Deregulation..Part 2: Hiding The Ball

[Joanne98]

In my earlier diary, Midnight De-Regulation and the Myth of A 'Center Right Nation' -- Part 1: The Environment, I presented a list of Bush Administration midnight de-regulations of environmental protections, as an example of how unpopular center-right policies really are enacted in this supposedly "center-right" nation--so unpopular that they are done quickly and stealthily in the dead of night, with as few witnesses as possible-a dead giveaway of the real popularity of such policies. In this diary, I want shine a bit more light on the particulars of how this happens. I'll get into that on the flip. But first, just so you understand it's not just environmental protections that are being hit, here's a few other examples of last-minute changes Bush is pushing for on the way out the door:

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (Department of Transportation) - The rule would allow truck drivers to drive up to 11 consecutive hours. Because of the effects of fatigue, longer hours-of-service periods put both truck drivers and other motorists at risk.

Department of Justice - The rule would expand the power of state and local law enforcement agencies to investigate potential criminal activities and report the information to federal agencies. The rule would broaden the scope of activities authorities could monitor to include organizations as well as individuals, along with non-criminal activities that are deemed "suspicious."

Employment Standards Administration (Labor) - The rule would limit employee access to family and medical leave. Among other things, the rule would make it more difficult for workers to use paid vacation or personal time to take leave and would allow employers to speak directly to an employee's health care provider.

Department of Health and Human Services - The rule could reduce women's access to federally funded reproductive health services. The rule would require health care providers to certify they will allow their employees to withhold services on the basis of religious or moral grounds or risk losing funding.

Paul Rosenberg :: Midnight (De-)Regulation and the Myth of A 'Center Right Nation' -- Part 2: Hiding The Ball
Back in early September, OMB Watch Executive Director Gary D. Bass wrote an illuminating commentary, "Bush's Last-Minute Rush to Dismantle Public Protections". In it, he explained how the Bush Administration had actually pretended that it wouldn't be pulling this sort of last-minute shenanigans:

In May, White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten issued a memo that set deadlines for agency regulations during the remaining months of the Bush administration. Bolten said he wanted to stop last-minute regulatory activity - commonly known as midnight regulations. To avoid this, except in "extraordinary circumstances," Bolten said agencies should propose regulations that they want to finalize no later than June 1 and that all final rules should be published by Nov. 1.
This is a joke, right?

Right:


Now that the June 1 deadline has come and gone, it appears there are a lot of "extraordinary circumstances" to be found. Recently, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed a rule that could have far-reaching impacts on women and family planning decisions. The rule allows health care professionals at institutions that receive government money to opt out of providing abortion and sterilization if such services create a problem of conscience for the provider. HHS would require the institutions to certify they are complying with federal laws that allow health care workers to withhold services on the basis of religious or moral grounds. Violations could lead to loss of funding.
After first leaking a proposed rule that would have defined many contraceptives as abortion, HHS published a rule that leaves ambiguous the scope of services that might be curtailed.

The proposed rule was published on Aug. 26, long after the Bolten June 1 deadline, and the Bush administration is gaming the system to get the rule finalized. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reviewed the rule before it was released, as it does with all major rules. But OMB reviewed the HHS rule with unusual stealth: the review was done in hours, the same day HHS published the rule, ensuring that it would not appear on OMB's website until after the fact. Additionally, the comment period on the proposal is only 30 days, which is short for major rules in general, but very short for highly complex and controversial rules such as this one.

This is hardly surprising to those of us who've been paying attention to how the Bush Administration operates these past 8 years. Too bad that excludes virtually everyone in the punditalkrazy. But it is a sort of timely reminder that they will never stop pulling this shit up to the very last minute they are able to-and even beyond, if they can block any efforts to undo the evil they've done.

Bass goes on to cite two more examples of regulations in the Department of Labor (DOL). About the second one, he writes:


Continued>>
http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9957

[Joanne98]

1. kick

[leftchick]

2. K&R!

great find!

:)

[Agony]

3. Another "gem" in this article about Interior gutting endangered species protections

from development projects...

Another example Bass cites amounts to a de facto gutting of the Endangered Species Act:

In another "extraordinary circumstance," on Aug. 15, the Department of Interior proposed a change in the way government agencies comply with the Endangered Species Act. The proposal would allow officials to approve development projects that could impact endangered species without consulting federal wildlife and habitat scientists.
Interior's proposal missed the Bolten memo's deadline by two-and-a-half months. OMB spent only three days reviewing the proposed rule, whereas the average review time this year for Interior rules is 64 days.