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The Washington Post's Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker broke some news Sunday night: President Trump is launching top adviser Jared Kushner on a campaign to create a more efficient, business-like11 federal government.

And the White House has an illustrative metaphor for it: a SWAT team. Here's the crux:

The White House Office of American Innovation, to be led by Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law and senior adviser, will operate as its own nimble power center within the West Wing and will report directly to Trump. Viewed internally as a SWAT team of strategic consultants, the office will be staffed by former business executives and is designed to infuse fresh thinking into Washington, float above the daily political grind and create a lasting legacy for a president still searching for signature achievements.

If you think you've heard this idea before, it's because you have.

Back in 2008, candidate Barack Obama plotted a pretty similar effort complete with the SWAT metaphor and all. Here's how the campaign described it:

Barack Obama and Joe Biden will create a focused team within the White House that will work with agency leaders and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to improve results and outcomes for federal government programs while eliminating waste and inefficiency. This unit, a SWAT team, will be composed of top-performing and highly-trained government professionals and be headed by a new Chief Performance Officer (CPO) who will report directly to the president. The CPO will work with federal agencies to set tough performance targets and hold managers responsible for progress. The president will meet regularly with cabinet officers to review the progress their agencies are making toward meeting performance improvement targets.

There are some differences, of course. The Obama effort seemed more narrowly tailored, while Trump's is focused on potentially privatizing government functions. But the overall goal is the same: a more businesslike, accountable federal government. And for that, they apparently both needed the SWAT team.

President Trump met with retail executives, Feb. 15, at the White House. (The Washington Post)

Business executive Jeffrey D. Zients, who would later head up the Office of Management and Budget and Obama's National Economic Council, was chosen to be this chief performance officer the Kushner role, essentially and confirmed in June 2009. And PolitiFact notes that hisoffice was pretty busy.

Oh, and then there was Hillary Clinton's education SWAT team, which she discussed in a March 2016 debate with Sen. Bernie Sanders as a way to deal with another form of struggling and inefficient government bureaucracy: schools.

Number three, I want to set-up inside the Department of Education, for want of a better term, kind of an education SWATteam, if you will, she said. Where we've got qualified people, teachers, principals, maybe folks who are retired, maybe folks who are active, but all of whom are willing to come and help.

And there was President George W. Bush's financial crimes SWAT team to root out white-collar crime in 2002. And there was President George H.W. Bush's SWAT team for collecting billions in unpaid government debts identified by OMB.

It was even identified as such in official White House documents, perAndrew Rudalevige, a contributor Bowdoin College professor and contribute to The Post's Monkey Cage blog:

Back in 1993, when he was President Bill Clinton's nominee to lead OMB, then-Rep. Leon Panetta explained why he wasn't a fan of such a SWAT team approach:

I think we all recognize that the SWAT team approach is a symptom of management problems, not a way in itself to ensure good management. While SWAT teams may be necessary in the future, our goal should be to establish better management procedures which make it possible to discover problems early and to provide for comprehensive remedies. ...If confirmed, I would take a careful look at these alternative approaches, but I would not hesitate to use SWAT teams in extreme cases.

The tradition continues.

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Trump's government efficiency 'SWAT team' sounds like Obama's government efficiency 'SWAT team' - Washington Post

New York Times

GOP, Once Unified Against Obama, Struggles for Consensus Under Trump New York Times For eight years, those divisions were often masked by Republicans' shared antipathy toward President Barack Obama. Now, as the party struggles to adjust to the post-Obama political order, it is facing a nagging question: How do you hold together when ... GOP in charge after 8 years of Obama, struggles to govern early in Trump eraMLive.com National (US) Poll - March 23, 2017 - U.S. Voters Oppose GOP Health | Quinnipiac University ConnecticutQuinnipiac University Poll all 5,248 news articles »

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GOP, Once Unified Against Obama, Struggles for Consensus Under Trump - New York Times

After retiring, someformer presidents dedicate their time to apolitical, benevolent causes, such asGeorge W. Bush's returnto Texas totake up painting.Then there is former President Barack Obama, who is focusing his retirement on redrawing the battle lines of American democracy.

The 44th Commander in Chiefis honing in on redistricting reform: redrawing political districtlines so that they are more representative of the people who live there.

"Democrats have to be clear on the given population distribution across the country," Obama said in his first post-election news conference, "We have to show up everywhere. We have to work at a grass-roots level, something that's been a running thread in my career."

To help do this, before leaving office Obama created the National Democratic Redistricting Committeeand namedformer U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder as its chairman.Earlier Saturday Kelly Ward, former executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee,was picked to lead the group as an interim Executive Director.

According to the NDRC website, Republican gerrymanderingafter the 2010 census put Democrats at a disadvantage.Holdersays on the site that "The biggest rigged system in America is gerrymandering."

