Trump on track to sign most executive orders in first 100 days
— -- In the week of his 100th day in office, Donald Trump will sign four executive orders, including ones calling for reviews of offshore drilling regulations and national monument designations on federal lands.
He also plans to to sign an order establishing an "office of accountability and whistleblower protection" at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The new office will be charged with helping the Veterans Affairs secretary "discipline or terminate [VA] managers or employees who fail to carry out their duties in helping our veterans," according to a White House official.
Trump is expected on Tuesday to sign an executive order creating a task force "to examine the concerns of rural America and suggest legislative and regulatory changes to address them," the White House said.
The order on national monuments will direct the Interior Department to review prior monument designations under a more than 100-year-old law that authorizes the president to establish federal lands as national monuments.
And as part of the administration's push to expand offshore drilling, Trump on Friday is expected to sign a directive called the America First Energy Executive Order, calling for a review of offshore oil and gas locations and rules.
The four new executive orders will bring Trump's total to 32 in his first 100 days — the most, the White House says, by any president since World War II.
Before his election, he criticized his predecessor's use of executive actions as a way of going around Congress.
"I don't think he even tries anymore. I think he just signs executive actions," Trump said of then-President Obama in December 2015. Trump pointed to the U.S. government's system of checks and balances. "That's the way the system is supposed to work. And then all of a sudden, I hear, 'He tried. He can't do it,' and then, boom, and then another one, boom."
