WTO in 2001 have led to chronic, massive, and

ever-expanding trade deﬁcits. Communist China’s economic aggression in the

traditional trade policy space is further facilitated by equally aggressive industrial

policies and technology transfer–forcing policies that are designed to shift the

world’s manufacturing and supply chains to Communist Chinese soil.

The Chinese Communist Party’s policy goal is to propel the Chinese economy,

but its broader goal is to strengthen Communist China’s defense industrial base

and associated warﬁghting capabilities. That China unabashedly seeks to supplant

America as the world’s dominant economic and military power is not in dispute.

Rather, it is a prominent feature of Communist Chinese dictator Xi Jinping’s rhet-

oric. Xi has promised that the deed will be done by 2049, the 100-year anniversary

of the Communist takeover of the Mainland.

In light of Communist China’s broader geopolitical and military agenda, the

American President who takes oce in January 2025 must view the U.S.–China

trade relationship and associated policy reforms within the context of the broader

existential threat posed by Communist China. The question is whether that next

President should seek to decouple economically and ﬁnancially from Communist

China as America’s ﬁrst best response to China’s unrelenting aggression or con-

tinue eorts to negotiate with an authoritarian country and brutal dictatorship

with a well-established reputation for failing to abide by any agreements it enters.

Institutionalized Aggression. Table 5 depicts more than 50 types of policy

aggression institutionalized by the CCP across six dierent categories of such

aggression. Viewed as whole, the extent of Communist China’s aggression is

breathtaking.

At the trade policy level, Communist China relies heavily on a wide range of

mercantilist and protectionist tools to protect its own markets and unfairly exploit

foreign markets. These instruments of Communist Chinese trade aggression

include high taris and nontari barriers, currency manipulation, a heavy reli-

ance on sweatshop labor and pollution havens, the dumping of unfairly subsidized

exports, and widespread counterfeiting and piracy: Communist China is the world’s

largest source of counterfeit and pirated products.

In addition, Communist Chinese enterprises beneﬁt from preferential policies

that have burdened world markets with subsidized overcapacity. The resultant glut

— 784 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

of Communist Chinese exports in turn depresses world prices and pushes foreign

rivals out of the global market—steel is a major example.

Industrial policy tools

that further reinforce Communist China’s mercantilist and protectionist trade

policies include numerous direct and indirect subsidies to boost exports and the

consolidation of heavily subsidized state-owned enterprises into “national champi-

ons” that can compete with foreign companies in both domestic and global markets.

Communist China also uses a predatory “debt trap” model of economic develop-

ment aid that proers substantial ﬁnancing to developing countries in exchange for

their willingness to mortgage their natural resources and allow Communist China

access to their markets. The practical eect of this debt trap model is to give Com-

munist China a competitive edge internationally that stems from its preferential

access to relatively lower-cost commodities needed in the manufacturing process.

These commodities range from bauxite, copper, and nickel to rarer commodities

such as beryllium, titanium, and rare earth minerals.

As a complement to this debt trap gambit and to exploit its commanding share

of a wide range of critical raw materials that are essential to the global supply

chain and production of high-technology and high-value-added products, Com-

munist China strategically uses protectionist export restraints, including export

quotas and export duties. These export restraints thereby restrict access to raw

materials such as rare earth, tungsten, and molybdenum that are essential in

the high-technology production space. The result is to drive up world prices and

thereby put pressure on American and other foreign downstream producers to

move their operations, technologies, and jobs to Communist China. American

industries that have been aected by Communist China’s export restraints range

from steel, chemicals, and electric cars to wind turbines, lasers, semiconductors,

and refrigerants.

Technology-Forcing Policies. Table 6, extracted from the White House Oce

of Trade and Manufacturing Policy’s report on Communist China’s economic

aggression,

provides a summary of the various policies the Chinese Communist

Party uses to force the transfer of the West’s technologies to Communist Chinese

soil. Formally, Communist Chinese industrial policy seeks to promote the “diges-

tion, absorption, and re-innovation” of technologies and intellectual property (IP)

from around the world.

As noted in Table 6, this policy is carried out, for example, through state-spon-

sored IP theft—coercive and intrusive regulatory gambits to force technology

transfer, typically in exchange for limited access to the Chinese market. Commu-

nist China’s looting of American technology is further enhanced by “information

harvesting” conducted by Communist Chinese nationals who inﬁltrate U.S. uni-

versities, national laboratories, and other centers of innovation. Strategic sectors

targeted by Communist Chinese economic espionage have included electronics,

telecommunications, robotics, data services, pharmaceuticals, mobile phone

— 785 —

Trade

services, satellite communications and imagery, and business application software.

It has been estimated that the theft of trade secrets alone costs the U.S. “between

$180 billion and $540 billion” annually.

Closely related to Communist China’s espionage campaigns are its state-backed

eorts to evade U.S. export control laws. These laws are designed to prevent the

export of sensitive technologies with military applications.

However, a signiﬁcant

problem facing agencies like the Departments of Commerce, Defense, and State is

the growth of “dual-use” technologies, which have both military and civilian utility.

For example, airplane engine technologies have an obvious commercial application.

When acquired by a strategic economic and military competitor like Communist

China, however, such commercial items can quickly wind up propelling the aircraft

of the People’s Liberation Army.

As an example of Communist China’s coercive and intrusive regulatory gambits

to force the transfer of foreign technologies and IP to Chinese competitors, foreign

companies often must enter into joint ventures or partnerships with minority

stakes in exchange for access to the Chinese market. Once a U.S. or foreign company

is coerced into entering a joint venture with a Chinese partner, the door is open

to the transfer of technology and IP. Similarly, a relentlessly coercive Communist

China has forced American patent and technology holders to accept below-market

royalty rates in licensing and other forms of below-market compensation for their

technologies—and the American government has done little or nothing about it.

Information Harvesting. Every year, more than 300,000 Communist Chi-

nese nationals attend U.S. universities or are hired at U.S. national laboratories,

innovation centers, incubators, and think tanks. To put this in perspective, accord-

ing to the Chinese Ministry of Education, only 20,000 American nationals were

studying abroad at Chinese universities on the mainland in 2018.

These Chinese

nationals—often members (or the sons and daughters of members) of the Chinese

Communist Party—now account for approximately one-third of foreign university

and college students in the United States and about 25 percent of graduate students

specializing in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM).

As a Defense

Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) report has warned:

Academia is an opportune environment for learning about science and

technology since the cultural values of U.S. educational institutions reﬂect an

open and free exchange of ideas. As a result, Chinese science and engineering

students frequently master technologies that later become critical to key

military systems, amounting over time to unintentional violations of U.S.

export control laws.

State-backed Chinese enterprises also increasingly ﬁnance joint research

programs and the construction of new research facilities on U.S. campuses. For

— 786 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

example, Huawei, well-known within the American intelligence community as an

instrument of Chinese military espionage, has partnered with the University of

California–Berkeley on research that focuses on artiﬁcial intelligence and related

areas such as deep learning, reinforcement learning, machine learning, natural

language processing, and computer vision, all of which have important future mil

itary applications.

In this way, UC–Berkeley, whether unwittingly or wittingly,

helps to boost Communist China’s capabilities and quest for military dominance.

Communist Chinese state actors are also strategically building research cen-

ters in innovation centers and hubs like Silicon Valley and Boston. Such American

research has accelerated Communist China’s development of hypersonic glide

vehicles, which travel at speeds in excess of Mach 5 and are aimed at evading

modern ballistic missile defense systems while they deliver their nuclear weapons.

Technology-Seeking, State-Financed Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

If American entrepreneurs build it, Communist Chinese investors will come. And

come they have in droves. In the words of the United States Trade Representative:

The Chinese government directs and unfairly facilitates the systematic

investment in, and acquisition of, U.S. companies and assets by Chinese

companies, to obtain cutting-edge technologies and intellectual property and

generate large-scale technology transfer in industries deemed important by

state industrial plans.

Communist Chinese buyers have included most prominently state-owned

enterprises, private Chinese companies with interlocking ties to the Commu-

nist Chinese state, and state-backed sovereign wealth funds. These agents of the

Communist Chinese government push their foreign direct investment through

vehicles that include mergers and acquisitions, seed and venture capital ﬁnancing,

and greenﬁeld investing, particularly in strategically targeted high-technology

industries. Since 2012, CB Insights has catalogued more than 600 high-technology

investments in the United States worth close to $20 billion—with artiﬁcial intelli-

gence, augmented and virtual reality, and robotics receiving a particular focus—by

Communist China–based investors.

All of these behaviors raise the question of whether Communist Chinese nation-

als should be granted visas to penetrate our universities, think tanks, and research

institutions and whether Communist Chinese capital should be allowed to invest

in America’s cutting-edge technology ﬁrms.

Policy Responses to Communist Chinese Aggression. It should be clear

from this review that Communist China’s economic aggression is both widespread

and systemic. The CCP’s self-proclaimed goal is to supplant the U.S. as the world’s

dominant economic and military superpower. The question: How should the next

American President address this aggression? Policy responses range from further

— 787 —

Trade

attempts to negotiate with the CCP to strategically decoupling economically and

ﬁnancially from Communist China.

The Fruitlessness of Further Negotiations. If the past is prologue, and as

we learned during the Trump Administration, any further negotiations with Com-

munist China are likely to be both fruitless and dangerous: fruitless because the

CCP now has a very well-established reputation for bargaining in bad faith and

dangerous because as long as the CCP’s aggression continues, it will further weaken

America’s manufacturing and defense industrial base and global supply chains.

The record regarding Communist China’s bad-faith negotiating is clear. In

September 2015, President Barack Obama stood with Xi Jinping in the White

House Rose Garden where Xi solemnly promised not to militarize the South

China Sea and agreed that Communist China would not conduct knowingly

cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property.

Within a year, the ﬁrst promise

would be broken.

As for Communist China’s cyberattacks on American busi-

nesses, they have never stopped.

Upon taking oce in 2017, President Trump put on hold his 2016 campaign

promise to put high taris on Chinese products immediately. Instead, as a gesture

of good faith, he sought to negotiate a comprehensive trade agreement with China

that would have addressed many of the issues raised in this discussion.

By the middle of 2018, it was clear that the CCP had no intention of bargaining

in good faith. As a result, on June 15, President Trump began to impose a series of

taris

on Chinese products that would eventually rise to cover more than $500

billion of Chinese imports. These taris would lead Communist China’s lead nego-

tiator, Vice Premier Liu He, to agree tentatively in April of 2019 to what would

have been the most comprehensive trade deal in global history.

On May 3, 2019,

however, Liu would renege on that 150-page deal and seek its drastic re-trading.

Finally, on January 15, 2020, the U.S. and Communist China signed a “Phase

One” deal that was a pale shadow of the original deal.

This so-called Skinny Deal

(as it was derisively and rightly called) combined proposed modest Communist

Chinese reforms on issues related to forced technology transfer and intellectual

property theft with promises of large-scale purchases of agricultural, manufactur-

ing, and energy products. To date, this deal has been a predictable bust: Communist

China has failed to consummate a signiﬁcant fraction of its promised purchases

and has made little or no progress on reforming its mercantilist, protectionist, and

technology transfer–forcing policies.

The clear lesson learned in both the Obama and Trump Administrations is that

Communist China will never bargain in good faith with the U.S. to stop its aggres-

sion. An equally clear lesson learned by President Trump, which he was ready to

implement in a second term, was that the better policy option was to decouple

both economically and ﬁnancially from Communist China as further negotiations

would indeed be both fruitless and dangerous.

— 788 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

SOURCE: White House O ce of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, How China’s Economic Aggression Threatens the

Technologies and Intellectual Property of the United States and the World, June 2018, https://trumpwhitehouse.

archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/FINAL-China-Technology-Report-6.18.18-PDF.pdf (accessed March 21, 2023).

TABLE 6

Vectors of Communist China’s Economic Aggression in the

Technology and IP Space

A heritage.org

 Physical Theft and Cyber-Enabled Theft of Technologies and IP

• Physical Theft of Technologies and IP Through Economic Espionage

• Cyber-Enabled Espionage and Theft

• Evasion of US Export Control Laws

• Counterfeiting and Piracy

• Reverse Engineering

 Coercive and Intrusive Regulatory Gambits

• Foreign Ownership Restrictions

• Adverse Administrative Approvals and Licensing Requirements

• Discriminatory Patent and Other IP Rights Restrictions

• Security Reviews Force Technology and IP Transfers

• Secure and Controllable Technology Standards

• Data Localization Mandates

• Burdensome and Intrusive Testing

• Discriminatory Catalogues and Lists

• Government Procurement Restrictions

• Indigenous Technology Standards that Deviate from International Norms

• Forced Research and Development

• Antimonopoly Law Extortion

• Expert Review Panels Force Disclosure of Proprietary Information

• Chinese Communist Party Co-opts Corporate Governance

• Placement of Chinese Employees with Foreign Joint Ventures

 Economic Coercion

• Export Restraints Restrict Access to Raw Materials

• Monopsony Purchasing Power

 Information Harvesting

• Open-Source Collection of Science and Technology Information

• Chinese Nationals in US as Non-Traditional Information Collectors

• Recruitment of Science Technology Business and Finance Talent

 State-Sponsored Technology-Seeking Investment

• Chinese State Actors Involved in Technology-Seeking FDI

• Chinese Investment Vehicles Used to Acquire and Transfer US Technologies and IP

– Mergers and Acquisitions

– Greenﬁ eld Investments

– Seed and Venture Funding

— 789 —

Trade

The following policy options were on the drawing board or in discussion as

preparations for a potential Trump second term were being made. These options

span the spectrum from purely trade-related like increasing taris to cutting o

Communist China’s access to American ﬁnancial markets, research institutions,

and consumers. The next American President should strongly consider adopting

all of them as a package:

Strategically expand taris to all Chinese products and increase tari rates

to levels that will block out “Made in China” products, and execute this

strategy in a manner and at a pace that will not expose the U.S. to lack of

access to essential products like key pharmaceuticals.

Provide signiﬁcant ﬁnancial and tax incentives to American companies that

are seeking to onshore production from Communist China to U.S. soil.

Stop Communist China’s abuse of the so-called de minimis exemption,

which allows it to evade the taris for products valued at less than $800.

Prohibit Communist Chinese state-owned enterprises from bidding on U.S.

government procurement contracts (for example, contracts for subway and

other transportation systems).

Prohibit the use of Communist Chinese–made drones in American airspace.

Ban all Chinese social media apps such as TikTok and WeChat, which pose

signiﬁcant national security risks and expose American consumers to data

and identity theft.

Prohibit all Communist Chinese investment in high-technology industries.

Prohibit U.S. pension funds from investing in Communist Chinese stocks.

Delist any Communist Chinese stocks that do not meet Public Company

Accounting Oversight Board standards or, alternatively, close o the

Chinese “A shares” stock market to U.S. investment and deregister U.S.-

sanctioned Communist Chinese companies.

Prohibit the use of Hong Kong clearinghouses as transit points for American

capital investing in the Chinese mainland.

Prohibit the inclusion of Chinese sovereign bonds in U.S. investors’ portfolios.

— 790 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Systematically reduce and eventually eliminate any U.S. dependence on

Communist Chinese supply chains that may be used to threaten national

security such as medicines, silicon chips, rare earth minerals, computer

motherboards, ﬂatscreen displays, and military components.

Sanction any companies, including American companies like Apple, that

facilitate Communist China’s use of its Great Firewall surveillance and

censorship capabilities.

Order the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of

Justice to contract with U.S.-owned and U.S.-operated artiﬁcial intelligence

companies that are capable of detecting, identifying, and disrupting both the

domestic groups’ and CCP inﬂuencers’ social media operations and funding

streams using public information as a rapidly available oensive measure.

Reinvigorate and expand the DHS crackdown on the CCP’s use of e-sellers

(including third-party sellers) and the shippers and operators of major

warehouses such as Amazon, eBay, and Alibaba to ﬂood U.S. markets with

counterfeit and pirated goods.

Compel the closure of all Confucius Institutes in the U.S., which serve as

propaganda arms of the CCP.

Signiﬁcantly reduce or eliminate the issuance of visas to Chinese students or

researchers to prevent espionage and information harvesting.

Hold the CCP accountable for the COVID-19 virus, which almost certainly

originated as a genetically engineered virus from the Wuhan Institute of

Virology, and do so through the establishment of a presidential commission

or select congressional committee that would investigate the origins of

the virus; its various costs, both economically and in human life; and the

possible means of collecting damages from the CCP, which are likely to rise

to the trillions of dollars.

If the new U.S. President wishes to defend this country against the serious exis-

tential threat posed by Communist China, that President will adopt all of these

proposals through the requisite presidential executive orders or memoranda.

Eective Trade Policy in the Real World. To conclude this analysis, it is

useful to oer brief reﬂections on a number of key obstacles to implementing the

policy initiatives recommended in this chapter. These obstacles include:

— 791 —

Trade

The dogma of the Ricardian free-trade model, which has been used as

propaganda to thwart the adoption of measures that seek to level the global

trading ﬁeld for American manufacturers, farmers, ranchers, and workers;

The politics of trade policy, which has led to a great divide that makes trade

policy reforms dicult to implement;

The economics of trade deﬁcits, which are not adequately understood either

by the American public or by the policymaking intelligentsia; and

The crucial role of supportive White House and Administration personnel

in implementing eective trade policies.

The Dogma of Free Trade. Clearly, the fair and balanced trade orientation

of this chapter runs starkly against the free trade grain of the globalist Ricardian

orthodoxy, which is predicated on the theory that free trade represents the best

path by which to achieve both American and global prosperity. This orthodoxy

is based on the ivory tower academic conclusion that if countries trade freely

among each other, each will pursue its own comparative advantages; production

will be most ecient around the world; the economic pie will be bigger both

for the globe and for each free trading country; and (so long as workers who

lose their jobs are fairly compensated from the gains from trade) everyone will

be better o.

The most obvious problem with this orthodoxy (there are many more) is that

nowhere is Ricardian free trade mirrored in the real world. Instead, America

trades in a world where the WTO’s MFN rules are stacked against us, scoaws

like Communist China run roughshod over what meager WTO rules there are, and

the United States among all of the world’s developed nations is the biggest victim

of the free trade Ricardian orthodoxy.

During his ﬁrst term, President Donald Trump preached that there can be no

free trade without fair, reciprocal, and balanced trade. He was right then, and who-

ever is the next President in 2025 should heed this critical principle whenever the

ﬂag of free trade is waved to prevent the adoption of needed reforms.

The Politics of Trade Policy: Who Beneﬁts? Today, there is a great divide

among Americans that stands in the way of constructive trade policy reforms. This

great divide is certainly not about a partisan desire for low taxes and a reduced

regulatory burden. Rather, it is over whether our borders should be open or secure

and whether it is prudent to oshore our manufacturing and defense industrial

base and associated supply chains.

Those who support secure borders and seek to onshore more of American pro-

duction and supply chains do so to boost the real wages of American workers and to

— 792 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

enhance our national security. Some Americans historically have supported open

borders and oshoring under the ﬂag of the Ricardian trade model, which assumes

the free ﬂow of both labor and capital. Yet it is equally true that open borders and

oshoring also help American multinational corporations to maximize their proﬁts

by minimizing their labor and environmental protection costs.

In particular, an open border policy, which allows for the unlimited migration of

cheap labor, depresses American wage rates and thereby boosts corporate proﬁts.

At the same time, oshoring gives American corporations readier access to the

sweatshops and pollution havens of Asia and Latin America. Our skies and water

may be cleaner, and our products may be cheaper, Main Street manufacturers and

workers bear the brunt of these policies.

The obvious political problem in adopting many of the policies proposed here

is that they will be opposed by the special-interest groups that beneﬁt from open

borders and oshoring and that contribute lavishly to both political parties. These

special-interest groups range from the hedge funds of Wall Street and tech entre-

preneurs of Silicon Valley to big-box retailers that stu their aisles particularly

with cheap “Made in China” goods.

YES, TRADE DEFICITS MATTER

[O]ur country has been behaving like an extraordinarily rich family that

possesses an immense farm. In order to consume 4% more than we produce—

that’s the trade deﬁcit—we have, day by day, been both selling pieces of the

farm and increasing the mortgage on what we still own.

Warren Buett

Historically, one line of attack against attempts to implement fair trade policies

in the name of reducing America’s massive and chronic trade deﬁcit has been the

claim that “trade deﬁcits don’t matter.” The intellectual tip of this spear has often

been think tanks that generate reams of analyses in support of a purely free trade

(and open borders) American posture.

Yet both common sense and several very

good reasons tell us that trade deﬁcits matter a great deal.

Economic Security. The economic security argument that trade deﬁcits matter

begins with the observation that growth in any country’s real, inﬂation-adjusted

gross domestic product (GDP) depends on only four factors: consumption, gov-

ernment spending, business investment, and net exports (the dierence between

exports and imports). Reducing a trade deﬁcit through implementation of the U.S.

Reciprocal Trade Act, the application of taris, or renegotiating a bad trade deal

like NAFTA all represent ways to increase net exports—and thereby boost the rate

of economic growth.

— 793 —

Trade

Suppose, for example, that under the USRTA the American President persuaded

India to reduce its very high protectionist taris and Japan to lower its formidable

nontari barriers. America would surely sell more Florida oranges, Washington

apples, California wine, Wisconsin cheese, and Harley-Davidson motorcycles. The

resultant fall in the trade deﬁcit would increase America’s GDP, and the real wages

of blue-collar America would rise from Seattle and Orlando to Sonoma and Mil-

waukee. But that’s not all.

Consider, too, the investment term in the GDP growth equation. When U.S.

companies oshore their production to chase cheap labor or manufacture in a

“pollution haven” country like Communist China or India with lax environmental

regulations, the result is reduced nonresidential ﬁxed investment—and a GDP

growth rate that is lower than it would be otherwise. Moreover, if such oshored

production results in more foreign exports to the U.S.—for example, an American

consumer buys a Made in Mexico Dodge Journey or Chevrolet Trax rather than a

vehicle assembled in Detroit—the trade deﬁcit rises along with the fall in invest-

ment, further reducing GDP growth.

National Security. The national security argument that trade deﬁcits matter

begins with America’s national-income accounting double-entry system and this

accounting identity: Any deﬁcit in the current account caused by imbalanced

trade must be oset by a surplus in the capital account, meaning foreign invest-

ment in the U.S.

In the short term, this balance-of-payments equilibrium may indeed “not

matter” as foreigners return our trade-deﬁcit dollars to American shores by

seemingly benignly investing in U.S. government bonds and stocks. Of course,

this infusion of foreign capital lowers American mortgage rates and keeps the

stock market bullishly capitalized, which appears to be all to the good. Over time,

however, running large and persistent trade deﬁcits leads to a massive transfer

of American wealth oshore into foreign hands. This wealth transfer happens as

foreigners use their export dollars to buy American real estate, companies, and

ﬁnancial assets like the aforementioned stocks and government bonds.

The American investor Warren Buett has referred to such wealth transfers

oshore as “conquest by purchase.” To Buett, the big danger is that foreigners

will eventually own so many U.S. government bonds that Americans will wind up

working longer hours just to survive and service that foreign debt.

There is an even bigger national security danger, however, that Mr. Buett has

missed: an alternative conquest-by-purchase scenario. Suppose, for example, that

one of the biggest holders of U.S. dollars is a rapidly militarizing strategic rival like

Communist China that is intent on world hegemony. By buying up America’s com-

panies, technologies, farmland, food producers, and key elements of the domestic

supply chain, Communist China can thereby gain more and more control of the

U.S. manufacturing and defense-industrial base.

— 794 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

In this scenario, might America thereby lose a broader war for America’s freedom

and prosperity, not by shots ﬁred but by American cash registers ringing up “Made

in China” products? Might America even lose a broader hot war because it sent its

defense industrial base abroad on the wings of a persistent trade deﬁcit? It follows

that for both economic and national security reasons, trade deﬁcits do indeed matter.

It is therefore of critical importance that we bring America’s global trade back into

balance through free, fair, balanced, and reciprocal trade and that we do so through

the kind of policy initiatives and reforms recommended in this chapter.

PERSONNEL IS TRADE POLICY

Having a clear set of trade and industrial policies to achieve one’s economic and

national security goals, while essential, is not enough. The lessons of the Nixon,

Reagan, and Trump Administrations teach us that “personnel is policy” or, in

this case, that “bad personnel will mean bad trade policy.”

That is why it will be

equally critical to the next President’s trade policy agenda to have key personnel

in place who not only have the skills to implement the policies, but also have the

ﬁrm commitment to do so.

During the Trump Administration, President Trump’s key policy advisers

and Cabinet ocials clashed on the issues of international trade and combating

Communist China’s economic aggression. As much as President Trump did on

the trade front that was bold and innovative and as much as he achieved by chal-

lenging Communist China, too much of his trade policy was disrupted or derailed

by key personnel who did not share the President’s vision of fair, balanced, and

reciprocal trade.

In thinking about the personnel positions that are most essential to eective

implementation of trade policy, the most obvious position to get exactly right is

that of the United States Trade Representative. The USTR is at least putatively

the top ocial on trade policy, and it is critical that this position be ﬁlled wisely.

Historically, during Republican Administrations, the USTR has been a free

trader who rarely challenged the protectionist and mercantilist policies of Amer-

ica’s trading partners and typically would seek to expand global trade. The Trump

Administration broke this globalist Republican tradition by appointing as USTR

attorney Robert E. Lighthizer, who not only had a keen understanding of the vari-

ous legal levers a President can use to advance trade policy, but also was committed

to the President’s fair, balanced, and reciprocal trade agenda. The next Adminis-

tration should make every eort to ﬁnd someone with that understanding and that

commitment to ﬁll this position.

Less obvious—but almost as important—is the need to ﬁll the position of Under

Secretary of Commerce for International Trade wisely. One of the most important

functions of the International Trade Administration, which is an agency in the

Department of Commerce, is to impose antidumping and countervailing duties

— 795 —

Trade

against trade cheaters who dump products below cost into American markets or

unfairly subsidize their exports. In fact, much of the cheating that does take place

in the global trading arena can be addressed through such antidumping (AD) and

countervailing duty (CVD) cases.

Within the West Wing itself, it is equally critical that the National Security

Adviser, the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), and the Director

of the National Economic Council (NEC) all be aligned on trade policy. During the

Trump Administration, with the notable exception of the President’s third National

Security Adviser, Robert O’Brien, and third CEA Chairman, Tyler Goodspeed, this

regrettably was not the case.

Finally, and perhaps surprisingly, the Secretary of Defense plays a key role in

trade policy, at least when it comes to advancing Section 232 cases. Under Section

232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962,

the President has the authority, through

taris or other means, to reduce imports from other countries “if the President

determines that such reduction or elimination would threaten to impair the

national security.” As a practical matter, the Secretary of Commerce spearheads

any Section 232 cases, but in order to proceed with a Section 232 case, Commerce

must obtain signo from the Secretary of Defense.

When President Trump wanted to implement steel and aluminum taris, he

had a willing servant in Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. However, Secretary

of Defense James Mattis resisted. Mattis simply did not understand a key tenet of

the Trump Administration: Economic security is also national security. Without

vibrant steel and aluminum industries, it will be dicult for America to provide

the Pentagon with the kind of weapons it needs to defend the homeland.

CONCLUSION

A Harvard professor once told me during my doctoral thesis days that “if I tell

you how it is, I’ve told you why it can’t change.” Despite the obvious exploitation

of American farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, and workers by the international

trading system and Communist Chinese aggression, powerful political forces none-

theless exist that proﬁt from the status quo.

The stark lesson of this chapter is that America gets ﬂeeced every day in the

global marketplace both by a predatory Communist China and by an institution-

ally unfair and nonreciprocal WTO. Addressing these two challenges would go a

long way toward restoring American greatness, both economically and militarily.

