Bush’s midnight regulations undermine Obama

While most Americans are focused on the economic disaster and doing everything to restore confidence in the financial system, the Bush administration is working in the dark trying to utilize the midnight rule. The ‘midnight’ rules are being rushed through with little fanfare and minimal media attention. None of them would be likely to appeal to the incoming president and his team.

By January 20^th 2009, when Bush vacates the White House, he will have issued a record number of so-called ‘midnight regulations’. Midnight regulations, so called because of the surreptitious and sneaky way they appear on the rule books.

Most of these rules are used to undermine the administration of Barack Obama, many of which could take years to undo.

Bush’s controversial and lowdown measures are designed to reward his supporters and enrage opponents.

The regulations cover a vast policy area, ranging from healthcare to car safety to civil liberties. Many are focused on the environment and seek to ease regulations that limit pollution or restrict harmful industrial practices, such as dumping strip-mining waste.

The Bush moves have outraged many watchdog groups. ‘The regulations we have seen so far have been pretty bad,’ said Matt Madia, a regulatory policy analyst at OMB Watch. ‘The effects of all this are going to be severe.’

Bush can pass the rules because of a loophole in US law allowing him to put last-minute regulations into the Code of Federal Regulations, rules that have the same force as law. He can carry out many of his political aims without needing to force new laws through Congress. Outgoing presidents often use the loophole in their last weeks in office, but Bush has done this far more than Bill Clinton or his father,Bush Sr. He is on track to issue more ‘midnight regulations’ than any other previous president.

Bush’s midnight regulations will:

• Make it easier for coal companies to dump waste from strip-mining into valleys and streams.

• Ease the building of coal-fired power stations nearer to national parks.

• Allow people to carry loaded and concealed weapons in national parks.

• Open up millions of acres to mining for oil shale.

• Allow healthcare workers to opt out of giving treatment for religious or moral reasons, thus weakening abortion rights.

• Hurt road safety by allowing truck drivers to stay at the wheel for 11 consecutive hours.

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