After Trump was elected, many Republicans changed their tune. They assumed he could swiftly reverse much of what Obama did, by reversing Obama's executive orders with orders of his own, and many pundits assumed that, too.
But it wasn't true that Obama did most of his governing by fiat, which is why Trump hasn't been able to reverse most of Obama's policies by fiat. Obama's health care and Wall Street reforms are laws enacted by Congress, and the Republican-controlled Congress has not managed to pass new laws to replace them. Obama's Clean Power Plan limiting carbon emissions was a rule enacted by the Environmental Protection Agency, so Trump's EPA will have to go through a new rule-making process to rescind or even revise it, a process cluttered with legal, scientific, and bureaucratic obstacles.
It's much harder to eliminate federal rules than it is to order reviews of federal policies, and it's even harder for the public to tell which is happening from a White House photo op. Trump did sign one order calling for a review of a specific Obama wetlands rule, trashing it at the ceremony as ”a very destructive and horrible rule." But rules are rules, so he could not simply scrap it, even though the Washington Examiner reported: ”Trump Executive Order Scraps EPA Water Rule."
