President Donald Trump has spent his first few days in office pushing forward his energy priorities, rolling back efforts to expand free trade and restricting agency communications with the public, and the response from business groups and professional societies has been mixed.

On Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order that could eventually allow energy projects such as the Keystone XL and the Dakota Access pipelines to move forward. Both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable praised the decision, with the latter calling it a victory for the nation's economy.

"The President's decision is a major victory for workers and American families who will benefit from the jobs and economic growth that will surely follow the new North American oil that the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines are expected to deliver to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries," Nicholas Akins, chair of BRT's Committee on Energy and Environment, said in a statement.

BRT was less enthusiastic about Trump's decision to kill the Trans-Pacific Partnership once and for all. The president has also said he will seek to "renegotiate" the North American Free Trade Agreement to get a better deal for American workers, and that stance has worried agriculture groups whose members have benefited from the lowering of trade barriers.

"Trade is vital to the success of our nation's farmers and ranchers," American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall said. "More than 25 percent of all U.S. ag production ultimately goes to markets outside our borders."

One move in recent days that has alarmed scientific societies is a new policy preventing federal scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Agriculture from communicating directly to the public and the media. Rush Holt, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, noted many federal agencies have policies explicitly preventing political interference in the dissemination of scientific findings.

"As the AAAS Council stated in 2006: Censorship, intimidation, or other restriction on the freedom of scientists employed or funded by governmental organizations to communicate their unclassified scientific findings and assessments not only to each other but also to policymakers and to the public is inimical to the advance of science and its appropriate application in the policy domain," he said.

The American Meteorological Society also recently weighed in by "readopting" its official statement on freedom of scientific expression.

"Already the new administration is restraining communications from government agencies related to the weather, water and climate community. In several instances in recent years, government agencies and elected officials of both major political parties have attempted to obstruct or inhibit the work of scientists," AMS said in a statement. "In response, AMS wrote to remind those officials of the need for free scientific expression."

(The USDA order had reportedly been rescinded as of Wednesday morning, but the EPA order remains in effect.)

Another recent action concerning scientific and public health groups was the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's sudden decision to cancel a February conference about the possible effect of climate change on human health. Georges Benjamin, executive director at the American Public Health Association, was scheduled to be a keynote speaker at the event.

"This was a preemptive decision on the part of CDC in light of the perspective of the new administration toward climate change," Benjamin told the news site Vox. "It is unusual to do this, but the incoming administration has been so openly opposed to climate change work that it seemed prudent." http://bit.ly/2jRnvuG

Then there was the announcement by Trump that he planned to launch a "major investigation" into his unsubstantiated claim that 3 to 5 million votes were illegally cast in last year's elections, costing him the popular vote. The National Association of Secretaries of State was quick to issue a statement that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, "but we are open to learning more about the administration's concerns."

"In the lead-up to the November 2016 election, secretaries of state expressed their confidence in the systemic integrity of our election process as a bipartisan group, and they stand behind that statement today," the association said.

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