Executive Orders

Making good on a popular campaign pledge, President Obama will sign an executive order Monday rescinding restrictions on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research, administration officials said Friday -- instantly making hundreds of millions of new dollars available for the controversial science.

Faced with a new federal policy that opens the door for more embryonic stem cell research, conservatives have geared up for a political battle at the national and state levels that goes to the core of their beliefs about the sanctity of human life. Since President Obama lifted the eight-year ban on nearly all federal funding for stem cell research this week, conservative leaders have stepped up efforts to lobby Congress to preserve some restrictions, they said.

In one of his first acts as president, Barack Obama is planning to lift a rule that prevents federal money from going to international family planning groups that counsel women on abortion or perform the procedure. Obama's repeal of the abortion aid policy is one of several executive actions he will take soon after his inauguration today, according to Obama transition aides. He is also considering lifting Bush administration restrictions on federally funded stem cell research.

Texas on Friday became the first state to require school-age girls to be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted virus that has been shown to cause cervical cancer. Gov. Rick Perry signed an executive order mandating that most girls, starting in September 2008, receive the vaccination against the human papillomavirus before entering sixth grade. More than a dozen states, including California, have been considering such a move.

When Texas Gov. Rick Perry ordered that all of the state's middle-school-aged girls be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, the backlash was swift and sure. Critics argued that the executive order promoted promiscuity, trampled on parental rights and subjected children to a new vaccine with unknown long-term effects. Texas lawmakers, unhappy that Perry sidestepped their authority, pushed a bill through committee that would rescind the mandate.

Texas lawmakers rejected Gov. Rick Perry's anti-cancer vaccine order Wednesday, sending him a bill that blocks state officials from requiring the shots for at least four years. Perry has said he is disappointed but has not indicated whether he will veto the bill. He has 10 days to sign or veto it, or the proposal will become law without his signature. Lawmakers can override a veto with a two-thirds vote. The legislation passed by well over that margin in both chambers. Republican Rep.

The governor on Monday closed the loophole in state law that allowed the Virginia Tech gunman to buy weapons despite a court ruling that he was a threat and needed psychiatric counseling. Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine issued an executive order requiring that a database of people banned from buying guns include the name of anyone who is found to be dangerous and ordered to get involuntary mental health treatment, whether inpatient or outpatient.

The White House said Friday that, like Vice President Dick Cheney's office, President Bush's office is not allowing an independent federal watchdog to oversee its handling of classified national security information. An executive order that Bush issued in March 2003 -- amending an existing order -- requires all government agencies that are part of the executive branch to submit to oversight.

President Bush signed an order Friday that clears the way for the CIA to resume some of the harsh interrogation methods it has used against terrorism suspects, but the order prohibits techniques that had caused an international outcry, including sexual humiliation and the denigration of religious symbols.

The nation's spy chief, appearing Sunday in a rare broadcast interview, would not identify what CIA interrogators are allowed to do in getting information from terrorism suspects, but he tried to assure critics that torture was not used or condoned. National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," defended a new order from President Bush that broadly outlines the limits of how suspects may be questioned in the CIA's terrorism interrogation program.