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• Wednesday, November 19, 2008 09:24 AM

  OT but very important because the devil (GWB) is in the details

  Will Bush’s midnight rules be reversible? (see sig)

  Whether it’s relaxing pollution control standards for power plants or allowing loaded weapons into national parks, the Bush Administration is scrambling to approve or change as many federal rules as it can before it hands off power to President-elect Barack Obama. This surge of “midnight regulations” presents a thorny question for the next administration: What can it do to void rules it thinks should be undone?

  An Obama spokesman told ProPublica that the transition team can’t comment on the new administration’s strategy yet. However, John Podesta, a leading member of the transition team, has said Obama will use his “executive authority without waiting for congressional action” to reverse many of Bush’s policies.

  But that authority has its limits.

  While executive orders and rules that are not yet in effect can swiftly be reversed or altered by Obama’s appointees or his own executive orders, rules that go into effect before he takes office will be extremely difficult to undo. Rescinding a rule would require the new administration to re-start the rule-making process, which can take years and prompt legal challenges. Another strategy that has been talked about lately – getting Congress to disapprove the rules through the Congressional Review Act — carries political risks and has been used only once before.

  “The problem with what the Bush administration is doing is that these rules are extremely cumbersome to adopt, and they are every bit as cumbersome to undo,” said David Vladeck, an administrative law professor at Georgetown University. “It condemns the next administration to spend years fighting on the old administration’s agenda.”

  ProPublica is assembling a list of these “midnight regulations” and will track them through the rulemaking process, regularly updating its website and detailing how the proposed changes might affect the public. Some of the rules have lingered on the president’s agenda for years, others are more recent proposals.

  http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081119/pl_politico/15758

  —Retired Military Patriot Read Retired Military Patriot's other letters
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