To redraw the maps, the NDRC will focus on winning elections that impact redistricting, winning legal battles in state and federal courtand sponsoring ballot initiatives.

"American voters deserve fair maps that represent their diverse communitiesand we need a coordinated stragey to make that happen." Holder told Politico, adding"This unprecedented new effort will ensure Democrats have a seat at the table to create fairer maps after 2020."

As ATTN: reported last month, districts drawn by Republicans in Texas have already been found guilty of gerrymandering, and four of the nine House seats that Democrats picked up in 2016 were from distracts that were redistricted, according to Politico.

Up first: Thegovernor's race in Virginia, where Holder rallied support this week to hold on to the governor's seaton the 2017 ballot.

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Obama's Retirement Is Totally Different From Every Other President - ATTN (blog)

With the stroke of his pen, Trump will stop government contractors from having to report labor law violations, scale back federal control on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and void rules that looked to set federal standards for teacher training.

Trump campaigned on ending government regulations and signed an executive order in January that looked to scale back government rules by requiring agencies to slash two regulations for every one new rule.

"This isn't a knock on President Obama," Trump said in January when he signed the executive order. "This is a knock on many presidents preceding me. It's a knock on everybody."

This legislation, HJ Resolution 37, voids an executive order Obama signed in August that looked to protect government contractors by requiring employers to disclose labor law violations, including wage theft, unsafe working conditions and hiring discrimination.

The rollback was sponsored by Rep. Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican who argued the rule had the potential to blacklist some government contractors.

Foxx said that the rule allowed the Labor Department to deny business to contractors based on "alleged" violations.

"Under this rule, bureaucrats can determine employers are guilty until proven innocent and then deny them the ability to do business with the federal government," Foxx said.

The White House said in a February statement that Trump intended to sign the bill.

"The administration strongly supports the actions taken by the House to begin to nullify unnecessary regulations imposed on America's businesses," read the statement of administration policy.

This bill, HJ Resolution 44, sponsored by Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, looks to halt an Obama administration plan for the millions of aces managed by the Bureau of Land Management, especially those concentrated in the Western United States.

The plan was drawn up, the bureau said in December, in an attempt to use more data when deciding whether to allow logging, mining and other commercial uses on federal land. It also looked to reduce the amount of time required to decide what to do with federal lands.

"Under the current system, it takes an average of eight years for the BLM to finish a land use plan," Bureau of Land Management Director Neil Kornze said in December. "This update to our planning rule allows for a more streamlined process that also increases collaboration and transparency."

Critics of the rule -- known at "Planning 2.0" -- said the rules would minimize local input in land management and stymie public comment, while giving the federal government more authority on what to do with the space.

"Planning 2.0 dilutes local and state voices and centralizes power here in Washington, DC," Rep. Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican, said in a speech about the plan.

The White House signaled in February that it intended to approve the bill to void the Obama-era rule.

"Given its regional approach to planning, the administration believes the rule does not adequately serve the State and local communities' interests and could potentially dilute their input in planning decisions," the statement said.

These bills, HJ Resolutions 57 and 58, nullify education rules outlined by the Obama administration near the end of 2016 that Republicans argued took control out of the hands of states and localities while also burdening states with requirements on data collection and teacher training.

"While school accountability is important, the administration is committed to local control of education and this rule places additional burden on states and constrains them in areas where the ESSA intended broad flexibility," the White House said in their statement.

The Obama administration said at the time that both the rules would push the United States education system past former President George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" education reform bill.

Trump signaled during the 2016 campaign that he wanted states to have more control in how they structure their education system and the two laws look to do just that.

"The purpose of the resolution under consideration is simple: Reining in the federal role in education and protecting the state and local control promised to students, parents, and education leaders," Rep. Brett Guthrie, a Texas Republican, said about the bill he sponsored to roll back the rule.

CNN's Allie Malloy contributed to this report.

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Trump tries to make good on promises to roll back Obama-era regulations - CNN

President Donald Trump is set to sign a sweeping executive order on Tuesday aimed at promoting domestic oil, coal and natural gas by reversing much of his predecessors efforts to address climate change-- prompting warnings the action will undermine U.S. leadership on the issue.

The document lays out a broad blueprint for the Trump administration to dismantle the architecture that former President Barack Obama built to combat the phenomenon, according to details shared with Bloomberg News. Some of the changes would happen immediately, while others would take years to complete.

"Hes trying to undo more than a decade of progress in fighting climate change and protecting public health, David Doniger, director of the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an email. But nobody voted to abandon Americas leadership in climate action and the clean-energy revolution. This radical retreat will meet a great wall of opposition.