Ignoring these two challenges will simply continue the parasitic draining of the

American manufacturing and defense industrial base.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The author alone assumes responsibility for the content of this chapter, and no views

expressed herein should be attributed to any other individual. However, the author would particularly like to thank

Joanna Miller for her dedicated work and signiﬁcant contribution to the chapter.

— 796 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

THE CASE FOR FREE TRADE

Kent Lassman

rade policy is about more than goods and services: It is a statement of Amer-

ican identity. Our trade policy choices reveal America’s values and where we

put our trust. Do we place our trust in Washington elites to revive a declining coun-

try, or do we trust in America’s tradition of entrepreneurs and everyday people

blazing new trails? Do we follow China by copying its strong-arm trade policies,

or do we lead China and the rest of the world by forging our own path? Our trade

policy decisions will tell you what we Americans really think of ourselves.

A CONSERVATIVE VISION FOR TRADE

The policy recommendations in this chapter reﬂect a belief in the strength of

America’s founding institutions, its economy, and its people. They are based on data

showing decades of American progress with all that this implies. They also reﬂect

a realistic understanding of the fact that trade policy has limited capabilities and

is vulnerable to mission creep and regulatory capture. Policymakers should be

modest about what they can accomplish through trade policy and need to exercise

constant vigilance against abuses. For example:

Trade can lower consumer prices for ordinary Americans and open new

markets for American businesses and their goods.

Trade can help American workers and businesses to specialize in what they

do best—which is how they outcompete the rest of the world in technology,

manufacturing, agriculture, and other areas.

In foreign policy, trade can help to preserve and strengthen alliances.

At the same time, sound trade policy requires humility. It is not a panacea for

every policy problem. Trade policy cannot favor one sector over another without

causing tradeos that outweigh the beneﬁts.

Neither free trade nor protectionism

will create jobs. Trade aects the types of jobs people have, but it has no long-run

eect on the number of jobs. Labor force size is tied to population size more than

anything else. The American people are smart and sophisticated enough to hear

these truths.

It is not just conservatives who overestimate the power of trade policy. Recent

progressive attempts to use trade policy to advance whole-of-government initia-

tives on climate, equity, and other issues will fail for the same reason that a hammer

cannot turn a screw: It is the wrong tool for the job. Conservatives should be sim-

ilarly skeptical of recent attempts on the Right to use progressive trade policy to

punish political opponents, remake manufacturing, or accomplish other objectives

— 797 —

Trade

for which it is not suited. The next Administration needs to end the mission creep

that has all but taken over trade policy in recent years.

Trade policy works best when it sticks to trade and treats separate issues

separately. Trade agreements since the North American Free Trade Agreement

(NAFTA) have been increasingly burdened by trade-unrelated provisions involving

labor, environmental, intellectual property, and other regulations. Where these

were a side agreement to NAFTA in the 1990s, they were integrated into the main

text of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) in 2019. The

Indo-Paciﬁc Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) that the Biden Admin-

istration is currently pursuing consists entirely of trade-unrelated provisions:

Negotiations are steering clear of trade altogether.

Trade-unrelated provisions are routinely hijacked by progressives and rent-seek-

ers and dilute otherwise worthwhile trade agreements. They also create additional

points of contention that make agreements unnecessarily dicult to pass. A con-

servative trade policy should limit trade-unrelated provisions in trade agreements.

This does not mean that conservatives should ignore international negotiations

on labor, environment, intellectual property, and other non-trade issues. It means

they are more likely to succeed by treating each of them separately rather than

letting them die in committee with each providing an additional sticking point

for delaying the others.

A conservative trade policy must also take seriously the reality that in a democ-

racy, the other side holds power about half of the time, but progressives run most

agencies almost all of the time. A cardinal rule in public policy is not to give yourself

powers you wouldn’t want your opponents to have. That means building institu-

tion-level safeguards against mission creep to limit abuses.

Foreign policy considerations are not as separate from trade as are labor or

environmental standards. China deserves special consideration, as does the World

Trade Organization (WTO) along with its possible successors or alternatives. While

trade is not the star of American foreign policy, it does play a supporting role. It

should be used to strengthen alliances to help counter China, Russia, and other

threats while making economic and cultural inroads inside them. The next Amer-

ican President should use this aspect of trade to the nation’s advantage.

Drawing from America’s Roots. In 1776, nearly 90 percent of Americans were

farmers. For 10 people to eat, nine had to farm. That meant fewer people could

be factory workers, doctors, or teachers, or even live in cities, because they were

needed on the farm. Accordingly, life expectancy was around 40 years, and literacy

was 13 percent.

Today, fewer than 1 percent of Americans work on farms, yet America is a net

exporter of food. People have inﬁnite wants, so as rising productivity pushed some

people o of farms, there were countless other jobs they could do. In true American

fashion, many of these jobs were in brand new industries.

— 798 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

This was possible because the same can-do cultural values that inspired the

American founding were accurately reﬂected in its new government. The U.S. Con-

stitution created what was then the world’s largest free trade area, and it did so on

purpose.

The combination of the American self-improvement ethos and the large,

free internal market guaranteed by the Constitution yielded intensive growth on

a scale never before seen.

Many displaced farm laborers got jobs making the very farm equipment that

made intensive agricultural growth possible, from railroad networks to cotton gins.

Each fed the other. Agriculture and industry are not separate; they are as inter

connected as everything else in the economy. None of this could have happened

had the government enacted policies to preserve full agricultural employment.

Understanding Value. Just as communication is impossible without agreed-

upon deﬁnitions of words, coherent policymaking is impossible without coherent

categories. Policies are not likely to succeed when they try to separate an intercon-

nected economy into arbitrary categories. The factory worker who builds a tractor

does as much to boost farm production as the farmers themselves, yet economic

planners put them in dierent categories. This problem is baked into industrial

policy, as progressive planners have learned again and again.

A conservative approach to economic policy should treat value as value, whether

it is created on a farm, in a factory, or in an oce. A dollar of value created in

manufacturing is neither more nor less valuable than a dollar of value created in

agriculture or services.

Pursuing Access to Growing Markets. American history holds lessons for

today’s conservative trade policy. Some modern analysts see a correlation between

high taris and high growth and confuse it for causation,

but 19th century Amer-

ica teaches a dierent lesson.

While the Constitution banned internal taris in the U.S., international taris

reached their highest levels in U.S. history during the 19th century, beginning with

the 1828 Tari of Abominations.

At their peak in 1830, the average tari on duti-

able goods was 62 percent.

Fortunately, however, the taris’ distorting eects

were outweighed by market growth elsewhere. The 19th century saw Western

expansion and a growing population (including millions of immigrants) working

for the American dream. America’s growing internal free trade zone allowed for

still more specialization and more trade across state borders.

America’s geographic expansion ended long ago, but population growth, the

U.S.-led rules-based international trading system, and the steady 75-year decline

in taris after World War II have made possible decades of continued prosperity.

Intensive growth requires specialization, and the larger the market, the more spe-

cialization is possible.

Fighting Pessimistic Bias. Farmers’ share of the population continued to

decline through this entire period, yet employment remained high, and the

— 799 —

Trade

economy continued to grow. Factories were not the only beneﬁciaries of agri-

culture’s productivity boom and the labor it freed; services also grew. In fact,

service-sector employment surpassed manufacturing employment around 1890—

far earlier than most people realize.

Pessimistic bias is one of the most important cultural problems that conserva-

tive policymakers need to address. In trade, as in most other areas, few people ever

zoom out to see the big picture, which is one reason why so many people mistakenly

believe that U.S. manufacturing and the U.S. economy are in decline.

The data do not show American economic carnage. They show more than two

centuries of intensive growth, made possible by a growing internal market through-

out the 19th century and a growing international market in the post–World War

II era. The transition from farm to factory did not shrink the labor force or farm

output. Later, the transition from factories to services did not shrink the labor

$10,000

$20,000

$30,000

$40,000

$50,000

$60,000

$70,000

1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020

A heritage.org

SOURCE: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, “Real Gross Domestic Product per Capita,”

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ A939RX0Q048SBEA (accessed March 2, 2023).

REAL GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT PER CAPITA, IN CHAINED 2012 DOLLARS,

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ANNUAL RATE

CHART 1

U.S. Real GDP per Capita

— 800 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

force, factory output, or farm output. Both transitions aected the types of jobs,

not the number of jobs.

Americans today can more easily aord everything from air conditioning to

ﬂat-screen televisions and smartphones, and trade is one reason why. Bigger mar-

kets mean more specialization, more innovative ideas, more customers, and more

people from whom to buy.

America’s ocial unemployment rate went as low as 3.5 percent during 2022,

while real per capita gross domestic product (GDP) rose to an all-time record.

Clearly, people who wanted to work were able to ﬁnd work that paid well even as

manufacturing jobs grew more slowly than service jobs.

IMPLEMENTING THE CONSERVATIVE VISION

Vision will be crucial for the next conservative Administration, but nuts-and-

bolts policies are also important. Making the conservative vision for trade a reality

will require several actions, some of which may prove to be more dicult to achieve

than others. Speciﬁcally:

Implement tari relief to help counteract inﬂation by reducing prices

for aected goods as well as to strengthen supply chains and boost

manufacturing. End Section 232, 201, and 301 taris. Work with Congress

to pass legislation repealing those provisions so future Presidents

cannot abuse them.

Resist calls for more spending on trade adjustment assistance, which

is often hijacked for progressive ends. Technology and changing tastes

displace six times as many workers as does trade, yet those workers get no

such special treatment. Displaced workers should receive the same beneﬁts

regardless of the reason.

Remove never-needed supply chain restrictions, which give families fewer

places to which they can turn. The recent shortage of baby formula, for

example, was caused largely by heavily protectionist regulations. Strength

and resilience come from openness.

Enact mutual recognition policies with allies. If a product is safe enough for

European or Japanese consumers, then it is safe enough for Americans as

well—and vice versa. This can reduce regulatory costs and open new markets.

Close the Export–Import Bank, which serves mainly to subsidize foreign

buyers’ purchases of goods from a handful of well-connected American

manufacturers.

— 801 —

Trade

Repeal the Jones Act,

a century-old “Buy American” maritime law that

has decimated the U.S. shipbuilding industry.

Work with Congress to restore the President’s Trade Promotion Authority,

which would expedite the negotiation of trade agreements with the United

Kingdom, Switzerland, Taiwan, the European Union, and other allies, and

keep trade-unrelated provisions out of trade agreements.

Restore the World Trade Organization’s dispute resolution process to

full strength.

Create a successor to the WTO (assuming that it has been fatally wounded)

that is open only to liberal democracies. This would prevent authoritarian

countries like China from abusing the organization for their own ends.

Adopt a multi-pronged China strategy to convince the Chinese government

to reform its illiberal human rights and trade policies.

Rejoin the Trans-Paciﬁc Partnership (TPP), whose 11 members are

developing institutional trade norms in an important geopolitical region

without U.S. input or involvement.

Reorient the proposed Indo-Paciﬁc Economic Framework for Prosperity to

focus only on trade issues, which it currently ignores in favor of progressive

wish-list policies.

Strengthen diplomatic pressure (in concert with allies) against Beijing’s

abuses. Encourage cultural and intellectual engagement with the Chinese

people, remembering that blue jeans and rock ’n’ roll helped to win

the Cold War.

Tari Relief. When people try something repeatedly and it still doesn’t work,

they should stop doing it—especially when the consequences turn out to be just

what conservative economists have long predicted they would be.

With taris,

the proper reform is not only to get rid of the individual taris that have backﬁred,

but also to build institutional safeguards against future abuse.

We are ﬁve years into the biggest experiment with taris since the Great Depres-

sion, and the results are in: The new taris raise consumer prices for ordinary

Americans by about $1,200 per household every year

and beneﬁt only a small

number of special interests. Steel and aluminum taris, enacted on national

security grounds, angered allies. Beijing made not a single substantive reform in

— 802 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

response to four rounds of taris plus an attempted Phase One agreement. The

Biden Administration has left the taris in place and is expanding them to pursue

progressive policy goals.

The ﬁrst order of business for a new Administration that is focused on American

workers and consumers is to repeal all taris enacted under Section 232 of the

Trade Expansion Act of 1962

and Sections 201 and 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.

The President can do this unilaterally, and Congress can do it through legislation.

The second order of business requires Congress to pass legislation repealing

Sections 232, 201, and 301. The U.S. Constitution places all taxing authority with

Congress

and none with the President. Congress used those provisions of law

to delegate some of its taxing authority to the President because it was having

trouble passing “clean” tari legislation in the 1960s and 1970s. Unless and until

this constitutional question about delegation is addressed, important reforms are

available to the next Congress and the next President.

Congress faced a problem of collective action in the 1960s and 1970s. As a whole,

Members generally wanted to lower taris, but few individual Members were will-

ing to remove taris that beneﬁted special interests in their districts. Trade bills

were invariably watered down through amendments and logrolling. The thinking

was that the President, whose constituency is the entire nation, would be less prone

to special-interest pleading than Members of Congress would be, so Congress del-

egated some of its tari-making authority to the President in 1962 and 1974 trade

legislation.

Delegating tari-making might have worked in the short run, but in the long

run, it was both constitutionally dubious and ripe for abuse. That came to pass in

2018. The Section 232 steel and aluminum taris, invoked in 2018 against Canada,

Europe, and other allies on national security grounds, raised car prices by an aver-

age of $250 per vehicle and gave America the world’s highest steel prices. They

also harmed the construction, canned food and beverage, and other metal-us-

ing industries.

While this may have beneﬁted the steel industry itself, each steel job saved cost

an average of $650,000 per year that had been taken from elsewhere in the econo-

my.

That is no way to strengthen American manufacturing. The New York Federal

Reserve estimated in 2019 that the Section 301 China taris cost the average house-

hold $831 per year,

a ﬁgure that has likely increased with inﬂation.

The new taris have a clear record of failure—as conservative economists

almost unanimously warned would be the case. Job number one for the next

Administration is to return to sensible trade policies and eliminate the destruc-

tive Trump–Biden taris.

Strengthening American Manufacturing. The decline of American manu-

facturing is a common political trope in both parties, typically invoked before a call

for more government intervention. This narrative has several problems. One is that

— 803 —

Trade

American manufacturing output is currently at an all-time high. The record was

not set during World War II and not during the 1950s boom. Output did not peak

when manufacturing employment peaked in 1979 or during the Reagan economic

revival in the 1980s. It is actually higher now than it has ever been.

American manufacturing is buoyant because each manufacturing worker’s pro-

ductivity is also at an all-time high. The key to prosperity is doing more with less.

The next President should ignore special interests and populist ideologues who

want government to do the opposite through industrial policy, trade protectionism,

and other failed progressive policies.

It takes surprisingly few people to achieve America’s record-high manufac-

turing output—currently about 13 million people out of a workforce of more than

160 million, compared to the 1979 peak of 19.5 million people out of a workforce

of 104 million.

Productivity growth has freed the time and talents of millions of

people for other, additional uses.

The belief that manufacturing has to shrink for services to grow is the zero-

sum fallacy against which sensible economists often warn. It is anathema to the

optimism, hope, and conﬁdence that are the natural birthright of conservatives.

Growing productivity enables more output of both manufacturing and services.

That is why America continues to have sustained booms and record-setting real

GDP despite the long-run decline in manufacturing employment.

Economists distinguish between two types of growth: extensive and intensive.

Extensive growth is the Soviet and Chinese model for manufacturing: If you have

more people use more resources, they will create more output. Extensive growth

is doing more with more; intensive growth is doing more with less. That is where

America’s superpower lies. The story of American manufacturing is one of intensive

growth dating back to our agricultural origins. Conservative leaders should draw

on this history to position America for continued success. With intensive growth,

it is not manufacturing or services; it is manufacturing and services.

Retaliatory Taris. Raising taris on another country almost always invites

retaliatory taris against the U.S. The latter tend to be directed at politically sen-

sitive American exports. Retaliatory taris by both China and American allies in

response to the 2018 steel taris were targeted primarily at American agriculture.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, those taris cost farmers $27

billion with losses concentrated particularly in heartland states.

Retaliatory taris also targeted U.S. industries that were not protected by tar-

is. Many imports become inputs into U.S. manufacturing. The motorcycle maker

Harley-Davidson was already facing higher production costs as domestic steel

producers raised their prices to accommodate the new steel tari. A retaliatory

tari on its motorcycles imposed by the European Union further raised its prices

and hurt its export business. Harm to such innocent bystanders was another unin-

tended (though foreseen) consequence.

— 804 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Federal Reserve research shows that the taris have cost about 75,000 manufac-

turing jobs while creating only about 1,000 jobs in the steel industry—not including

the eects of the retaliatory taris described above.

Higher steel prices added an

average of $250 to the price of new cars, and larger trucks—the vehicle of choice

in rural America—were hit even more dramatically.

Trade is generally a win-win for both participants. Taris are a lose-lose-lose

game, with the tari raiser losing aordable goods, the tari target losing exports,

and the tari raiser losing again from retaliatory taris. Taris also have an addi-

tional overlooked hidden cost: Companies redirect resources to dodge taris by

redesigning products, switching to more expensive suppliers, using lower-qual-

ity materials, and lobbying. This might be good for lawyers, but it is bad for the

economy. These resources could have been used instead to make a better product

more cheaply.

A heritage.org

SOURCE: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, “Industrial Production: Total Index,”

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/INDPRO (accessed March 2, 2023).

INDEX 2017=100

CHART 2

Total U.S. Industrial Production

100

120

1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

— 805 —

Trade

Conservatives warned against retaliation from the beginning: It was exactly

what happened after the 1930 Smoot–Hawley taris that worsened the Great

Depression.

Undoing the Normalization of Protectionism. Inertia is one of the strongest

forces in politics. Radical new policies can become the new normal very quickly and

are extremely dicult to unwind if they backﬁre. This happened with the Trump

Administration’s progressive turn on protectionism. The Biden Administration

quickly undid the Trump Administration’s conservative regulatory reforms but

left its progressive, self-defeating trade policies in place—in many cases even

strengthening them.

Two presidential Administrations is a long time in politics, and the next conser-

vative Administration will have a tough time getting tari relief past a bureaucracy

that dislikes change and special interests that will ﬁght hard to preserve their

special privileges. But given the stakes for future American prosperity, it will

be worth it.

Dealing with Disruption. It is true that trade is disruptive. Though its long-

run eect on employment is approximately zero, in the short run it can cost jobs

and even depopulate towns.

America’s resilience depends on its ability to adjust,

but successful and timely adaptation is generally spontaneous in nature—the work

of human action but not human design. Planned adjustment by governments has

a much poorer track record.

Context is also important to adjustment eorts. Technological change costs

approximately six times more jobs as does trade (though, again, only in the short

run).

Any argument made against trade’s disruptive eects applies even more

strongly to technological change, yet no one seriously argues for reversing the

dramatic changes the Internet has wrought.

More than 11 million American jobs turn over through hirings, ﬁrings, retire-

ments, layoffs, and resignations every month,

and nearly 85 percent of all

jobs turn over in the course of a year. Yet America has suered only four bouts

of double-digit unemployment during the past century. Two of them, the Great

Depression and the comedown from the 1970s stagﬂation, were due to monetary

mismanagement, not trade.

The third, the Great Recession, was due to a ﬁnancial

crisis worsened by monetary mismanagement, not trade.

The fourth was due to

COVID-19 lockdowns, not trade.

Using trade restrictions to slow this churn is a mistake for two reasons: (1) trade

is at best a minor contributor to job churn compared to other factors like tech-

nology, changing consumer tastes, inﬂation, and business cycles, and (2) churn is

evidence of a healthy economy. Agricultural economies have low job churn and

low living standards.

When people see better opportunities, they should be allowed to pursue them.

To do otherwise slows economic growth, harms individual dignity, removes

— 806 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

humanity from our policies, and can contribute to societal ills like depression,

addiction, and isolation.

Trade adjustment could be made easier by regulatory reforms to remove its

attendant friction. These include:

Less restrictive zoning and permit rules;

Occupational licensing reform;

Automatic sunsets for new regulations; and

A presidentially appointed Regulatory Reduction Commission that would

examine the Code of Federal Regulations each year and send repeal

packages to Congress that include old, obsolete, redundant, and harmful

regulations.

People who need help should be able to get it. Progressive trade policies

help only special interests while harming the very people they are supposedly

intended to help.

Trade Adjustment Assistance. Trade adjustment assistance is a popular

policy for aiding displaced workers. Though ﬂawed, it is a bargaining tool that

can potentially help to get sound trade policy adopted. A conservative Adminis-

tration should approach trade adjustment assistance with caution and use it as a

last-resort political bargaining tool and not as a ﬁrst-resort policy. Funding for job

training programs and the like will typically ﬁnd its way to labor union slush funds,

left-leaning nonproﬁts, and other progressive causes that will not necessarily help

displaced workers.

A better approach to trade adjustment assistance, if it must be expanded, is

direct cash transfers. Not only would this prevent progressive hijacking of pro-

grams and their funding, but cash is the most ﬂexible type of aid. It treats people as

adults and lets them make their own choices about their next steps. Major life deci-

sions should be made by individuals for themselves, not for them in Washington.

Trade adjustment assistance should treat workers who lose their jobs to inter-

national trade the same as workers who lose their jobs for any other reason are

treated. While that will not likely come to pass in the near future, steps in that

direction are possible. Technological change displaces six times as many workers

as trade displaces, yet workers displaced by technology get no special treatment.

Nor should they. Unemployment remains low because it grows alongside pop-

ulation, and real wages continue to rise over time. Trade-displaced workers

should be eligible for the same beneﬁts for which anyone else is eligible, no more

and no less.

— 807 —

Trade

Supply Chain Lessons from the Baby Formula Debacle. Protectionism

builds weaknesses into supply chains. This was demonstrated vividly by the baby

formula shortage, which may have peaked in 2022 but remains an ongoing concern.

Domestic baby formula producers beneﬁt from a decades-old tari that averages

17 percent, which is eectively high enough to shut imports out of the market. As

if taris were not enough, other requirements also help to keep competition out

of the market: ever-evolving labeling requirements and nutritional standards that

(conveniently for domestic manufacturers) are always just slightly dierent from

international standards. As a result, before the formula shortage in 2022, approx-

imately 98 percent of the country’s baby formula was produced domestically.

With foreign competition out of the way, other government policies helped to

concentrate almost the entire domestic formula industry into four ﬁrms. Roughly

40 percent of baby formula purchases are made by state-level food assistance pro-

grams, which typically do not let families choose their own formula brands. Instead

they must buy from a single producer, which guarantees producers large market

shares in states where they win contracts. This situation gives incumbent pro-

ducers a cozy existence but puts consumers at risk. Like all protectionist policies,

the beneﬁts are concentrated in the hands of a few producers while the costs and

risks are widely distributed.

With so many eggs in so few baskets, whenever something goes wrong—which

is inevitable even when nobody is at fault—families ﬁnd themselves scrambling.

That happened early in 2022 when contamination entered a Michigan facility that

makes about 40 percent of America’s baby formula. Trade protectionism all but

eliminated other options for many parents, who suddenly found empty shelves and

sky-high prices for an essential item that many of them were already struggling to

aord—while families in other countries were unaected.

In response, Congress passed the Formula Act

in the summer of 2022. The act

eased formula taris and loosened never-needed labeling requirements and other

import restrictions, but it was temporary. It expired at the end of 2022, leaving

families still vulnerable to the cascading consequences that ensue if one thing

goes wrong at only one plant.

The baby formula debacle has two lessons for the next Administration.

The Administration needs to attack the root of the problem. Temporary

ﬁx-it bills are better than nothing, but they leave the rot in place. The

President needs to encourage bold liberalization.

Strength comes from openness. In the real world, markets fail. Factories will

get contaminated, and health inspectors will not always be as thorough as

they should be. The baby formula market is essentially a natural experiment

in self-sucient industrial policy. When something went wrong, that single

— 808 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

failure point crashed the whole system. It should not be that way, and the

next President can change it.

Part of the problem is that the supply chain analogy itself causes sloppy thinking.

In a chain, a link is connected only to the link ahead of it and the link behind it and

not to any other links. Real-world supply chains are more like networks in which

each point connects directly to countless others and is rarely more than six degrees

of separation from nearly anywhere on Earth. Because market failures happen

all the time, it is important to have as many connections as possible. Americans

need access to more ways to adapt and reroute around failure points, especially

for essential products like baby formula.

Trade protectionism makes us more vulnerable, but free trade makes our fam-

ilies and communities more resilient. Loosening restrictions similar to the ones

that stunt the baby formula market would make it easier to navigate future crises

while preventing the progressive and rent-seeking power grabs that come with

every crisis, whether it is as isolated as a baby formula shortage or as expansive

as a pandemic.

Mutual Recognition. A simple way to reduce friction in supply networks is

mutual recognition of other industrialized countries’ regulatory standards. This

can be done either in a larger trade agreement or independently. For baby for-

mula, this would mean allowing in brands that meet European Union standards

even if they do not meet Food and Drug Administration (FDA) labeling require-

ments. Infants’ nutritional needs do not change across borders. If a formula is

deemed healthy for European babies, then it is also healthy for American babies.

The reverse is equally true.

Mutual recognition could help to open new markets for American producers in

countless industries and give American consumers access to countless new prod-

ucts on more competitive terms. For example, U.S. regulations require washing

machine power cords to be at least six feet long, while the U.K. requires them to be

at least two meters.

The dierence (about six inches) aects neither safety nor

performance, but it does keep American-made washing machines out of an import

ant foreign market. A mutual recognition policy would circumvent the problem.

Given the recent interest in increased antitrust enforcement, conservatives

should embrace policies like mutual recognition that have the double beneﬁt of

increasing market competition while decreasing government’s regulatory footprint.

The U.S. should enact mutual recognition agreements for a wide variety goods

with the United Kingdom, European Union, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and

other governments with high standards comparable to our own. This would have

especially large beneﬁts for pharmaceuticals, because America’s FDA drug approval

process is both slower and more expensive than those of other countries with-

out being any safer. Americans would gain access to more and lower-cost medical

— 809 —

Trade

treatments, and American pharmaceutical companies could defray development

costs and innovate faster by gaining access to more markets, all while cutting prices.

The Jones Act. The Jones Act (Merchant Marine Act of 1920)

requires that

ships traveling between U.S. ports must be U.S.-built, U.S.-owned, and U.S.-crewed.

In practice, this is an “America last” policy that has decimated the American mari-

time industry.

Because of Jones Act regulations, American-built ships cost three

to four times more to build than foreign-built ships cost. As a result, the entire

Jones Act ﬂeet is down to just 92 ships, many of which are old and obsolete. In fact,

Jones Act–compliant shipping is so expensive that it is often cheaper for East Coast

ports to import oil from Vladimir Putin’s Russia than it is to send it up the coast

from Houston or New Orleans. The national security (to say nothing of energy

security) implications of reliance on Russia for oil and gas are obvious.

The Jones Act’s original national security justiﬁcations are just as dubious. The

act’s goal was to guarantee a sizable ﬂeet of American ships that could be pressed

into war service if needed. Aircraft carriers and other post-1920 naval innovations

have made this argument obsolete. An $800 billion defense budget has plenty of

room to maintain a Navy to defend American security interests around the world.

The U.S. Navy would likely prefer not to use Jones Act ships anyway, because they

tend to be older and in poorer condition than its own ships or similar foreign-made

but domestically owned commercial ships that could also be pressed into service.

As with many other industries, U.S. shipbuilding could be the envy of the world if

it could operate in a free market, but the maritime lobby prefers a quiet, cozy exis-

tence on the dole even as it harms American consumers and national security. The

next conservative Administration should unleash American potential by unilater-

ally enacting Jones Act exemptions wherever allowed, as currently happens most

years during hurricane season, and working with Congress to repeal the Jones Act.

Trade and Inﬂation. The post-COVID inﬂation spike may be over long before

the next Administration takes oce, but keeping it under control should remain

a high priority. Free traders should not oversell their case by saying that liberal-

ization would solve inﬂation. Inﬂation is predominantly a monetary phenomenon,

not a trade phenomenon, but tari relief can help at the margin by immediately

lowering prices on taried goods and slightly boosting long-term growth.

