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Executive Action

Executive orders, rulemaking, pardons, treaties, emergencies, and the other tools a President uses without Congress.

Code of Federal Regulations
The official, subject-by-subject compilation of all federal regulations currently in force, organized into 50 titles and updated continuously online
Congressional Review Act
The 1996 law that lets Congress overturn recently issued agency rules by a simple-majority joint resolution and bars agencies from reissuing substantially the same rule
Executive Orders
Written directives from the President to the executive branch: what they can do, what they cannot, and how they are undone
Federal Rulemaking
How agencies turn laws into binding regulations through notice and comment, White House review, and judicial oversight
Freedom of Information Act
The law that lets anyone request records from federal agencies, and the nine exemptions that let agencies withhold them
Government Reorganization Authority
The power, once delegated by Congress to the President, to restructure federal agencies by submitting reorganization plans, and the limits on doing so without new legislation
Notice and Comment
The process under the Administrative Procedure Act by which agencies propose regulations, invite public comment, and respond before issuing a final rule
OIRA and Regulatory Review
The White House office that reviews significant agency regulations before they are issued, weighs their costs and benefits, and coordinates the President's regulatory agenda
Presidential Directives and National Security Memoranda
The often-classified directives presidents issue through the National Security Council to set foreign, defense, and intelligence policy, renamed by nearly every administration
Presidential Pardons
The President's nearly unlimited power to forgive federal crimes, and the controversies it has produced
Proclamations and Memoranda
Two kinds of presidential directives alongside executive orders: proclamations addressed to the public, from holidays to tariffs and national monuments, and memoranda instructing agencies
Reductions in Force
The formal federal layoff procedure agencies use to eliminate positions, governed by rules on retention, veterans' preference, and notice, and used on a large scale in 2025
State of the Union
The President's annual report to Congress required by the Constitution, now delivered as a televised address to a joint session in the House chamber
Tariffs and Trade Authority
How the constitutional power to set tariffs, which belongs to Congress, came to be largely delegated to the President, and the 2025 fight over emergency tariffs
The Federal Register
The government's daily journal of rules, proposed rules, notices, and presidential documents
The President's Daily Brief
The highly classified daily intelligence summary prepared for the President and a few top officials, produced by the intelligence community since the 1960s
Treaties and Executive Agreements
The three ways the United States makes international commitments, and why formal treaties have become the exception