It was a week of typically unpredictable headlines in the Donald Trump presidency: One of the president’s closest advisors resigned; Trump announced his support for gun-control proposals on national TV only to walk back his position a day later; and he surprised his staff by announcing major tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, possibly precipitating a trade war.

For all that commotion, gun control policies still look dead on Capitol Hill and the tariffs haven’t actually been implemented yet. Outside the spotlight, however, the Trump agenda has steadily marched forward, as his cabinet appointees—from Betsy DeVos as the Department of Education to Scott Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency—continued to impress a new conservative agenda on their agencies. And there are some curveballs in the mix as well, such as a move back toward Obama’s labor rules. Here’s how Trump changed policy this week:

1. The Department of Education boosts charter schools, lightens civil-rights scrutiny

Betsy DeVos took a lot of heat for her lack of experience when she was nominated to be Trump’s secretary of education, a billionaire charter-schools advocate who’d never worked in government or even a school. But in the past year, DeVos has clearly figured out how to use the levers of power in her department, rolling back Obama-era regulations and policies on everything from for-profit colleges to campus sexual assault.



This week came a trio of changes. On Tuesday, the department released its final priorities for how it allocates competitive grant money—a little-known agency power that can fuel long-term policy shifts by funneling money to favored organizations. It declared a new focus on expanding school choice, as well as other Trump administration priorities like the promotion of STEM and computer science. It’s a major shift from the priorities under DeVos’ predecessor, John King, which focused on socioeconomic diversity in schools.

Also on Tuesday, the Department proposed delaying for two years a rule issued at the tail end of the Obama era that attempted to address the disproportionate number of minority students in special education classes, ensuring that states were using a uniform standard in determining which students were placed in those classes. The rule was scheduled to take effect on July 1; the delay would push it into 2020.

Finally, the Department also posted a new version of its rulebook for investigating civil rights abuses in U.S. schools, notably eliminating all mentions of “systemic” investigations and effectively telling investigators to look at schools on a case-by-case basis. Civil rights leaders slammed the move, saying it would put marginalized students, such as immigrants and LGBT people, at risk. The agency responded by saying the changes were necessary to reduce the case backlog and protect students’ civil rights in a timely manner. The revisions take effect on March 5.

2. In Mexico, Trump’s trade agenda moves forward

This week’s trade news may have been dominated by Trump’s threatening new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and his positive tweeting about a “trade war,” but his administration also made a few other important trade announcements that could have far-reaching implications on the U.S. economy.

In Mexico City this week, the U.S., Mexico and Canada continued to negotiate reforms to the North American Free Trade Agreement, a slow process that continues to hit roadblocks, particularly on how much of a car needs to be made in North America to qualify for preferential tariffs. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer also refused to budge from his position on eliminating NAFTA’s controversial provision for settling investor-state disputes, raising fears in the business community that a policy that industry generally likes is unlikely to be included in a renegotiated NAFTA deal.

On Tuesday, the Commerce Department issued final duties on aluminum foil imports for China, designed to offset what Commerce said was unfair subsidies from the Chinese government. Then, on Wednesday, the Office of the USTR revealed in its 359-page annual trade agenda that it would seek a three-year renewal of the “trade promotion authority” that Congress granted to Obama in 2015, which lets the White House negotiate trade deals and restricts Congress to an up-or-down vote on the resulting agreements. The administration must request such an extension by April 1, and despite Republicans controlling both Congress and the White House, this might not be smooth sailing: Many congressional Republicans are openly unhappy with the president’s aluminum and steel tariffs.

3. EPA weakens a rule on methane emissions

In 2016, Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency issued a new rule to reduce methane leaks from oil and gas wells. Environmentalists cheered the news, while industry groups criticized them as overly burdensome. This week, the EPA sided with industry, giving oil and gas companies up to two years to fix methane leaks and eliminating a requirement that forced them to fix leaks during emergency or unscheduled shutdowns. Under the new proposal, operators must repair leaks during the next scheduled shutdown or within two years, whichever is sooner. The changes weren’t exactly a surprise, as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has been attempting to loosen or repeal the rule altogether since he took office. Last year, a court even rejected the EPA’s attempt to delay the rule’s compliance dates.

4. Treasury closes a loophole in the tax law

After Congress overhauled the tax code in December, the work shifted to the Treasury Department to begin drafting dozens of rules and guidance documents to implement the 494-page law, a process that will take months, if not years. This week, Treasury reached something of a milestone when it released the new W-4 withholding form, the document that employers use to determine how much tax to withhold from their employees’ paychecks. The agency also released an online withholding calculator.

That news represents an important moment in Treasury’s implementation process but doesn’t represent a major policy change. The bigger news came when the Department announced that it would close a loophole in the tax law that would have allowed wealthy money managers to continue paying a lower tax rate on so-called carried interest. The tax law made it harder for people to claim the carried interest tax break—a break for super-rich private-equity investors that Trump promised to repeal in the presidential campaign—but the law contained a vaguely worded section that allowed money managers to avoid that crackdown. Treasury this week made clear that it won’t allow that.

5. After a reversal of a reversal, an Obama labor policy survives

In December, in a 3-2 vote on party lines, the National Labor Relations Board rolled back a major Obama-era decision that would have held more businesses legally responsible for their franchisees’ labor-law violations. Labor groups slammed the rollback of the so-called “joint employment” standard, saying it would undermine workers’ labor rights and let big franchising companies duck their responsibilities as employers, while businesses cheered the news.

But on Monday, in a shocking move, the NLRB rolled back its rollback, leaving the Obama-era standard in place. The decision had nothing to do with the underlying policy, but instead was related to a potential conflict of interest by NLRB member William Emanuel, whose previous law firm was involved in the original case that put the topic of “joint employment” before the NLRB in 2015. Due to those ties, Emanuel faced pressure to recuse himself from the current decision. That pressure intensified in early February when the NLRB’s inspector general sharply criticized the agency for its handling of conflict-of-interest cases. This week, the Board ruled that Emanuel should have recused himself and therefore it was withdrawing its December decision.

The NLRB currently has just four members—two Democrats and two Republicans, including Emanuel—with a fifth GOP member likely to be confirmed by the Senate soon. But even with a 3-2 majority, Republicans will have trouble overturning the Obama-era decision, since Emanuel will likely recuse himself from future cases, leaving the NLRB split at 2-2. That’s the main reason that many congressional Republicans called for legislative action after Monday’s news.

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