While

this would not aect the money supply, which is inﬂation’s key variable, even roll-

ing back the taris enacted since 2017 would likely have a positive eect on the

Consumer Price Index.

The easiest way to curb inﬂation (or to create it) is for the Federal Reserve to

work the monetary side of the equation, but the real output side has a similar eect

on prices. Lifting trade barriers is one way to boost output. It also has the added

beneﬁt of requiring no additional spending. At the very least, this can make the

Federal Reserve’s job easier as the spending excesses of Congress and President

Biden continue unabated in the coming years.

— 810 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

It is important not to oversell trade’s inﬂation beneﬁts as a cure-all, but at the

margin, it can help. The next Administration should keep this in mind as it tries

to cope with this politically volatile issue.

Trade and Foreign Policy. We have seen how trade liberalization would boost

the domestic economy and make American businesses more competitive, but

conservative trade policies also beneﬁt America’s foreign policy interests. Policy-

makers should therefore:

Negotiate multilateral and bilateral trade agreements.

Reform the World Trade Organization or build a successor organization

with membership limited to liberal democracies.

Repeal the Jones Act to replace Russian energy imports with

domestic production.

Develop a multifaceted, long-term China policy that takes seriously

America’s biggest foreign policy threat and deals with it on several fronts.

National Security. The most persuasive arguments against a market-oriented

trade policy come from another national objective: national security. Protection-

ism and similar progressive policies tend to weaken American security, but trade

creates peace. The more countries trade, the less likely they are to ﬁght one another

and the more robust their supply networks will be. Going to war with customers

is bad for business.

Without a strong economic interest in continued U.S. investment and exports,

for example, China’s behavior would likely become increasingly less predictable

and more dangerous. Anyone who thinks Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General

Secretary Xi Jinping and the government in Beijing are bad actors now—which they

are—should consider what would happen if the Chinese convinced liberal countries

like the United States to decouple from them, leaving them free to pursue whatever

policies they wish without the signiﬁcant counterweight that America can provide.

That is one reason for Xi Jinping’s emphasis on centralization and self-su-

ciency. He does not like international pressure about his government’s human

rights violations and bad-faith trading policies, and decoupling from trading part-

ners like America is one way to avoid that pressure. A less constrained China would

be poorer but much more unstable and dangerous to its neighbors and to America

than it would be if it still had to engage regularly with the rest of the world.

Trade Promotion Authority. Trade agreements can take years to negotiate.

One way to accelerate the process is for Congress to grant the President Trade

Promotion Authority (TPA). It was ﬁrst granted under the 1974 Trade Act, which

— 811 —

Trade

contains the Sections 201 and 301 tari delegations. TPA, then called fast-track,

has aided several trade agreements, including NAFTA and the USMCA, which took

eect in 2020. TPA has lapsed before during slow periods in trade policy, most

recently in July 2021, and remains lapsed today.

The President should work with Congress to renew TPA to rationalize negoti-

ations for upcoming trade agreements with the United Kingdom, the European

Union, and others.

Both supporters and critics have questions regarding TPA’s implications for the

constitutional separation of powers, and policymakers should take those questions

seriously. As things currently stand, Congress has some oversight powers over the

President’s negotiations under TPA, but they are limited. Congress can increase

its oversight by passing new legislation superseding relevant provisions of the

1974 Trade Act. However, that is a double-edged sword. A Congress that largely

favors free trade could exercise oversight to keep the President on the straight and

narrow in trade negotiations. A progressive Congress would instead insist that the

President negotiate for as many trade-unrelated provisions as possible to beneﬁt

labor and green constituencies while pushing progressive policies on the U.S. and

its trading partners.

On balance, a single voice at the negotiating table that is subject to congressional

oversight is the best posture for American workers and consumers. A fractious

Congress has yet to demonstrate the capacity to negotiate with other nations, but

it can help to hold the Administration accountable.

Trade Agreements with the United Kingdom, European Union, and

Others. Even with a renewed TPA, trade agreement negotiations will likely take

years. The Trump and Biden Administrations were not inclined to start the process,

so that job may well fall to the next Administration. In that sense, the delays may

end up being worth it.

If there is one lodestar to follow, it is to restrict these agreements to trade issues

only. Ever since NAFTA, trade-unrelated provisions have taken on a greater role

in trade agreements. These create sticking points and are routinely hijacked by

rent-seeking special interests and progressive ideologues who demand subsidies,

carve-outs, and economically distorting labor and environmental standards that

have nothing to do with trade. If governments are to negotiate these issues, they

should do so in separate agreements so they do not torpedo eorts to liberalize

and engage with allies. Trade agreements should lighten burdens, not create new

ones by attempting to address non-trade issues.

Policy leaders in the United States and the United Kingdom, including

experts from The Heritage Foundation and the Competitive Enterprise Insti-

tute, have prepared a model trade agreement along these lines.

Along with TPA

renewal, this would greatly reduce negotiating costs. This template is also readily

adaptable for agreements with Europe and any other allies that are willing to

— 812 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

liberalize their economies and build a stronger alliance with America. The draft

U.S.–U.K. agreement includes an accession chapter to allow others to join on

the same terms.

Restoring or Replacing the WTO Dispute Resolution Process. The World

Trade Organization as we know it may be mortally wounded. This deprives the U.S.

of the WTO’s dispute resolution process, under which the U.S. it won 85 percent of

the cases it brought. The WTO’s slow death began under the Obama Administra-

tion, which refused to allow appointees to the WTO’s appellate board, which as a

consequence is now nonfunctional. Both the Trump and Biden Administrations

have continued the Obama Administration’s approach.

That means that every case in the dispute resolution process will sputter to

a halt as parties ﬁle appeals that cannot be heard. If the WTO is no longer ﬁt for

that purpose, it may be better to look in a dierent direction. More than 20 years

ago, a Heritage Foundation senior fellow proposed that America and other free

economies should form a Global Free Trade Alliance that is open to all countries

that adhere to a truly free market system with appropriate safeguards such as

property rights, lack of corruption, and enforcement of contracts.

Alongside a

general agreement on low to zero taris, the alliance would move to reduce the

eect of nontari barriers (such as the previously noted baby formula ingredient

and labeling barriers) by basing trade around the principle of mutual recognition.

Such an alliance could be started by a trade agreement between the United States

and, for example, the United Kingdom with an accession chapter allowing others

to join if they meet the criteria.

It would be essential for a Global Free Trade Alliance to avoid the WTO’s most

serious problem: the exemptions from its rules that are granted to developing

countries. When China joined the WTO in 2001, it was granted developing-na-

tion status, which it continues to use to dodge rules that should apply to it. Other

countries have used that status to delay needed reforms. Rule exemptions give

some countries a perverse incentive to remain poor and autocratic.

A Global Free Trade Alliance would allow the U.S. to enjoy the beneﬁts of a rules-

based international trading system without the WTO’s shortcomings. Negotiation

costs would be lower because the countries would already be allied on many issues.

In addition, there would be no separate tiers with dierent rules, and this would

give developing countries an incentive to liberalize. In addition to being good for

its own sake, liberalization would give them entry into a prestigious club that tilted

toward America’s orbit and away from China’s.

Closing the Export–Import Bank. The Export–Import Bank (EXIM) is an

unusually clear example of how vulnerable trade protectionism is to being hijacked

by special interests.

In most years, about half of EXIM’s business beneﬁts a single

company, Boeing. Their relationship is so cozy that EXIM’s nickname around

Washington is “the Bank of Boeing.”

— 813 —

Trade

Unlike most other agencies, EXIM has a charter that expires. Congress must

renew it periodically, or else the agency will permanently close. Its current charter

expires at the end of 2026. Closing this New Deal–era legacy agency would be a

conservative victory on a number of fronts. It is also a winnable battle: Congress

just needs to do nothing.

Conservatives have both foreign policy and economic reasons to oppose

EXIM. EXIM has a long history of providing ﬁnancing for authoritarian govern-

ments in China, Russia, and the Middle East that often oppose U.S. foreign policy

interests, and its deals often oppose U.S. economic interests. EXIM ﬁnancing

also harms domestic airlines. Many EXIM ﬁnancing deals enable foreign state-

run airlines to buy Boeing jets at a discount. These foreign airlines, subsidized

by the U.S. government, then compete directly with U.S. airlines on interna-

tional routes.

More recently, the Biden Administration has expanded EXIM’s mission to

advance progressive policy goals, including limits on ﬁnancing for projects that

involve fossil fuels or contribute to climate change, preferential treatment for

renewable energy projects, and quotas for projects that beneﬁt women-owned and

minority-owned businesses. All of these could raise EXIM’s default rates, putting

taxpayer dollars at risk.

The strongest argument in EXIM’s favor is that it boosts U.S. exports by ﬁnanc-

ing projects that would otherwise never receive ﬁnancing. We now have evidence

that this argument is false: EXIM does not ﬁnance additional exports; instead, it

largely substitutes for other forms of export ﬁnancing that would occur anyway.

EXIM’s authorization lapsed in 2014–2015 because of conservative opposition

to renewing its charter. During this lapse, EXIM maintained its existing portfo-

lio but was unable to take on new business. Boeing reported no trouble ﬁnding

alternative ﬁnancing and even reported record proﬁts during EXIM’s lapse while

working to fulﬁll a seven-year backlog of orders.

EXIM boasts an extremely low default rate, but that is because of selection

bias. EXIM overwhelmingly takes on low-risk projects that private banks would

be happy to ﬁnance, although this admittedly could change somewhat with EXIM’s

Biden-era mandates to ﬁnance climate and other policy-focused projects.

EXIM is also a textbook example of regulatory capture.

It has a long record of deals with authoritarian governments.

It subsidizes direct foreign competitors of domestic businesses.

It has been hijacked by progressives to advance their climate and other

preferred policies.

— 814 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Its beneﬁciaries have proven they can get adequate ﬁnancing from

private banks.

EXIM’s charter expires at the end of 2026. The agency will close automatically

unless Congress and the President decide to extend it. Closing EXIM should be

one of the next Administration’s easiest decisions.

Adopting a Multi-Pronged China Strategy. An eective American policy

toward China needs to take a realistic view of the country, its leaders, their

strengths, and the serious challenges they face. It should be comprehensive and

ﬂexible. A threatened CCP is dangerous, perhaps now more than at any time since

Mao Tse-Tung, as Xi Jinping continues to use strong-arm tactics to consolidate his

power and saber-rattling to challenge the international order.

At the same time, recent revelations about China’s ocial statistics overstating

its GDP by 30 percent track well with other problems that were already known.

These include one of the world’s worst demographic aging curves thanks to China’s

one-child policy; a population that may already be declining; an unsustainable debt

load that is already causing problems; countless failed boondoggles, from empty

cities to its underwhelming Belt-and-Road Initiative, that are wasting signiﬁcant

resources; Xi Jinping’s authoritarian turn; increasing state control of the economy;

and a zero-COVID policy that has sabotaged the economy and driven away foreign

investment.

America has its problems, but it is in better shape than China on nearly every

measure, especially in the long run. While the facts on the ground should inoculate

the next Administration against the most strident China fearmongering circulating

in the media and in Washington, that does not mean that the government in Beijing

is no threat to American interests. The question is: What should we do about it?

A serious China policy will require American policymakers to integrate doc-

trines, institutional prerogatives, expertise, and realistic objectives. Traditional

Cabinet-level bureaucracies like those at the Departments of Defense, State, and

Commerce will need to work together to pursue a comprehensive American strat-

egy. Scores of incremental, narrowly targeted policies are necessary. They will not

make for good soundbites on cable news, and many will operate slowly and out of

sight from most news cycles even as progress is made.

An eective China policy must also allow for adaptation because the CCP will

not sit idly by. As people react to developments, America needs ﬂexible options.

Trade isolationism is inherently inﬂexible because it reduces the number of con-

tact points with China.

This is a tougher political sell than loud, simplistic jeremiads, but going the extra

mile to solve these dicult coordination problems is vital to America’s interests.

Trade and engagement with China are necessary if we are to contain the threats

that China poses to its neighbors and to the U.S. The next Administration should:

— 815 —

Trade

End China’s developing-nation status in the WTO and other

international organizations. China is an advanced manufacturing

economy and should be treated as such, even if its political and legal

institutions remain those of a developing nation, to prevent it from

exploiting its status to gain special privileges.

Use a target, not a blanket. There should be actions against Chinese ﬁrms

that are known to have engaged in unfair trade practices such as intellectual

property theft. Rather than blanket taris or non-tari barriers aimed

at entire Chinese industry sectors, ﬁrms that act in bad faith should be

targeted individually. This policy was employed to good eect early in the

Trump Administration but was abandoned in favor of a less eective blanket

tari policy.

Rejoin the Trans-Paciﬁc Partnership. Dropping out of the Trans-Paciﬁc

Partnership agreement might have been the Trump Administration’s

biggest trade policy mistake. The TPP was already negotiated and would

have strengthened an alliance against China, including most of its biggest

trading partners in East Asia and the Americas. America’s departure created

tensions and inﬁghting, distracting the U.S. and its allies from the goal at

hand: countering China. The other 11 TPP countries continue, without

American input or inﬂuence, under the Comprehensive and Progressive

Agreement for Trans-Paciﬁc Partnership (CPATPP) to develop a modern

institutional framework to contain Chinese commercial imperialism.

Rejoining this alliance should be a top priority in the next conservative

Administration’s China policy. Accession negotiations are likely to be

dicult, given that the CPATPP suspended several clauses that were

important to the United States (such as provisions relating to patents and

aspects of investor-state dispute resolution) when the U.S. pulled out of the

TPP agreement in 2017.

Diplomatic and economic pressure against Beijing will be more eective

when its largest trading partners work in concert. Beijing’s diplomats will

have a hard time employing a divide-and-conquer policy against a united

front of the sort that the TPP oers.

Refocus the Indo-Paciﬁc Economic Framework for Prosperity

on trade. President Biden began the process to create IPEF in 2022,

but any agreement will likely still be under negotiation when the next

Administration takes oce. IPEF is similar to the TPP, but its member

— 816 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

countries are mostly China’s neighbors in Asia. Like the TPP, it seeks to

create an alliance to push China toward the rule of law, but the Biden

Administration so far has left trade entirely out of the agreement. Instead,

the IPEF negotiations are focusing entirely on non-trade issues like climate

and labor policy—issues that give progressives opportunities to impose their

policies on other countries and provide rent-seeking opportunities for labor

unions and politically connected businesses in renewable energy and other

favored industries.

IPEF has the potential to be a powerful diplomatic tool that helps to bring

countries into America’s orbit and away from China’s. Beijing’s chauvinistic

approach to foreign policy has alienated most of China’s neighbors and

allies. They follow along because they lack alternatives. IPEF and the TPP

could oer them a way out and make it easier for China’s smaller neighbors

to stand up for themselves in a united front as they move toward American-

style institutions that protect civil, political, and economic liberties.

IPEF could do all that, and so could the TPP, but America currently has

no voice in the TPP, and IPEF risks becoming little more than another

tool that progressives can use to force their policy wish list on countries

that don’t want it. From the perspective of IPEF’s members, the Biden

Administration’s approach is little dierent from Beijing’s. The next

Administration can give China’s neighbors a better choice by refocusing

IPEF on trade, dropping most of its non-trade issues, and turning it into a

forum to promote democracy and strengthen alliances while pressuring

Beijing to make needed reforms.

Play the long game. It took two generations to win the Cold War, and

there were many reasons for that success. The fact that the planned

economy is inherently inferior to free-market capitalism played a role. So

did diplomatic, military, and economic pressure from free countries. But

culture was just as important, and it did not come from any government.

Blue jeans and rock ’n’ roll helped to win the Cold War as much as any

deliberate policy did. So did images of fashion and prosperity in American

movies and television shows like Dallas.

Such informal bottom-up processes will also play a vital role in helping to

turn China from an authoritarian threat into a freer and less hostile power.

It will take a long time, and the slow process will garner few headlines, but

it can work. A conservative Administration will support eorts by ordinary

Americans to engage with ordinary Chinese people through social networks,

— 817 —

Trade

Internet memes, fashion, movies, student exchange programs, tourism,

and more. China’s leaders are set in their ways, especially with Xi Jinping

presumably now in power for life, but the younger generation is more open

than their parents were—more individualistic and open to change.

Eective outreach to the Chinese people will need the same humility that

other sound trade policies require. Government-directed cultural and

economic outreach risks being heavy-handed and could backﬁre. Everyone

involved needs to know that the process is generational in scope and will

not work overnight. At the very least, Washington should stay out of the way

as much as possible when regular people want to contact each other across

national, language, and cultural divides.

Each of these many components, from taris to trade agreements to culture,

is a small part of a larger China policy. Many are not attention-grabbing

and cannot be put into sound bites. Cultural engagement is not something

Washington can plan. China’s own demographic and debt problems, along

with aging leadership and growing discontent over the zero-COVID policy,

might even cause an internal collapse. American policy must therefore be

prepared to face any contingency.

CONCLUSION

A conservative trade policy needs a conservative vision. America’s found-

ing institutions, based on free trade and entrepreneurship, have made America

the world’s leading economy and will help keep America strong through the

next century.

However, recent departures from those principles have hurt America’s econ-

omy and weakened alliances that are necessary to contain threats from Russia and

China. Rearming those principles through policies of openness, dynamism, and

free trade will boost America’s economy, make us more resilient against crises, and

remove opportunities for progressives and rent-seekers to use the levers of gov-

ernment for their own purposes. Rediscovering conservative principles on trade

policy and embracing America’s long history as the world’s leading commercial

republic are an important part of restoring a government of, by, and for the people.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this analysis could not have been completed without the valuable

support of a small, sturdy, and principled community of trade policy experts. Among them, my colleagues at the

Competitive Enterprise Institute, Ryan Young, Iain Murray, and Ivan Osorio were essential. The author alone is

responsible for this report. No views herein should be attributed to any other individual or institution.

— 818 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

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 JayEtta Z. Hecker, Associate Director, International Relations and Trade Issues, National Security and

International Aairs Division, U.S. Government Accountability Oce, “China Trade: WTO Membership and

Most-Favored-Nation Status,” Testimony before the Subcommittee on Trade, Committee on Ways and Means,

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nsiad-98-209.pdf (accessed February 25, 2023).

 News release, “U.S. Trade in International Goods and Services, December and Annual 2022,” U.S. Department

of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, February 7, 2023, https://www.bea.gov/news/2023/us-

international-trade-goods-and-services-december-and-annual-2022 (accessed February 25, 2023); “Table

1. U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services: Exports, Imports, and Balances,” U.S. Department of

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ﬁles/2022-11/trad-time-series-0922.xlsx (accessed February 25, 2023).

 U.S. Department of State, “Fact Sheet: Activity at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” January 15, 2021,

https://2017-2021.state.gov/fact-sheet-activity-at-the-wuhan-institute-of-virology/index.html (accessed

February 25, 2023); Interim Report, An Analysis of the Origins of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Minority Oversight

Sta, Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, U.S. Senate, October 2022, https://www.help.

senate.gov/imo/media/doc/report_an_analysis_of_the_origins_of_covid-19_102722.pdf (accessed

February 25, 2023).

 Barmini Chakraborty, “China Hints at Denying Americans Life-Saving Coronavirus Drugs,” Fox News,

March 13, 2020, https://www.foxnews.com/world/chinese-deny-americans-coronavirus-drugs (accessed

February 25, 2023).

 Jim Garamone, “Trump Announces New Whole-of-Government National Security Strategy,” U.S. Department

of Defense, December 18, 2017, https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/1399392/

trump-announces-new-whole-of-government-national-security-strategy/ (accessed February 26, 2023).

Emphasis added.

 “Remarks by President Trump in State of the Union Address,” The White House, February 5, 2019, https://

trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/brieﬁngs-statements/remarks-president-trump-state-union-address-2/

(accessed February 25, 2023).

 White House Oce of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, The United States Reciprocal Trade Act: Estimated

Job & Trade Deﬁcit Eects, May 2019, https://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/RTAReport.

pdf?mod=article_inline (accessed February 26, 2023); United Nations Conference on Trade and Development,

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information-system-(trains) (accessed February 26, 2023); Trefor Moss, “China to Cut Import Tari on

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china-to-cut-import-tari-on-autos-to-15-from-25-1526980760 (accessed February 26, 2023); U.S.

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release?release=2019HTSAREV3 (accessed February 26, 2023).

 This code is commonly used to determine customs duty classiﬁcations for goods internationally.

 White House Oce of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, The United States Reciprocal Trade Act: Estimated Job

& Trade Deﬁcit Eects, p. 15.

 H.R.764, United States Reciprocal Trade Act, 116th Congress, introduced January 24, 2019, https://www.

congress.gov/116/bills/hr764/BILLS-116hr764ih.pdf (accessed February 26, 2023).

 Harvard Center for American Political Studies and Harris Poll, “Monthly Harvard–Harris Poll: February 2019,”

https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/HHP_Feb2019_RV_topline.pdf (accessed

February 26, 2023).

— 819 —

Trade

 Adam Behsudi, “Duy Finds 18 Co-sponsors for Bill to Increase Trump’s Tari Powers,” Politico, January 24,

2019, https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/24/duy-ﬁnds-18-co-sponsors-for-bill-to-increase-trumps-

trade-powers-2555509 (accessed February 26, 2023).

 FTAs like NAFTA represent a carve-out from the WTO’s unconditional MFN rule and generally lead to taris

that tend to be set at more reciprocal levels.

 H.R.764, United States Reciprocal Trade Act, § 3(b)(1) and (b)(2).

 Damian Paletta, “Speaker Ryan Admits Defeat, Giving up on Border Adjustment Tax,” The Washington Post,

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 This section draws on analyses in White House Oce of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, How China’s

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 Bloomberg News, “Xi’s Vow of World Dominance by 2049 Sends Chill Through Markets,” October 26, 2022,

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through-markets?leadSource=uverify%20wall (accessed February 25, 2023).

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WTO Compliance, January 2018, https://ustr.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/ﬁles/Press/Reports/China%202017%20

WTO%20Report.pdf (accessed February 25, 2023).

 White House Oce of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, How China’s Economic Aggression Threatens the

Technologies and Intellectual Property of the United States and the World.

 The National Medium- and Long-Term Program for Science and Technology Development Plan (2006–2020):

An Outline, The State Council, The People’s Republic of China, p. [55], https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/

Cybersecurity/Documents/National_Strategies_Repository/China_2006.pdf (accessed March 21, 2023).

 Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, Update to the IP Commission Report: The Theft

of American Intellectual Property: Reassessments of the Challenge and United States Policy, February 2017,

pp. 2, 11, and 12, http://www.ipcommission.org/report/IP_Commission_Report_Update_2017.pdf (accessed

February 25, 2023).

 The laws, which have been put in place for national security purposes, have been promulgated under the

Arms Export Control Act (AECA), 22 U.S.C. Ch. 39, §§ 2751–2756, 2761–2781, 2785, and 2791–27999aa-2,

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/22/chapter-39 (accessed February 25, 2023) and the International

Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), 50 U.S.C. Ch. 35, §§ 1701–1708, https://www.law.cornell.edu/

uscode/text/50/chapter-35 (accessed February 25, 2023).

 Ministry of Education, People’s Republic of China, “Statistics on Studying in China in 2018,” http://www.moe.

gov.cn/was5/web/search?searchword=Statistics+on+Studying+in+China+in+2018&channelid=254028&page=1

(accessed March 21, 2023).

 Michael Brown and Pavneet Singh, “China’s Technology Transfer Strategy: How Chinese Investments in

Emerging Technology Enable a Strategic Competitor to Access the Crown Jewels of U.S. Innovation, Updated

with 2016 and 2017 Data,” Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx), January 2018, https://admin.govexec.

com/media/diux_chinatechnologytransferstudy_jan_2018_(1).pdf (accessed February 25, 2023). The DIUx

describes itself as “the only DOD Organization focused on accelerating the adoption of commercial and dual-

use technology to solve operational challenges at speed and scale.” Defense Innovation Unit Experimental,

“About,” https://www.diu.mil/ (accessed February 25, 2023).

 Brown and Singh, “China’s Technology Transfer Strategy: How Chinese Investments in Emerging Technology

Enable a Strategic Competitor to Access the Crown Jewels of U.S. Innovation, Updated with 2016 and 2017

Data,” p. 18.

 Ingrid Lunden, “Huawei Puts $1M into a New AI Research Partnership with UC Berkeley,” TechCrunch, October

11, 2016, https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/11/huawei-puts-1m-into-a-new-ai-research-partnership-with-

ucberkeley/ (accessed February 25, 2023).

 Press release, “President Trump Announces Strong Actions to Address China’s Unfair Trade,” Oce of the

United States Trade Representative, March 22, 2018, https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-oces/press-oce/

press-releases/2018/march/president-trump-announces-strong (accessed February 25, 2023).

— 820 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 “From China with Love: AI, Robotics, AR/VR Are Hot Areas for Chinese Investment In US,” CB Insights, August

1, 2017, https://www.cbinsights.com/research/chinese-investment-us-tech-expert-research/ (accessed

February 25, 2023).

 “Remarks by President Obama and President Xi of the People's Republic of China in Joint Press

Conference,” The White House, September 25, 2015, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-

pressce/2015/09/25/remarks-president-obama-and-president-xi-peoples-republic-china-joint (accessed

February 25, 2023).

 Ankit Panda, “It’s Ocial: Xi Jinping Breaks His Non-Militarization Pledge in the Spratlys,” The Diplomat,

December 16, 2016, https://thediplomat.com/2016/12/its-ocial-xi-jinping-breaks-his-non-militarization-

pledge-in-the-spratlys/ (accessed February 25, 2023).

 Press release, “USTR Issues Taris on Chinese Products in Response to Unfair Trade Practices,” Oce of the

United States Trade Representative, June 15, 2018, https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-oces/press-oce/press-

releases/2018/june/ustr-issues-taris-chinese-products (accessed February 25, 2023).

 Yen Nee Lee, “‘New Consensus’ Reached on US–China Trade, Says Chinese Vice Premier Liu He,” CNBC,

updated April 5, 2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/05/us-china-trade-new-consensus-reached-says-

chinas-liu-he.html (accessed February 25, 2023).

 Reuters, “China Backtracked on Nearly All Aspects of US Trade Deal: Sources,” CNBC, May 8, 2019, https://

www.cnbc.com/2019/05/08/china-backtracked-on-nearly-all-aspects-of-us-trade-deal-sources.html

(accessed February 25, 2023).

 Fact Sheet, “Economic and Trade Agreement Between the United States of America and the People’s Republic

of China,” Oce of the United States Trade Representative, January 15, 2020, https://ustr.gov/sites/default/

ﬁles/ﬁles/agreements/phase%20one%20agreement/US_China_Agreement_Fact_Sheet.pdf (accessed

February 25, 2023).

 Warren Buett, “Warren Buett: Here’s How I Would Solve the Trade Problem,” Fortune, April 29, 2016, http://

fortune.com/2016/04/29/warren-buett-foreign-trade/ (accessed February 25, 2023).

 See, for example, Jerey Miron, “Forget the Wall Already, It’s Time for the U.S. to Have Open Borders,” Cato

Institute Commentary, July 31, 2018, https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/forget-wall-already-

its-time-us-have-open-borders (accessed February 25, 2023); Scott Lincicome and Alfredo Carrillo Obregon,

“The (Updated) Case for Free Trade,” Cato Institute Policy Analysis No. 925, April 19, 2022, https://www.cato.

org/sites/cato.org/ﬁles/2022-04/PA-925_2.pdf (accessed February 25, 2023); Katheryn Russ, “Yes, US

Trade Agreements Led to Economic Gains, Especially in Services, New Report Says,” Peterson Institute for

International Economics, Trade and Investment Policy Watch Blog, July 20, 2021, https://www.piie.com/blogs/

trade-and-investment-policy-watch/yes-us-trade-agreements-led-economic-gains-especially (accessed

February 25, 2023); Monica de Bolle, “Why Remittance Taxes to Finance a Border Wall Are a Bad Idea…for the

US,” Peterson Institute for International Economics, Realtime Economics Blog, January 10, 2017, https://www.

piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/why-remittance-taxes-ﬁnance-border-wall-are-bad-idea-us

(accessed February 25, 2023).

