如同唐纳德·特朗普总统在他任职的最后几周保持低调，在幕后，政府正在努力巩固他的遗产，履行竞选承诺，并彻底修改可能会让当选总统下台的联邦法规乔·拜登需要几年才能恢复。
“我认为从现在到1月20日会有很多事情发生，很多事情，”特朗普在周日的椭圆形办公室露面时断言感恩节。
从移居在环境保护方面，特朗普政府正悄悄推动敲定三十多项可能在未来几年产生重大影响的规则变化。
“我们叫他们午夜规则。这是特朗普政府转变为拜登政府之前，将这些规则写进书里的最后一次机会在线数据库跟踪非营利新闻网站的待定条例。“它们可以逆转，但不容易。”
其中包括根据就业歧视法对联邦承包商的宗教豁免;淋浴头和洗衣机的水效率标准更宽松;更严格的食品券资格，即使数百万在大流行中失业的人向政府寻求帮助。
“政府的最后几天显然非常重要，想把事情做好是很自然的，”卡罗尔·布朗纳说，她是克林顿政府八年来的前环境保护局局长，也是巴拉克·奥巴马总统过渡团队的前成员，也是第一位气候沙皇。
“但你没有自由去做，不管你愿不愿意。有法律，有科学，有过程，”布朗纳说。
专家表示，到目前为止，第11小时监管变化的原始数据似乎与奥巴马政府最后几周发生的情况持平。但一些政策倡导者和独立监管者担心，仓促的程序将损害合法性和公共安全。
许多最重要的最后一刻的法规都集中在环境和科学政策上，包括一项有争议的努力，禁止环保局使用任何没有完全披露所有基础原始数据的科学研究。它的捍卫者称之为走向透明的一步，而批评家称之为审查。
对…的研究污染的影响例如，在人类生活中，通常依赖于敏感的个人医疗数据，而患者不希望公开披露这些数据。
布朗纳说:“你根本无法获得环境保护局做出决定所需的科学质量，这是他们代表污染者采取的非常非常有意的行动，这是为了限制科学，从而限制环境保护局做出最明智决定的能力。”
特朗普政府还在竞相拍卖北极国家野生动物保护区的钻探权——拜登强烈反对这一举措——目的是让下一届政府更难放弃扩大石油和天然气开发。
布朗纳说:“租约签订的程度可能会让你不得不回购。“但希望现实是，我们能够继续保护这些已经被保护了数百年的地区。”
总统还试图进一步巩固他的镇压移民。在最后几周，他在公民身份测试中增加了八个新问题，并试图让高技能外国工人更难获得签证。
无党派倡导组织全国移民论坛(National Import Forum)的主席兼首席执行官阿里·努拉尼(Ali Noorani)表示:“在就职典礼前的最后一刻，特朗普政府正在尽一切努力使合法移民越来越接近最低限度。”“它正在加大执法力度，并尽一切努力完成检查这些箱子，让拜登政府尽可能难以重建国家的移民系统。”
在外交政策上，特朗普突然大幅减少驻伊拉克和阿富汗的美军人数，最多不超过2500名美国军人预计到今年年底在每个国家。虽然撤军是2016年竞选的一个关键承诺，但专家表示，这一迟来的举动使拜登处于一个困难的境地，需要在第一个任期的早期决定是否将军队重新部署到战区。
即将离任的前总统乔治·沃克·布什(George W. Bush)也面临类似的情况，尤其是在2008年底，他在是否批准向阿富汗增兵的问题上，听从了继任者奥巴马的意见。
特朗普还采取措施，正式关闭了一项他长期批评的长达20年的条约，退出了上个月允许美国和俄罗斯进行相互监视飞行以建立信任的《开放天空条约》。批评人士说，此举是给俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京的礼物。
特朗普在5月份表示:“俄罗斯没有遵守该条约，所以在他们遵守之前，我们将退出。”。
“问题是，如果我们不遵守自己的条约，如果我们不承认和支持自己的条约，那么国际社会中谁会想在未来与我们合作?”曾在2011年监督击毙奥萨马·本·拉登的突袭行动的退役上将比尔·麦克雷文说。
特朗普的一些最终行政行动将产生永久影响。
司法部正在赶在拜登有机会重新暂停死刑之前，尽可能多地处决联邦死囚。
今年到目前为止，已经有八名联邦囚犯被处决，这是一个多世纪以来的最高水平，还有五名囚犯将在下个月的就职日之前被处决。
“这些联邦处决的速度没有历史先例，”独立的、无党派的死刑信息中心的执行主任罗伯特·邓纳姆说。“在过渡时期最后一次处决一个以上的人，让我们回到19世纪80年代末格罗弗·克利夫兰的第一任总统任期。”
特朗普政府在晚期规则变化中，也在如何杀人方面给予刽子手更大的灵活性。
“这项规定将允许他们毫无异议地使用任何它想使用的致命注射方法，”邓纳姆说。
与此同时，特朗普继续创纪录地终身任命联邦法院法官，打破了123年的先例，在连任失败后寻求参议院确认更多法官。
“一般来说，一旦选举发生，确认会一直持续到下一届国会，”独立司法监督机构宪法法院的执行董事加布·罗斯说。“现在很难确切知道这些特朗普任命的法官将产生什么影响，但我们知道这将是巨大的，将是巨大的，将是一代人的。”
特朗普的一些最终法案在法庭上面临挑战，如果民主党赢得参议院控制权，可能会快速废除最近定稿的法规。但专家表示，大多数政策变化不会轻易撤销。
“你必须从头再来一遍整个规则制定过程，这需要多年时间和大量资源，而且设计起来很麻烦，”阿恩斯多夫说。
这一过程提醒人们，总统的权力可以对美国产生持久的影响，直到白宫换届的最后一刻。
In race to cement legacy, Trump pushes dozens of 'midnight regulations'
AsPresident Donald Trumpkeeps a lower profile during his final weeks in office, behind the scenes the administration is racing to solidify his legacy, fulfill campaign promises and overhaul federal regulations that could take President-electJoe Bidenyears to undo.
