Trump Moves Agenda Forward Even As Russia Controversy Swirls

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Donald Trump kicked off this week looking to move past his health care debacle and on to the other items on his agenda.

But early Monday, a new cloud of suspicion moved in over the White House over its role in helping House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes access classified information that the President later claimed partially vindicated his accusation that his predecessor "wiretapped" him.

That cloud of suspicion grew darker with the disclosure of previously undisclosed meetings between the President's son-in-law and top adviser, Jared Kushner, and a Russian banker with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

More ominous still, former national security adviser Michael Flynn offered to testify before congressional panels to discuss the Russian suspicions in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

But even as the Russia controversy continued to swirl, Trump took several actions to alter US policy on regulatory, environmental and trade fronts this week -- making good on several campaign pledges.

Energy and climate change

Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order that will unwind a chunk of President Barack Obama's actions aimed at combating climate change. Trump argued the executive orders would help free up the coal industry from government regulations to help put miners "back to work."

The executive order began the process of rolling back regulations enacted by President Barack Obama under the Clean Power Plan that aimed to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The sweeping executive order was widely panned by environmental groups who sounded the alarm that it would dismantle systems put in place under Obama to aggressively address climate change. And while the order did not expressly address the Paris climate agreement, it made it made clear that the US is unlikely to meet the carbon emissions reductions the deal calls for.

Regulations

Trump also signed four bills into law that continued his administration's efforts to chip away at federal regulations.

Two of the bills nixed several federal educational standards added under the Obama administration, including accountability requirements under the Every Student Succeeds Act and requirements for new teacher training programs.

The two other bills voided a regulation that required government contractors to disclose labor violations, including wage theft, unsafe working conditions and hiring discrimination, to the federal government; and scrapped a Bureau of Land Management rule that affected how it assessed requests for commercial uses of federal lands.

The bills followed several executive orders Trump has already signed to strip down the number of government regulations.

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