 This is a key theme of the author’s White House memoir Taking Back Trump’s America: Why We Lost the

White House and How We’ll Win It Back (New York and Nashville: Bombardier Books, 2022).

 19 U.S.C. § 1862, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1862 (accessed February 27, 2023).

 For a historical example, see Douglas A. Irwin, “Did Late-Nineteenth-Century U.S. Taris Promote Infant

Industries? Evidence from the Tinplate Industry,” Journal of Economic History, Vol. 60, No. 2 (June 2000),

pp. 336–360, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2566374 (accessed February 21, 2023). For a recent example, see

Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Eujin Jung, “The High Taxpayer Cost of ‘Saving’ US Jobs Through ‘Made in America,’”

Peterson Institute for International Economics, Trade and Investment Policy Watch, August 5, 2020, https://

www.piie.com/blogs/trade-and-investment-policy-watch/high-taxpayer-cost-saving-us-jobs-through-made-

america (accessed February 21, 2023).

 Stephen J. Dubner, “Were Colonial Americans More Literate than Americans Today?” Freakonomics,

September 1, 2011, https://freakonomics.com/2011/09/were-colonial-americans-more-literate-than-

americans-today/ (accessed February 21, 2023).

— 821 —

Trade

 Randy E. Barnett and Andrew Koppelman, “The Commerce Clause: Common Interpretation,” National

Constitution Center, https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/articles/article-i/clauses/752 (accessed

February 21, 2023); Randy E. Barnett, “The Original Meaning of the Commerce Clause,” University of Chicago

Law Review, Vol. 68, No. 1 (2001), pp. 101–147, https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.

cgi?article=5074&context=uclrev (accessed February 21, 2023).

 Wells King, “Rediscovering a Genuine American System,” American Compass, Rebooting the American System,

May 4, 2020, https://americancompass.org/rediscovering-a-genuine-american-system/ (accessed February 21,

2023). See also Phillip W. Magness and James R. Harrigan, “Henry Clay’s ‘American System’ Is Bad News for the

American Economy,” American Institute for Economic Research, December 8, 2022, https://www.aier.org/article/

henry-clays-american-system-is-bad-news-for-the-american-economy/ (accessed February 21, 2023), and Iain

Murray, “The Founding Fathers and Free Trade,” Competitive Enterprise Institute, Open Market Blog, September

20, 2022, https://cei.org/blog/the-founding-fathers-and-free-trade/ (accessed February 21, 2023).

 Douglas A. Irwin, Clashing over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

2018), pp. 147–154.

 Ibid., p. 125.

 Michael Urquhart, “The Employment Shift to Services: Where Did it Come From?” U.S. Department of Labor,

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Monthly Labor Review, Vol. 107, No. 4 (April 1984), p. 16, https://stats.bls.gov/opub/

mlr/1984/04/art2full.pdf (accessed February 21, 2023).

 H.R. 10378, Merchant Marine Act of 1920, Public Law 66-261, 66th Congress, June 5, 1920, https://govtrackus.

s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/41/STATUTE-41-Pg988.pdf (accessed February 22, 2023.

 Tori K. Smith, “The Proof Is In: Taris Are Hurting the U.S.,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, August 27, 2019,

https://www.heritage.org/trade/commentary/the-proof-taris-are-hurting-the-us.

 Congressional Budget Oce, The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2020 to 2030, January 2020, p. 33, https://

www.cbo.gov/publication/56073 (accessed February 21, 2023).

 H.R. 11970, Trade Expansion Act of 1962, Public Law No. 87-794, 87th Congress, October 11, 1962, https://www.

govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-76/pdf/STATUTE-76-Pg872.pdf (accessed February 22, 2023).

 H.R. 10710, Trade Act of 1974, Public Law No. 93-618, 93rd Congress, January 3, 1975, https://www.congress.

gov/93/statute/STATUTE-88/STATUTE-88-Pg1978-2.pdf (accessed February 22, 2023).

 U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-1/ (accessed

February 22, 2023).

 Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Eujin Jung, “Steel Proﬁts Gain, but Steel Users Pay, Under Trump’s Protectionism,”

Peterson Institute for International Economics, Trade and Investment Policy Watch, December 20, 2018,

https://www.piie.com/blogs/trade-and-investment-policy-watch/steel-proﬁts-gain-steel-users-pay-under-

trumps (accessed February 21, 2023).

 Mary Amiti, Stephen J. Redding, and David E. Weinstein, “New China Taris Increase Costs to U.S. Households,”

Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Liberty Street Economics Blog, May 23, 2019, https://libertystreeteconomics.

newyorkfed.org/2019/05/new-china-taris-increase-costs-to-us-households/ (accessed February 21, 2023).

 Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Federal Reserve Economic Database (FRED), Series CLF16OV, “Civilian

Labor Force Level,” https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLF16OV (accessed February 21, 2023).

 Stephen Morgan, “Retaliatory Taris Reduced U.S. States’ Exports of Agricultural Commodities,” U.S.

Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Amber Waves, March 7, 2022, https://www.ers.usda.

gov/amber-waves/2022/march/retaliatory-taris-reduced-u-s-states-exports-of-agricultural-commodities/

(accessed February 21, 2023).

 Aaron Flaaen and Justin Pierce, “Disentangling the Eects of the 2018–2019 Taris on a Globally Connected

U.S. Manufacturing Sector,” Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Finance and Economics

Discussion Series No. 2019-086, December 23, 2019, https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/

ﬁles/2019086pap.pdf (accessed February 21, 2023); U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics,

“Data Tools: Industries at a Glance: Primary Metal Manufacturing: NAICS 331,” data extracted February 17, 2023,

https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag331.htm (accessed February 21, 2023).

 Ryan Young, “Lessons from the GM layos: End the Taris and the Subsidies,” Fox Business, November 28,

2018, https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/lessons-from-the-gm-layos-end-the-taris-and-the-subsidies

(accessed February 21, 2023).

— 822 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 Irwin, Clashing over Commerce, pp. 400–410. For a book-length treatment of Smoot–Hawley, see Douglas A.

Irwin, Peddling Protectionism: Smoot–Hawley and the Great Depression, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press, 2011).

 Kevin D. Williamson, Big White Ghetto: Dead Broke, Stone-Cold Stupid, and High on Rage in the Dank Wooly

Wilds of the “Real America (Washington: Regnery, 2020).

 Stephen J. Hicks and Srikant Devaraj, “The Myth and Reality of Manufacturing in America,” Conexus Indiana

and Ball State University Center for Business and Economic Research, June 2015 and April 2017, https://

conexus.cberdata.org/ﬁles/MfgReality.pdf (accessed February 21, 2023).

 Economic News Release, “Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary,” U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau

of Labor Statistics, February 1, 2023, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm (accessed February 21,

2023). The release reports “Job Openings and Labor Turnover—December 2022.”

 Allen H. Meltzer, A History of the Federal Reserve, Volume 1: 1913–1951 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

2004); Allen H. Meltzer, A History of the Federal Reserve, Volume 2, Book 2, 1970–1986 (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 2014).

 John B. Taylor, Getting O Track: How Government Actions and Interventions Caused, Prolonged, and

Worsened the Financial Crisis (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2009); Scott Sumner, The Money

Illusion: Market Monetarism, the Great Recession, and the Future of Monetary Policy (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 2021), pp. 267–284.

 Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Federal Reserve Economic Database (FRED), Series Unemployment Rate

(UNRATE), updated February 3, 2023, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE (accessed February 21, 2023).

 Ryan Young, “How to Make Sure Reformed #NeverNeeded Regulations Stay That Way,” Competitive

Enterprise Institute, Open Market Blog, July 8, 2020, https://cei.org/studies/how-to-make-sure-reformed-

neverneeded-regulations-stay-that-way/ (accessed February 21, 2023).

 H.R. 8351, Formula Act, Public Law No. 117-160, 117th Congress, July 21, 2022, https://www.congress.gov/117/

plaws/publ160/PLAW-117publ160.pdf (accessed February 22, 2023).

 Iain Murray, “A New Kind of Trade Agreement,” Competitive Enterprise Institute, Open Market Blog,

September 19, 2018, https://cei.org/opeds_articles/a-new-kind-of-trade-agreement/ (accessed

February 21, 2023).

 See note 8, supra.

 Mario Loyola, “America Last: The Grim Reality of the Jones Act,” Competitive Enterprise Institute Issue

Analysis 2020 No. 5, June 2020, https://cei.org/sites/default/ﬁles/Mario_Loyola_-_America_Last.pdf

(accessed February 21, 2023); Patrick Tyrell, “Permanent Repeal of the Jones Act Would Be a Winning

Response to COVID-19,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, April 7, 2020, https://www.heritage.org/trade/

commentary/permanent-repeal-the-jones-act-would-be-winning-response-covid-19.

 Bryan Riley, “Better Trade and Regulatory Policies Are Key to Battling High Prices,” National Taxpayers Union

Blog, January 12, 2023, https://www.ntu.org/publications/detail/better-trade-and-regulatory-policies-are-key-

to-battling-high-prices (accessed February 21, 2023).

 Daniel Ikenson, Simon Lester, and Daniel Hannan, eds., “The Ideal U.S.–U.K. Free Trade Agreement: A

Free Trader’s Perspective,” Initiative for Free Trade and Cato Institute, 2018, https://www.cato.org/sites/

cato.org/ﬁles/pubs/pdf/ideal-us-uk-free-trade-agreement-executive-summary-update.pdf (accessed

February 21, 2023).

 John Hulsman, “The World Turned Right-Side Up: A New Trading Agenda for the Age of Globalization,”

Heritage Foundation Report, January 24, 2000, https://www.heritage.org/trade/report/the-world-turned-

right-side-new-trading-agenda-the-age-globalization.

 Diane Katz, “Export–Import Bank: Propaganda Versus the Facts,” Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No. 4430,

July 13, 2015, http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2015/pdf/IB4430.pdf; Ryan Young, “Ten Reasons to

Abolish the Export–Import Bank: Eighty Years Is Enough,” Competitive Enterprise Institute OnPoint No. 195,

July 15, 2014, http://cei.org/sites/default/ﬁles/Ryan%20Young%20-%20Top%2010%20Reasons%20to%20

Abolish%20Ex-Im%20%282%29.pdf (accessed February 21, 2023).

 Veronique de Rugy, “Boeing Isn’t Exactly Pleased with Ex–Im’s Liquidation,” National Review Online, The

Corner, September 1, 2015, https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/ex-im-bank-boeing-liquidation/ (accessed

February 21, 2023).

— 823 —

Trade

 Luis Martinez, “How Much Should We Trust the Dictator’s GDP Growth Estimates?” Becker–Friedman Institute

for Economics at the University of Chicago, Working Paper No. 2021-78, July 2021, https://bﬁ.uchicago.edu/

wp-content/uploads/2021/07/BFI_WP_2021-78.pdf (accessed February 21, 2023).

 Nicholas R. Lardy, The State Strikes Back: The End of Economic Reform in China? (Washington: Peterson

Institute for International Economics, 2019); Elizabeth C. Economy, The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the

New Chinese State (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).

— 825 —

n addition to the executive departments and agencies discussed previously,

a number of independent commissions exist that are loosely aliated with

the executive branch. In general, the President can appoint people to these

commissions but cannot remove them, which makes them constitutionally prob-

lematic in light of the Constitution’s having vested federal executive power in the

President. Nevertheless, they exist, their constitutional legitimacy has generally

been upheld by the courts, and there will be an opportunity for the next Adminis-

tration to use them as forces for good, particularly by making wise appointments.

Few appointments to these commissions will be as important as the President’s

selection of the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

In Chapter 28, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr writes that the FCC chairman “is

empowered with signiﬁcant authority that is not shared” with other FCC members.

Under a new chairman, he writes, “[t]he FCC needs to change course and bring new

urgency to achieving four main goals: [r]eining in Big Tech; [p]romoting national

security; [u]nleashing economic prosperity; and [e]nsuring FCC accountability

and good governance.”

“The FCC,” writes Carr, “has an important role to play in addressing the threats

to individual liberty posed by corporations that are abusing dominant positions

in the market.” Nowhere is that clearer “than when it comes to Big Tech and its

attempts to drive diverse political viewpoints from the digital town square.” Carr

writes that the FCC should require more transparency from Big Tech, which today

“oers a black box.” And it should issue “an order that interprets Section 230”—

which provides protection from legal liability to online computer services that

INDEPENDENT

REGULATORY

AGENCIES

Section Five

— 826 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

moderate content in good faith—“in a way that eliminates the expansive, non-tex-

tual immunities that courts have read into the statute.” In addition to taking

unilateral action, Carr says, the FCC should work with Congress on legislative

changes to ensure that “Internet companies no longer have carte blanche to censor

protected speech while maintaining their Section 230 protections.”

Carr writes that during the Trump Administration, the FCC took an “appro-

priately strong approach to the national security threats posed by the Chinese

Communist Party.” The FCC put Huawei on its Covered List of entities—its list

of those posing “an unacceptable risk” to U.S. national security. Carr writes that

TikTok also poses a “serious and unacceptable” risk to U.S. national security, while

providing “Beijing with an opportunity to run a foreign inﬂuence campaign by

determining the news and information that the app feeds to millions of Americans,”

and the next Administration should ban it. What’s more, Carr writes, “U.S. busi-

nesses are aiding Beijing—often unwittingly”—in its eort to become, by 2030, “the

global leader in artiﬁcial intelligence.” In part, they are doing so by providing “Bei-

jing access to their high-powered cloud computing services.” Carr asserts that “it is

time for an Administration to put in place a comprehensive plan that aims to stop

U.S. entities from directly or indirectly contributing to China’s malign AI goals .”

Former Federal Election Commissioner Hans von Spakovsky writes in Chap-

ter 29 that while “the authority of the President over the actions of” the Federal

Election Commission “is extremely limited,” the President “must ensure that the

[Justice Department], just like the FEC, is directed to only prosecute clear viola-

tions” of the Federal Election Campaign Act. “The department must not construe

ambiguous provisions…in a way that infringes on protected First Amendment

activity,” he writes. The FEC has six members, three from each party, and its

determinations require a majority—so, they require the support of at least one

member of each party. DOJ should not “prosecute an individual for supposedly

violating the law when the FEC has previously determined that a similarly situated

individual has not violated the law,” writes von Spakovsky. Moreover, he writes

that the “President should vigorously oppose all eorts”—such as the language

in the “For the People Act of 2021”—“to change the structure of the FEC” so that

it would have an “odd number” of members. The current structure “ensures that

there is bipartisan agreement before any action is taken and protects against the

FEC being weaponized.”

In Chapter 27, David R. Burton writes that the Securities and Exchange Com-

mission (SEC) “should be reducing impediments to capital formation, not radically

increasing them” by pushing a costly “climate change” agenda, as it is doing under

the Biden Administration. Discussing the Federal Trade Commission, Adam Can-

deub writes in Chapter 30, “Antitrust law can combat dominant ﬁrms’ baleful

eects on democratic” notions—“such as free speech, the marketplace of ideas,

shareholder control, and managerial accountability as well as collusive behavior

— 827 —

Section 5: Independent Regulatory Agencies

with government.” Under the Biden FTC, he writes, ﬁrms try “to get out of anti-

trust liability by oering climate, diversity, or other forms of ESG-type oerings.”

Candeub says that state AGs “are far more responsive to their constituents” than

the federal government generally is, and he recommends that the FTC establish

a position in the chairman’s oce that is “focused on state AG cooperation and

inviting state AGs to Washington, DC, to discuss enforcement policy in key sectors

under the FTC’s jurisdiction: Big Tech, hospital mergers, supermarket mergers,

and so forth.”

— 829 —

FINANCIAL

REGULATORY

AGENCIES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

AND RELATED AGENCIES

David R. Burton

he primary purposes of the laws and regulations governing capital markets and

of capital market regulators are to deter and punish fraud and other material

misstatements to investors; foster reasonable, scaled disclosure of information

that is material to investors’ ﬁnancial outcomes and proxy voting decisions; and

maintain fair, orderly, and ecient secondary capital markets.

The Securities Act of 1933

and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934

reﬂect

nearly nine decades of rushed and haphazard amendments. The securities laws

are now extremely complex and do not constitute a coherent, rational regulatory

regime. For example, the current SEC has proposed a climate change reporting

rule that would quadruple the costs of being a public company.

This would have

a substantial adverse impact on existing companies. Over time, it would also sub-

stantially reduce the number of public companies and therefore the number of

investing options available to ordinary Americans. The Securities and Exchange

Commission (SEC) should be reducing impediments to capital formation, not rad-

ically increasing them.

The SEC and Congress should fundamentally reform the securities laws gov-

erning issuers, broker–dealers, exchanges, and other market participants. Among

other things, they should establish a simpliﬁed and rationalized securities disclo-

sure system with:

— 830 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Three basic categories of ﬁrm: private ﬁrms, an intermediate category of

smaller ﬁrms,

and public ﬁrms;

Reasonable, scaled disclosure requirements; and

Speciﬁed secondary markets for the securities of these ﬁrms.

The SEC needs to be reformed to achieve its important core functions more

eectively, to improve transparency and due process, and to reduce unnecessary

regulatory impediments to capital formation.

Under current law, the SEC Chair-

man has the authority to make almost all of the necessary changes.

Unfortunately,

ﬁnancial regulators, particularly the SEC and the Financial Industry Regulatory

Authority (FINRA), are poorly managed and organized.

With regulatory authority delegated by the government, both the Public

Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) and FINRA have proved to be

ineective, costly, opaque, and largely impervious to reform. To reduce costs and

improve transparency, due process, congressional oversight, and responsiveness,

PCAOB and FINRA should be abolished, and their regulatory functions should

be merged into the SEC. Furthermore, Congress should establish an indepen-

dent board or commission and charge it with producing a detailed report within

18 months that examines the degree to which the regulatory functions of the var-

ious other so-called self-regulatory organizations (SROs), which are no longer

self-regulatory in any meaningful sense, should be moved to the SEC.

Discrimination based on immutable characteristics has no place in ﬁnancial

regulation. Oces at ﬁnancial regulators that promote racist policies (usually in

the name of “diversity, equity, and inclusion”) should be abolished, and regulations

that require appointments on the basis of race, ethnicity, sex, or sexual orientation

should be eliminated. Equal protection of the law, equal opportunity, and individ-

ual merit should govern regulatory decisions.

Congress has given the SEC broad “general exemptive authority,”

but the SEC

has used this authority only rarely. It should use this authority signiﬁcantly more

often to reduce the regulatory burden on issuers, particularly smaller entrepreneurs.

ENTREPRENEURIAL CAPITAL FORMATION

Financial regulators should remove regulatory impediments to entrepreneur-

ial capital formation.

In the absence of the fundamental reform outlined above,

the SEC should:

Simplify and streamline Regulation A (the small issues exemption)

and

Regulation CF (crowdfunding)

and preempt blue sky registration and quali-

ﬁcation requirements for all primary and secondary Regulation A oerings.

— 831 —

Financial Regulatory Agencies

Either democratize access to private oerings by broadening the deﬁnition

of accredited investor for purposes of Regulation D or eliminate the

accredited investor restriction altogether.

Allow traditional self-certiﬁcation of accredited investor status for all

Regulation D Rule 506 oerings.

Exempt small micro-oerings from registration requirements.

Exempt small and intermittent ﬁnders from broker–dealer registration

requirements and provide a simpliﬁed registration process for private

placement brokers.

Exempt peer-to-peer lending from federal and state securities laws and

reduce the regulatory burden on Regulation CF debt securities.

Make the Title I Emerging Growth Company (EGC) exemptions permanent

for all EGCs.

Reduce the regulatory burden on small broker–dealers and exempt privately

held, non-custodial broker–dealers from the requirements to use a PCAOB-

registered ﬁrm for their audits.

Congress should:

Amend the Internal Revenue Code to disregard crowdfunding and

Regulation A shareholders for purposes of the 100-shareholder limit for

Subchapter S corporations.

BETTER CAPITAL MARKETS

To improve capital markets, the SEC should:

Preempt blue sky registration, qualiﬁcation, and continuing reporting

requirements for securities traded on established securities markets

(including a national securities exchange or an alternative trading system).

Terminate the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) program.

Abolish Rule 144 and other regulations that restrict securities resales and instead

require a company that has sold securities to provide sucient current informa-

tion to the market to permit reasonable investment decisions and secondary sales.

— 832 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Congress should:

Prohibit the SEC from requiring issuer disclosure of social, ideological,

political, or “human capital” information that is not material to investors’

ﬁnancial, economic, or pecuniary risks or returns. The proposed SEC

climate change rule, which would quadruple the costs of being a public

company, is particularly problematic.

Repeal the Dodd–Frank mandated disclosures relating to conﬂict minerals,

mine safety, resource extraction, and CEO pay ratios.

Oppose eorts to redeﬁne the purpose of business in the name of social

justice; corporate social responsibility (CSR); stakeholder theory;

environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria; socially responsible

investing (SRI); sustainability; diversity; business ethics; or common-

good capitalism.

Prohibit securities regulators, including SROs, from promulgating rules

or taking other actions that discriminate, either favorably or unfavorably,

on the basis of the race, color, religion, sex, or national origin of such

individual or group.

SEC ADMINISTRATION

To enable it to achieve its core mission more eectively, the SEC should:

Publish better data on securities oerings, securities markets, and

securities law enforcement and publish an annual data book of time

series data on these matters. Speciﬁcally, the SEC Division of Economic

and Risk Analysis (DERA) needs to do a much better job of collecting and

reporting fundamental data regarding oerings, regulatory costs, violations,

enforcement, investors, state regulator taxes, fees and activities, and

other matters.

Ensure that SEC resources ﬂow toward its core functions and away from

ancillary and support functions or from missions that do not fall within the

SEC’s statutory charge.

Ensure that any three SEC Commissioners are empowered to place an item

on the agenda and to receive adequate sta support to do so even without

the Chairman’s support.

— 833 —

Financial Regulatory Agencies

Eliminate all administrative proceedings (APs) within the SEC except

for stop orders related to defective registration statements. The SEC

enforcement system does not need to have both district court cases and

APs. Alternatively, respondents should be allowed to elect whether an

adjudication occurs in the SEC’s administrative law court or an ordinary

Article III federal court.

End the practice of delegating the decision to initiate an enforcement case.

The SEC Chairman—and possibly the U.S. Government Accountability

Oce (GAO)—should study whether other Commission delegation of

authority to sta should be narrowed and whether sunsetting of such

delegation of authority should be required.

Congress should:

Require an Inspector General’s (or possibly a GAO) report regarding SEC

information technology spending and contracting. Spending appears to be

much too high, and IT contracting is poorly managed.

Statutorily limit the time for an investigation to two years with no

extensions. Long investigations harm private parties and the quality of

justice. With adequate management processes, the SEC should not need

more than two years even for complicated matters.

The SEC Chairman should:

Dramatically reduce the number of direct reports to the SEC Chairman.

Merge SEC oces that are performing similar functions.

Reduce the number of managers per employee.

CFTC ADMINISTRATION AND IMPROVED

COMMODITIES AND DERIVATIVES MARKETS

Congress should:

Modernize the deﬁnition of commodity (which is now largely a laundry list

of agricultural commodities)

and clarify the treatment of digital assets.

Clarify through an express amendment to the Commodity Exchange Act

(CEA)

the circumstances that require a foreign swap trading platform to

— 834 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

execution facility (SEF) under Sections 2(i)

and 5h

of the CEA. Currently, it

is not clear whether having one or a small number of U.S. participants would

require SEF registration under prior sta guidance, which has led foreign

swap trading platforms to exclude all U.S. persons from their platforms or to

go through the process of seeking an exemption from registration.

Amend Section 2 of the CEA to authorize the CFTC Chairman to remove the

agency’s Executive Director without a Commission vote.

To augment Commissioners’ independence, establish funding amounts for

the Commissioners’ oces by statute with adjustments for inﬂation, with

no requirement for a Commissioner to obtain budget or expense approvals

from the Chairman or the agency’s administrative sta.

The CFTC should:

Allocate more resources to core agency functions rather than ancillary and

support operations.

Replace the existing position limits rule, which reduces liquidity and makes

markets more volatile, with further delegation of authority to the exchanges

to set position limits and position accountability levels where appropriate

for the relevant market.

Reduce overly prescriptive rules implementing the CFTC’s core principles.

Apply the deﬁnitions of “U.S. Person” and “Guarantee” in the CFTC’s 2020

rule on cross-border application of swaps regulations (2020 Cross-Border

Rule)

to the regulatory requirements that remain covered by the CFTC’s

2013 guidance on the subject (2013 Guidance).

Currently, the deﬁnition

of each of these foundational terms diers depending on whether the

requirement in question is covered by the 2020 Cross-Border Rule or the

2013 Guidance.

Remove the regulatory categories of “aliate conduit” and “foreign

consolidated subsidiary” from the 2013 Guidance and the CFTC’s cross-

border rule on margin for uncleared swaps,

respectively. These categories

were replaced by the concept of a “Signiﬁcant Risk Subsidiary” for purposes

of the 2020 Cross-Border Rule because of widespread market confusion and

compliance diculties arising from their broad and vague scope.

— 835 —

Financial Regulatory Agencies

DIGITAL ASSETS

Both the SEC and the CFTC have been irresponsible actors in the digital asset

area. They have had more than a decade to promulgate rules governing digital

assets, yet the SEC has utterly failed to do so, and the CFTC has provided only

minimal guidance. Instead, both agencies have chosen regulation by enforce-

ment—and have done it poorly. They neither adequately protect investors nor

provide responsible market participants with the regulatory environment that

they need to thrive.

The SEC and CFTC should clarify the treatment of digital assets (coins or

tokens). Speciﬁcally, they should:

Promulgate a joint regulation providing that a holder of digital assets may

not be deemed a party to an investment contract or an investor in a common

enterprise unless, while the enterprise is a going concern, the holder is

entitled to a share of the earnings or proﬁts of the common enterprise or

a deﬁned ﬂow of payments from the common enterprise in consideration

of the investment or unless, upon liquidation, the holder has rights against

the assets of the common enterprise. Otherwise, the digital asset shall be

deemed a commodity to be regulated by the CFTC, not the SEC.

Amend the deﬁnition of commodity to include digital assets that are not

a security as so deﬁned and amend the deﬁnition of security to make it

clear that a certiﬁcate (digital, electronic, or otherwise) that represents

ownership of commodities and is convertible into a physical commodity on

demand is not a security but a commodity.

In the absence of regulatory action, Congress should enact legislation that

achieves these goals.

IMPROVED REGULATION OF THE INDUSTRY AND SROS

Congress and the SEC need to conduct more robust oversight of self-regulatory

organizations, and SROs need to be reformed; otherwise, as discussed above, SRO

regulatory functions should be merged into the SEC. The SEC, FINRA itself, or

Congress should:

In the absence of merging FINRA into the SEC as recommended,

require that:

1. FINRA’s Board of Governors meetings be open to the public unless the

board votes to meet in executive session.

— 836 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

2. FINRA’s Board of Governors’ agenda be made available to the

public in advance.

3. Board minutes describing actions taken be published without delay.

4. FINRA make available to the public in advance rulemakings that the

FINRA board is expected to consider.

5. FINRA arbitration and disciplinary hearings should be open to the

public and reported.

Require FINRA arbitrators to make ﬁndings of fact based on the evidentiary

record and demonstrate how those facts led to the award given (except with

respect to very small claims). These written FINRA arbitration decisions

should be subject to SEC review and limited judicial review.

