We’ve been watching the stories about regulatory activity in the waning days of the Bush administration, potential plans by the new administration and Congress to review those regs, and prognostications on the incoming Obama administration’s approach to regulating.
Here’s what we’re looking at: the deadline set by the Bush administration to get rules onto the books before the Democrats arrive has now passed, see National Public Radio’s Morning Edition story . . . another web site offers “a rundown of rules and regulations that the Bush administration is pushing through the rulemaking process in its waning days…” . . . Federal Times reports that Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) has introduced a bill which would freeze the “midnight rulemaking” that takes place at the end of an administration . . . finally, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University weighs in with “the high political costs faced by a new administration to overturn those last minute rules makes it an effective strategy for the outgoing administration to project its influence beyond its term.”
— Charley Maresca, Director of Interagency Affairs