President Donald Trump completed his 12-day trip to Asia this week without a big policy achievement — or major gaffes. But the real action was in Congress, where allegations of sexual harassment hit a sitting lawmaker (Sen. Al Franken) and continued to pile up against Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama. The House and Senate also took major steps towards overhauling the tax code, with the House passing its 447-page bill just a few weeks after it was introduced.

All of that news didn’t result any policy changes, though — at least not until a real tax package hits the president’s desk. But within the Trump administration, federal agencies continued to roll back Obama-era policies and push a new conservative agenda in a variety of different areas, including controversial reforms to a program that subsidizes cellphone service for the poor and a green light for elephant hunters. Here’s how Trump changed policy this week:

1. DOJ takes another shot at sanctuary cities

During the presidential campaign, Trump frequently promised to crack down on so-called “sanctuary cities,” threatening to withhold federal money unless they help the federal government enforce the country’s immigration laws. And he chose one of the country’s top critics of sanctuary cities as his attorney general, former Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions.

But as Sessions and Trump have attempted to actually crack down on such sanctuary jurisdictions, they’ve run into real limits on their power. This week, Sessions issued his latest threats to withhold federal policing grants from 29 jurisdictions that may not be complying with certain immigration laws. The DOJ told the jurisdictions to address any violations by Dec. 8. The move is the latest threat from Sessions to withhold funding, following up on letters he sent to five sanctuary cities in October that gave them their “last chance” to comply with federal immigration laws. In July, Sessions issued a new policy in which a valuable federal grant to cities, the largest for local police departments at $347 million last year, would be conditional on cooperating with federal immigration enforcement.

So far, though, Trump and Sessions don’t appear to have actually withheld any funding from sanctuary jurisdictions since taking office. In part, that’s because Trump’s presidency is less than a year old and it takes time to implement such a policy. But the DOJ has also faced pushback from the courts, which have issued injunctions in multiple jurisdictions to block these anti-sanctuary city policies. Trump’s campaign promise on sanctuary cities was popular with his base, but it is proving much tougher to implement.

2. Game on for elephant poaching

In June 2016, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced a near universal ban on the commercial sale of elephant ivory in the United States, an effort to crack down on wildlife trafficking in African countries such as Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa. Conservationists cheered the news, while hunting advocacy groups argued that the move would backfire by forcing the trade underground.

On Thursday, the Trump administration sided with the hunters when the Fish and Wildlife Service announced it was reversing the Obama-era policy and would allow the import of elephant ivory that was hunted for sport in Zimbabwe or Zambia between Jan. 21, 2016 and the end of next year. The Service argued that Zimbabwe has “stepped up its anti-poaching efforts” and that allowing some commercial trade in sport-hunted ivory in the U.S. could actually support the African elephant population by providing a revenue stream for Zimbabwean conservation efforts. The lifting of the ban also applies to Zambia, although the Federal Register notice does not mention the country.

Environmentalists immediately slammed the news and said it would jeopardize the African elephant populations, while hunting groups praised what they said was an overdue reversal of a misguided Obama-era policy. There might be some cheering coming from the Trump family as well: Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are both big-game hunters.

3. FCC overhauls the Lifeline program

The bogus claim that former President Barack Obama was giving out free cellphones to the poor — derisively called “Obamaphones” in conservative media — was one of the most persistent fake-news stories of his presidency. The story was a distortion of the Lifeline program, which subsidizes phone and broadband service, and the person who expanded it from landlines to cell carriers was President George W. Bush. Lifeline’s budget did grow under Obama, nearly tripling from 2008 to 2012; last year, it cost $1.5 billion and served 12.3 million people.

Critics have said the program has been abused, and this week, the Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Ajit Pai passed major reforms attempting to reduce such fraud and waste. Notably, the plan eliminates funding for wireless re-sellers, which purchase services from a telecom company and then resell that service to consumers. Many consumer advocates were sharply critical of the plan, saying that previous reforms had already reduced fraud in the program, and that Pai’s changes would cut off phone service to millions of low-income households, many of whom use wireless re-sellers. The Lifeline reforms is just the latest effort by Pai to roll back Obama-era policies at the FCC, and it won’t be the last: News leaked this week that the FCC is preparing to issue its final order that repeals Obama’s net neutrality rules. Stay tuned.

4. Another (possible) win for hunters

In October 2015, the National Park Service issued a new rule on hunting across 20 million acres of national reserves in Alaska, an effort to preserve wildlife in the state. The rules touched on everything from when wolves and coyotes can be hunted — not during the denning season — to a prohibition on hunting big game that is swimming. The rule, which attracted more than 70,000 comments during the proposal stage, was a victory for conservationists and a defeat for many hunters, as well as the state of Alaska which argued that the NPS was overstepping its bounds and overriding state law.

This week, the NPS announced that it is initiating a review of the rule with the priority of complying with a directive from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke “to advance conservation stewardship and increase outdoor recreation opportunities, including hunting and fishing, for all Americans.” There’s no timetable for when NPS could issue a new rule or what it could look like. But it’s another sign that Zinke is imposing a new conservative agenda at Interior.

5. EPA delays WOTUS

In early 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency issued the Waters of the United States rule — known as WOTUS — a far-reaching and long-awaited plan to limit pollution on America’s wetlands. WOTUS was hailed by environmentalists but loathed by conservatives who said it would impose huge, unnecessary costs on companies and in June, EPA issued a proposed rule to repeal WOTUS.

In other words, WOTUS is all but dead. But in the next few weeks, the Supreme Court could issue a jurisdictional ruling that could lead to an injunction being lifted on the rule in 37 states, forcing those states to comply with WOTUS even though EPA is certain to issue a final order repealing the rule in the next few months. Faced with that possibility, EPA announced this week that it would delay the effective date of WOTUS for two years, effectively an insurance policy against an adverse Supreme Court ruling. And EPA must be concerned about that possibility: The agency is giving the public just 21 days to comment on the rule, less than the customary 30-day period.



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