Many concerned citizens are furious to hear that as President Bush leaves office, he is determined to sign as many “midnight regulations”as possible, many of which will affect how the USA environmental practices are implemented. One proposed change would be to eliminate the input of federal wildlife scientists in some endangered species cases, allowing the federal agency in charge to make final decisions on building projects. Current regulations require independent wildlife biologists to sign off on these decisions by other federal agencies before a project can go forward, at times modifying the design to better protect species.

There has already been some rule changes recently that President George Bush has done. For example he has opened up 800,000 hectares of land in the Rocky Mountain states for the development of oil shale, and is reportedly considering allowing industrial-size pig, cow and chicken farms to disregard the Clean Water Act and air pollution controls. Another rule change being proposed is changing the way power plant pollution is measured in national parks and wilderness areas. By shifting from an annual emissions calculation to a short-term maximum measured over the course of hours, for instance, power plants can increase their emissions into the air over the course of a year. These rules will go into effect before President elect Obama takes office, which will make it very difficult to overturn since it would require the new administration to restart the rule-making process.

But there is a ray of hope. Congressional Democrats are eying a little law as a way to reverse the Bush administration “midnight regulations”. The little law is the Congressional Review act of 1996 which has a clause that determines that any regulation finalized within 60 legislative days of congressional adjournments is considered to have been legally finalized on the 15th legislative day of the new Congress, likely sometime in February. Congress then has 60 days to review it and reverse it with a joint resolution that can not be filibustered in the Senate. Please call your local Congress constitute to say these rules changes are unacceptable.