Are There U.S. Laws or Presidential Actions That Cannot Be Overturned by Successor Presidents?

Question

In U.S. history, presidents have often enacted laws or established policies that were intended to have long-term effects, sometimes beyond their own term in office. However, it seems that successor presidents frequently overturn or reverse their predecessor's actions.

For example:

• President Obama enacted the Clean Power Plan to reduce carbon emissions, which President Trump later reversed.
• President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, which President Biden then rejoined upon taking office.
• Similarly, President Reagan had policies that were significantly altered or reversed by the incoming Bush and Clinton administrations.

Given these examples, I’m curious if there are certain types of laws or policies that a new president cannot easily reverse. Specifically:

Are there any laws or policies enacted by one president that are protected from being overturned by the next administration?

Answer 1

That would be the pardon. Pardons cannot be revoked once issued.

Appointment to a federal court as a judge cannot be revoked once approved; however that is not strictly a presidential action; and even then the judge can be impeached. Removing a judge because the the next government doesn't like the appointment is a bad idea; however it is possible.

Answer 2

Generally speaking, the answer is "No". Congress cannot bind future Congresses. Likewise, a sitting President cannot truly bind a future President.

There's two moving parts to understand here

The Administrative State

Congress has, over time, created new agencies under the Executive branch. These agencies sometimes have Cabinet-level positions (such as the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security) that need Senate approval.

These institutions all report to the President, and all have some authority to write and enforce rules and regulations, per the laws enacted to give them the authority in the first place (i.e. the Environmental Protection Agency cannot issue workplace safety rules or investment regulations). Generally, a President will appoint people to head agencies that agree with their general political views.

All rules issued and enforced this way are subject to the Administrative Procedures Act. It states that new rulemaking must go through a public comment phase and appropriate timelines before becoming enforced. These are not laws, but administrative rules. To that end, Congress may vacate any administrative rules by voting them out. Courts can also overturn rules, especially if they did not follow the APA rules.

A future President will almost certainly make their own appointments so they can shape future rules. An agency may abandon rules their predecessors made, as long as they do so within the APA requirements, and do not violate the rules set forth by Congress for that agency (i.e. the EPA cannot stop enforcing the Clean Air Act, or any other law it has been directed to enforce).

Executive Actions

Executive Actions are usually just directives from a sitting President that direct the Federal Government on what the President wants done. These contain no actual force of law and can be rescinded by any future Executive Action.

A perfect example of this is the Mexico City Policy, which pertains to funding foreign abortion efforts. First created by Ronald Reagan, it has been rescinded by every Democratic president, and reinstated by every Republican president since.

Answer 3

As a practical example: invading another country be it for high-minded reasons like regime-change in bringing democracy etc. As easy it might be in theory for a new president to just pull out all forces on day one of his mandate, it never worked out like that.

Italian Philosopher already gave some treaty cancellations as similar enough examples. There are surely more of those, including cancelling the JCOPA with Iran etc. (Which was somewhere like restarting a cold war, although it also briefly turned hot when an Iranian general was killed in a US strike and Iran shot some missiles back at US bases.) Relatedly, the US system/constitution never really resolved if POTUS can single-handedly cancel treaties or not. It's still a grey area. And presidents have done their best to expand the grey area to what kind of agreements they can enter by themselves.

Answer 4

We can generally group US Federal things with force of law into three* categories ordered by supremacy:

1. The Constitution
2. Laws and statutes enacted by Congress, and treaties ratified by Congress
3. Executive Orders and other Executive regulations, which can include practical adherence to treaties not ratified by Congress

Each category empowers the categories below it. For the purpose of the answer, "law" means anything passed in the second category by Congress. In general, Congress will pass laws that give the Executive Branch the power to do something, such as determine regulation for carbon emissions. Laws like that will probably specify which Executive agency will write the regulations, but the President has authority over the entire Executive Branch so he is free to tell that agency what regulations to write, as long as they are within the bounds of the law which gives them the power to regulate that thing. When a new President comes in, he is also free to tell his agencies to execute their regulatory powers in a different way, so long as it is still within the bounds of the law.

So, to directly answer the question, there are no laws enacted through the Constitutional process to pass a law (which includes the President, but is mainly Congress) which a future President can unilaterally overturn. He may be able to execute the law in a way that obviates it in part or in whole, since the Executive Branch is ultimately the branch responsible for carrying out the intended practical effects of a law. On the other hand, any regulations enacted by the Executive Branch are subject to change by the Executive Branch at a later date, the only ways to make them permanent are to enshrine them in a law or a constitutional amendment.

* I've not included judicial precedent/review here because it would be confusing and isn't needed for the answer, but it could be argued that it is it's own category

Answer 5

Depending on what falls under the scope of "Presidential Actions" for the purposes of this question, it is going to be difficult to reverse the consequences of Trump's Supreme Court appointments.

Biden's has been vaguely talking about term limits and mandatory retirement, but the system does not currently allow for it.

Likewise, to consider how a country can be affected long term by decisions made by political leaders during one particular administration, consider Brexit. Something similar, effected in the US system, would be hard to undo (for example: leaving NAFTA).

In fact, Bush's 2002 withdrawal from the ABM Treaty has been cited by Putin as motivation for his policies (whether that's just a convenient excuse or not is for each to decide).

Decisions taken by the Executive that affect international relations are not always easily reversible.

Answer 6

For one topic, Congressional pay, a president's hands are constitutionally tied by the previous administration for the first 2 years.

The 27th Amendment states

No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

House elections occur every two years, so any laws signed by a president that modify Congressional compensation can only take effect at two points: after midterm elections or after the end of the presidential term.

Answer 7

The Presidential Medal of Freedom would seem to apply. When asked in 2015 whether Bill Cosby would his medal rescinded following sexual assault allegations, President Barack Obama responded, "We don’t have that mechanism."

There was a bill before Congress the following year that would grant the president that power, but it seems not to have gone anywhere.

Congress could theoretically fix this at a future date, but since you asked about acts that presidents "cannot easily reverse," this would seem to fit the bill for the moment.

Answer 8

If a president does things through executive order, meaning by their signature alone, the next president can reverse it. If Congress signed it into law, probably not, at least not easily. President Trump had to do a lot of things through executive order because Congress was against most of it, so it was easy for Biden to reverse it.