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Executive Orders: Issuance and Revocation order by President George H. W. Bush to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a human fetal tissue bank for research purposes. To effectuate this repeal, Congress simply directed that the “the provisions of Executive Order 12806 shall not have any legal effect.” There have been numerous similarly revoked executive orders and proposals to revoke particular executive orders.

Additionally, Congress has used its appropriations authority to limit the effect of executive orders, such as denying salaries and expenses for an office established in an executive order, as well as denying funds to implement a particular section of a subsequently revoked executive order that would have enabled agency heads to designate a presidential appointee to serve as the agency's regulatory policy officer. Additionally, Congress has used appropriations acts to enable a program created by executive order to receive donations for publicity materials about the program. Outside of appropriations bills, other legislative proposals have included those that would codify existing executive orders with modifications.

Select Laws Concerning Executive Orders Enacted During the 111ᵗʰ Congress

The 111ᵗʰ Congress has passed several laws with provisions relating to existing executive orders. For instance, P.L. 111-5, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) transferred functions, personnel, assets, liabilities, and administrative actions that applied to the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology appointed under an executive order or the related office to the National Coordinator appointed under that law and the applicable office. Furthermore, appropriations acts, such as P.L. 111-8 and P.L. 111-117, contain several provisions on funding of various executive orders, including the provisions mentioned in the previous paragraph denying funding for sections of executive orders and enabling the receipt of donations related to executive orders. P.L. 111-8 also contains prohibitions on the use of funds to delay implementation of executive orders. Another appropriations act, P.L. 111-80, denies funding for the promulgation of proposed or final rules allowing importation of Chinese poultry products, if the rules were not issued according to the procedures for significant rules set forth in an executive order.

 5 Congressional Research Service