President Donald Trump signed multiple executive orders on Monday, including one that directs the federal government to end its use of biodegradable paper straws and go back to plastic.
Trump raised the issue seemingly out of the blue late last week, declaring his plans to end the “ridiculous Biden push for Paper Straws.”
FULL LIST OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS, ACTIONS, AND PROCLAMATIONS TRUMP HAS MADE AS PRESIDENT
“Crooked Joe’s MANDATE, ‘NO PLASTIC STRAWS, ONLY PAPER,’ IS DEAD!,” the president wrote on social media over the weekend. “Enjoy your next drink without a straw that disgustingly dissolves in your mouth!!!”
“We’re going back to plastic straws. These things don’t work,” the president told reporters gathered in the Oval Office for his signing ceremony Monday evening. “I’ve had them many times, and on occasion, they break, they explode.”
Christy Leavitt, plastics campaign director for the environmental group Oceana, claimed that Trump’s order is “more about messaging than finding solutions.”
“President Trump is moving in the wrong direction on single-use plastics,” Leavitt said. “The world is facing a plastic pollution crisis, and we can no longer ignore one of the biggest environmental threats facing our oceans and our planet today.”
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In addition to the order on straws, Trump signed off on a full pardon for Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor and U.S. representative who was removed from office and jailed on public corruption charges. Blagojevich appeared as a contestant on the Trump-hosted Celebrity Apprentice in 2010 amid his corruption trial and received a commuted sentence from the president during the final days of his first term in office.
Trump also signed an executive order on Monday directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to halt enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. According to the Justice Department, the 1977 law “was enacted for the purpose of making it unlawful for certain classes of persons and entities to make payments to foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business.”