Require that all SRO ﬁnes, including those imposed by FINRA, should

go either to a newly established investor reimbursement fund or to the

Treasury. SROs should not have a ﬁnancial interest in imposing ﬁnes.

Require all SROs to conduct meaningful cost-beneﬁt analysis as part of the

rulemaking process with respect to major rules.

Require all SROs to publish rules in proposed format and seek public

comment before they are submitted to the SEC or the CFTC.

Require each SRO to submit an annual report to Congress with detailed,

speciﬁed information about its budget and fees; its enforcement activities

(including sanctions and ﬁnes imposed by type of violation and type of ﬁrm

or individual); its dispute resolution activities; and its rulemaking activities.

Congress should:

Conduct annual oversight hearings on SROs.

Either make FINRA, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB),

and the National Futures Association (NFA) “Designated Federal Entities”

and establish an inspector general with respect to ﬁnancial SROs, including

FINRA, the MSRB, and the NFA or place FINRA, the MSRB, and the NFA

within the ambit of an existing inspector general.

— 837 —

Financial Regulatory Agencies

Require the SEC and the CFTC to publish a detailed annual report on SRO

supervision.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in the

2025 Presidential Transition Project. All contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume, but Paul

Atkins, C. Wallace DeWitt, Christopher Iacovella, Brian Knight, Chelsea Pizzola, and Andrew Vollmer deserve special

mention. The author alone assumes responsibility for the content of this chapter, and no views expressed herein

should be attributed to any other individual.

CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU

Robert Bowes

he Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was authorized in 2010

by the Dodd–Frank Act.

Since the Bureau’s inception, its status as an “inde-

pendent” agency with no congressional oversight has been questioned in multiple

court cases, and the agency has been assailed by critics

as a shakedown mecha-

nism to provide unaccountable funding to leftist nonproﬁts politically aligned with

those who spearheaded its creation.

In 2015, for example, Investor’s Business Daily accused the CFPB of “diverting

potentially millions of dollars in settlement payments for alleged victims of lending

bias to a slush fund for poverty groups tied to the Democratic Party” and plan-

ning “to create a so-called Civil Penalty Fund from its own shakedown operations

targeting ﬁnancial institutions” that would use “ramped-up (and trumped-up)

anti-discrimination lawsuits and investigations” to “bankroll some 60 liberal non-

proﬁts, many of whom are radical Acorn-style pressure groups.”

The CFPB has a ﬁscal year (FY) 2023 budget of $653.2 million

and 1,635 full-

time equivalent (FTE) employees.

From FY 2012 through FY 2020, it imposed

approximately $1.25 billion in civil money penalties;

in FY 2022, it imposed

approximately $172.5 million in civil money penalties.

These penalties are

imposed by the CFPB Civil Penalty Fund, described as “a victims relief fund, into

which the CFPB deposits civil penalties it collects in judicial and administrative

actions under Federal consumer ﬁnancial laws.”

The CFPB is headed by a single Director who is appointed by the President to

a ﬁve-year term.

Its organizational structure includes ﬁve divisions: Operations;

Consumer Education and External Aairs; Legal; Supervision, Enforcement and

Fair Lending; and Research, Monitoring and Regulations.

Each of these divisions

reports to the Oce of the Director, except for the Operations Division, which

reports to the Deputy Director.

Passage of Title X of Dodd–Frank was a bid to placate concern over a series

of regulatory failures identiﬁed in the wake of the 2008 ﬁnancial crisis. The law

imported a new superstructure of federal regulation over consumer ﬁnance and

— 838 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

mortgage lending and servicing industries traditionally regulated by state bank-

ing regulators. Consumer protection responsibilities previously handled by the

Oce of the Comptroller of the Currency, Oce of Thrift Supervision, Federal

Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve, National Credit Union Admin-

istration, and Federal Trade Commission were transferred to and consolidated in

the CFPB, which issues rules, orders, and guidance to implement federal consumer

ﬁnancial law.

The CFPB collects ﬁnes from the private sector that are put into the Civil Pen-

alty Fund.

The fund serves two ostensible purposes: to compensate the victims

whom the CFPB perceives to be harmed and to underwrite “consumer education”

and “ﬁnancial literacy” programs.

How the Civil Penalty Fund is spent is at the

discretion of the CFPB Director. The CFPB has been unclear as to how it decides

what “consumer education” or “ﬁnancial literacy programs” to fund.

As noted,

critics have charged that money from the Civil Penalty Fund has ended up in the

pockets of leftist activist organizations.

In Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,

the Supreme Court

of the United States held that the CFPB’s leadership by a single individual remov-

able only for ineciency, neglect, or malfeasance violated constitutional separation

of powers requirements because “[t]he Constitution requires that such ocials

remain dependent on the President, who in turn is accountable to the people.”

The CFPB Director is thus subject to removal by the President.

The CFPB is not subject to congressional oversight, and its funding is not

determined by elected lawmakers in Congress as part of the typical congressional

appropriations process. It receives its funding from the Federal Reserve, which

is itself funded outside the appropriations process through bank assessments.

CFPB funding represents 12 percent of the total operating expenses of the Fed-

eral Reserve and is disbursed by the unelected Board of Governors of the Federal

Reserve System.

This is not the case with respect to any other federal agency.

On October 19, 2022, in Community Financial Services Association of America

v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth

Circuit held that the CFPB’s “perpetual insulation from Congress’s appropriations

power, including the express exemption from congressional review of its funding,

renders the Bureau ‘no longer dependent and, as a result, no longer accountable’

to Congress and, ultimately, to the people”

and that “[b]y abandoning its ‘most

complete and eectual’ check on ‘the overgrown prerogatives of the other branches

of the government’—indeed, by enabling them in the Bureau’s case—Congress ran

afoul of the separation of powers embodied in the Appropriations Clause.”

The

Court further remarked that the CFPB’s “capacious portfolio of authority acts ‘as

a mini legislature, prosecutor, and court, responsible for creating substantive rules

for a wide swath of industries, prosecuting violations, and levying knee-buckling

penalties against private citizens.’”

— 839 —

Financial Regulatory Agencies

On February 27, 2023, the Supreme Court granted the petition for a writ of

certiorari.

The Court should issue its ﬁnal decision by 2024.

The CFPB is a highly politicized, damaging, and utterly unaccountable federal

agency.

It is unconstitutional. Congress should abolish the CFPB and reverse

Dodd–Frank Section 1061, thus returning the consumer protection function of

the CFPB to banking regulators

and the Federal Trade Commission. Provided

the Supreme Court arms the Fifth Circuit holding in Community Financial Ser-

vices Association of America, the next conservative President should order the

immediate dissolution of the agency—pull down its prior rules, regulations and

guidance, return its sta to their prior agencies and its building to the General

Services Administration.

Until this can be accomplished, however, Congress should:

Ensure that any civil penalty funds not used to recompense wronged

consumers go to the Department of the Treasury. The funds should not

be retained by the Bureau to be dispensed at the pleasure of the Director—

potentially to political actors. Moreover, the CFPB should not have a

ﬁnancial incentive to impose penalties.

Repeal Dodd–Frank Section 1071. This section, which relates to small-

business data collection, imposes requirements on ﬁnancial institutions’

lending to small ﬁrms, raises costs, and limits small businesses’ access

to capital.

Require that no CFPB funds are spent on enforcement actions that

are not based on a rulemaking that complies with the Administrative

Procedure Act.

Require that respondents in administrative actions be allowed to

elect whether an adjudication occurs in an administrative law court

or an ordinary Article III federal court.

Specify the nature of “deceptive, unfair, and abusive” practices to

deﬁne the scope of the CFPB mission more precisely.

— 840 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

 H.R. 5480, Securities Act of 1933, Public Law No. 73-22, 73rd Congress, May 27, 1933, https://govtrackus.

s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/48/STATUTE-48-Pg74.pdf (accessed February 20, 2023).

 H.R. 9323, Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Public Law No. 73-291, 73rd Congress, June 6, 1934, https://

govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/48/STATUTE-48-Pg881a.pdf (accessed February 20, 2023).

 Mark T. Uyeda, Commissioner, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, “Remarks at the 2022 Cato

Summit on Financial Regulation,” November 17, 2022, https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/uyeda-remarks-

cato-summit-ﬁnancial-regulation-111722 (accessed February 20, 2023); Hester M. Peirce, Commissioner, U.S.

Securities and Exchange Commission, “It’s Not Just Scope 3: Remarks at the American Enterprise Institute,”

December 7, 2022, https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/peirce-remarks-american-enterprise-institute-120722

(accessed February 20, 2023); comment letter from David R. Burton to Vanessa A. Countryman, Secretary,

Securities and Exchange Commission, “Re: The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related

Disclosures for Investors [File No. S7-10-2; Release No. 33-11042; RIN 3235-AM87],” June 17, 2022, https://www.

sec.gov/comments/s7-10-22/s71022-20131980-302443.pdf (accessed February 20, 2023).

 Size would probably be measured best by public ﬂoat or the number of beneﬁcial owners.

 See David R. Burton, “Securities Disclosure Reform,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3178, February

13, 2017, https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/ﬁles/2017-02/BG3178.pdf; David R. Burton, “Oering and

Disclosure Reform,” Chapter 11 in Reframing Financial Regulation: Enhancing Stability and Protecting

Consumers, ed. Hester Peirce and Benjamin Klutsey (Arlington, VA: Mercatus Center at George Mason

University, 2016), pp. 277–315, https://www.mercatus.org/research/books/reframing-ﬁnancial-regulation

(accessed February 20, 2023); Andrew N. Vollmer, “Investor-Friendly Securities Reform to Increase Economic

Growth,” Securities Regulation & Law Report, Bloomberg BNA, Vol. 49, June 5, 2017.

 See, for example, David R. Burton, “Reforming the Securities and Exchange Commission,” Heritage

Foundation Backgrounder No. 3378, January 30, 2019, https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/ﬁles/2019-01/

BG3378.pdf; Andrew N. Vollmer, “Testimony on Workforce Management Disclosures and Other SEC Issues,”

submitted to the Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets, Committee

on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives, December 6, 2022, https://www.congress.gov/117/

meeting/house/115227/witnesses/HHRG-117-BA16-Wstate-VollmerA-20221208.pdf (accessed February 20,

2023); David R. Burton, “Reforming FINRA,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3181, February 1, 2017,

https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/ﬁles/2017-02/BG3181.pdf; Hester Peirce, “The Financial Industry

Regulatory Authority: Not Self-Regulation After All,” Mercatus Center at George Mason University Working

Paper, January 2015, https://www.mercatus.org/research/working-papers/ﬁnancial-industry-regulatory-

authority-not-self-regulation-after-all (accessed February 20, 2023); Thaya Brook Knight, “Transparency and

Accountability at the SEC and at FINRA,” Chapter 11 in Prosperity Unleashed: Smarter Financial Regulation,

ed. Norbert J. Michel, (Washington: The Heritage Foundation, 2017) https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/

ﬁles/2017-02/11_ProsperityUnleashed_Chapter11.pdf.

 Reorganization Plan No. 10 of 1950, U.S. Code Title 5—Appendix, Reorganization Plans, http://uscode.house.

gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title5a-node84-leaf114&num=0&edition=prelim (accessed

February 20, 2023).

 The board or commission should evaluate the regulatory functions of the National Securities Exchanges,

Registered Securities Future Product Exchanges, Registered Clearing Agencies (such as the Depository Trust

Company (DTC), the National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC) and the Options Clearing Corporation

(OCC)), the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) and the National Futures Association (NFA). This

board or commission should have a broad composition and permit minority reports.

 Boyden Gray & Associates, Comments Submitted on Behalf of Alliance for Fair Board Recruitment Concerning

the Nasdaq Stock Market LLC; Notice of Filing of Proposed Rule Change to Adopt Listing Rules Related

to Board Diversity, Amendment No. 1, File No. SR-NASDAQ-2020-081, April 6, 2021 https://www.sec.gov/

comments/sr-nasdaq-2020-081/srnasdaq2020081-8639478-230941.pdf (accessed February 20, 2023);

David R. Burton, “Nasdaq’s Proposed Board-Diversity Rule Is Immoral and Has No Basis in Economics,”

Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3591, March 9, 2021, https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/

ﬁles/2021-03/BG3591_0.pdf. The SEC is contemplating at least two rules that can be expected to require

dierential treatment based on race, sex, ethnicity, and so on. See Executive Oce of the President, Oce

— 841 —

Financial Regulatory Agencies

of Management and Budget, Oce of Information and Regulatory Aairs, “Fall 2022 Uniﬁed Agenda of

Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions: Active Regulatory Actions Listed by Agency,” https://www.reginfo.gov/

public/do/eAgendaMain (accessed February 20, 2023); “Human Capital Management Disclosure,” RIN: 3235-

AM88, https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=202204&RIN=3235-AM88 (accessed

February 20, 2023); “Corporate Board Diversity,” RIN: 3235-AL91, https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/

eAgendaViewRule?pubId=202204&RIN=3235-AL91 (accessed February 20, 2023).

 15 U.S. Code § 77z–3, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/77z-3 (accessed February 20, 2023); 15 U.S.

Code § 78mm, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/78mm (accessed February 20, 2023).

 S. ___, Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2022, discussion draft, 117th Congress, 2nd Session, https://

www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/the_jobs_act_4.0discussiondraft.pdf (accessed February 20,

2023); David R. Burton, “Entrepreneurial Capital Formation,” Testimony before the Committee on Banking,

Housing, and Urban Aairs, U.S. Senate, April 5, 2022, https://www.heritage.org/testimony/entrepreneurial-

capital-formation; “Removing Barriers to Small Business Capital Formation and Expanding Investor

Opportunities,” Section 6 in Nicholas Anthony, Norbert J. Michel, Jennifer J. Schulp, George Selgin, and Jack

Solowey, “Sound Financial Policy: Principled Recommendations for the 118th Congress,” ed. Norbert J. Michel

and Ann Rulon, Cato Institute, 2022, pp. 22–27, https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/ﬁles/2022-10/sound-

ﬁnancial-policy-118th-congress.pdf (accessed February 20, 2023); David R. Burton and Norbert J. Michel,

Proposals to Foster Economic Growth and Capital Formation, Submission to Committee on Banking, Housing,

and Urban Aairs, U.S. Senate, March 18, 2021, https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/David%20

Burton%20and%20Norbert%20Michel%20-%202021-3-18.pdf (accessed February 20, 2023); David R. Burton,

“Improving Entrepreneurs’ Access to Capital: Vital for Economic Growth,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder

No. 3182, February 14, 2017, https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/ﬁles/2017-02/BG3182.pdf.

 The small issues exemptive authority has been in the Securities Act since its initial enactment.

 The crowdfunding exemption was created by Title III of the 2012 JOBS Act. See H.R. 3606, Jumpstart Our

Business Startups Act, Public Law No. 112-106, 112th Congress, April 5, 2021, Title III, § 302, https://www.

govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-112publ106/pdf/PLAW-112publ106.pdf (accessed February 20, 2023).

 Burton, “Improving Entrepreneurs’ Access to Capital: Vital for Economic Growth”; Rutheford B. Campbell

Jr., “The Case for Federal Pre-Emption of State Blue Sky Laws,” Chapter 6 in Prosperity Unleashed: Smarter

Financial Regulation, https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/ﬁles/2017-02/06_ProsperityUnleashed_

Chapter06.pdf.

 Andrew N. Vollmer, “Abandon the Concept of Accredited Investors in Private Securities Oerings,” Securities

Regulation Law Journal, Vol. 49, No. 5 (Spring 2021), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_

id=3719280 (accessed February 20, 2023); Thaya Brook Knight, “Your Money’s No Good Here: How Restrictions

on Private Securities Oerings Harm Investors,” Cato Institute Policy Analysis No. 833, February 9, 2018, https://

www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/ﬁles/pubs/pdf/pa833.pdf (accessed February 20, 2023); David R. Burton, “Congress

Should Increase Access to Private Securities Oerings,” Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No. 4899, August 29,

2018, https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/ﬁles/2018-08/IB4899.pdf; Andrew N. Vollmer, “Evidence on the

Use of Disclosure Documents in Private Securities Oerings to Accredited Investors,” Mercatus Center at George

Mason University Working Paper, October 22, 2020, https://www.mercatus.org/publications/ﬁnancial-regulation/

evidence-use-disclosure-documents-private-securities-oerings-0 (accessed February 20, 2023).

 For a detailed discussion, see “Micro-Oerings,” Section IId in Burton and Michel, Proposals to Foster

Economic Growth and Capital Formation, pp. 15–17.

 David R. Burton, “Let Entrepreneurs Raise Capital Using Finders and Private Placement Brokers,” Heritage

Foundation Backgrounder No. 3328, July 10, 2018, https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/ﬁles/2018-07/

BG3328.pdf; Andrew N. Vollmer, “Make It Easy for Startups to Sell Stock,” Mercatus Center at George Mason

University Discourse, September 21, 2020, https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/commentary/make-it-easy-

startups-sell-stock (accessed February 20, 2023).

 See H.R. 531, S-Corp Access to Crowdfunding Act, 115th Congress, introduced January 13, 2017, https://www.

govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-115hr531ih/pdf/BILLS-115hr531ih.pdf (accessed February 20, 2023); David

Burton, “The Tax Law Makes It Almost Impossible for ‘S Corporations’ to Use Equity Crowdfunding,” The Daily

Signal, April 19, 2016, https://www.dailysignal.com/2016/04/19/the-tax-law-makes-it-almost-impossible-for-

s-corporations-to-use-equity-crowdfunding/.

— 842 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

 Burton, “Improving Entrepreneurs’ Access to Capital: Vital for Economic Growth”; Campbell, “The Case for

Federal Pre-Emption of State Blue Sky Laws.”

 David R. Burton, “Why the SEC’s Consolidated Audit Trail Is a Bad Idea,” Heritage Foundation Commentary,

December 5, 2019, https://www.heritage.org/monetary-policy/commentary/why-the-secs-consolidated-

audit-trail-bad-idea; Hester M. Peirce, Commissioner, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, “Statement

on the Order Granting Temporary Conditional Exemptive Relief from Certain Requirements of the National

Market System Plan Governing the Consolidated Audit Trail,” July 8, 2022, https://www.sec.gov/news/

statement/peirce-statement-consolidated-audit-trail-070822 (accessed February 20, 2023).

 Peirce, “It’s Not Just Scope 3: Remarks at the American Enterprise Institute”; Uyeda, “Remarks at the 2022

Cato Summit on Financial Regulation.”

 David R. Burton, “How Dodd–Frank Mandated Disclosures Harm, Rather than Protect, Investors,” Heritage

Foundation Issue Brief No. 4526, March 10, 2016, http://thf-reports.s3.amazonaws.com/2016/IB4526.pdf.

 For a detailed discussion of SEC administration, see Burton, “Reforming the Securities and Exchange

Commission.”

 See, for example, Andrew N. Vollmer, “Accusers as Adjudicators in Agency Enforcement Proceedings,”

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, Vol. 52, No. 1 (Fall 2018), pp. 103–155, https://repository.law.

umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1602&context=mjlr (accessed February 20, 2023).

 7 U.S.C. § 1a(9), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/1a (accessed February 20, 2023).

 Or the CFTC can undertake a rulemaking.

 7 U.S.C. § 2(i), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/2 (accessed February 20, 2023).

 7 U.S.C. § 7b–3, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/7b-3 (accessed February 20, 2923).

 Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “Cross-Border Application of the Registration Thresholds and

Certain Requirements Applicable to Swap Dealers and Major Swap Participants,” Final Rule, Federal Register,

Vol. 85, No. 178 (September 14, 2020), pp. 56924–57016, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-09-

14/pdf/2020-16489.pdf (accessed February 21, 2023).

 Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “Interpretive Guidance and Policy Statement Regarding Compliance

with Certain Swap Regulations,” Federal Register, Vol. 78, No. 144 (July 26, 2013), pp. 45292–45374, https://

www.cftc.gov/sites/default/ﬁles/idc/groups/public/@lrfederalregister/documents/ﬁle/2013-17958a.pdf

(accessed February 21, 2023).

 Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “Margin Requirements for Uncleared Swaps for Swap Dealers and

Major Swap Participants—Cross-Border Application of the Margin Requirements,” Final Rule, Federal Register,

Vol. 81, No. 104 (May 31, 2016), pp. 34818–34854, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2016-05-31/

pdf/2016-12612.pdf (accessed February 21, 2023).

 H.R. 4173, Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Public Law 111–203, 111th Congress,

July 21, 2010, Title X, https://www.congress.gov/111/plaws/publ203/PLAW-111publ203.pdf (accessed March 23,

2023). See also Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “About Us,” https://www.consumerﬁnance.gov/about-

us/ (accessed March 23, 2023).

 See, for example, Paul Sperry, “Trump Is Finally Fixing This Economy-Killing Agency,” New York Post,

December 2, 2017, https://nypost.com/2017/12/02/trump-is-ﬁnally-ﬁxing-this-economy-killing-agency/

(accessed March 23, 2023). See also Jeb Hensarling “How We’ll Stop a Rogue Federal Agency,” The

Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-well-stop-a-rogue-federal-

agency-1486597413 (accessed March 23, 2023), and H.R. 3389, CFPB Slush Fund Elimination Act of 2013, 113th

Congress, introduced October 30, 2013, https://www.congress.gov/113/bills/hr3389/BILLS-113hr3389ih.pdf

(accessed March 23, 2023).

 Editorial, “CFPB Joins Justice in Shaking Down Banks for Democrat Activist Groups,” Investor’s Business Daily,

June 17, 2015, https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/cfpb-diverts-civil-penalty-funds-to-democrat-

activist-groups/ (accessed March 23, 2023).

 Table, “Budget by Program,” in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Annual Performance Plan and

Report, and Budget Overview, February 2023, p. 15, https://ﬁles.consumerﬁnance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_

performance-plan-and-report_fy23.pdf (accessed March 23, 2023).

 Table, “FTE by Program,” in ibid., p. 16.

— 843 —

Financial Regulatory Agencies

 Table 7, “Civil Penalty Fund Signiﬁcant Activity,” in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Financial Report

of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Fiscal Year 2022, November 15, 2022, p. 21, https://ﬁles.

consumerﬁnance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_ﬁnancial-report_fy2022.pdf (accessed March 23, 2023).

 Ibid.

 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Financial Report of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Fiscal

Year 2022, p. 20.

 12 U.S. Code § 5491, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/12/5491 (accessed March 23, 2023).

 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Bureau Structure,” last updated March 15, 2023, https://www.

consumerﬁnance.gov/about-us/the-bureau/bureau-structure/ (accessed March 23, 2023).

 See Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Consumer Financial Civil Penalty Fund Rule,” https://www.

consumerﬁnance.gov/rules-policy/ﬁnal-rules/consumer-ﬁnancial-civil-penalty-fund-rule/ (accessed

March 23, 2023).

 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Civil Penalty Fund: Consumer Education and Financial Literacy,”

https://www.consumerﬁnance.gov/enforcement/payments-harmed-consumers/civil-penalty-fund/consumer-

education-ﬁnancial-literacy/ (accessed March 23, 2023).

 U.S. Government Accountability Oce, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Opportunity Exists to Improve

Transparency of Civil Penalty Fund Activities, GAO-14-551, June 2014, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-14-551.

pdf (accessed March 23, 2023).

 Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), https://www.supremecourt.gov/

opinions/19pdf/19-7_n6io.pdf (accessed March 23, 2023).

 Ibid., p. 37.

 See 12 U.S. Code § 5497(a)(1), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/12/5497 (accessed March 23, 2023).

Congress speciﬁed that the amount transferred to the CFPB “shall not exceed” 12 percent “of the total

operating expenses of the Federal Reserve System…in ﬁscal year 2013, and in each year thereafter.” Ibid., §

5497(2)(A)(iii).

 Community Financial Services Association of America v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (5th Cir. 2022),

pp. 31–32, https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/21/21-50826-CV0.pdf (accessed March 23, 2023).

 Ibid., p. 32.

 Ibid. (quoting Seila Law LLC v. CFPB, 140 S. Ct. 2183, 2202 n. 8 (2020)).

 U.S. Supreme Court, “Order List: 598 U.S.,” February 27, 2023, Docket No. 22–448, CFPB et al. v. Com. Fin.

Services Assn., et al., https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/022723zor_6537.pdf (accessed

March 23, 2023).

 Devin Watkins, Competitive Enterprise Institute, “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Ripe for Reform,”

testimony before the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy, Committee on

Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives, March 9, 2023, https://docs.house.gov/meetings/BA/

BA20/20230309/115384/HHRG-118-BA20-Wstate-WatkinsD-20230309.pdf (accessed March 23, 2023);

Norbert J. Michel, “7 Steps Next Director Can Take to Make the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Less

Awful,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, July 28, 2018, https://www.heritage.org/markets-and-ﬁnance/

commentary/7-steps-next-director-can-take-make-the-consumer-ﬁnancial.

 The Oce of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve,

and National Credit Union Administration. Those functions performed by the Oce of Thrift Supervision (OTS)

prior to Dodd–Frank should be transferred to the OCC since OTS has merged with OCC.

 See “Section 1071 of the Dodd–Frank Act” in David R. Burton, “Improving Small Business Access to Capital,”

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Symposium on Section 1071 of the Dodd–Frank Act, Small Business

Lending Panel, November 6, 2019, https://ﬁles.consumerﬁnance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_burton-written-

statement_symposium-section-1071.pdf (accessed March 23, 2023).

 5 U.S. Code Chapter 5, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/part-I/chapter-5 (accessed March 23, 2023).

 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Administrative Adjudication Proceedings,” https://www.

consumerﬁnance.gov/administrative-adjudication-proceedings/ (accessed March 23, 2023), and 12 Code of

Federal Regulations Part 1081—Rules of Practice for Adjudication Proceedings, https://www.law.cornell.edu/

cfr/text/12/part-1081 (accessed March 23, 2023).

— 845 —

FEDERAL

COMMUNICATIONS

COMMISSION

Brendan Carr

MISSION STATEMENT

The FCC should promote freedom of speech, unleash economic opportunity,

ensure that every American has a fair shot at next-generation connectivity, and

enable the private sector to create good-paying jobs through pro-growth reforms

that support a diversity of viewpoints, ensure secure and competitive communi-

cations networks, modernize outdated infrastructure rules, and represent good

stewardship of taxpayer dollars.

OVERVIEW AND BACKGROUND

The FCC is an independent regulatory agency that has jurisdiction over inter-

state and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and

cable.

Five Commissioners are appointed by the President and conﬁrmed by the

Senate for ﬁxed ﬁve-year terms.

The FCC does not have any other presidentially

appointed, Senate-conﬁrmed ocials. Ordinarily, the ﬁve-member FCC is divided

politically three to two with a majority of Commissioners from the same political

party as the President. The Commissioners’ terms are staggered so that every year

at the end of June, one Commissioner’s term expires.

However, a Commissioner

can continue to serve until the end of the next session of Congress (or up to 1.5

years beyond the expiration of the term) if no replacement is conﬁrmed after his

or her term ends.

By law, only a bare majority of Commissioners can be from the same politi-

cal party (no more than three when there are ﬁve members).

By tradition, the

Chairperson resigns when a new President of a dierent political party is sworn

— 846 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

into oce—though this is not required by law. By resigning, the exiting Commis-

sioner enables the President to nominate someone from his own political party

to the FCC, and this typically shifts the political balance on the FCC toward the

President’s political party. The President generally designates one of the existing

Commissioners of the President’s same political party as Chairperson—either on

an acting or a permanent basis—on or shortly after Inauguration Day.

Under a tradition that dates back a few decades, when a relevant vacancy arises,

the President allows the leader of the opposite political party in the Senate to select

the person who will serve in the minority Commissioner role. The President then

formally nominates the person identiﬁed by Senate leadership. This also is not

required by law.

As speciﬁed in the Communications Act of 1934, the FCC’s Chairperson serves

as the agency’s CEO and is empowered with signiﬁcant authority that is not shared

with other Commissioners.

