Tucked inside the House Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act are more than 15 of President Trump’s executive orders, potentially giving his major policy shifts the full weight of federal law and making it much harder for a future Democrat in the White House to reverse them.
The more than 1,000-page bill includes Mr. Trump’s orders for immigration and the border, the tax code, education, energy, the military, the judiciary, health services and entitlement programs.
These are some of Mr. Trump’s policies that would be cemented in law if Republicans succeed in ramming the bill through Congress as planned in party-line votes.
Mexico City policy
The bill would codify Mr. Trump’s order reinstating the Mexico City policy that bans U.S. foreign aid from providing or promoting abortion services. It further requires aid recipients, such as non-governmental organizations, to attest that they will not use U.S. funds or non-U.S. funds for abortion services.
President Reagan first adopted the policy in 1984, announcing it at the 2nd International Conference on Population, which was held in Mexico City, Mexico, giving the policy its name.
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Since then, the policy has shifted between administrations, as Democratic presidents rescind it and Republican presidents reinstate it. The House Republican bill tries to break this cycle.
Abortion advocates, who call the policy the “Global Gag Rule,” argue that the restrictions on U.S. foreign aid reverse strides in global health, gender equality and human rights, making it harder for disadvantaged women to access health care.
Supporters of the policy argue that when it has been in place, there have been minimal disruptions to health care in foreign countries because pro-life policies do not negate quality health care.
Golden Dome
Under the legislation, U.S. law would require the development of the Golden Dome missile defense system. Mr. Trump in January ordered the creation of a system that would, for the first time, put U.S. weapons in space to protect against missile attacks.
The Golden Dome, which is based on Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, is a multilayered project that will deploy next-generation technologies across land, sea and space, with space-based sensors and interceptors.
The system, which was first proposed by President Reagan but never realized, would defend against missiles by destroying them ahead of launch or intercepting them in flight.
Mr. Trump said building the Golden Dome will take three years and cost $175 billion. The House Republicans’ “big beautiful bill” includes a $25 billion down payment on the project.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the long-term cost of the system’s space-based components would reach $542 billion over the next 20 years.
Federal workers
The legislation would codify several of Mr. Trump’s orders that tightened the standards for some federal workers to get full civil service protections.
It includes a new set of performance evaluations for federal workers during the probationary period of their employment, providing more opportunities to fire new employees before they become hard-to-fire tenured civil servants.
Rather than making federal workers tenured civil servants by default, Mr. Trump’s new Rule XI mandated that agencies affirmatively certify at the end of the probationary or trial period that a worker’s appointment advances the public interest.
The bill also enshrines into law Mr. Trump’s order to root out “deep state” partisanship. It classifies career government employees who work on policy matters as “schedule policy/career” employees who are “held to the highest standards of conduct and performance.”
“If these government workers refuse to advance the policy interests of the president, or are engaging in corrupt behavior, they should no longer have a job,” Mr. Trump said.
Opponents say it weakens the government’s civil service system, but Mr. Trump and his supporters insist it brings more accountability to a bloated bureaucracy.
Immigration and border security
A fistful of Mr. Trump’s executive orders that cracked down on illegal immigration made their way into the legislation, including spending to complete the border wall and cutting off illegal immigrants from Medicaid and other taxpayer-funded benefits.
The bill would authorize spending around $175 billion to strengthen border enforcement and implement the president’s immigration agenda.
About $46.5 billion would go toward modernizing and expanding the border barrier system, completing 701 miles of primary wall and 900 miles of river barriers. Also, $2.7 billion would pay for other border security technology, such as sensors, surveillance towers and tunnel detection systems.
Another $4.1 billion would be spent on hiring and training new Border Patrol agents, along with $2 billion for retention and signing bonuses.
Protecting children
Mr. Trump’s order barring taxpayer dollars from paying for children to undergo transgender treatments would also become law under the House-passed bill. The legislation would prohibit Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program or the Affordable Care Act from paying for sex-change procedures for minors.
Critics of Mr. Trump’s order said it denigrates and punishes transgender people. The president’s order, however, described the restrictions as a way to protect children from irreparable harm.
Reinvigorating coal industry
The bill would codify the order for the interior secretary to make available for lease known recoverable coal resources of not less than 4 million additional acres on federal land in the western U.S. and Alaska.
Areas not open to coal-recovery leases would include land within a national monument, national recreation area, national military park, national historical park, national battlefield site, national memorial, unit of the National Fish Hatchery System, unit of the National Wildlife Refuge System and a National Conservation Area.
The elimination of coal has long been a top goal of climate change activists. Mr. Trump argues that forgoing coal puts the U.S. at an energy disadvantage when countries such as China continue to use coal to fuel their economies.
Unleashing American energy
Another new law would be Mr. Trump’s order repealing the Biden-era electric vehicle mandate and Green New Deal policies.
The bill also codifies Mr. Trump’s declaration that it is the policy of the U.S. to promote energy production and exploration on federal lands and waters.
It would require agency heads to review all regulations restricting domestic energy production and use and implement plans to roll back or alter those regulations.
By putting these measures into law, the Republican-controlled Congress would be undermining the climate change movement, which the Democratic Party has championed.
Oil drilling in the Alaska
Mr. Trump’s order to fully use Alaska’s ample natural resources is part of the House Republican package. It codifies the Trump administration’s rollback of policies implemented since January 2021 that restrict resource development on federal and state lands in Alaska, including the 19-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Oil and gas drilling in ANWR has been hotly debated for decades. The region is potentially a massive resource for oil and gas, but environmentalists warn that energy development would threaten diverse wildlife and indigenous communities.
The bill would also codify Mr. Trump’s order to expedite the permitting, leasing and infrastructure projects critical for developing Alaska’s resources, particularly its liquefied natural gas industry and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.
Garden of American Heroes
The bill includes Mr. Trump’s order to build a National Garden of American Heroes, a project first ordered in the first Trump administration and intended to be part of America’s 250th anniversary celebration next year.
President Biden canceled construction of the Garden of American Heroes, which is envisioned as a sculpture garden of 250 life-size statues of people who have contributed to American history.
The legislation would appropriate $40 million to establish and maintain the statuary park. It would also authorize spending a total of $150 million on events, celebrations and activities commemorating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.
