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Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice.  

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Typically, you can pack light when flying somewhere warm. But that was not exactly the case for one White House staffer who jetted off to the U.S. Virgin Islands last week.

The staffer, whose identity remains unknown, was carrying the official printout of the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill so that President JOE BIDEN, vacationing in St. Croix, could sign it into law. Amounting to 1,653 pages, the legislation filled three carry-on bags.

The staffer and others on the ground then had to reassemble all the paper before presenting it to the president to sign. And it could have been worse: the House and Senate versions were more than 4,000 pages, but the final enrolled bill was — to the great relief of the staffer — printed in smaller text and on larger paper.

It was actually a less arduous journey than what took place last May, when an aide flew to Seoul — enduring the indignity of a flight attendant spilling milk on them — to hand deliver the president a bill authorizing $40 billion in aid for Ukraine to sign after it cleared Congress (upside there: a lot more frequent flier miles).

Travelers aboard the flight last week couldn’t have known that one passenger’s cargo authorized spending worth far more than the aircraft itself and probably the entire airline. And some who heard about this strange errand afterward might have wondered why, in an age of unmanned drones, wireless money transfers, real estate transactions conducted via DocuSign and heightened concern about carbon footprints, such an onerous, antiquated process was even necessary.

We were among those wondering. Especially because Biden’s old boss, President BARACK OBAMA, used the autopen, a device that can produce their signature without holding an actual pen, to sign bills several times over his eight years in office. He used it twice in 2011 — to enact an extension of the Patriot Act when he was attending the G-8 summit in France and also to authorize an emergency bill to avoid a government shutdown while traveling in Indonesia. And in 2013, Obama authorized an autopen signature on a tax bill while vacationing in Hawaii rather than having a staffer fly it across the Pacific.

Faced with questions about the legality of the practice, Obama justified his autopen usage on a 2005 legal opinion from President GEORGE W. BUSH’s office of legal counsel, which said the president’s presence was not required for a proxy signature as long as the president “specifically authorizes” its use. Despite that opinion, Bush never utilized the autopen and Obama’s doing so drew criticism.

Inside the Biden White House, there has been little to no discussion about following Obama’s precedent, according to multiple officials who spoke to West Wing Playbook.

“The normal process is for the president to sign the full, original copy of legislation sent to his desk, and certainly we followed that process in the signing of this omnibus,” a Biden administration official said.

Indeed, presidents including RONALD REAGAN and DONALD TRUMP, known for Sharpie annotations of everything from photos and news clippings to maps of potential hurricane impact zones, both eschewed the autopen and instead had legislation flown to them to sign while out of town.

The process is straightforward but can be arduous. While someone from the staff secretary NEERA TANDEN’s office is always with the president when he travels, getting Biden paper after he’s left town requires coordination across the administration. Once aides at the Office of Legislative Affairs get word from clerks at the Capitol as to when the enrolled bill will be headed over to the White House, they alert Tanden’s team.

If air travel is required, someone in the staff secretary’s office has to book a ticket through the Concur system used by advance staffers and other officials flying commercially to conduct government business. When they’re going international the State Department oversees the process.

“It’s anything but simple,” said one person familiar with the process. “But it’s just how this is supposed to be done.”

MESSAGE US —Are you a member of the staff secretary’s office tasked with delivering bills to sign? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at [email protected]

This one is from Allie. Which first lady was the first to speak at a political party convention?

(Answer at the bottom.)

REMEMBERING JAN. 6TH: Biden plans to award the Presidential Citizens Medal to 12 individuals who “demonstrated courage and selflessness” surrounding the events of the Jan. 6th insurrection at the Capitol, our KELLY HOOPER reports. He’s set to give out the awards Friday, the two-year anniversary of the deadly riots.

HEADING TO THE BORDER: The president will make his first visit to the U.S.-Mexico border since taking office, traveling to El Paso, Texas, on Sunday. He plans to “address border enforcement operations and meet with local officials,” administration officials said. Our MYAH WARD has more details on the visit, as well as Biden’s new plan to help curb illegal immigration, here.

