Democrats Eye Bush Midnight Regulations

As President-elect Barack Obama's transition team prepares for the Jan. 20 inauguration, it is tracking the "midnight" regulations being churned out in the final days of the Bush administration. Regulatory policy may not have as high a profile as economic issues and foreign policy for Obama. Still, many of these latter-day Bush rules are flash points for liberal public-interest groups, Democrats in Congress and the business community. Some 130 rules could be completed before Bush leaves. The White House has finished reviews of 100 rules since Sept. 1, up from 36 in the same period last year. The new president may issue executive orders to reverse some Bush policies and may get help from a law passed by the Republican-controlled Congress in 1996 to review and eliminate Clinton-era rules it didn't like. The law has been successfully used once, in 2001, to kill a rule designed to prevent repetitive motion injuries in the workplace.