The Trump administration Monday lifted a controversial ban on the transfer of some surplus military equipment to police departments whose battlefield-style response to rioting in a St. Louis suburb three years ago prompted a halt to the program.

The new plan takes effect immediately and fully rolls back an Obama administration executive order that blocked armored vehicles, large-caliber weapons, ammunition and other heavy equipment from being re-purposed from foreign battlefields to America's streets.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who led the  campaign for the program's reinstatement, outlined the President Trump's new executive order Monday in an address at the annual meeting of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation's largest police union.