Joe Biden’s actions in his first 100 days as president will ripple across the U.S. economy, including major industries — but how far he can push his agenda will depend on who’s in charge of Congress.
Senate control is still undecided ahead of a pair of Georgia runoff elections on Jan. 5, and a divided Congress would limit the new president’s reach. If bipartisan compromise proves fruitless, there’s still plenty that Biden can do by executive order to achieve campaign promises and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic that continues to hammer the U.S. economy. The Democratic president-elect has already suggested some steps he’d take unilaterally.
Here’s a look at some key sectors and how they could be impacted by Biden’s first 100 days — with or without a Democratic majority on Capitol Hill.
COVID-19 AND MEDICAL COVERAGE
Biden promised in a Dec. 8 speech to focus on three goals in his first 100 days as he addresses the COVID crisis — “masking, vaccinations, opening schools.”
He said he’ll encourage Americans to wear face masks for 100 days as well as require coverings in places where he has that power, such as federal buildings.
The president-elect also said he’s aiming to get “at least 100 million COVID vaccine shots into the arms of the American people in the first 100 days,” and he pledged to have “the majority” of schools open by the end of his first 100 days — “if Congress provides the funding we need to protect students, educators and staff, if states and cities put strong public-health measures in place that we all follow.”
The authorization of the first COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S. looks like it could come within days, as a regulatory meeting on Thursday served as a final step before that decision for the candidate from Pfizer PFE, -0.29% and BioNTech BNTX, +5.48%.
Also: When can I get a COVID-19 vaccine? Your questions, answered
Beyond the coronavirus crisis, Biden’s agenda for health care has long centered on building on Obamacare, meaning the Affordable Care Act that overhauled the U.S. health-care system XLV, -0.17% a decade ago, when he was serving as former President Barack Obama’s vice president.
But Biden may be only able to make “incremental ACA policy changes via administrative and regulatory authorities” given expectations that Republicans could keep their grip on the Senate, said Kim Monk, an analyst and managing director at Capital Alpha Partners, in a note. Republicans need to win just one of Georgia’s two Senate runoffs to maintain control of the chamber.
Biden’s Obamacare-related moves could include redirecting funds to enrollment and outreach, implementing a national special enrollment period in response to COVID, and reversing Trump regulations that are friendly to shorter-term plans that critics deride as “junk insurance,” according to Monk.
She also sees the 46th president potentially undoing a Trump policy that looks set to lead to subsidized enrollees having to pay more toward their premiums, and she expects him to make an effort to eliminate exemptions to Obamacare’s contraceptive-coverage mandate.
ENERGY AND CLIMATE
Biden has made combating climate change one of his top issues, and the new president is expected to move quickly in this area by immediately rejoining the Paris climate accord that Trump abandoned and holding a climate summit in the first 100 days.
Also on the near-term horizon, according to Beacon Policy Advisors research analyst Charlotte Jenkins: banning new fracking on federal lands, instituting tighter fuel-economy standards and clamping down on methane emissions.
Read next: Biden has a climate-change mandate — what can he actually achieve?
The fracking ban could have a small impact, Jenkins suggests, as just 11% of U.S. natural-gas production is done on those lands. And stricter methane rules could in fact give the energy industry XLE, +3.07% a boost, she notes.
“Tighter methane rules may actually help the industry, because they will facilitate sales to Europe,” said Jenkins. “European countries are really prioritizing climate, and they want clean natural gas.”
Biden suggested other executive actions on energy in an interview with NBC News. “I will also be moving to do away with some of the, I think, very damaging executive orders that have significantly impacted on making the climate worse and making us less healthy, from methane to a whole range of things the president has done,” he said.
Jenkins said if Democrats don’t have the majority in the Senate after the Georgia elections, she still expects Biden to work with renewable energy-friendly Republicans on efforts to reduce climate change. At minimum, she expects Biden will try legislatively to extend expiring tax credits for wind FAN, -0.10% and solar TAN, +2.24% energy.
Also read: Federal Reserve steps up climate-change response and gets immediate backlash from some House Republicans.
FINANCIAL REGULATION AND STUDENT DEBT
Biden in his first 100 days isn’t expected to put a high priority on financial XLF, +0.17% regulation. Still, says Aaron Klein, director of the Center on Regulation and Markets at the Brookings Institution, the new president can make some key decisions early on.
“The most important thing he can do in the first 100 days in financial regulation is assemble his team,” Klein told MarketWatch. Klein called a new head of the Securities and Exchange Commission “critically important” and predicted that there could be an acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Day One or shortly thereafter. “Personnel is policy,” said Klein, who also said he’d be watching for how quickly the Biden team could process any new COVID stimulus payments to consumers or businesses.
See: From climate change to free-trading apps, brace for an aggressive SEC under Biden, experts say
“The federal government took weeks and months to get the first round of stimulus checks out,” Klein said. “Is the Biden team going to lay the groundwork to get the money out faster than the Trump team did?”
On student debt, meanwhile, Biden has said he wants to erase some of it “immediately.” Whether Biden would do so through executive action or legislation, however, remains to be seen. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said the new president could forgive up to $50,000 in student debt per borrower on Day One in office. For now, Biden hasn’t tipped his hand on what action he’d take.
BIG TECH
Washington had Big Tech in its crosshairs during Trump’s time in office, and the scrutiny of Facebook FB, -0.29%, Amazon AMZN, -0.09%, Google GOOG, -0.49% GOOGL, -0.57%, Apple AAPL, +1.20% and other giants isn’t expected to stop during Biden’s presidency, though he’ll be limited if Republicans stay in charge of the Senate.
Related: Big Tech exhales — lack of ‘blue wave’ allays investors’ fears
The veteran politician will enter the White House on the heels of the Federal Trade Commission and 48 attorneys general filing antitrust lawsuits against Facebook, and the Department of Justice charging Alphabet’s Google with antitrust violations.
See: Facebook hit with antitrust suits that seek to ‘unwind’ Instagram, WhatsApp acquisitions
Also: Google officially charged with antitrust by Justice Department
“Biden will largely let the DOJ and FTC take the reins on Big Tech antitrust enforcement,” said Height Capital Markets analyst Chase White in a note. He added that Biden’s DOJ and FTC look more likely to pursue companies in court rather than rely on consent decrees, and that likely “draws out the ultimate outcomes for Big Tech antitrust cases and could potentially prove to be a setback for Democratic antitrust ambitions if the courts side with Big Tech companies, as this would set precedents that make pursuing other cases tougher going forward and embolden the companies.”
Related: Big Tech’s antitrust woes will continue to grow, but will it actually matter?
Opinion: Don’t get too excited about Facebook spinning off Instagram or WhatsApp in antitrust flap
Besides monopoly concerns, Washington has been targeting Silicon Valley companies over how they handle people’s personal data. Democratic politicians also often have blasted tech giants for how they deal with misinformation on their platforms, while Republicans frequently have argued the platforms are biased against conservatives and have threatened to scrap their “Section 230” protections from legal liability.
But Height’s White is among the analysts who don’t expect much accomplished on those issues in the near term.
“Given the different views between Democrats and Republicans on key tenets of data privacy legislation, such as whether the federal law should supersede state laws, we expect the impasse that has persisted throughout Trump’s term to continue for the foreseeable future,” the analyst said. In addition, he predicted that “significant changes to Section 230 are unlikely for the foreseeable future given there’s generally very little agreement between Democrats and Republicans (or even intraparty) on what changes should be made.”
And read: Incoming White House chief of staff Klain has ties to tech world
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