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Obama Moves to Block Bush's 'Midnight' attempts to Relax Green Rules
New administration moves quickly to undo "midnight regulations" designed to relax environmental rules
WAHINGTON - In a traditional game of political whack-a-mole, the Obama White House has moved quickly to freeze all pending regulations proposed by the former president's administration, including president Bush's attempts to roll back large swathes of environmental legislation.
President Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel issued a memo on inauguration day warning federal agencies not to send proposed or final regulations to the Office of the Federal Register for publication. The Oval Office is to review each of them first.
The White House memo also gives the president's designates the chance to re-evaluate rules that have already been published in the federal register, but which agencies have not yet brought into effect.
Last-minute rules, known as midnight regulations, are common when one administration leaves office. The Bush administration was working on a swathe of regulations in the run-up to the transition, many of which carried an environmental impact.
For example, on Tuesday, as president Obama took office, a rule exempting factory farms from reporting pollution emissions from animal waste came into effect. It had been finalised on 18 December.
Other rules that took effect in the previous week governed the reclassification of hazardous waste as fuel, allowing it to be burned, and the opening of two million acres of western land to leasing for oil shale development. Last Thursday, a regulation also came into effect allowing federal representatives to approve projects without considering global warming, and without consulting biological health experts about the effect on endangered species.
A report called After Midnight by OMB Watch and the Center for American Progress listed a number of options for the new administration as it seeks to draw a line under Bush policy and impose its own rule. Proposed regulations are easy to stop. The Oval Office simply tells agencies to stop working on them. However, " final rules present a more difficult problem. Executive branch agencies cannot throw out a final Bush rule with the stroke of a pen," warned the report. "They must conduct an entirely new rulemaking - the legal process by which regulations are made - which often consumes significant time and resources."
The Congressional Review Act also allows Congress to overturn Bush regulations completed after 15 May last year, which include many of the attempts to relax environmental rules. "Funding also may be withheld to block implementation or enforcement of undesirable rules," the report added. In addition, lawsuits can be brought against the rules, which the new government could settle.
The Bush administration rushed through 157 regulations in the fourth quarter of last year, compared with 83 the year before. However, while midnight regulations are often criticised they are not unusual; the struggle to stop the previous administration's last-minute rule-making is a regular occurrence during presidential transitions. President Clinton also signed many midnight regulations into effect.
19 Comments so far
Show AllWell, at least that's a start or sort of a makeup in return for allowing Bush's last minute oil drilling policies of allowing Big Oil to further privatize land to proceed.
"At least"
I am relieved that the Obama team is actively working to correct policies that should never have had legitimacy.
...and BTW leasing drilling rights has been in the public arena for decades - with little protest - while you and I may find the concept abhorent, it is nothing new, and certainly nothing unusual in a time of a high energy-source market.
Congress only responds to pressure in these issues - Our job is to keep the pressure on them creating policy that is sustainable and ecologically sound.
Let us use our progressive ideas and energy to help the government make good choices... and PROGRESSIVE is the use of energy positively - rather than the old paradigm of Punitive, Denigrate, and Castigate. I think the Bush years were really about Americans waking up to the awareness that government was no longer in the service of it's people. We have a new administration that appears to want to reform that. We are an intelligent and creative people, so now that we have a responsive leadership, I believe it wise for us to invest our best-selves in our collective future with as much optimism as is left in us!
Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live
Sioux Rose
Don't underestimate what calling toxic debris "organic" or otherwise acceptable can mean. The siphoning of seriously noxious subtances into shallow pits means rain water will inevitably leach them back into ground i.e. drinking water. You are what you eat, and thus it behooves us not to willingly ingest thousands of industrial solvents, then have to barter with insurance companies for treatment of outcomes directly attributable to these dangerous exposures. Bush could care less about human beings' qualities of life... this trespass is a considerable one! He would just as easily have given the green light to pour effluents from nuclear power plants in nearby waterways. Those who worship at the altar of the god of greed can sing "right to life" but it's a diabolical distortion of their true intentions. He may be off the scene but these last minute rules are an abomination. I am glad Obama is doing what he can to lessen the damage.
Yeah! Obama! Thank Freaking the Stars Satan is out of Office and this DECENT MAN is now my President. I voted for him, supported him and continue too. Online and in the world.