"I think that there will be a lot of things happening between now and the 20th of January, a lot of things," Trump asserted in an Oval Office appearance onThanksgiving.
Fromimmigrationto environmental protections, the Trump administration is quietly pushing to finalize more than three dozen rule changes that could have significant impact for years.
"We call them'midnight regulations.'It's the last chance to put these rules on the books before the Trump administration changes to the Biden administration," said ProPublica investigative reporter Isaac Arnsdorf who has created anonline database trackingthe pending regulations for the nonprofit news site. "They can be reversed, but not easily."
They include religious exemptions for federal contractors under employment discrimination laws; looser water efficiency standards for shower heads and washing machines; and stricter eligibility for food stamps, even as millions out of work in the pandemic look to the government for help.
"The final days of an administration are obviously hugely important, and it's just natural to want to get things done," said Carol Browner, former EPA administrator during all eight years of the Clinton administration and also a former member of President Barack Obama's transition team and firstclimate czar.
"But you're not free to just do it willy nilly. There's the law, there's the science, there's the process," Browner said.
Experts said the raw number of 11th-hour regulatory changes appears, so far, to be on par with what occurred during the final weeks of the Obama administration. But some policy advocates and independent watchdogs worry the rushed process will compromise legality and public safety.
Many of the most significant last-minute regulations are focused on environmental and scientific policy, including a controversial effort to ban EPA use of any scientific study that doesn't fully disclose all of the underlying raw data. Its defenders call it a step toward transparency, while critics call it censorship.
Studies on theimpact of pollutionon human life, for example, often rely on sensitive personal medical data, which patients don't want publicly disclosed.
"You will simply not get the quality of science that EPA needs to make decisions, and this is a very, very intentional move on their part, on behalf of polluters, which is to limit the science and therefore limit the ability of EPA to make the smartest decision," said Browner.
The Trump administration is also racing to auction off drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- a move strongly opposed by Biden -- with an aim of making it much more difficult for the next administration to turn back from expanded oil and gas development.
"The degree to which the leases have been entered into you might have to buy them back," said Browner. "But hopefully the reality is we can continue to protect these areas that have been protected for hundreds of years now."
The president is also attempting to further cement hiscrackdown on immigration. In his final weeks, he's added eight new questions to the citizenship test and tried to make it harder for high-skilled foreign workers to get visas.
"In this last-minute rush before the inauguration the Trump administration is doing everything they can to bring legal immigration closer and closer to the bare minimum," said Ali Noorani, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum, a nonpartisan advocacy group. "It is ramping up enforcement actions, and really trying to do everything they can to finish checking those boxes and make it as hard as possible for the Biden administration to rebuild the nation's immigration system."
On foreign policy, Trump is abruptly and sharply reducing the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, with no more than2,500 American service membersexpected in each country by the end of the year. While the pullout was a key 2016 campaign promise, experts said the late move puts Biden in the difficult spot of needing to decide whether to redeploy troops back into theater early in his first term.
Outgoing former President George W. Bush, in a similar situation, notably deferred to his successor, Obama, in late 2008 on whether to approve a troop surge in Afghanistan.
Trump has also taken steps to formally shut the door on a two-decade-old treaty he has long criticized, pulling out of the "Open Skies Treaty" last month which had allowed U.S. and Russia to conduct mutual surveillance flights to build trust. Critics say the move is a gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"Russia didn't adhere to the treaty, so until they adhere, we will pull out," Trump said in May.
"The problem is if we don't abide by our own treaties, if we don't recognize and support our own treaties, then who in the international community is going to want to partner with us in the future?" said retired Adm. Bill McCraven, who oversaw the raid to kill Osama bin Laden in 2011.
Some of Trump's final executive actions will have permanent impact.
The Justice Department is rushing to execute as many federal death row inmates as possible before Biden has a chance to reimpose a death penalty moratorium.
Eight federal inmates have been executed so far this year -- the most in more than a century -- with five more slated for death before Inauguration Day next month.
"The pace of these federal executions has no historical precedent," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the independent, nonpartisan Death Penalty Information Center. "The last time more than one person was executed during a transition period takes us back to Grover Cleveland's first presidency in the end of the 1880s."
The Trump administration, in a late-term rule change, is also giving executioners greater flexibility in how they kill.
"The regulation will allow them, without challenge, to use whatever method of lethal injection that it wants to use," Dunham said.
Meanwhile, Trump continues with a record number of lifetime appointments to federal courts, breaking with 123 years of precedent by pursuing Senate confirmation of even more judges after losing reelection.
"Generally once an election occurs, confirmations stop until the next Congress," said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, an independent judicial watchdog. "It's hard to know the impact right now exactly that these Trump-appointed judges will have, but we know it's going to be big, it's going to be huge, it's going to be generational."
Some of Trump's final acts face challenges in court, and if Democrats win control of the Senate, there could be fast-track repeals of recently finalized regulations. But experts say most of the policy changes won't be easily undone.
"You have to go through the whole rule-making process all over again, which takes multiple years and a lot of resources and is cumbersome by design," said Arnsdorf.
The process is a reminder that the power of the presidency can make a lasting impact on America up to the very last minute of a White House transition.