For instance, the Chairperson sets the FCC’s agenda,

decides what matters the agency will vote on and when, and has authority to orga-

nize and coordinate the FCC’s work.

There is no separate Senate conﬁrmation

process for the position of FCC Chairperson; the President designates one of the

Commissioners to serve as Chairperson through a short one-sentence or two-sen-

tence letter.

There are no limits on the number of terms that a person can serve

as an FCC Commissioner, though Commissioners need to be nominated and con-

ﬁrmed for each ﬁve-year term.

FCC Budget and Structure. In recent years, the FCC has employed between

1,300 and 1,500 people.

The FCC’s ﬁscal year 2023 budget request is for approx-

imately $390.2 million.

While Congress appropriates funds for the FCC, the

agency’s budget is oset by what are known as regulatory fees—fees the FCC col-

lects from the licensees and other entities that it regulates and uses to oset its

budget request. The FCC also raises revenue for the government by auctioning

spectrum licenses. In fact, the FCC has generated more than $200 billion for the

U.S. Treasury through spectrum auctions.

The FCC is organized into a series of bureaus and oces based on function.

These include an Oce of General Counsel, Oce of Inspector General, Oce of

Legislative Aairs, Media Bureau, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Wireline

Competition Bureau, Enforcement Bureau, and more.

High-Proﬁle FCC Matters. The FCC addresses a number of important mat-

ters. For instance, Section 230 is codiﬁed in the Communications Act,

and the

FCC has authority to interpret that law and thus provide courts with guidance

about the proper application of the statutory language.

The FCC has addressed

“net neutrality” rules and the regulatory framework that should apply to broadband

oerings. Any merger that involves a wireless company, broadcaster, or similar

entity that holds an FCC license must obtain FCC approval (assuming that the

merger will involve the transfer of the FCC license).

— 847 —

Federal Communications Commission

The FCC has facilitated the transition from 3G to 4G and now 5G oerings in

two ways. First, it has freed spectrum—the airwaves needed to deliver wireless ser-

vices. Second, it has preempted state and local siting and permitting laws that could

otherwise slow down the buildout of next-generation infrastructure. One of the

FCC’s great success stories from 2017 to 2020 was securing U.S. leadership in 5G.

The FCC also administers an approximately roughly $9 billion-a-year program

called the Universal Service Fund (USF), which has been funded by a line-item

charge that traditional telephone companies add to consumers’ monthly bills.

Expenditures from this fund subsidize rural broadband networks and low-income

programs as well as connections for schools, libraries, and rural health care facil-

ities. Through various COVID-era laws, Congress has also provided the FCC with

a one-time $24 billion appropriation for various low-income initiatives.

POLICY PRIORITIES

The FCC needs to change course and bring new urgency to achieving

four main goals:

Reining in Big Tech,

Promoting national security,

Unleashing economic prosperity, and

Ensuring FCC accountability and good governance.

Reining in Big Tech. The FCC has an important role to play in addressing

the threats to individual liberty posed by corporations that are abusing dominant

positions in the market. Nowhere is that clearer than when it comes to Big Tech

and its attempts to drive diverse political viewpoints from the digital town square.

Today, a handful of corporations can shape everything from the information

we consume to the places we shop. These corporate behemoths are not merely

exercising market power; they are abusing dominant positions. They are not simply

prevailing in the free market; they are taking advantage of a landscape that has

been skewed—in many cases by the government—to favor their business models

over those of their competitors. It is hard to imagine another industry in which a

greater gap exists between power and accountability. That is why a new Adminis-

tration should support FCC action on several fronts. Speciﬁcally, the FFC should:

Eliminate immunities that courts added to Section 230. The FCC

should issue an order that interprets Section 230 in a way that eliminates

the expansive, non-textual immunities that courts have read into the statute.

— 848 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

As one of the FCC’s previous General Counsels noted, the FCC has authority

to take this action because Section 230 is codiﬁed in the Communications

Act.

The FCC’s Section 230 reforms should track the positions outlined

in a July 2020 Petition for Rulemaking ﬁled at the FCC near the end of

the Trump Administration.

Any new presidential Administration should

consider ﬁling a similar or new petition.

As Justice Clarence Thomas has made clear, courts have construed Section

230 broadly to confer on some of the world’s largest companies a sweeping

immunity that is found nowhere in the text of the statute.

They have done

so in a way that nulliﬁes the limits Congress placed on the types of actions

that Internet companies can take while continuing to beneﬁt from Section

230. One way to start correcting this error is for the FCC to remind courts

how the various portions of Section 230 operate.

At the outset, the FCC can clarify that Section 230(c)(1) does not apply

broadly to every decision that a platform makes. Rather, its protections

apply only when a platform does not remove information provided by

someone else. In contrast, the FCC should clarify that the more limited

Section 230(c)(2) protections apply to any covered platform’s decision

to restrict access to material provided by someone else. Combined, these

actions will appropriately limit the number of cases in which a platform

can censor with the beneﬁt of Section 230’s protections. Such clariﬁcations

might also include drawing out the traditional legal distinction between

distributor and publisher liability; Section 230 did not do away with the

former, nor does it collapse into the latter.

Impose transparency rules on Big Tech. Today, Big Tech oers a black

box. After Google manipulates search results, a small business can see its

web trac drop precipitously overnight for no apparent reason, potentially

ﬂipping its outlook from black to red. On Facebook, social media posts

are left up or taken down, accounts suspended or permanently banned,

without any apparent consistency. Out of the blue, YouTube can demonetize

individuals who have risked their capital and invested their labor to build

online businesses.

At present, the FCC requires broadband providers to comply with a

transparency rule that can provide a good baseline for Big Tech. Under the

FCC’s rule, broadband providers must provide detailed disclosures about

practices that would shape Internet trac—from blocking to prioritizing or

discriminating against content. The FCC could take a similar approach to

— 849 —

Federal Communications Commission

Big Tech, and it should look to Section 230 and the Consolidated Reporting

Act as potential sources of authority.

In acting, the FCC could require these

platforms to provide greater speciﬁcity regarding their terms of service, and it

could hold them accountable by prohibiting actions that are inconsistent with

those plain and particular terms. Within this framework, Big Tech should be

required to oer a transparent appeals process that allows for the challenging

of pretextual takedowns or other actions that violate clear rules of the road.

Support legislation that scraps Section 230’s current approach. The

FCC should work with Congress on more fundamental Section 230 reforms

that go beyond interpreting its current terms. Congress should do so by

ensuring that Internet companies no longer have carte blanche to censor

protected speech while maintaining their Section 230 protections. As

part of those reforms, the FCC should work with Congress to ensure that

antidiscrimination provisions are applied to Big Tech—including “back-end”

companies that provide hosting services and DDoS protection. Reforms

that prohibit discrimination against core political viewpoints are one way to

do this and would track the approach taken in a social media law passed in

Texas, which was upheld on appeal in late 2022 by the U.S. Court of Appeals

for the Fifth Circuit.

In all of this, Congress can make certain points clear. It could focus

legislation on dominant, general-use platforms rather than specialized

ones. This could include excluding comment sections in online publications,

specialized message boards, or communities within larger platforms that

self-moderate. Similarly, Congress could legislate in a way that does not

require any platform to host illegal content; child pornography; terrorist

speech; and indecent, profane, or similar categories of speech that Congress

has previously carved out.

Support eorts to empower consumers. The FCC and Congress should

work together to formulate rules that empower consumers. Section 230

itself codiﬁes “user control” as an express policy goal and encourages

Internet platforms to provide tools that will “empower” users to engage

in their own content moderation. As Congress takes up reforms, it should

therefore be mindful of how we can return to Internet users the power to

control their online experiences. One idea is to empower consumers to

choose their own content ﬁlters and fact checkers, if any. The FCC should

also work with Congress to ensure stronger protections against young

children accessing social media sites despite age restrictions that generally

prohibit their use of these sites.

— 850 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

It should be noted at this point that the views expressed here are not shared

uniformly by all conservatives. There are some, including contributors to

this chapter, who do not think that the FCC or Congress should act in a way

that regulates the content-moderation decisions of private platforms. One

of the main arguments that this group oers is that doing so would intrude—

unlawfully in their view—on the First Amendment rights of corporations to

exclude content from their private platforms.

Require that Big Tech begin to contribute a fair share. Big Tech

has avoided accountability in several additional ways as well. One of

them concerns the FCC’s roughly $9 billion Universal Service Fund.

This initiative provides the support necessary to subsidize the agency’s

aordable Internet and rural connectivity programs. The FCC obtains this

funding through a line-item charge that carriers add to consumers’ monthly

bills for traditional telecommunications service.

While Big Tech derives tremendous value from the federal government’s

universal service investments—using those federally supported networks

to deliver their products and realize signiﬁcant proﬁts—these large

corporations have avoided paying a fair share into the program. On top of

that, the FCC’s current funding mechanism has been on an unsustainable

path.

By requiring traditional telephone customers to contribute to a

fund that is being used increasingly to support broadband networks, the

FCC’s current approach is the regulatory equivalent of taxing horseshoes

to pay for highways. To put the FCC’s universal service program on a stable

footing, Congress should require Big Tech companies to start contributing

an appropriate amount.

Conservatives are not unanimous in agreeing that the FCC should expand

the USF contribution base. Instead, some argue that Congress should revisit

the program’s entire funding structure and determine whether to continue

subsidizing the provision of service. Future funding decisions, the argument

goes, should be made by Congress through the normal appropriation process

through which the USF program can compete for funding with other national

initiatives. These decisions should be made with an eye to right-sizing

the federal government’s existing broadband initiatives in light of both

technological advances and the recent inﬂux of billions of dollars in new

appropriations that can be used to support eorts to end the digital divide.

Protecting America’s National Security. During the Trump Administra-

tion, the FCC ushered in a new and appropriately strong approach to the national

— 851 —

Federal Communications Commission

security threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). During that time,

the FCC eliminated federal subsidies for telecommunications equipment from

Huawei and ZTE, thereby greatly reducing the chances of that equipment ﬁnding a

way into our nation’s communications networks. The FCC also stood up a program

to rip and replace insecure network gear to ensure that it did not remain a threat

lurking inside our systems. The FCC revoked or denied the licenses of carriers like

China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom, which presented unacceptable

national security risks. There are, however, additional strong actions that the FCC

can and should take to address the CCP’s malign campaign. Speciﬁcally:

Address TikTok’s threat to U.S. national security. As law enforcement

ocials have made clear, TikTok poses a serious and unacceptable risk to

America’s national security.

It also provides Beijing with an opportunity to

run a foreign inﬂuence campaign by determining the news and information

that the app feeds to millions of Americans. As of this writing, the Biden

Administration’s Treasury Department has not announced a ﬁnal decision

concerning its long-pending review of TikTok. If that inaction persists, or if

the Administration allows TikTok to continue to operate in the U.S., a new

Administration should ban the application on national security grounds.

Expand the FCC’s Covered List. The FCC maintains a list of

communications equipment and services that pose an unacceptable risk to

the national security of the United States. It is known as the Covered List.

Huawei is one of the companies on the Covered List, and its inclusion means

that the FCC will no longer review or approve new applications from Huawei.

Without FCC approval, new Huawei gear cannot be lawfully sold or used in

the U.S. However, the FCC must do a better job of ensuring that its Covered

List stays up to date and accounts for changes in corporate names and forms.

Therefore, a new Administration should create a more regular and timely

process for reviewing entities with ties to the CCP’s surveillance state.

End the unregulated end run. As noted above, China Telecom and similar

entities have been banned from operating in the U.S. in a manner that would

require an FCC license or authorization because of the national security

risks that those entities pose. However, many of these same entities are

still operating in the U.S. and oering services very similar to the ones that

they are prohibited from providing. China Telecom, for instance, continues

to provide services to data centers by oering the services on a private or

“unregulated” basis. A new Administration should work with the FCC to

close this loophole. One way to do so would be for the FCC to prohibit any

regulated carrier from interconnecting with an insecure provider.

— 852 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Publish a foreign adversary transparency list. As part of the FCC’s

ongoing work to secure our networks from entities that would do the

bidding of our foreign adversaries, the FCC should do more to shine the

light of transparency on the scope of the problem. To this end, the FCC

should compile and publish a list of all entities that hold FCC authorizations,

licenses, or other grants of authority with more than 10 percent ownership

by foreign adversarial governments, including the governments of China,

Russia, Iran, Syria, or North Korea. A bipartisan bill that would require

the FCC to publish this type of list has been introduced in the House of

Representatives by Representatives Elise Stefanik (R–NY), Ro Khanna (D–

CA), and Mike Gallagher (R–WI).

Fully fund the federal “rip and replace” program. In 2019, Congress

established a $1.9 billion Secure and Trusted Communications Networks

Reimbursement Program (known colloquially as the “rip and replace”

program) to reimburse communications providers for the reasonable

expenses they would incur to remove, replace, and dispose of insecure

Huawei and ZTE gear. However, $1.9 billion is about $3 billion short of the

total amount of funding needed to complete the rip and replace process. A

new Administration should ensure that the program is fully funded and

should look ﬁrst at repurposing and applying unused COVID-era emergency

funds for this purpose.

Launch a Clean Standards Initiative. During the Trump Administration,

the U.S. government launched a worldwide Clean Networks program.

As a result of this initiative, many of the U.S. government’s allies started

the process of ending their relationships with Huawei. It is time for an

Administration to build and expand on this groundbreaking work by

taking a similar approach to the standard-setting process. Right now,

the CCP is seeking to extend its inﬂuence by exerting control over the

development of standards in a variety of areas, including technology and

telecommunications. It is vital that the United States meet this threat with a

comprehensive clean standards initiative.

Stop aiding the CCP’s authoritarian approach to artiﬁcial

intelligence. The CCP has set itself a goal of becoming the global leader in

artiﬁcial intelligence (AI) by 2030. Beijing is bent on using this technology

to exert authoritarian control domestically and export its authoritarian

governance model overseas. U.S. businesses are aiding Beijing in this eort—

often unwittingly—by feeding, training, and improving the AI datasets

of companies that are beholden to the CCP. One way that U.S. companies

— 853 —

Federal Communications Commission

are doing this is by giving Beijing access to their high-powered cloud

computing services. Therefore, it is time for an Administration to put in

place a comprehensive plan that aims to stop U.S. entities from directly or

indirectly contributing to China’s malign AI goals.

Unleashing Economic Prosperity. The FCC needs to advance a pro-growth

agenda that gives every American a fair shot at next-generation connectivity.

This is vital for economic opportunity and prosperous communities. The current

Administration has appropriated a lot of money for broadband infrastructure proj-

ects, but it has failed to pair that spending with reforms that free more airwaves

for wireless connectivity or streamline the permitting processes for broadband

builds. That failure is holding back America’s hardworking telecommunications

crews and leaving Americans stuck waiting on the wrong side of the digital divide.

It is time for a return to the successful spectrum and infrastructure policies that

prevailed during the Trump Administration—policies that enabled the U.S. to lead

the world in 5G.

Reﬁll America’s spectrum pipeline. From 2017 through 2020, the FCC

took unprecedented steps to free the airwaves needed to power 5G and

other next-generation wireless services. This work not only helped to secure

America’s wireless leadership and bolster competition, but also enabled the

private sector to create jobs and grow the economy. Recently, the FCC has

failed to match the pace and cadence of those spectrum actions. Therefore,

the FCC and a new Administration should work together to develop a

national spectrum strategy that both identiﬁes the speciﬁc airwaves that

the FCC can free for commercial wireless services and sets an aggressive

timeline for agency action.

Facilitate coordination on spectrum issues. Wireless services now

play a central role in advancing America’s economic and national security

interests. Over the past few years, this dynamic has led to an increasing

number of headline-level disputes between the commercial wireless sector

and federal agencies. These disputes are often framed in zero-sum terms

as commercial wireless and federal agency stakeholders argue over the

appropriate types and amount of airwaves that the government should

allocate for various purposes. On the one hand, America’s global economic

leadership depends on its ability to free spectrum that will power the U.S.

commercial wireless industry. On the other hand, we must ensure that

America’s national security and other federal agencies have access to the

spectrum resources that they need to carry out their vital missions.

— 854 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

It is clear that the current process is not delivering optimal outcomes. In

December 2021 and January 2022, for instance, the lack of interagency

coordination and communication about mid-band 5G spectrum allocation

between the FCC and the Federal Aviation Authority led to signiﬁcant

challenges for the U.S. aviation industry. Over the past two years, the FCC

has failed to move spectrum into the commercial marketplace at the same

pace and cadence that it did in the recent past. Creating better mechanisms

to improve communication and cooperation between dierent federal

agencies could enable a more eective and coordinated U.S. government

telecommunications strategy. The White House should work with Congress

to establish a spectrum coordination process that will work for both

commercial and federal users.

Modernize infrastructure rules. By 2016, the construction of new cell

sites—the building blocks for 5G—had essentially ﬂatlined in America.

Because of outdated permitting rules, it cost too much and took too long to

build wireless infrastructure, so the FCC went to work. The agency updated

the environmental and historic preservation rules that needlessly drove up

the cost and slowed down the timeline for adding small cells. The FCC put in

place guardrails to address outlier fees and delays imposed at the state and

local levels on those same small-cell projects. It modernized the permitting

process in several additional ways as well.

Those FCC reforms delivered results. They allowed America’s private

sector to bring thousands of families across the digital divide and to keep

Americans connected during the pandemic. In fact, infrastructure builds

accelerated at a record pace after those reforms. In 2019, for instance, U.S.

providers built over 46,000 new cell sites—a sixty-ﬁvefold increase over

2016 levels.

The FCC has not engaged in any similar infrastructure reforms in recent

years, and there is much more that needs to be done. For instance, the FCC’s

prior reforms focused on streamlining the rules for small wireless facilities.

The FCC should now explore similar action for the deployment of other

wired infrastructure by imposing limits on the fees that local and state

governments can charge for reviewing those wireline applications and time

restrictions on the government’s decision-making process.

The next Administration should also work to address the delays that

continue to persist when it comes to building Internet infrastructure on

federal lands. This is an area where the FCC itself has very little jurisdiction,

— 855 —

Federal Communications Commission

so a new Administration should redouble eorts to require timely reviews

and ﬁnal actions by agencies with jurisdiction over federal lands, including

the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service.

Advance America’s space leadership. One of the most signiﬁcant

technological developments of the past few years has been the emergence

of a new generation of low-earth orbit satellites like StarLink and Kuiper.

This technology can beam a reliable, high-speed Internet signal to nearly

any part of the globe at a fraction of the cost of other technologies. This

has the potential to signiﬁcantly accelerate eorts to end the digital divide

and disrupt the federal regulatory and subsidy regime that applies to

communications networks. The FCC should expedite its work to support

this new technology by acting more quickly in its review and approval of

applications to launch new satellites. Otherwise, the U.S. risks ceding space

leadership to entities based in countries with more friendly regulatory

environments.

Holding Government Accountable. Federal technology and telecommunica-

tions programs have been plagued by a troubling lack of accountability and good

governance. They would beneﬁt from stronger oversight and a fresh look at elim-

inating outdated regulations that are doing more harm than good.

End wasteful broadband spending policies. Many of the broadband

spending policies being pursued by the current Administration are

poised to waste taxpayer money while leaving rural communities and

unconnected Americans behind. At the same time, the dramatic recent

increases in funding through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and the

Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act mean that the federal government

has more than enough resources to meet its broadband connectivity

goals. Congress should therefore hold the agencies accountable so that

taxpayer money is used eectively to promote broadband connectivity

across the nation.

To that end, the next Administration should instruct the various

departments and agencies that are administering broadband infrastructure

funds to direct those resources to communities without adequate

Internet infrastructure instead of to places that already enjoy broadband

connectivity. Take, for example, the ﬁnal rules that the Treasury

Department adopted in 2022 that govern the expenditure of $350 billion

in ARPA funds. Rather than directing those dollars to the rural and

other communities that have no Internet infrastructure, the current

— 856 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Administration gave the green light for recipients to spend those funds to

overbuild existing high-speed networks in communities that already have

multiple broadband providers. A new Administration should eliminate

government-funded overbuilding of existing networks.

Adopt a national coordinating strategy. Hundreds of billions of

infrastructure dollars have been appropriated by Congress or budgeted by

agencies over the past couple of years that can be used to end the digital

divide. Yet, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Oce, “U.S.

broadband eorts are not guided by a national strategy”; instead, “[f]ederal

broadband eorts are fragmented and overlapping, with more than 100

programs administered by 15 agencies,” risking overbuilding as well

as wasteful duplication.

Many of these programs remain plagued by

ineciency, further contributing to waste of limited taxpayer dollars.

Moreover, the federal government is failing to put appropriate guardrails

in place to govern the expenditure of billions in broadband funds. This

is the regulatory equivalent of turning the spigot on full blast and then

walking away from the hose. There is a worrisome lack of adequate

tracking, measurement, and accountability standards governing all of this

broadband spending. As a result, we are likely to see headline levels of waste,

fraud, and abuse.

A new Administration needs to bring fresh oversight to this spending and

put a national strategy in place to ensure that the federal government adopts

a coordinated approach to its various broadband initiatives. Similarly, the

next Administration should ask the FCC to launch a review of its existing

broadband programs, including the dierent components of the USF, with

the goal of avoiding duplication, improving eciency of existing programs,

and saving taxpayer money.

Correct the FCC’s regulatory trajectory and encourage competition

to improve connectivity. The FCC is a New Deal–era agency. Its history

of regulation tends to reﬂect the view that the federal government should

impose heavy-handed regulation rather than relying on competition

and market forces to produce optimal outcomes. President Franklin D.

Roosevelt recommended that Congress create the FCC in February 1934

for the purposes of establishing “a single Government agency charged

with broad authority” over the ﬁeld of communications.

Congress

subsequently established the FCC through the Communications Act of 1934.

Congress has passed a number of additional statutes—some broad, some

— 857 —

Federal Communications Commission

narrow—that pertain to the FCC’s authority, including most signiﬁcantly

the Telecommunications Act of 1996,

which opened up markets for greater

competition and largely deregulated industry segments.

Technological change in the connectivity sector is occurring rapidly. We

are now seeing an unprecedented level of convergence, innovation, and

competition in the market for connectivity. On the one hand, traditional

cable providers like Charter are now oering mobile wireless services to

consumers in direct competition with traditional wireless companies like

Verizon. On the other hand, a new generation of low-earth orbit satellite

services like StarLink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper stand to oer high-

speed home broadband in competition with legacy providers. Furthermore,

broadcasters are oering high-speed downloads directly to consumers over

spectrum that previously provided only TV service.

These rapidly evolving market conditions counsel in favor of eliminating

many of the heavy-handed FCC regulations that were adopted in an era

when every technology operated in a silo. These include many of the FCC’s

media ownership rules, which can have the eect of restricting investment

and competition because those regulations assume a far more limited set of

competitors for advertising dollars than exist today, as well as its universal

service requirements.

Ultimately, FCC reliance on competition and innovation is vital if the

agency is to deliver optimal outcomes for the American public. The

FCC should engage in a serious top-to-bottom review of its regulations

and take steps to rescind any that are overly cumbersome or outdated.

The Commission should focus its eorts on creating a market-friendly

regulatory environment that fosters innovation and competition from a

wide range of actors, including cable-based, broadband-based, and satellite-

based Internet providers.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in the

2025 Presidential Transition Project. All contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume. While this

chapter identiﬁes certain issues on which the contributors did not all agree, the author alone assumes responsibility

for the content of this chapter, and no views expressed herein should be attributed to any other individual.

— 858 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

 47 U.S.C. § 151, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/151 (accessed January 23, 2023).

 47 U.S.C. § 154, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/154 (accessed January 23, 2023).

 Ibid.

 47 U.S.C. § 154(c).

 47 U.S.C. § 154(b)(5).

 47 U.S.C. § 155(a), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/155 (accessed January 23, 2023).

 Ibid.

 Ibid. There are no limits on the President’s authority to designate a dierent Chairperson from among the

existing Commissioners. Further, though it is an open question, it is generally believed that the judiciary

would impose limits on the power of the President to remove a Commissioner during his or her ﬁve-year term.

The question is not settled because Congress did not include an express “for cause” or similar protection

against removal in the Communications Act itself. Scholars assume this is because Congress passed the

Communications Act in the years between the Supreme Court’s decision in Myers v. United States, 272 U.S.

52 (1926) and Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935), when it was not entirely clear that

Congress could impose a limit on the President’s removal power. However, the Communications Act was

signiﬁcantly amended in 1996, and Congress did not add “just cause” or other protections from removal

at that time. Considering the high-proﬁle contemporary debates about the appointment and removal of

independent counsels under the Independent Counsel Act, one could reasonably assume that Congress was

aware of removal powers and protections for presidentially appointed and Senate-conﬁrmed ocials.

 Chart, “FTEs—Historical and Estimated, Fiscal Years 1986–2023,” in U.S. Federal Communications Commission,

2023 Budget Estimates to Congress, March 2022, p. 17, https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-381693A1.

pdf (accessed January 23, 2023).

 U.S. Federal Communications Commission, 2023 Budget Estimates to Congress, p. 7.

 Roslyn Layton, “Spectrum Auctions Have Raised $230 Billion; The FCC’s Authority to Conduct Them

Will Lapse Soon If Congress Doesn’t Act,” Forbes, April 29, 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/

roslynlayton/2022/04/29/spectrum-auctions-have-raised-230-billion-the-fccs-authority-to-conduct-them-

will-lapse-soon-if-congress-doesnt-act/?sh=4d32066908eb (accessed January 23, 2023).

 For a full listing of the FCC’s Bureaus and Oces, along with their functions and an organization chart, see

U.S. Federal Communications Commission, “Organizational Charts of the FCC,” https://www.fcc.gov/about-fcc/

organizational-charts-fcc (accessed January 23, 2023).

 47 U.S.C. § 230, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 (accessed January 23, 2023).

 Thomas M. Johnson Jr., “The FCC’s Authority to Interpret Section 230 of the Communications Act,” October

21, 2020, https://www.fcc.gov/news-events/blog/2020/10/21/fccs-authority-interpret-section-230-

communications-act (accessed January 23, 2023).

 This chapter does not purport to set forth a comprehensive agenda for the FCC. Rather, it focuses on a

selected handful of issue areas that may quickly rise to the attention of a new Administration. Similarly, not

every contributor to this chapter agrees with every policy idea included here; this document attempts to

reﬂect a range of views and perspectives.

 Johnson, “The FCC’s Authority to Interpret Section 230 of the Communications Act.”

 U.S. Department of Commerce, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, “NTIA Petition

for Rulemaking to Clarify Provisions of Section 230 of the Communications Act,” July 27, 2020, https://

ntia.gov/fcc-ﬁling/ntia-petition-rulemaking-clarify-provisions-section-230-communications-act (accessed

January 23, 2023).

 Malwarebytes, Inc. v. Enigma Software, 592 U.S. ___ (2020) (Thomas, J., statement respecting the denial of

certiorari), https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-1284_869d.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023).

 See 47 U.S.C. § 230; see also Ray Baum’s Act of 2018, Division P, Title IV, § 401 (codifying the Consolidated

Reporting Act), in H.R. 1625, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018, Public Law No. 115-141, 115th

Congress, March 23, 2018, https://www.congress.gov/115/plaws/publ141/PLAW-115publ141.pdf (accessed

January 23, 2023).

 NetChoice, L.L.C. v. Paxton, 49 F.4th 439 (5th Cir. 2022), https://ﬁngfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/

gdpzqyobyvw/alisonn%201.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023).

— 859 —

Federal Communications Commission

 Hal J. Singer and Ted Tatos, Subsidizing Universal Broadband Through a Digital Advertising Services Fee: An

Alignment of Incentives, Econ One, September 2021, p. 1 (“[T]he current USF mechanism is unsustainable and

will fail to meet the needs of its target consumer base within the next ﬁve years.”), https://www.econone.com/

wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Digital-Divide-HSinger-TTatos-2.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023).

