Not possible in Action as far as I know, but ExtendScript can set effects via applyEffect.
The following code adds a transform effect that scales the selected item to 200% of its width, based on the top left corner.
/**
* @File applyEffect sample
* @3653945.0.0
* @7111211 sttk3.com
*/
(function() {
if(app.documents.length <= 0) {return ;}
var doc = app.documents[0] ;
var sel = doc.selection ;
if(sel.length <= 0) {return ;}
var scaleH_Percent = 200 ;
var scaleV_Percent = 100 ;
var attrData =
'R scaleH_Percent ' + scaleH_Percent
+ ' R scaleV_Percent ' + scaleV_Percent
+ ' R scaleH_Factor ' + (scaleH_Percent / 100)
+ ' R scaleV_Factor ' + (scaleV_Percent / 100)
+ ' R moveH_Pts 0'
+ ' R moveV_Pts 0'
+ ' R rotate_Degrees 0'
+ ' R rotate_Radians 0'
+ ' B transformObjects 1'
+ ' B transformPatterns 0'
+ ' B scaleLines 0'
+ ' B reflectX 0'
+ ' B reflectY 0'
+ ' B randomize 0'
+ ' I pinPoint 0'
+ ' I numCopies 0'
;
var xml = <LiveEffect name="Adobe Transform">
<Dict data={attrData}/>
</LiveEffect> ;
XML.prettyPrinting = false ;
var effectXML = xml.toXMLString() ;
sel[0].applyEffect(effectXML) ;
})() ;