Last-Minute Bush Push Threatens Safety, Family Leave, Environmental Rules

by Mike Hall, Nov 12, 2008

The Bush White House is making “a last minute assault on the public” with a slew of end-of-term regulations that could roll back or weaken rules on job safety, family leave, airline safety and pollution.

Matthew Madia, of the nonprofit watchdog group OMB Watch, told reporters earlier this month:

It’s environmental regulations, it’s workers’ safety, it’s reproductive health, it’s traffic safety, but the common theme is in a lot a cases the Bush administration is trying to remove restrictions on business and allow them to operate without any kind of government oversight….It’s intended to make sure that the kind of ideology and priorities that the Bush administration believes in are affecting the country for many years.

According to The Washington Post, at least 90 new regulations are in the works and if they become final before Bush leaves office:

they typically can be undone only through a laborious new regulatory proceeding, including lengthy periods of public comment, drafting and mandated reanalysis.

New regulations become final after they are published in the Federal Register but usually don’t go into effect until a 60-day congressional comment period expires. But ABC News reports that some of the proposed regulations have had the

comment period drop from the traditional 60 days to just over 30 days.

Such a short comment period ensures last-minute regulations will be in effect when President-elect Barack Obama takes office Jan. 20. That’s why, the Post says, the business community is pressing hard for the Bush administration to move quickly.

…lobbyists…fear that industry views will hold less sway after the elections. The doors at the New Executive Office Building have been whirling with corporate officials and advisers pleading for relief or, in many cases, for hastened decision making.

The incoming Obama administration does have a tool it could use to undo the last minute regulations—the Congressional Review Act (CRA). It is the same procedure Bush used to overturn the Clinton administration’s workplace ergonomics rule that wasn’t finalized until the end of Clinton’s second term.

Under the little-used CRA, a regulation that is enacted within 60 days of congressional adjournment—Oct. 3 this year—can be reviewed and overturned by a simple majority vote in both houses and Senate filibusters are not allowed. Politico reports congressional Democrats are considering a CRA strategy for some of the last-minute Bush rules.

OMB Watch says some of the controversial Bush rules have been finalized and the comment-clock is ticking, including a regulation that will make it more difficult for workers to use family and medical leave and another easing air pollution emissions standards on refineries.

One of the rules that has not been finalized but could be any day is the “secret rule” that could lead to increased exposure of workers to dangerous chemicals and toxins by changing the way worker exposure is measured.

The rule was pushed by Bush political appointees over the objections of career health and safety professionals and kept secret until media reports in July revealed the plan.

While the Bush White House is moving quickly to ease rules on industry, workers, as they have been for the past eight years, remain shut out.

There are dozens of important workplace safety and health rules that remain buried in the Bush administration. Those proposals include rules to protect workers from exposure to dangerous substances and chemicals such as silica, which can cause serious respiratory disease; diacetyl, a flavoring additive linked to “popcorn lung”; and beryllium, a light metal that can cause lung damage, especially to metal and dental workers.

In addition, the Bush administration refuses to develop combustible dust rules that could help prevent explosions like the one in February at an Imperial Sugar plant that killed 13 workers.

		Become a Fan on Facebook			Follow Us on Twitter			Subscribe to YouTube			Subscribe to Blog RSS

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article |Comments (6)