President Issues Executive Orders
President Issues Executive Orders
Last week, President Biden signed a number of Executive Orders, with more anticipated in the coming week. The orders cover a range of subjects and many will require additional steps to implement. Actions and Executive orders relevant to the disability community include:
- Housing
- Extending the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Eviction Moratorium through March 31, 2021
- Increasing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Public Assistance reimbursement rate to 100% for non-congregate sheltering of people who are homeless
- Equity
- Establishing an Equitable Data Working Group to improve data collection and other steps to advance equity across the federal government
- Health and COVID-19 Response
- Establishing a COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force to make recommendations for mitigating the health inequities caused or exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and for preventing such inequities in the future
- Improving and expanding access to care and treatments for COVID-19
- Establishing a Public Health Workforce Program
- Instructing federal agencies to use existing authority to provide the greatest economic relief possible to people, authority the White House said would be used to increase Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and to conduct additional outreach to those who have not yet received stimulus payments
- Education
- Directing the Secretary of Education to provide support to safely reopen schools
- Directing the Institute of Education Sciences to collect data on the impact of COVID-19 on students and teachers, disaggregated by disability and other characteristics
The Arc will review and analyze Executive orders from the new administration and evaluate their impact on people with disabilities.