Sometime Around Midnight
Elizabeth Kolbert on the coming midnight regulations:
Now, of course, Bush has entered into his own midnight period, and it promises to be a dark time indeed. Among the many new regulations—or, rather, deregulations—the Administration has proposed are rules that would: make it harder for the government to limit workers’ exposure to toxins, eliminate environmental review from decisions affecting fisheries, and ease restrictions on companies that blow up mountains to get at the coal underneath them. Other midnight regulations in the works include rules to allow “factory farms” to ignore the Clean Water Act, rules making it tougher for employees to take family or medical leave, and rules that would effectively gut the Endangered Species Act. Most regulations are subject to public input; such is the sense of urgency that the Administration has brought to the task of despoliation that the Interior Department completed its “review” of two hundred thousand public comments on the endangered-species rules in just four days, a feat that, one congressional aide calculated, required each staff member involved to read through comments at the rate of seven per minute.
That’s certainly some impressive speedreading.
29 Responses to “Sometime Around Midnight”
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
so i think that it’s too late in the day to push for impeachment.
but couldn’t we simply have him arrested on terrorism charges?
sweet jesus–this guy could not do more damage to our country if he were bin laden’s second in command. he is just bound and determined to leave our nation in a smoking wreckage.
why do we have to sit idle while an enemy of america is trying to destroy it?
November 17th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
When are we going to get to the INTERESTING Part?
BLANKET pardons for unspecified crimes …
for Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby , David Addington, Alberto Gonzales,etc.
November 17th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
There IS one interesting question: can a President pardon Himself?
After all, Daddy merely pardoned the 15 or so witnesses that could have testified against Daddy in Iran Contra. Once their nuts were out of the prosecutor’s vise, those compadres developed cases of Reagan-like Alzheimers.
But trusting in loyalty of subordinates doesn’t strike me as George W’s long suit.
November 17th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I wonder how much time they usually spend reading the public comments on those documents. A little less than 10 seconds per comments sounds about right to me. For every detailed, informed comment there are probably 20 that are the equivalent of Don Williams’ contributions to this blog.
November 17th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Ah it’s the Sherman through Atlanta policy from the Bush Administration determined to wreak havoc till there’s no more havoc to wreak.
November 17th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
And again, there isn’t one of these that the Obama administration in concert with Congress can reverse, either by changing the rule back, or changing the rules on how to make the rules.
Obama’s people should be pushing for the Bush people to do as much as possible, that way they have longer time frame in which to blame their predecesors.
November 17th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
I was excited when I first heard there was a band called “Airborne Toxic Event,” because I like DeLillo and thought it was cool that a band put out the reference, even if it’s a bit obvious. I was disappointed when I heard one of their songs and realized that they TOTALLY SUCK.
November 17th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Can’t an Obama Administration just get rid of most of these in an up or down, un-filibusterable omnibus bill vote in the Congress thanks to the Congressional Review Act of 1996?
http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
November 17th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
@CJH—Thank you for saying it.
I noticed “Airborne Toxic Event” in the gig listings of my local free weekly a few months ago and I thought, “with a pretentious literary-reference name like that, I bet they’re really obnoxious.” And with the linked video, my suspicions were confirmed.
November 17th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Matthew (#8), yes, Obama can ditch just about every administrative decision Bush makes (or has made), unless it’s a lease to land or some similar contractual thing.
But, the lame duck administration is still motivated to cram all this stuff in, because 1) they’re hoping the incoming administration will overlook some of it, or decide it’s too inconsequential to dick with, and 2) it scores points with George’s “my base” as people are headed out the door looking for private sector work and biz deals.
November 17th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Just to play devil’s advocate on reading comments, as someone who occasionally reads comments on local development projects, sometimes there are form letters that get duplicated many times and the only thing you need to do is put them in the right stack.
That being said, this is the sort of scumbaggery we’ve come to expect from George W. Bush, but I don’t see how Obama can’t reverse most of it.
November 17th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Hmm, I would have gone for the more obvious song tie-in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEaDj6TXiQQ
November 18th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
I recently finished a job where I was helping a federal agency process comment letters… 60,000 for one proposal this summer. I can’t speak for the higher ups who actually have an influence on policy, but I assume the sheer number of these comments basically precludes thoughtful reading. Form letters and poorly written comments abound.
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