More executive actions are expected from President Obama throughout the rest of the year. Obama acts alone to boost business

President Barack Obama rounded out the first week of his new “we can’t wait” campaign against Congress with the launch Friday of two initiatives aimed at boosting businesses.

Building on orders released earlier this week to help homeowners facing foreclosure, borrowers with heavy student loan burdens and unemployed veterans, Obama ended the week by issuing memoranda calling on federal agencies to speed the transfer of government research into commercial products, and to create a website that will help businesses access information about government programs and services.


“With too many families struggling and too many businesses fighting to keep their doors open, we can’t wait for Congress to take action,” Obama said in a statement. “Today, I am directing my administration to take two important steps to help American businesses create new products, compete in a global economy and create jobs here at home.”

More executive actions are expected from the White House throughout the rest of the year as the administration pushes to show that it is working to create jobs and reinvigorate the economy even as Congress resists the president’s jobs bill.

But the administration’s new strategy already faces pushback from Capitol Hill.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is questioning the president’s authority to act alone, saying Thursday that “this idea that you’re just going to go around the Congress is just — it’s almost laughable.”

White House press secretary Jay Carney defended the administration’s actions. “The president is operating well within the bounds of his authority, and in a way that is consistent with the kinds of executive actions that presidents have taken in previous administrations, presidents of both parties,” he said Thursday.

The administration also has faced persistent questions this week about why the administration didn’t take action earlier in the president’s term on the issues it has started to tackle unilaterally this fall. Carney and others have said that the administration has acted as ideas have emerged and that Obama has charged administration officials to be on the lookout for more ideas.

“We have been moving forward … since Day One,” Acting Deputy Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank said Friday on a call with reporters.

One of Obama’s Friday memos calls on agencies to accelerate the process of moving new technologies developed by the government and entities funded by government to the marketplace, in part by cutting in half the time for startups to receive grants. The memo also gives federal agencies greater flexibility to collaborate with businesses and local communities. It also orders agencies to create five-year plans on commercializing research and to keep tabs on how many patents each federal lab generates.

The actions requested by the president are, Blank said, “among the most important steps taken to improve tech transfer since” the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Transfer Act of 1980, which promoted innovation to achieve economic and social goals.

The president’s second memo directs administration agencies to work together to create BusinessUSA, a portal website guiding businesses of all sizes to resources to help them hire, grow and manage exports. The website was a recommendation of Obama’s jobs council. It was put forward when the president announced the $447 billion American Jobs Act last month and is expected to launch within the next 90 days.

The site will “dramatically shift how the business community interacts with government,” federal chief technology officer Aneesh Chopra said last month.