YYYYYeeeeeeeeesssssssss,
And the Independent of London says he's going to give Karzai, the Afghan criminal president, The Axe.
OH!-bama. azjoe.
Very good. Does this include reinstating and enforcing those river pollution regulations in Appalachia that the mountaintop coal removal people don't like?
It is possible, but not probable. Some of the laws have been put in place and it could take a year to re-legislate these Midnight Rules. Bush/Cheney are TOXIC TERRORISTS. http://www.wisecountyissues.com THE COAL INDUSTRY has bombed, blasted and bulldozed Appalachia right into Third World America. Our environment is poisoned and the real acceptable standards of health care in East Tennessee is a joke compared to what is misled to us in advertisements. Politicians and Profit machines trump We The People. Change is coming from the bottom up in Appalachia !
If you listen hard, you can hear whales singing in a chorus of delight.
Joe
"Last Thursday, a regulation also came into effect allowing federal representatives to approve projects without considering global warming, and without consulting biological health experts about the effect on endangered species."
Encouraging global warming and species loss. Your tax dollars at work. Can that one be rolled back?
Bush, Cheney and all of their henchmen should be lined up in stocks all along Pennsylvania Avenue or directly across from the Vietnam wall. We should all line up for days, even weeks, with them in their stocks, in shame, while we all take turns throwing shoes at them, hitting them with our best shots!
WHACK! SMACK! WHAM! BAM! THWACK! UFF-DA!
Sorry, just had to get that one off my chest. Thanks.
SCIENTIFIC BETRAYAL:
Never before had Americans experienced such dangerous manipulation of essential scientific data, as used by the Bush administration to derail vital environmental reforms, conservation, family planning-- and the list goes on. The resulting long term environmental and social damage are beyond measure, and can only worsen if not curtailed.
Despite their clandestine cloak, or environmental friendly disguise, these sellouts have been evident since Bush first was handed the presidency. They have been exposed by defectors from the EPA, health & human services, etc; and have been documented and chronicled by numerous dedicated environmental organizations including The Union of Concerned Scientists.
The gravity of these unprecedented betrayals eclipses the Monica Lewinski scandal which led to an impeachment, and pose greater dangers than Watergate which terminated a presidency.
Blame for these dreadful consequences falls mainly on the five supreme court justices who placed politics ahead of the law and put him in office against the majority of voters; our legislators for allowing such reckless and dangerous behavior from this unlearned president guided by his financial and radical supporters; and especially the apathetic voters who helped him steal the office.
The new presidets's first priority should be to reverse the destructive Bush ploicies, and focus on real scientific data and rational reform measures; such as a higher gas tax to promote renewable energy and promote vital conservation and environmental measures.
It would certainly seem that, considering the political tampering with all scientific research, from stem cells to global warming that has been done in the past eight years, there should be a review of every scientific and ecological decision made under the Bush regime. Eight years of firings, suppression or rewriting of reports, putting political hacks in charge of these watchdog posts, and the removal of conscientious scientists must be reversed and competent people put back in charge.
The original missions of these agencies must be reaffirmed. Food and Drug's mission was changed from protecting the people from contaminants and dangerous medications to protecting the pharmacies and the big-Agra food producers from any interference in their profits. Look at all the regulatory agencies! They have been turned into profit protecting agencies that keep the people from any redress. Look at the crap that is allowed in from China. Pets and children poisoned, contaminated food, toys, etc., with virtually no oversight. Turning this garbage back might interfere with someone's profits.
There is no doubt about it, Obama needs to do a complete investigation and revamp of the system destroyed by CheneyBushCo.
Damn! And the guy hasn't been in office for 100 hours! If he keeps this up for 100 days, Americans may once again walk tall with pride.
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in their moccasins - Native American proverb.
And what else will Obama freeze? It certainly doesn't look as though America's foreign policy is going to change anytime soon.
America is driven by UMA and, as a result, nothing will change and more wars will happen and more weak nations will be invaded and the American Juggernaut will roll on and inevitably down until we end up in WW3 and nuclear oblivion.
What is UMA? It's the driving force behind American thinking. It is responsible for most of the many American Foreign Policy disasters, its frequent genocide.
My blog has more.
www.dangerouscreation.com
He should be freezing The Patriot Act...the main reason for his presidency besides looting The Treasury.
I think Obama should freeze Bush, then send him to Guantanamo to thaw out.
