Such measures, however, face fierce opposition from business lobbies, which typically argue that the mandates put a squeeze on small businesses.
"For those organizations that have been tasked to meet the presidential mandate to reduce power and consumption," he said, "you're not going to do it by putting on sweaters and turning out light bulbs".
Yet both Confucianism and Deng Xiao Ping's "to get rich is glorious" mandate put a premium on (state-endorsed) achievement.
But last year, corps officials told the villagers that based on a Congressional mandate put in place after Hurricane Katrina, they would have to examine alternatives to expensive repairs, including razing the village and allowing the area to flood.
Her mandate about his snoring: "You put on more weight, you're divorced".
A reg can mandate that a 10,000-share order be put on the tape within a certain number of seconds.
While the European bank is supposed to defend price stability above all else and is barred from financing governments, the Fed's mandate puts more emphasis on promoting employment, and it has bought hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of Treasury securities.
What if you had a sick child that was put on life support and the government mandated when you had to pull the plug?
A South Bronx charter school has been put on probation for what city education officials called "serious violations" of state law mandating random admissions, including possibly testing or interviewing applicants before their enrollment.
Sonia Sotomayor, put on the court by Mr Obama in 2009, pressed Mr Clement particularly hard.Nevertheless, the prospect for the mandate looked much bleaker after the hearing than before it.