RELATED: The announcement of Biden’s border trip comes as Democratic-led cities seeing an influx in migrants have been begging the White House for help. Myah, who frankly is crushing it, has more on that here.

AN EAGLES FAN WITH SOME LOVE FOR THE BILLS: Biden tweeted his prayers and happiness over a Buffalo Bill’s statement regarding 24-year-old player DAMAR HAMLIN, who has been in critical condition since Monday after suffering cardiac arrest during a game. The football team said in a statement that Hamlin “has shown remarkable improvement over the past 24 hours,” and “appears to be neurologically intact.”

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: The front pages of Thursday morning’s local papers featuring Biden’s visit to Kentucky. White House deputy press secretary ANDREW BATES tweeted a thread highlighting the front pages of The Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader. The Courier-Journal’s front page story about Biden’s visit was headlined: “Biden, McConnell tout ‘a legislative miracle.”

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: The Biden administration is blowing through some of its self-imposed deadlines for environmental rules, according to a document from the White House Office of Management and Budget released Wednesday. The missed deadlines throw a wrench in some of the president’s larger climate goals, WaPo’s MAXINE JOSELOW and VANESSA MONTALBANO report.

‘AN ABUNDANCE OF CAUTION’: First lady JILL BIDEN will have a “small lesion” that was found during a routine skin cancer screening removed in a procedure next week, CNN’s KATE BENNETT reports. “During a routine skin cancer screening, a small lesion was found above the First Lady’s right eye,” White House physician KEVIN O’CONNOR said. “In an abundance of caution, doctors have recommended that it be removed.”

MICHIGANNA STAY PUT: Transportation Secretary PETE BUTTIGIEG said Thursday he is not looking to run for Sen. DEBBIE STABENOW’s (D-Mich.) seat upon her announcement she will not run for reelection. In July, Buttigieg switched his residency from Indiana to Michigan. In a statement, Buttigieg said Stabenow is “a force in the Senate,” and that he is “fully focused on serving the President in my role as Secretary of Transportation, and not seeking any other job." (His verb tense, notably, present). Our ALEX DAUGHERTY has more for Pro subscribers. 

GREATER EDUCATION: KAMAU MARSHALL has been tapped to be a senior adviser at the U.S. Department of Education to Secretary MIGUEL CARDONA. He will serve within the office of communication and outreach. Marshall, an alum of the 2018 DCCC and the 2020 Biden campaign, most recently was the Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for media and public affairs and a USTR spokesperson, focusing on Africa, China, Europe, USMCA, ASEAN, APEC, agriculture, industrial competitiveness, small business, textiles, and worker-centered trade policies, among others.

MEANWHILE: BRIAN REICH is now chief speechwriter at the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. He most recently served as senior vice president of branding and marketing at Murmuration, a progressive political data and strategy operation in New York.

AND ANOTHER ONE: JARRETT BLANC, the U.S. deputy special envoy for Iran is leaving his post and moving over to the Department of Energy, Axios’ BARAK RAVID reports.

THIS IS A BIGGIE: The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday moved to ban non-compete clauses in employment agreements, our JOSH SISCO and NICK NIEDZWIADEK report. The FTC is also looking to prohibit other types of employment provisions under the rule that have the same effect as a non-compete.

STUDENT DEBT RELIEF SAGA CONTINUES: The Department of Justice defended Biden’s student loan relief efforts in an opening brief Wednesday to the Supreme Court, saying the efforts “fall comfortably” within the law and enjoy “clear authorization” from Congress, our MICHAEL STRATFORD reports. The move is the latest since the administration’s attempt to forgive student loan debt for millions of Americans moved to the Supreme Court, following a series of legal challenges.

Democrats' big presidential primary changes are still stuck in limbo (POLITICO’s Elena Schneider)

Biden’s agenda, lithium mine, tribes, greens collide in Reno (AP’s Scott Sonner)

Biden hits highest approval rating in more than a year (The Hill’s Alex Gangitano)

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT spoke at the 1940 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, making her the first first lady to do so.

A CALL OUT — Do you think you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best one about the presidents with a citation and we may feature it.

Edited by Eun Kyung Kim and Sam Stein.