« Ind. Courts - More on "Park ban on sex offenders challenged: Man can't watch son play baseball" | Main | Ind. Law - More on "Approving a proposed constitutional amendment that would put limits on property-tax bills, so it can be put on the ballot for ratification in 2010" »

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Law - "Democrats Eye Bush Midnight Regulations"

Cindy Skrzycki, business columnist who writes the column, The Regulators, for the Washington Post, has an important article today that begins:

As President-elect Barack Obama's transition team prepares for the Jan. 20 inauguration, it is tracking the "midnight" regulations being churned out in the final days of the Bush administration.

Regulatory policy may not have as high a profile as economic issues and foreign policy for Obama. Still, many of these latter-day Bush rules are flash points for liberal public-interest groups, Democrats in Congress and the business community.

Among the regulations being monitored are a proposal to end a ban on carrying loaded guns in national parks, a plan that could make it harder for women to get federally funded reproductive health care, and a Labor Department proposal to change the way regulators assess risk for jobs, especially those that expose workers to chemicals.

"These are the ones worth watching," said Matt Madia, regulatory policy analyst at OMB Watch, a nonprofit group critical of many Bush regulatory policies. "Most of them relax existing requirements. They make it easier for industries to pollute or deny a worker medical leaves."

Some 130 rules could be completed before Bush leaves. The White House has finished reviews of 100 rules since Sept. 1, up from 36 in the same period last year. Representatives of chemical makers, scallop fishermen and kidney dialysis companies are among those who have pressed their cases with White House officials in recent weeks, according to a public list of the meetings.

The new president may issue executive orders to reverse some Bush policies and may get help from a law passed by the Republican-controlled Congress in 1996 to review and eliminate Clinton-era rules it didn't like. The law has been successfully used once, in 2001, to kill a rule designed to prevent repetitive motion injuries in the workplace.

See also this Nov. 3rd editorial from the NYT, titled "So Little Time, So Much Damage," cited in this Nov. 6th ILB entry.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 11, 2008 11:20 AM
Posted to General Law Related