 FBI Director Christopher Wray, testimony in video of hearing, Worldwide Threats to the Homeland, Committee

on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives, November 15, 2022, at 02:27, https://democrats-

homeland.house.gov/activities/hearings/11/04/2022/worldwide-threats-to-the-homeland (accessed January

23, 2023); John D. McKinnon, Arunav Viswanatha, and Stu Woo, “TikTok National-Security Deal Faces More

Delays as Worry Grows Over Risks,” The Wall Street Journal, updated December 6, 2022, https://www.wsj.

com/articles/tiktok-national-security-deal-faces-more-delays-as-worry-grows-over-risks-11670342800

(accessed January 23, 2023).

 U.S. Federal Communications Commission, “List of Equipment and Services Covered by Section 2 of the

Secure Networks Act,” updated September 20, 2022, https://www.fcc.gov/supplychain/coveredlist (accessed

January 23, 2023).

 H.R. 820, Foreign Adversary Communications Transparency Act, 118th Congress, introduced February 2, 2023,

https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr820/BILLS-118hr820ih.pdf (accessed March 6, 2023).

 U.S. Department of State, “The Clean Network,” https://2017-2021.state.gov/the-clean-network/index.html

(accessed January 23, 2023).

 U.S. Government Accountability Oce, Broadband: National Strategy Needed to Guide Federal Eorts to

Reduce Digital Divide, GAO-22-104611, May 2022, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-104611.pdf (accessed

January 23, 2023).

 Document No. 144, “Federal Communications Commission: Message from the President of the United

States Recommending that Congress Create a New Agency to be Known as the Federal Communications

Commission,” U.S. Senate, 73rd Cong., 2nd Sess., February 26, 1934, https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/

DOC-298207A1.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023).

 47 U.S.C, Chapter 5, §§ 151 et seq., (accessed March 6, 2023).

— 861 —

FEDERAL

ELECTION

COMMISSION

Hans A. von Spakovsky

MISSION/OVERVIEW

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent federal agency that

began operations in 1975 to enforce the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA)

passed by Congress in 1971 and amended in 1974.

FECA governs the raising and

spending of funds in all federal campaigns for Congress and the presidency. The

FEC has no authority over the administration of federal elections, which is per-

formed by state governments.

While the FEC has exclusive civil enforcement authority over FECA,

the

U.S. Justice Department has criminal enforcement authority, which is deﬁned

as a knowing and willful violation of the law.

Because the FEC is an independent

agency and not a division or oce directly within the executive branch, the author-

ity of the President over the actions of the FEC is extremely limited.

As former FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith has said, the FEC’s “[r]egulation

of campaign ﬁnance deeply implicates First Amendment principles of free speech

and association.”

The FEC regulates in one of the most sensitive areas of the Bill of

Rights: political speech and political activity by citizens, candidates, political par-

ties, and the voluntary membership organizations that represent Americans who

share common views on a huge range of important and vital public policy issues.

NEEDED REFORMS

Nomination Authority. The President’s most signiﬁcant power is the appoint-

ment of the six commissioners who govern the FEC, subject to conﬁrmation by

the U.S. Senate. Commissioners may only serve a single term of six years but

— 862 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

because they stay in oce until a new commissioner has been conﬁrmed, many

commissioners continue to serve past their terms.

Currently, the longest serv-

ing commissioner still at the FEC is Ellen Weintraub (D), whose regular term

expired in 2007.

Under FECA, no more than three commissioners may be from the same party.

While that means that a commissioner could be an independent or a member of the

Libertarian or Green Parties, in practice, this has meant that the FEC has always

had three Democrat and three Republican commissioners.

There is a long-held political tradition since the FEC’s founding that when a

commission slot held by a member of the opposition political party opens up, the

President consults with, and nominates, the chosen nominee of the opposition

party’s leader in the Senate. In exchange, the Senate party leader and his caucus

agree to approve the President’s nominee to ﬁll an empty position for the Presi-

dent’s political party. It has also been customary to advance the two nominees of

the diering political parties at the same time; this bipartisan pairing has histori-

cally permitted easy conﬁrmation of both parties’ selectees.

Thus, by convention, a Republican President will nominate a Republican and

a Democrat for two open commission slots, including the choice of the Democrat

Senate leader for his party’s seat. In turn, the senator will direct his party to vote

to conﬁrm both nominees. In the almost 50-year history of the FEC, this tradition

has only been broken once—when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refused to

approve one of George W. Bush’s nominees (Hans von Spakovsky) for a Republican

commission slot.

In 2025, when a new President assumes oce, the term of ﬁve of the current

FEC commissioners will have either expired or be about to expire:

Shana M. Broussard (D)—April 30, 2023

Sean J. Cooksey (R)—April 30, 2021

Allen Dickerson (R)—April 30, 2025

James Trainor, III (R)—April 30,2023

Ellen L. Weintraub (D)—April 30, 2007

During their terms, the three Republican commissioners have demonstrated

with their votes and their public statements that they believe the FEC should not

overregulate political activity and act beyond its statutory authority, construe

ambiguous and confusing provisions against candidates and the public instead of

the government, and infringe on protected First Amendment activity.

— 863 —

Federal Election Commission

The President assuming oce in 2025 must ensure, if the three

Republican commissioners do not wish to remain on the FEC past

their terms, that nominees for these positions share the views of

those commissioners.

Also, to the extent that the President has the ability to negotiate with

the Democratic Party leader in the Senate, he should try to temper

any choice of the opposition party to ensure that this individual does

not have extreme views on aggressive overenforcement that would

severely restrict political speech and protected party, campaign, and

associational activities.

U.S. Department of Justice/FEC-Related Activities. The President does

have control of the Department of Justice (DOJ). Thus, he has authority as Presi-

dent, primarily through his choice of attorney general and other political appointees,

to direct the prosecutorial functions of the DOJ regarding criminal enforcement of

FECA. Such investigations and prosecutions are carried out by the Public Integrity

Section of the Criminal Division, with the assistance, coordination, and help of the

Oces of U.S. Attorneys in whatever state an alleged violation occurs.

The President must ensure that the DOJ, just like the FEC, is

directed to only prosecute clear violations of FECA. The department

must not construe ambiguous provisions against the public instead of

the government or apply FECA in a way that infringes on protected First

Amendment activity.

It should be but is not always obvious to overzealous government prosecutors

that if a federal law is confusing, it would be unjust to prosecute individuals who

are unable to determine if they are violating the law.

The President should direct the DOJ and the attorney general not to

prosecute individuals under an interpretation of the law with which

the FEC—the expert agency designated by Congress to enforce the

law civilly and issue regulations establishing the standards under

which the law is applied—does not agree.

In making prosecution decisions, DOJ should be instructed to consult

and consider all ocial actions by the FEC that interpret the law

including prior enforcement actions, regulatory pronouncements,

and advisory opinions, just as private practitioners, the public, and

political actors must do.

— 864 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

It is fundamentally unfair for the DOJ to prosecute an individual for supposedly

violating the law when the FEC has previously determined that a similarly situ-

ated individual has not violated the law. Furthermore, this rule should apply even

when there is a tied or three-to-three vote by the FEC commissioners whether in

an enforcement action or an advisory opinion since under the statute, the FEC

cannot take any action unless there are four armative votes.

Again, it seems obvious that if the commissioners designated by Congress to

interpret the law are unable to determine what the law requires, then it is unfair

to prosecute a citizen for violating that law. The DOJ should not engage in crim-

inal prosecutions that stretch legal theories and defy FEC interpretations and

regulations.

Another issue directly related to what has often been a contentious relationship

between the FEC and the DOJ is the conduct of litigation. The vast majority of

federal agencies are defended by the DOJ, which also represents them when the

agency is pursuing litigation as a plainti.

The FEC, however, is one of the few federal agencies with independent litigating

authority.

The FEC’s lawyers represent the agency in federal court up through the

federal courts of appeal. If a case reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, then the Oce

of the Solicitor General of the Justice Department represents the FEC.

In recent years, the FEC has failed to defend itself against litigation ﬁled by

political allies of certain Democrat commissioners. It takes four votes to authorize

the general counsel of the FEC to defend a lawsuit ﬁled against the agency, and

those commissioners have refused to provide that fourth vote, so “the public was

treated to the scandalous spectacle of the Commission—an independent agency

of the United States government—defaulting in litigation before federal courts.”

These cases involved enforcement matters in which the commissioners dis-

agreed on whether a violation of the law had occurred. Accordingly, the ﬁnal

votes of the commissioners did not approve moving forward with enforcement

because there were not four armative votes that a violation of the law occurred.

When private plaintis then sued the FEC for failing to take action, Democrat

commissioners refused to authorize the defense of the FEC in litigation as a

way of circumventing the prior ﬁnal action of the FEC and the FECA four-vote

requirement to authorize an enforcement action. Such defaults in litigation are

unacceptable.

The President should direct the attorney general to defend the

FEC in all litigation when there is a failure of the commissioners to

authorize the general counsel of the agency to defend it. No legislation

would be needed to accomplish this; the DOJ has the general authority to

defend the government and its agencies in all litigation.

— 865 —

Federal Election Commission

As a legislative matter and given this abuse, the President should

seriously consider recommending that Congress amend FECA to

remove the agency’s independent litigating authority and rely on the

Department of Justice to handle all litigation involving the FEC.

There are also multiple instances of existing statutory provisions of FECA and

the accompanying FEC regulations having been found unlawful or unconstitu-

tional by federal court decisions, yet those statutory provisions remain in the U.S.

Code and the implementing regulations remain in the Code of Federal Regula-

tions.

In such instances, those regulated by the law, from candidates to the public,

have no way of knowing (without engaging in extensive legal research) whether

particular statutory provisions and regulations are still applicable to their actions

in the political arena.

The President should request that the commissioners on the FEC

prepare such guidance.

In the event that the FEC fails to act, the President should direct

the attorney general to prepare a guidance document from the

Department of Justice for the public that outlines all of the FECA

statutory provisions and FEC regulations that have been changed,

amended, or voided by speciﬁc court decisions.

Legislative Changes. While a President’s ability to make any changes at an

independent agency like the FEC is limited,

the President has the ability to make

legislative recommendations to Congress. One of the most obvious changes that

is needed is to end the current practice of allowing commissioners to remain as

serving commissioners long after their term has expired, defying the clear intent of

Congress in specifying that a commissioner can only serve a single term of six years.

The President should prioritize nominations to the FEC once

commissioners reach the end of their terms and should be assisted

by legislative language either eliminating or limiting overstays to

a reasonable period of time to permit the vetting, nomination, and

conﬁrmation of successors.

The President should vigorously oppose all eorts, as proposed,

for example, in Section 6002 of the “For the People Act of 2021,”

to change the structure of the FEC to reduce the number of

commissioners from six to ﬁve or another odd number. The current

requirement of four votes to authorize an enforcement action, provide

— 866 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

an advisory opinion, or issue regulations, ensures that there is bipartisan

agreement before any action is taken and protects against the FEC being

used as a political weapon.

With only ﬁve commissioners, three members of the same political party could

control the enforcement process of the agency, raising the potential of a powerful

federal agency enforcing the law on a partisan basis against the members of the

opposition political party. Eorts to impose a “nonpartisan” or so-called “inde-

pendent” chair are impractical; the chair will inevitably be aligned with his or her

appointing party, at least as a matter of perception.

There are numerous other changes that should be considered in FECA and

the FEC’s regulations. The overly restrictive limits on the ability of party com-

mittees to coordinate with their candidates, for example, violates associational

rights and unjustiﬁably interferes with the very purpose of political parties: to

elect their candidates.

Raise contribution limits and index reporting requirements to

inﬂation. Contribution limits should generally be much higher, as they

hamstring candidates and parties while serving no practical anticorruption

purpose. And a wide range of reporting requirements have not been indexed

to inﬂation, clogging the public record and the FEC’s internal processes with

small-dollar information of little use to the public.

CONCLUSION

When taking any action related to the FEC, the President should keep in mind

that, as former FEC Chairman Bradley Smith says, the “greater problem at the

FEC has been overenforcement,” not underenforcement as some critics falsely

allege.

As he correctly concludes, the FEC’s enforcement eorts “place a substan-

tial burden on small committees and campaigns, and are having a chilling eect

on some political speech…squeezing the life out of low level, volunteer politi-

cal activity.”

Commissioners have a duty to enforce FECA in a fair, nonpartisan, objective

manner. But they must do so in a way that protects the First Amendment rights

of the public, political parties, and candidates to fully participate in the political

process. The President has the same duty to ensure that the Department of Justice

enforces the law in a similar manner.

— 867 —

Federal Election Commission

ENDNOTES

 52 U.S.C. § 30101 et seq.

 52 U.S.C. § 30106(b)(1).

 52 U.S.C. § 30109(c) and (d).

 Bradley A. Smith and Stephen M. Hoersting, “A Toothless Anaconda: Innovation, Impotence and

Overenforcement at the Federal Election Commission,” 1 Election Law Journal 2 (2002), p. 162.

 52 U.S.C. § 30106(a)(2).

 52 U.S.C. § 30106(a)(1).

 Former Commissioner Steven Walther (2006–2022) was listed nominally as an independent but he was

recommended to President George W. Bush for nomination by former Nevada Sen. Harry Reid (D) and almost

always voted in line with the Democrat commissioners on the FEC.

 Hans von Spakovsky served as a commissioner from 2006 to 2007 in a recess appointment. While no other

nominee has been rejected by the Senate, the tradition of bipartisan voice vote conﬁrmation has largely

ended. Two Republican nominees—Allen Dickerson and Sean Cooksey—were conﬁrmed on party-line votes

in 2020. And one Democrat—Dara Lindenbaum—was conﬁrmed with the support of only six Republican

senators in 2022.

 The term of the 6th Commissioner, Dara Lindenbaum (D), will expire on April 30, 2027.

 52 U.S.C. § 30107(a)(6).

 “Statement of Chairman Allen J. Dickerson and Commissioners Sean J. Cooksey and James E. ‘Trey’ Trainor,

III Regarding Concluded Enforcement Matters,” Federal Election Commission (May 13, 2022), https://www.

fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/Redacted_Statement_Regarding_Concluded_Matters_13_

May_2022_Redacted.pdf.

 See, e.g., McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, 572 U.S. 185 (2014).

 It should be noted, however, that the constitutional authority of a President to, among other things, remove

appointees and direct the actions of independent agencies is a hotly contested and increasingly litigated issue.

See Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, 561 U.S. 477 (2010); Seila Law LLC v.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 140 S. Ct. 2183 (2020); and Collins v. Yellen, 141 S. Ct. 1761 (2021).

 H.R. 1, 117th Cong. (2021–2022).

 Bradley A. Smith and Stephen M. Hoersting, “A Toothless Anaconda: Innovation, Impotence and

Overenforcement at the Federal Election Commission,” 1 Election Law Journal 2 (2002), p. 171.

 Id.

— 869 —

FEDERAL TRADE

COMMISSION

Adam Candeub

MISSION/OVERVIEW

America’s antitrust laws are over a century old. In 1890, the U.S. Congress

enacted the Sherman Act,

the ﬁrst federal prohibition on trusts and restraints of

trade. The Clayton Act,

adopted in 1914, builds upon the Sherman Act, outlawing

certain practices, such as price ﬁxing, while bringing other business combinations,

such as mergers and acquisitions, under regulatory scrutiny.

The Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA),

also adopted in 1914, gives the

federal government legal tools to combat anticompetitive, unfair, and deceptive

practices in the marketplace, empowering the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to

enforce provisions of the Sherman and Clayton Acts. The FTCA prohibits “unfair

methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or aecting

commerce.” Sections 3, 7, and 8 of the Clayton Act empower the FTC to block

unlawful tying contracts, unlawful corporate mergers and acquisitions, and inter-

locking directorates. Under an amendment to the FTCA, the Robinson–Patman

Act,

the FTC has authority to prohibit practices involving discriminatory pricing

and product promotion. While the FTC has enforcement or administrative respon-

sibilities under more than 70 laws, the FTCA and the Clayton Act are the focus of

its regulatory energy.

FTC actions, therefore, turn on the antitrust principles and market principles

it adopts. Modern approaches to antitrust stress that the objective of antitrust law

is to assure a competitive economy—which in economic terms maximizes both

allocative eciency (optimal distribution of goods and services, taking into account

consumer’s preferences, so that prices tend toward marginal cost) and productive

— 870 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

eciency (using the least amount of resources for optimal output)—and thereby

maximizes consumer welfare.

Recently, however, many in the conservative movement have taken a broader

view of antitrust. They point out that the authors of our antitrust laws did not

intend this purely economic understanding of competitive markets—and the

normative assumptions that undergird it—to guide their legislation. First, these

principles were only imperfectly worked out at the time the antitrust laws were

passed. Second, contemporaneous statements concerning the Sherman and Clay-

ton Acts demonstrate Congress’s concern about the political and economic power

of the oil and railroad trusts of the ﬁrst Gilded Age, and their inﬂuence on dem-

ocratic institutions and civil society. Antitrust law can combat dominant ﬁrms’

baleful eects on democratic institutions such as free speech, the marketplace

of ideas, shareholder control, and managerial accountability as well as collusive

behavior with government.

Republican Senator John Sherman explained to Congress in support of his

eponymous legislation:

If we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a

king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessaries

of life. If we would not submit to an emperor, we should not submit to an

autocrat of trade, with power to prevent competition and to ﬁx the price of

any commodity.

Similarly, identifying the institutional threats that market concentration can

pose, the former Republican President and future Supreme Court Justice William

Howard Taft wrote at the time,

The federal antitrust law is one of the most important statutes ever passed

in this country. It was a step taken by Congress to meet what the public had

found to be a growing and intolerable evil in combinations between many

who had capital employed in a branch of trade, industry, or transportation, to

obtain control of it, regulate prices, and make unlimited proﬁt.

Taft saw in this economic threat broader implications for American society

since “the building of great and powerful corporations which had, many of them,

intervened in politics and through use of corrupt machines and bosses threatened

us with a plutocracy.”

Others in the conservative movement have maintained for numerous decades

that an economic justiﬁcation is the only coherent approach to the antitrust laws.

Many view the ﬁrst 90 years of U.S. antitrust policy as unprincipled in its approach,

often resulting in policies that, by trying to protect smaller competitors, ended up

— 871 —

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raising prices for consumers. Judge Robert Bork in his inﬂuential book The Anti-

trust Paradox found economic justiﬁcations for previously denounced behavior

including small horizontal mergers, all vertical and conglomerate mergers, vertical

price maintenance and market division agreements, tying arrangements, exclusive

dealings and requirements contracts, “predatory” price cutting, and price “discrim-

ination.” Bork also defended corporate “bigness” if it came about through internal

growth or acceptable mergers. He also defended agreements between competitors

on prices, territories, refusals to deal, and other “suppressions of rivalry” that are

“ancillary” to some economic eciency. The practical contribution of his work was

to put consumer welfare at the heart of competition law.

Beyond antitrust injury, we are witnessing in today’s markets the use of eco-

nomic power—often market and perhaps even monopoly power—to undermine

democratic institutions and civil society. Practices such as Environmental, Social,

and Governance (ESG) requirements on publicly traded corporations and their

inclusion in business agreements, the so-called “de-banking” of industries and

individuals, and the interference of large internet ﬁrms with democratic political

discourse undermine liberal democracy, a truly open society, and, indeed, rule of

law. Without rule of law, markets themselves will wither.

Critical of the “social responsibility” agenda, Milton Friedman in his provoc-

atively titled essay “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its

Proﬁts” states,

[T]here is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its

resources and engage in activities designed to increase its proﬁts so long

as it stays in the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free

competition, without deception or fraud.

For Friedman, market mechanisms, not political mechanisms, are the appropri-

ate way to determine the allocation of scarce resources to alternative uses. Business

managers appropriate shareholder wealth when they use corporate resources to

further their personal political beliefs, even when pursuing what they consider

a “socially responsible” or “moral” agenda. The business of American business is

business, not ideology.

More broadly, there is less and less debate around the growth of monopoly rents

throughout the U.S. economy. The current data strongly suggest that U.S. corpo-

rations are systematically earning far higher proﬁts than they were 25 or 30 years

ago. Combined with other evidence that large corporations are accounting for an

increasing share of revenue and employment, it certainly appears that many large

U.S. corporations are earning substantial incumbency rents, and have been doing

so for at least 15 years, apart from during the depths of the Great Recession that

began in 2008.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

While the explanations for this shift are not clear, what is particularly disturbing

is the possibility that these rents are extracted at least in part through regulatory

capture—which can function as a bar to entrance for new competitors. In addition,

the sheer cost of compliance with regulation favors large ﬁrms, which can more

eciently spread the cost of regulation over a larger revenue base and have the

resources to invest in sophisticated government relations. The FTC must consider,

therefore, the role of government itself in maintaining market concentration in

areas ranging from pharmaceuticals and healthcare to avionics, banking, and real

estate brokerage.

Beyond undermining small businesses and reducing their salubrious moral

eect on American civil society, concentration of economic power facilitates col-

lusion between government and private actors, undermining the rule of law. The

continued emergence of evidence documenting collusion—between the Big Tech

internet platforms and the Biden White House and administrative agencies—to

censor criticism, scientiﬁc fact, and uncomfortable political truths demonstrates

this unfortunate development.

But, there are some caveats. First, the FTC lacks the power to revisit developments

in antitrust laws, which have brought an invaluable rigor to the antitrust law—mat-

ters such as analyzing vertical integration, for example. Nor should it. Second, the

FTC’s recent rescinding of its 2015 Policy Statement was undoubtedly ill-consid-

ered.

Of course, the consumer welfare standard must guide FTC action, but, in

appropriate situations and with strong evidence, this standard must be expanded

to include more factors than just price. Further, a similar standard of proof used to

establish that a practice challenged by the Commission causes harm to competition

must also apply in demonstrating the eciencies that justify the practices.

President Harry Truman reportedly made the famous quip, “Give me a one-

handed economist. All my economists say ‘on the one hand…’, then ‘but on the

other.’” When it comes to some of the more vexing issues in antitrust regulation,

the conservative movement is in the same predicament. Many wish to preserve the

productivity and eciency focus of an economic-based consumer welfare standard

approach to antitrust enforcements; others are more willing to look at the eects

of business concentration in certain industries on innovation, the institutional

resilience of our democracy, and children’s development. The following discussion

sets forth policy principles and initiatives on which there was agreement among

the contributors to this chapter, and notes and explains where there was dissent.

NEEDED REFORMS

Should the FTC Enforce Antitrust—or Even Continue to Exist? Some

conservatives think that antitrust enforcement should be invested solely in the

Department of Justice (DOJ). The FTC’s commissioners are not removable at will

by the President, which many quite reasonably believe violates the Vesting Clause

— 873 —

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of Article II of the Constitution; it is for this reason that conservatives have long

believed in either ending law enforcement activities of independent agencies or

ending their independent status. The Supreme Court ruling in Humphrey’s Execu-

tor

upholding agency independence seems ripe for revisiting—and perhaps sooner

than later.

Others think that the post–New Deal expansion of the administrative state

has had baleful eects upon our society and earnestly share the hope that it can

be greatly curtailed if not eliminated—or that its authority can be returned to the

states and other democratically accountable political institutions. But, until there

is a return to a constitutional structure that the Founding Fathers would have rec-

ognized and a massive shrinking of the administrative state, conservatives cannot

unilaterally disarm and fail to use the power of government to further a conserva-

tive agenda. As experience shows, the administrative state will grow and further

its own agenda, often at odds with conservative thought, even under conservative

leadership. Unless conservatives take a ﬁrm hand to the bureaucracy and marshal

its power to defend a freedom-promoting agenda, nothing will stop the bureaucra-

cy’s anti–free market, leftist march.

ESG Practices as a Cover for Anticompetitive Activity and Possible

Unfair Trade Practices. It has long been suspected, and is now increasingly

documented, that corporate social advocacy on issues ranging from “Diversity,

Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) to the “environmental, social, and governance”

(ESG) movement also serves to launder corporate reputation and perhaps obtain

favorable treatment from government actors. In a recent Senate Judiciary hear-

ing, Senator Josh Hawley asked FTC Chair Lina Khan if the FTC had conditioned

merger reviews on ESG or critical race theories adopted by the ﬁrms involved.

Khan responded by saying that she turned down deals when ﬁrms oered social

justice policies in return for approving unlawful deals. In response to a similar

question from Senator Tom Cotton, Khan responded that ﬁrms try to come to the

FTC to get out of antitrust liability by oering climate, diversity, or other forms of

ESG-type oerings, but that there is no ESG loophole in the antitrust laws.

Her comments suggest that there is a movement of ﬁrms attempting to use

both ESG and DEI as a sort of reputational laundering to avoid enforcement of

potentially criminal activity. The FTC should set up an ESG/DEI collusion task

force to investigate ﬁrms—particularly in private equity—to see if they are using

the practice as a means to meet targets, ﬁx prices, or reduce output.

Congress should investigate ESG practices as a cover for

anticompetitive activity and possible unfair trade practices.

The business of American business is business, not ideology. The privileges

extended to corporations in American society come with the expectation that

— 874 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

they will pursue proﬁts for shareholders, bringing about economic growth.

Managers, particularly in publicly traded corporations, who use their power to

advance sets of fashionable moral beliefs, such as ESG/DEI, introduce agency

problems into the shareholder relationship and appropriate corporate wealth

for their own beneﬁt.

Milton Friedman recognized this problem decades ago when answering the

question whether businesses have ethical or social obligations, as was mentioned

above. Contrary to his detractors, Friedman did not defend “greed is good.” Rather,

according to Friedman, socially responsible activities conducted by a corporation

distort economic freedom because shareholders do not decide how their money

will be spent—increasing the possibility for fraud or management opportunism.

This is especially the case in concentrated industries with market power.

Managers who insert their own values into underwriting agreements, contracts

for professional services, or other business transactions coopt shareholder value

for their own personal utility. This is an unfair trade practice, particularly when it

occurs in industries that enjoy market power and special privileges or relationships

with the government.

Cancel Culture, Collusion, and Commerce. As a corollary, businesses that

make general oers of service to the public forego proﬁts by refusing to service

a lawful activity, i.e., fossil fuel extraction or gun manufacturing, raising similar

concerns. When banks or internet platforms refuse customers based on their

political or social views (as distinguished from religious views), they forgo proﬁts.

While such decisions are often justiﬁed on public relations, marketing, or branding

grounds—and normally such decisions, reﬂecting business judgment, should and

would receive deference, this presumption is harder to make in a highly parti-

san, ideologically divided America. This type of behavior can rise to the level of an

unfair trade practice when the business is (1) publicly traded; (2) highly regulated;

(3) enjoys legal privileges; (4) enjoys market power; and (5) appears to engage in

its own political or social agenda that is unrelated to any conceivable branding

concerns. The government, as guided by democratically passed laws, already reg-

ulates activities such as fossil fuel extraction and gun manufacturing. Businesses,

particularly those that enjoy certain government privileges or relationships and/

or market power, should not replace democratic decision-making with their own

judgment on controversial matters.

A related concern is the degree to which concentration of industries, particu-

larly in pharmaceuticals, health care, and the internet, encourages government

collusion that undermines democratic institutions. Collusion can be explicit, in the

case for example of government working with social media companies to censor

politically harmful news, or more implicit—for example, regulatory requirements

so burdensome that they deter market entrance by smaller entities without the

resources to bear them.

— 875 —

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Protecting Children Online. The FTC has long protected children in a variety

of dierent contexts. Internet platforms proﬁt from obtaining information from

children without parents’ knowledge or consent—and social media’s eect on the

well-being of American children is well-documented. Around 2012, American

teens experienced a dramatic decline in wellness. Depression, self-harm, suicide

attempts, and suicide all increased sharply among U.S. adolescents between 2011

and 2019,

with similar trends worldwide.