The order will compel federal agencies to quickly identify any actions that could burden the production or use of domestic energy resources, including nuclear power, and then work to suspend, revise or rescind the policies unless they are legally mandated, are necessary for the public interest or promote development.

It also will toss out two Obama-era directives that gave consideration of climate change a prominent role in federal rule making. One advised government agencies to factor climate change into environmental reviews, such as those governing where oil drilling should take place. The other, called the social cost of carbon, is a metric reflecting the potential economic damage from climate change that was used by the Obama administration to justify a suite of regulations.

This is about making sure that we have a pro-growth and pro-environment approach to how we do regulation in this country, Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said on ABCs "This Week program on Sunday.

Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, has vowed to reorient the government so that U.S. oil and coal producers thrive and steel and auto manufacturers dont face job-killing restrictions. The coming order underscores Trumps commitment to make good on his campaign promises, which helped propel him to victory in industrial strongholds such as West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The details shared with Bloomberg News reflected the latest draft of the White House order and could change before the announcement, which Pruitt said would happen Tuesday.

Some analysts question whether reversing the rules can save coal miner jobs. Killing the Clean Power Plan is not enough to spark a coal revival and avert a wave of planned retirements of power plants using the fossil fuel, said Kevin Book, an analyst with Washington-based research firm ClearView Energy.

"Even without the Clean Power Plan, there are still 14 gigawatts of coal retirements related to" a mercury pollution rule "and market dynamics waiting in the wings," Book said.

While the White House order will make clear that the target of the planned regulatory rollback should be on policies curbing the production of oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear energy, it also will say the U.S. is well served when affordable, reliable and clean electricity is produced from an array of sources, including solar, wind and hydropower.

The order also is set to include a targeted assault on a handful of specific Obama-era regulations. It will require the Interior Department to lift a moratorium on the sale of new coal leases on federal land and compel the EPA to review, and, if appropriate, begin proceedings to suspend, revise or rescind regulations designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

Obamas Clean Power Plan was designed to cut carbon dioxide emissions from electricity by 32 percent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. The initiative has been in legal limbo since the Supreme Court stayed it while it was reviewed by a federal appeals court. The Trump administration now is expected ask that court to put the matter on hold to allow it time to revise or undo the measure -- an action environmentalists have vowed to challenge.

Other policies in the cross hairs: an EPA rule setting requirements for greenhouse gas emissions for construction of new power plants and an Interior Department regulation setting mandates on hydraulic fracturing of oil and gas wells on federal lands. The Interior Departments Bureau of Land Management said earlier this month it would begin the process to rescind the regulation, which requires companies to disclose the chemicals they pump underground and to seal off waste water in storage tanks.

Trumps executive order also is set to revoke six specific directives from his predecessor, including Obamas broad strategy for paring emissions of methane released from oil and gas operations. Other Obama directives targeted for repeal include one on climate change and national security, as well as a pair of directives from June 2013 that laid out his climate plans.

The Obama administration wove climate considerations into decisions across the federal bureaucracy, from efficiency standards for microwave ovens to the refurbishing of government buildings.

The changes may have little immediate impact on the market for coal, which is facing stiff competition from cheaper natural gas and renewable energy, analysts say.

Even before the Obama administration imposed the coal-leasing moratorium in January 2016, producers had little interest in adding new federal reserves to their portfolios amid slumping domestic demand. The U.S. government has sold just one coal leases since October 2012, though earlier this month it approved a transaction originally sought in 2005. Existing federal leases contain at least 20 years worth of coal, according to Interior Department estimates.

Even without the EPAs Clean Power Plan in force because of the Supreme Court stay, using coal to generate electricity has been in decline as a result of previous pollution regulations and competition from low-cost natural gas, solar and wind.

The removal of the Clean Power Plan could halt coals decline as a source of electricity during the next two decades, according to projections from the Energy Information Administration. More coal use would mean less natural gas use, EIA said.

Trumps action sets in motion at least a year of bureaucratic work at the EPA to formally dismantle the Clean Power Plan. And whatever happens will inevitably be challenged in court by those same environmental groups.

By contrast, the Interior Department can undo the coal leasing moratorium with the stroke of a pen, the same way it was imposed a year ago, under an administrative order issued by former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.

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Trumps targets would also reduce the role of climate change in government decision-making. For instance, the social cost of carbon metric served as the linchpin for many Obama administration environmental rules. Critics say the number -- now nearly $40 for every metric ton of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere -- gives artificial precision to uncertain conditions nearly 300 years in the future.

According to shared details of the executive order, the Trump administration will disband the working group that created the social cost of carbon and return to an earlier 2003 approach for calculating the costs and benefits of proposed regulations.

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Trump to Issue Far-Reaching Reversal of Obama Climate Push - Bloomberg