Bush goes insane, urges massive last-minute deregulation

[ArcturusMengsk]

WaPo:

The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January. The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.

Ugh. Is there anything this fuck-up won't fuck-up?

[Vendetta]

It's the last ditch "If I can't have it, no-one can" of a defeated TV villain...

[cosmicalstorm]

Yes! More regulation, exactly what we need

[ray245]

Yes! More regulation, exactly what we need

Wait, you can't be serious about saying more regulation is bad, after what we are facing now?

[Big Phil]

Yes! More regulation, exactly what we need

Don't be a douchebag - explain yourself

[VT-16]

I think he meant deregulation.

[Mr Bean]

Yes! More regulation, exactly what we need

Wait, you can't be serious about saying more regulation is bad, after what we are facing now?

Most of the regulations he's attempting to impose are in effect deregulations.

It's counter intuitive but stick with me. Say your a coal plant, you can only dump so much into the atmosphere. If I put in NEW regulation saying you can dump even more then it is in fact more regulation even if I'm making it easier for you to pollute.


Another example, say your a bank, there were certain things you were not allowed to do before. Well new regulation making something which was previously illegal now becomes legal because there's MORE regulation for it.

As for hard to over-turn. Bullshit, everything Bush is during Obama could over-turn with the wave of his hand, it would just take time.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

I wonder if the intention is to load up the next office-holder with a pile of legislation that he needs to attempt to undue so time is wasted on attempting to undue it instead of doing something else.

[Patrick Degan]

I wonder if the intention is to load up the next office-holder with a pile of legislation that he needs to attempt to undo so time is wasted on attempting to undo it instead of doing something else.

Obstructionism is exactly the object behind this —in the increasingly likely event of an Obama win. Look for a lot more of it from the Republikans in the months to come.

[cosmicalstorm]

Yeah I totally fucked that post up, it was supposed to say deregulation but the phone rang while I was typing, im a moron.

[ArcturusMengsk]

I wonder if the intention is to load up the next office-holder with a pile of legislation that he needs to attempt to undue so time is wasted on attempting to undue it instead of doing something else.

How much time could it conceivably waste, though? All President Obama would need to do would be to call in a special committee designed to examine these last-minute deregulations, task them to come up with some method of circumvention, and have it brought up in Congress. It would tie up some White House resources, but not the Presidency itself. If obstructionism is what Bush is getting at, there are far better ways to do it.

[RedImperator]

It's obviously not new laws, because Congress isn't even in session (never mind the possibility of a Democratic Congress voting to weaken environmental laws in a lame-duck session less than three months before a Democratic president is sworn in). The idea must be to have Federal regulatory agencies relax their rules. My guess is, if it happens at all, is that they'd immediately be frozen by lawsuits, and as soon as Obama is in the Oval Office, he orders the same agencies to reverse course (or just orders the Solicitor General to drop the court case).

[CmdrWilkens]

Exactly, any major change in agency regulations is suppossed to be accompanied by a public comemnt period, hearings with the relevant Congressional committe and a shitload of other time delay effects. If Bush tries to force it through then there will be a wave of injunctions handed down by the Federal Courts which would tie things up until well after the new Congress is seated and basically slaps everything down.

[The Yosemite Bear]

yeah, he may be trying, and congress may not be in session, so like appointing that guy to the UN he may think he can do anything since it's just him and his hand picked supreme court....

[SirNitram]

They're 'rules' that, by quirks of the American system, will go into place, and if I know Bush(And thus extrapolate from the lending madness), it'll be pre-emptive against states enforcing stricter, and by the quirks, be unable to be repealed until a long review period.

This is why I say the GOP governs like a wrecking crew.

[The Yosemite Bear]

ahh stop the California GOP tougher standards on offshore drilling, emmisions, and MPG rules?

[havocfett]

Oh Come on! Is Bush now specifically doing this just to try and screw us over? It's begining to seem more and more like he isn't just someone who's horrible at making policy and actually wants to be famous by being the worst/last president of the US. I'm personally just hoping that he manages not to screw anything up to horribly before our next president takes over.

One question, if he passes these how hard will they be to repeal or to circumvent with technical details in other laws.