The increase occurred at the same

time that social media use moved from rare to ubiquitous among teens,

making

social media a prime suspect for the sudden rise in mental health issues among

teens. In addition, excessive social media use is strongly linked to mental health

issues among individuals. Several studies strongly support the notion that social

media use is a cause, not just a correlation, of subjective well-being and poor

mental health.

Social media and other large platforms form millions of contracts every year

with American children. And even though a minor can void most contracts into

which he or she enters, most jurisdictions have laws that hold minors accountable

for the beneﬁts received under the contract. Thus, children can make enforceable

contracts for which parents could end up bearing responsibility. Targeting chil-

dren to create potentially harmful contracts or making parents responsible for

such contractual relationships is an unfair trade practice. The FTC, therefore, has

the authority, interest, and duty to protect children online from such contractual

relationships.

The FTC should examine platforms’ advertising and contract-

making with children as a deceptive or unfair trade practice, perhaps

requiring written parental consent.

Currently, the Child Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

regulates the

information internet ﬁrms can obtain from children. COPPA fails because it (1)

only protects children under the age of 13, leaving older teenagers completely

unprotected and (2) only prohibits platforms from collecting information from a

child using “actual knowledge” rather than abiding by the “constructive knowledge”

standard, which prohibits collecting information from a user reasonably assumed

to be underage. The FTC has rulemaking authority under this statute but has done

little with this authority, nor can it—given the statutory constraints. However,

The FTC can and should institute unfair trade practices proceedings

against entities that enter into contracts with children without

parental consent. Personal parental responsibility is, of course, key, but

the law must respect, not undermine, lawful parental authority.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Other conservatives are more skeptical concerning the eect of online expe-

rience on the young, comparing the concern about social media to concern about

video games, television, and bicycle safety. They point out, as does Cato fellow

Jerey A. Singer, that the psychiatric profession has yet to designate “internet

addiction” or “social media addiction” as a mental disorder in the authoritative

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR).

These con-

servatives also maintain that calling for regulation undermines conservatives’ calls

for parental empowerment on education or vaccines as well as personal parenting

responsibility.

In addition, some of the methods used to regulate children’s internet access

pose the risk of unintended harms. For instance, age veriﬁcation regulations would

inevitably increase the amount of data collection involved, increasing privacy con-

cerns. Users would have to submit to platforms proof of their age, which raises

the risks of data breach or illegitimate data usage by the platforms or bad actors.

Limited-government conservatives would prefer the FTC play an educational role

instead. That might include best practices or educational programs to empower

parents online.

Antitrust Enforcement. As is evidenced by a relentless focus on bringing Big

Tech lawsuits, state attorneys general (AGs) are far more responsive to their con-

stituents than is the FTC. Such a “boots on the ground” approach would beneﬁt

the FTC enormously. Practically, this would mean establishing a distinct role in

the FTC Chairman’s oce focused on state AG cooperation and inviting state AGs

to Washington, D.C., to discuss enforcement policy in key sectors under the FTC’s

jurisdiction: Big Tech, hospital mergers, supermarket mergers, and so forth.

FTC regional oces are substantially more in touch with local issues. Over the

past few decades, the reach and inﬂuence of regional oces has shrunk dramati-

cally. The FTC should consider returning authority to these oces.

Some conservatives however are less supportive of this idea. Conservative

enthusiasm for the idea of adding regional FTC oces to the states is a break from

the majority conservative position. Endorsing the federal government as a pre-

mier job creator runs counter to decades of conservative opinion that holds that

New Deal agencies and subsequent government bodies should never have been

created in the ﬁrst place, and that their red tape and interference is a dominant

cause of economic ineciency. Republicans used to seethe when Democrats tried

to move federal oces into the states. In the early 1990s, House Minority Whip

Newt Gingrich fumed about Senator Robert Byrd’s campaign to transfer certain

national intelligence facilities to West Virginia, calling it a “pure abuse of power.”

Some contributors to this chapter would remind conservatives that the unseen

mechanics of redistribution—by which taxpayer money paid to state employees is

taken from taxpayers nationwide—is a drag on the economy of the entire country.

Many conservatives fear that it would be impossible to uproot or even prune back

— 877 —

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a bureaucracy the seeds of which have been planted in every state. State legislators

would struggle to slash funding from agencies that employ and generously pay

thousands of their constituents. FTC outposts would tie middle America inex-

tricably to big progressive government, remaking the heartland in Washington’s

image. It would be anything but decentralization; Americans need policy makers

to discipline the arrogance that prevails inside the Beltway, not spread it. It would

be “Swamp 2.0”: just as deep and many times as wide.

Big Tech and Antitrust. The large internet platforms have transformed the

U.S. economy, streamlining consumer purchases, networking billions of people,

and altering long-established business practices. Despite their enormous size, they

have avoided signiﬁcant antitrust liability or prosecution. The reasons for this are

not entirely clear.

It may be because these platforms have been incredibly innovative and have

generated tremendous eciencies for our society, with little to no evidence of

traditional consumer harm in the form of higher prices, reduced output, or a lack of

innovation. Also, Americans report a high level of satisfaction in and trust regard-

ing these companies.

The less friendly regulatory environment in the European Union would make

a good case study in expansive antitrust law. The continent boasts not one of the

top 10 global tech companies, while the U.S. can claim eight.

Some claim that

the recent drop in value of former leader and current antitrust target Meta, along

with the rise of new competitors such as Zoom and Chinese-dominated TikTok,

indicates that competitive forces are healthy and at work beneﬁting consumers

in the tech space.

On the other hand, the platforms challenge traditional economic thinking

because arguably the ﬁrm structure they employ is radically dierent, and they

create dierent competition dynamics. First, there is some evidence that the major

internet platforms have market power, resulting in increased prices for advertis-

ers, costs that very well could be passed onto consumers. For instance, numerous

government studies have found evidence of market power.

And while some data

show declining advertising costs, they also show increasing prices in this decade.

Second, while consumers may report that they like social media, hedonics tells

a dierent story, suggesting that social media and other online activities diminish

human happiness. This evidence, while mixed at ﬁrst,

appears to have become

quite solid: Social media makes Americans less happy.

Third, internet platforms have not created consumer price increases, but of

course they provide free services—and this creates a challenge for antitrust regu-

lation. For decades, antitrust economics has been focused on a paradigm in which

ﬁrm and consumer behavior are modeled as functions of price and output as the

primary variables. It may very well be that these models do not fully capture the

eect of technologies that enable increasing returns to scale based on data, such

— 878 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

as digital platforms. This possibility cannot be lightly discounted, considering the

tremendous market power of these ﬁrms and their market cap, with the top ﬁve

ﬁrms of the U.S. market (Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla, and Alphabet) responsi-

ble for 23.5 percent of the market cap of the S&P 500 index in early December 2021.

The questionable predictive power of traditional economic theory was illus-

trated when, after a much-heralded investigation, antitrust regulators appointed

by former President Barack Obama declined to sue Google in January 2013 for

anticompetitive behavior. The FTC spent 19 months investigating Google over

allegations that the search giant was violating antitrust laws by favoring its own

products over those of rival content providers, including eBay, Yelp, TripAdvisor,

Facebook, and Amazon. The probe focused on Google’s control over online search

and search advertising, as well as the company’s growing dominance in mobile

phone software.

According to documents uncovered in press reports,

the FTC’s economists

successfully argued against initiating antitrust action against the company. This

decision was based in large part on a series of predictions that the agency’s sta eco-

nomic experts made. These predictions turned out to be wrong in several respects.

For instance, according to press accounts, these economic experts saw only “lim-

ited potential for growth” in ads that track users across the web—now the backbone

of Google parent company Alphabet’s $182.5 billion in annual revenue. Relying on

theory, the experts downplayed the importance of mobile search, believing that

search would continue to be conducted primarily on desktop computers—and

thereby underestimating the eect of Google on Android systems. The experts

predicted that Microsoft, Mozilla, or Amazon would oer viable competition to

Google in mobile search. This decision, of course, occurred in a political environ-

ment of close relationships between the Obama Administration and Silicon Valley.

Just as traditional economic theory seems inadequate to the job of understand-

ing Big Tech and predicting its behavior, empirical evidence is very dicult to

come by. This is particularly troublesome. Beyond the fact that most user data

are proprietary, online markets change so quickly that econometric conclusions

are often dicult to make because even if the data are available, they do not exist

for long enough time horizons. Yet, a pattern of highly concentrated ﬁrms—with

occasional dropout and replacement by another successor ﬁrm with vast market

power—seems to be emerging.

The policy implications of this quandary are not clear, but for the conservative

movement, some believe that some type of policy response is necessary. The domi-

nant internet platforms have disrupted democratic deliberation, as is evidenced by

the Hunter Biden laptop story. They have a propensity to collude with government

to advance political goals, as documents unearthed by the Missouri and Louisiana

AG suits concerning the COVID response demonstrate. And they play a pivotal

role in our economy.

— 879 —

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As Judge Frank Easterbrook famously suggested, regulators should look at the

cost of error in their judgments. This argument has usually been used to buttress

a tentative and hands o approach to antitrust because judicial error in antitrust

will persist (Type II error) and continue to damage markets, while failure to take

antitrust action (Type I error) will correct itself in the long run as competitors

challenge monopolies.

However, failing to take antitrust enforcement action

(Type I error) includes the possibility of real injury to the structure of important

American institutions such as democratic accountability and free speech. If so, a

more proactive approach may be warranted.

Certain online services, such as social media, have an unquestionable negative

utility, particularly on young people, as set forth above. The more “ecient” pro-

vision of such services may create more unhappiness. More broadly, the utility

beneﬁts of many online platforms and services are obscure and may be signiﬁcantly

overstated, as the most recent evidence suggests.

The FTC must become more

sophisticated in measuring consumer surplus. In addition, the FTC should be open

to behavioral explanations, such as habit and small hedonic dierences, as keys to

how platforms create and keep market power.

CONCLUSION

Conservative approaches to antitrust and consumer protection continue to

trust markets, not government, to give people what they want and provide the

prosperity and material resources Americans need for ﬂourishing, productive,

and meaningful lives. At the same time, conservatives cannot be blind to certain

developments in the American economy that appear to make government–private

sector collusion more likely, threaten vital democratic institutions, such as free

speech, and threaten the happiness and mental well-being of many Americans,

particularly children. Many, but not all, conservatives believe that these develop-

ments may warrant the FTC’s making a careful recalibration of certain aspects of

antitrust and consumer protection law and enforcement.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in the

2025 Presidential Transition Project. All contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume, but Rachel

Bovard, John Ehrett, Christopher Iacovella, Jessica Melugin, and Jon Schweppe deserve special mention. The author

alone assumes responsibility for the content of this chapter, and no views expressed herein should be attributed to

any other individual.

— 880 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

ENDNOTES

 Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1–38.

 Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, 15 U.S.C. §§ 12–27.

 Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914, 15 U.S.C. §§ 41–58.

 The Robinson–Patman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 13, 13b, and 21a.

 Ernest Gellhorn, “An Introduction to Antitrust Economics,” Duke Law Journal, Vol. 24, No. 1, 1975, https://

scholarship.law.duke.edu/dlj/vol24/iss1/1 (accessed March 22, 2023).

 Charles A. Boston, “The Spirit Behind the Sherman Anti-Trust Law,” Yale Law Journal, Vol. 21, No. 5, 1912, pp.

341–371. See especially p. 348.

 Wiliam Howard Taft, The Anti-Trust Act and the Supreme Court (New York and London: Harper & Brothers,

1914), p. 4.

 Robert Bork, The Antitrust Paradox:A Policy at War With Itself, (Bork Publishing: 1978, 2021), p. 109.

 Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson, “Institutions as Fundamental Causes of Long-Run

Growth,” Handbook of Economic Growth, Vol. 1A, No. 385-472 2005, Chapter 6, pp. 386–419.

 Milton Friedman references his own words in his essay “A Friedman Doctrine—The Social Responsibility

of Business Is to Increase Proﬁts,” The New York Times, September 13, 1970, https://www.nytimes.

com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctrine-the-social-responsibility-of-business-is-to.html%20

Capitalism%20and%20Freedom (accessed March 9, 2023).

 Federal Trade Commission, “FTC Rescinds 2015 Policy that Limited Its Enforcement Ability Under the FTC Act,”

July 1, 2021, https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2021/07/ftc-rescinds-2015-policy-limited-

its-enforcement-ability-under-ftc-act (accessed March 9, 2023).

 295 U.S. 602 (1935).

 While not directly relevant to the constitutionality of the FTC, the Court’s grant of certiorari in Cmty. Fin. Servs.

Ass'n of Am., Ltd. v. Consumer Fin. Prot. Bureau, 51 F.4th 616 (5th Cir. 2022), cert. granted sub nom. CFPB v.

Com. Fin. Servs. Assn., No. 22-448, 2023 WL 2227658 (U.S. Feb. 27, 2023), could signal a major retreat from

Humphrey’s Executor.

 U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Oversight of Federal Enforcement of the Antitrust Laws, September

20, 2022, https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/committee-activity/hearings/oversight-of-federal-enforcement-of-

the-antitrust-laws (accessed March 9, 2023).

 Milton Friedman, “A Friedman Doctrine.”



Joan Luby and Sarah Kurtz, “Increasing Suicide Rates in Early Adolescent Girls in the United States and the

Equalization of Sex Disparity in Suicide: The Need to Investigate the Role of Social Media,” JAMA Network

Open, Vol. 2, No. 5 (2019) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/article-abstract/2733419 (last

visited March 21, 2023); Brett Burstein, “Suicidal Attempts and Ideation Among Children and Adolescents in US

Emergency Departments, 2007–2015.” JAMA Pediatrics, Vol. 173, No. 6 (2019), pp. 598–600, https://jamanetwork.

com/journals/jamapediatrics/articlepdf/2730063/jamapediatrics_burstein_2019_ld_190006.pdf (last visited

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Ideation-or-Attempt (last visited March 21, 2023); Henry A. Spiller, John P. Ackerman, et al., “Sex- and Age-Speciﬁc

Increases in Suicide Attempts by Self-poisoning in the United States Among Youth and Young Adults from 2000

to 2018,” Journal of Pediatrics, Vol. 210, (2019), pp. 201–208, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/

pii/S002234761930277X?casa_token=jms1NxTEV10AAAAA:Ouz_vL9ElIZ58p21w_5SuwOs0OJTNJZtCakf5O3I_

NJCcXWoBm0zDvDTvm-YB0Ma5pZhiKXN (last visited March 21, 2023); Jean M. Twenge, A. Bell Cooper, Thomas

E. Joiner, et al., “Age, Period, and Cohort Trends in Mood Disorder Indicators and Suicide-related Outcomes in a

Nationally Representative Dataset, 2005–2017,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol. 128 (2019), pp. 185–199,

https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fabn0000410 (last visited March 21, 2023).

— 881 —

Federal Trade Commission

 Jean M. Twenge, Jonathan Haidt, Andrew B. Blake, Cooper McAllister, Hannah Lemon, and Astrid Le Roy,

“Worldwide Increases in Adolescent Loneliness,” Journal of Adolescence Vol. 93 (2019), pp. 257–269, https://

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140197121000853 (accessed March 23, 2023).

 Jean M. Twenge, Gabrielle N. Martin, and Brian H. Spitzberg, “Trends in U.S. Adolescents’ Media Use, 1976–

2016: The Rise of Digital Media, the Decline of TV, and the (Near) Demise of Print,” Psychology of Popular

Media Culture, Vol. 8, No. 4 (2019), pp. 329–345, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327121650_

Trends_in_US_Adolescents'_Media_Use_1976-2016_The_Rise_of_Digital_Media_the_Decline_of_TV_and_

the_Near_Demise_of_Print (last visited March 21, 2023).

 Hunt Allcott, Luca Braghieri, Sarah Eichmeyer, and Matthew Gentzkow. “The Welfare Eects of Social Media,”

American Economic Review Vol. 110, No. 3 (2020), pp. 629–676; Melissa G. Hunt, Rachel Marx, Courtney Lipson,

and Jordyn Young, “No More FOMO: Limiting Social Media Decreases Loneliness and Depression,” Journal of

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jscp.2018.37.10.751 (last visited March 21, 2023).

 The Child Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, 15 U.S.C. § 6501.

 The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR) is the authoritative publication of the

American Psychiatric Association.

 Ceren Kurban, “World’s 22 Biggest Tech Companies of 2023,” UserGuiding Blog, March 13, 2023, available at

https://userguiding.com/blog/biggest-tech-companies/.

 Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (June 2019), available at https://openresearch-repository.

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Platforms and Digital Advertising Market Study Final Report, July 2020, available at https://www.gov.

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news/ﬁnal-reports-eu-observatory-online-platform-economy.

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Sales, Excluding Internet Advertising Sold by Print Publishers, available at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/

graph/?g=vtTd.

 Allcott, supra note 19; see also Jean M. Twenge, Jonathan Haidt, Jimmy Lozano, and Kevin M. Cummins,

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Analytic Evidence," Review of General Psychology, Vol. 24, No.1 (2020), pp. 60–74.

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chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2152&context=journal_articles (accessed

March 23, 2023).

 Allcott et al., “The Welfare Eects of Social Media.”

 Adam Candeub, “Behavioral Economics, Internet Search, and Antitrust,” ISJLP, Vol. 9, No. 407 (2013),

pp. 407–434.

— 883 —

ONWARD!

Edwin J. Feulner

he idea of Mandate for Leadership was ﬁrst conceived in the fall of 1979

at a Heritage Foundation board of trustees meeting when former Trea-

sury Secretary Bill Simon and former General Services Administration

Administrator Jack Eckerd discussed the predicament they had faced when they

ﬁrst joined a new, more conservative presidential Administration: They received

no practical plans on how to move their part of the federal bureaucracy to reﬂect

a more conservative policy direction other than vague exhortations to promote

free markets; smaller, more ecient government; and a stronger national defense.

In their new positions, they were briefed either by holdover appointees from the

former liberal Administration or by career civil servants who, inevitably, had a

vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

The discussion became quite animated as these Heritage board members

recalled transitioning to government positions from their former lives in the

private sector—moving their families, ﬁnding new homes, and uprooting their

children’s education while they assumed new responsibilities in a very dierent

environment.

Frank Shakespeare, who had headed the United States Information Agency

during the Cold War, noted that electoral politics is what gets a President and Vice

President elected and sent to Washington, but then policy politics is what they had

to focus on to do the right thing once they got the big job.

Former Navy Secretary and Ambassador Bill Middendorf added that there must

be a better way to prepare for real change in a more conservative direction in the

political environment in Washington. If a conservative candidate were to become

— 884 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

the President-elect in just 16 months, what could be done by an outside group to

prepare for these new opportunities?

The sta at Heritage took this idea on as a challenge, and it would become the

deﬁning policy decision in the early history of this upstart think tank. Task forces of

knowledgeable volunteers were formed with speciﬁc expertise in the whole range

of policy issues—from welfare reform to national defense reform.

The vision for Mandate for Leadership was that it would serve as a guidebook

of speciﬁc policy recommendations for reducing the size and scope of the federal

government and for ensuring that it stayed within its constitutional bounds. Pos-

itive plans for freeing the private sector from overblown government interference

and regulation could, we believed, result in an explosion of entrepreneurial activity

that would reassert America’s leading role in the world’s economy.

Thus, if conservatives ﬁnally gained control in Washington, they were prepared

to answer the question, “What is the conservative agenda?”

Candidate, then President-elect, then President Ronald Reagan’s “feisty new

kid on the conservative block—The Heritage Foundation”— had the answer, and

it was Mandate for Leadership.

First published in January 1981, the original Mandate served as a conservative

plan of action for the Reagan Administration, providing much of the blueprint for

the Reagan Revolution. It contained more than 2,000 detailed, actionable policy

recommendations to move the federal government in a conservative direction.

The recommendations ranged from internal bureaucratic reorganizations to

plans to implement speciﬁc, fundamental changes in every imaginable policy area—

from tax and regulatory reform to strengthening national defense to reforming

social programs. All were carefully crafted, vetted, and pieced together.

On January 21, 1981, at the ﬁrst meeting of his Cabinet, President Reagan dis-

tributed copies of Mandate, and many of the study’s authors were recruited into

the Administration to implement its recommendations.

In the foreword of that ﬁrst edition, I wrote, “What is oered by the authors

is a series of proposals which, if implemented, will help revitalize our economy,

strengthen our national security, and halt the centralization of power in the federal

government.”

The conservative movement had found in Ronald Reagan a President who

shared that vision and who had the will to go against the established political grain

in Washington. He also had the ability to speak directly to the American people and

convincingly show them how those ideas could work for the beneﬁt of all.

Mandate’s proven ideas and President Reagan’s skill at communicating their

beneﬁts led to his Administration implementing almost half of the recommenda-

tions by the end of his ﬁrst year in oce.

Those recommendations led to tax cuts and other economic policies that

gave America one of the longest periods of peacetime economic growth in its

— 885 —

Onward!

history—with an annual growth rate that has not been rivaled since then. The rec-

ommendations led to a rebuilding of the United States military, helped to bring an

end to the Cold War and to the Soviet Union itself, and reinvigorated the Ameri-

can people with a collective sense of pride and patriotism that many thought had

vanished forever.

After that ﬁrst edition, a new Mandate was produced every four years. But the

2016 edition was one of particular note. It earned signiﬁcant attention from the

Trump Administration, as Heritage had accumulated a backlog of conservative

ideas that had been blocked by President Barack Obama and his team.

Soon after President Donald Trump was sworn in, his Administration began

to implement major parts of the 2016 Mandate. After his ﬁrst year in oce, the

Administration had implemented 64 percent of its policy recommendations.

As a result of those recommendations, the Trump Administration cut taxes and

eliminated unnecessary regulations, creating a growing economy and the lowest

unemployment rate in ﬁve decades—including among minorities and women. It

made America a net energy exporter for the ﬁrst time in half a century. It also

prioritized veterans’ care and rebuilt our national defenses.

As I noted above, in his ﬁrst year in oce, President Reagan implemented nearly

half of Mandate’s recommendations—an extraordinary feat. In 2018, in an inter-

view on Fox News, I mentioned that President Trump had implemented more

recommendations in his ﬁrst year than Ronald Reagan did in his. Of course, at

the time, Reagan did not have both a Republican House and Senate as Trump did.

Nonetheless, President Trump liked being compared to a former President he

deeply admired, and he touted the comparison frequently.

This anecdote illustrates how Mandate provides a yardstick for conserva-

tive Presidents to measure their performance relative to one another. And, very

importantly, it allows the American people to see concrete evidence of the prog-

ress an Administration is making toward reversing the growth of government and

implementing conservative solutions in its stead. In essence, it allows the Amer-

ican people to hold their politicians accountable to the principles they profess

to believe in.

When we were producing that ﬁrst Mandate edition, we had suered under four

years of Jimmy Carter with double-digit inﬂation, double-digit interest rates, high

unemployment, gasoline rationing, weakness overseas, and what Carter himself

called a malaise that he had induced in the American people.

In the 1981 Mandate foreword, I wrote:

The full recovery of our nation in both the economic and foreign policy spheres

will require the sustained application of sound policies over several years. There

are no “quick ﬁx” solutions to problems that have been years in the making. But

no time must be lost in taking the ﬁrst decisive steps on the road to recovery.

— 886 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Today, President Joe Biden has brought us back to the days of Jimmy Carter—

actually, even worse—with full-bore economic, military, cultural, and foreign policy

turmoil. The advice that I wrote more than four decades ago just as easily could

have been written today. A conservative Administration coming on board in 2025

will need to hit the ground running just to undo the signiﬁcant damage that will

have been done during the Biden years.

Something that is essential to ensuring that a new President in 2025 can suc-

cessfully implement a conservative agenda is having the right personnel to run the

executive branch departments and their agencies.

This is why it is so often said that “people are policy.” The Cabinet secretaries,

deputy secretaries, undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, deputy assistant secre-

taries, administrators, agency heads, and on and on that a new President chooses

to place throughout the executive branch must be principled individuals already

aligned with the President’s conservative vision. And they must be willing to exe-

cute it on the President’s behalf.

These personnel choices will ultimately determine the success or failure of the

policy agenda and, hence, of the whole Administration.

Presidential appointees not only are critical to implementing the policy agenda,

but also must serve to “watch the watchers” in the departments and agencies they

oversee. They must ensure accountability as well as provide a check on the inherent

nature of the administrative state to overreach its authority.

For example, they must rein in the Environmental Protection Agency, which

declared backyard streams navigable waterways that then fall under its author-

ity. They must rein in the Internal Revenue Service, including its 87,000 new

employees hired to pick through every detail of what Americans make and how

they spend their money. They must rein in agencies such as the Occupational

Safety and Health Administration, which the Biden Administration weapon-

ized to attempt to force COVID-19 vaccine mandates on 84 million Americans

through their workplaces.

When these new presidential appointees come into oce, it is often the career

bureaucrats who end up orienting them to their new positions. Many of these

bureaucrats are all too comfortable with the status quo. Appointees have only four

years (eight at the most) to eect change and make a dierence. They need a road

map to do that starting on Day One.

That road map is exactly what Mandate provides. It is not a mandate to main-

tain the status quo but just do it a little more eciently. Rather, it is a mandate to

signiﬁcantly advance conservative principles in practice and demonstrate to the

American people that where liberal policies generally fail, conservative solutions

succeed in making life better for all of us.

From the original 1981 Reagan-era Mandate for Leadership to this edition for

2025, the purpose remains the same: to present concrete proposals to revitalize

— 887 —

Onward!

our economy, strengthen our national security, and halt the centralization of power

in the federal government.

In Washington, there are no permanent victories. But neither are there per-

manent defeats. Rather, there are permanent battles throughout the policy arena.

The other side is never standing still. While we may achieve tremendous successes

under conservative leaders, the Left is always working to chip away at them, which

is why we must constantly be prepared for the next ﬁght.

That’s why today, Heritage President Kevin Roberts, Project 2025 Director Paul

Dans, the whole Heritage team, more than 50 organizations, and more than 360

experts from throughout the conservative movement have come together to con-

tinue the Mandate for Leadership tradition of creating policy solutions to solve

the biggest issues facing America—solutions based on the core principles of free

enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values,

and a strong national defense.

We do this not to expand government, grow its largesse for some special interest,

or centralize more control in Washington. Instead, we do this to build an America

where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society ﬂourish for all.

One ﬁnal note: As most readers know, this section of a book is usually called the

“Afterword,” but we have decided to title it “Onward!”

In all the decades that I served as The Heritage Foundation’s founder and

president—and to this day as a member of its Board of Trustees—I have ended

my communications with the exhortation “Onward!” This has been my charge to

encourage friends, colleagues, and allies that we must always be advancing. There

are always new battles and new opportunities ahead to challenge us to do even

more, and we must be ready for them, willing to engage, and use them to work for

the betterment of this nation and her people.

An afterword connotes ﬁnality, but “Onward!” signals that our next mission is

just beginning.

That is the message I leave you with today. Onward!

9 780891 951742

ISBN 978-0-89195-174-2

The comprehensive policy guide for a new conservative

president, oering speciﬁc reforms and proposals for

Cabinet departments and federal agencies, pulled from

the expertise of the entire conservative movement.

Praise for Mandate for Leadership 2025:

“The next conservative president must dismantle the administrative

state and return power back to the states and the American people.

This publication is a blueprint to do just that.”

–Mike Lee

U.S. Senator, Utah

“Months before he was sworn in, The Heritage Foundation

provided incoming President Reagan a copy of the ﬁrst Mandate

for Leadership, setting out a bold agency-by-agency agenda. Now

40 years later, conservative leaders have joined together again

to prepare this compendium of policy ﬁxes. Welcome to the next

conservative revolution.”

–Ed Meese

Former U.S. Attorney General

“A sweeping plan to end the weaponization of the government against

Americans and the values they care about.”

–Mollie Hemingway

Editor-in-Chief, The Federalist