You, say the "Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in their moccasins - Native American proverb."
Shouldn't that be "walked a kilometer"? Didn't the Native Americans use metric before the English forced their draconian English measurement system on them?
Seriously though, I think its most important to remember one thing Obama said "Its about US", and that means WE must always remain vigil about our recently lost/reclaimed Democracy. Not time to bask in the joys of Obamaland. WE must ALWAYS keep up the pressure and ALWAYS remain vigil. The evil Repos will re-group and will be back. You can bet on that!
In the future this level of destruction, as ten billion people aquire a taste for luxury/convenience, will make the planet unrecognizable. Are the Demoks doing enough to reign in their Repuk bed-mates on their destructive rampage to escalate this society's fossil fuel consumption? They've circled their wagons together past eight years. They've consolidated. Their contests are pure theater. They both seek the same goal: The middle ground between their extreme right policies, i.e. middle extreme right. Compare the Demoks' policies with those in other countries and you will see how very extreme right the Demoks' polices are. Look at cars for example, US cars are four to six times the optimum weight, five to ten times the optimum power, driven at twice the optimum speed, and driven five times the optimum distance. The USA consumes 25% of the world's energy with 5% of the world's population.
A FEELING
Been bothered for a while now about the state of the world, the people, my country and the people in it and what has transpired since the colonials dumped tea in Boston harbor and told King George to stuff it. Admirable stuff and then write a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution for the ages and right from the start started dragging the words through the dirt and mud since paving was not in yet. What they did to the native populations belied what was in those words, the alien and sedition act, slavery. So, let me see, it is ok to push a people different than themselves (color, mostly) out of their way and if they did not go peaceably they would go by force; even folks of the same color but different culture were “discouraged” from coming over but it was fine by everybody to import slaves to do all the work nobody else wanted and then get paid slave wages. This was all fine, right? After all slavery is mentioned in the Bible is it not? The first prez was cool a couple of other ones too and then we get to Lincoln; who did considerable but who, I think, would have done more but already the American malaise was in; greed and meism.
What is different today? Nothing except that we grew up to be the big bully on the on the world stage and treated and are treating our own people like shit which is not much better than what England was doing when the colonists left; some advancement eh? People talk and make everything complicated by “political realities” which is bullshit for I got mine , when you get as political as me you may get yours. What a way to live. Don’t even know why it is called life when all it is existence. We can sit here forever and blame whoever but the dems and repubs have screwed this peoples here and ,in my opinion, a third party would be doing the same as this first 2. Why? Politics.
Fear; for most of my adult life that has been hammered into the American conscience and it has worked most excellently just look at some of the assholes we’ve let run our government; legally or not.
This has just been a rambling because if I didn’t I would just cry, not only for my country and the people but for the world and all the people out there and here is the reason and the kicker. Read in Common Dreams today where Scientists say that in North America the trees are dying and is past the point of reversal http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/22-8.
Can Obama do any good? It may be to late and the feeling I get is that it just might be too late and history will blame him for a peoples mistakes that started well over 200 years ago. Imagine a leader who had slaves as ancestors getting the blame for a national disaster; how ironic is that Still do my little bit, may not be enough, but that’s me. Fear to promote greed is a potent combination. At 72 death is another adventure and my license plate holder says it for me
FREEDOM IS A CREATORS GIFT
FREEDOM THRIVES IN A WE SOCIETY
Tony 1/23/09
Not reported by CommonDreams:
January 23, three days after the inauguration: U.S. bombs Pakistan, 18 reported dead, 5 were militants. The other 13 were innocents.
The practical result of murdering innocent men, women and children? More hatred towards the U.S. Many new recruits for the Taliban and al-Qaida. Destabilization of Pakistan.
As reported by the Associated Press:
More than 1,000 hardliners demonstrated in the capital [Islamabad, Pakistan] today, saying there would only be peace in Swat and other frontier regions if the government severs its ties with the United States.
"The lawlessness cannot end until the end of the pro-America policy," one speaker told the crowd gathered close to the Parliament building in the capital.
I wonder, WHO IS NOW SUING BUSH in Civil Court for all he has done to attack the United States, and in many ways, the entire planet. There must be a list a mile long of charges- I recall Mike Moore had them all laid out real legal-like. Fire away, there are no innocents to hit...BLAST away, keep the buggers up at night at least...the least Civil Society could do...