Obama halts some of Bush's 'midnight rules'

The Washington Post has a PDF of the memo.

President Obama's order successfully blocked several of the Bush administration's late-term rules, but many went into effect before he took office, meaning that reversing them will probably take years. The nonprofit investigative journalism shop ProPublica has been tracking new rules from the Bush administration over the past two months. Of the 65 rules they list, 23 went into effect before Obama's inaguration; one-third of those new rules went into force fewer than three days before Obama took office.

Probably the most significant of the environmental rules already in force is a change to the Endangered Species Act that eases requirements for federal agencies to consult with scientists at the Fish and Wildlife or National Marine Fisheries services about the effects of their actions on threatened species. Under the new rule, which took effect nine days before Obama’s inauguration, federal agencies can in many cases simply check with their own personnel to determine if their projects will harm any of the 1,247  animal and 747 plant species listed as endangered or threatened.

Other rules that have already gone into effect include ones that make it easier for mining companies to dump debris from mountaintop removal into waterways, allow drilling for uranium near the Grand Canyon, eliminate requirements that factory farms report on air pollution from animal waste and let them voluntarily determine whether or not they need a permit to discharge animal waste into waterways, relax limits on airborne lead emissions, and allow people to bring loaded guns into some national parks.

ProPublica's Joaquin Sapien notes that Obama has two options for reversing rules that are already in effect. He could try to replace the rules with new rules, a process that Mr. Sapien calls "enormously difficult" because it resets the rulemaking process and opens it to legal challenges.

Or he could ask Congress to invoke the little-known Congressional Review Act, which allows the legislative body to kill a rule within "60 legislative days" – about six months – after it goes into effect. That law, which was passed in 1996 by the GOP-controlled Congress in an attempt to halt what was seen as excessive regulation by President Clinton, has been used only once.

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