Trump’s blizzard of orders gets pushback, questions from GOP lawmakers

President Trump’s blizzard of executive orders in the first few days of his presidency has sent Republican lawmakers scrambling to figure out what impact they will have on the country, and some GOP senators are already raising questions and concerns.

Republicans were surprised by Trump’s order to immediately halt the disbursement of funds under the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which they feared would stop funding for key projects in their home states.

“Some of it is not helpful,” said a senior Republican aide, who said Trump’s team would have been wise to provide more details about the scope of the orders or could have waited until some of his nominees have cleared Senate committees , before they took actions that were likely to result in legal action.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (RW.Va.), the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said her staff contacted the Trump administration immediately to find out if the order would affect funding formulas for her home state, which Trump carried with 70 percent of the vote in November.

“We have sought clarification,” she told The Hill.

Trump’s budget office later clarified that the order would not freeze funding for roads and bridges, transportation and drinking water projects.

A Senate staffer said Trump’s team needed to “clean up” what initially appeared to be an overly broad order to freeze funding.

Late. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, is concerned that Trump’s federal hiring freeze could negatively impact his administration’s ability to dramatically expand energy drilling permits in Alaska.

“It’s something I’ve tasked my team with,” she said of her efforts to determine whether a federal employment order would conflict with Trump’s order to dramatically expand drilling in her home state, which she supports.

“I have development grants, we have all these (Bureau of Land Management) people,” she said. “We need to have the people in the agencies that are going to do this to allow it, and we need more. We don’t need less.

“Our challenge has been trying to find these healthy, smart people to go into the agency in the first place. A hiring freeze, for example, on this particular aspect of it could be very problematic for the implementation of what the president is trying to do,” she said.

Other Republican senators have been scrambling to figure out whether Trump’s federal hiring moratorium will affect air traffic controllers, which could worsen travel around the country.

Trump ordered “a hiring freeze on federal civilian employees to be used throughout the executive branch,” but exempted military personnel or positions related to immigration enforcement, national security or public safety.

Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, expressed her concern about the importance of background checks when asked about Trump’s plan to give six-month security clearances without background checks to people handpicked by the White House.

Collins said she had not read the memo, but reiterated her support for carefully vetting people who get access to top-secret information.

“I think it depends on whether the individual has had (a security clearance) previously, what level it is. Certainly if we’re talking about the highest level, no, a background check is clearly required,” she said. “It might be at the sensitive level, not secret but sensitive, for someone who has had one in the past that you can do the background check at the same time.”

Late. Mark Warner (Va.), the Democratic vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called Trump’s plan to grant temporary security clearance without background checks “irresponsible.”

“There’s a reason we keep things secret,” he said. “Suddenly we’re going to get rid of any of these background checks.”

Trump’s plan to send 1,500 troops to the border is a potential concern for libertarian-leaning conservatives. While conservatives want to secure the US-Mexico border, deploying troops for what are arguably domestic law enforcement operations is a sensitive issue.

“We’re still looking at exactly what that means,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

“I think we need to secure our southern border. I’m all for it,” he said.

Paul told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” in November that he would oppose using the military to deport migrants living in the country illegally.

“It’s not that I’m against removing people, I’m just against what has been against the law for over 100 years, and that’s using the army,” he said.

Murkowski and fellow Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) were not happy with Trump’s order to rename Denali, the tallest mountain in their home state — and the Northern Hemisphere — as Mount McKinley.

Murkowski said the towering peak should retain the name Alaska’s native Koyukon Athabascans gave it thousands of years ago, Denali.

The Alaska senator said the mountain was called McKinley “for a brief moment in time” only because a “prospector” who was a fan of the president named it after him.

“It is important to note that President McKinley, either as President or as a private citizen, never set foot in the State of Alaska. It is only fitting that Denali, which means the Great One, remains the Great One. And I will work to make sure that happens,” she vowed.

Sullivan said his “preference has been to keep the name that the native people, the patriotic Athabascan people, gave thousands of years ago.”

He noted that the ordinance retains Denali as the name of the surrounding park.

Some Republican senators are asking how Trump will effectively secure the border and begin his plan to detain and deport thousands of migrants around the country without more funding from Congress.

“I think new money sooner is better. They’re telling me it’s going to take $100 billion to implement their plan,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.C.) said of the administration’s massive funding needs. “They have some money, but I’ve talked to the border people, they need more bed space, they need to hire more agents, and you won’t be able to just move money around between existing accounts.

Senate Republicans have pressed Trump to move quickly on a budget reconciliation package that would provide funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

Trump has instead sided with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who wants to hold off on the border security package until congressional negotiators finish work on a package to extend Trump’s expiring tax cuts and cut federal spending.