In what has become a kind of presidential right-of-passage, the president (or really, the federal agencies that answer to him) has been pushing through a series of last-minute regulations that have the
force of law. Everything from pollution controls to family-leave standards can be set by these rules.....These de-facto laws are called "midnight rules" or "midnight regulations" because they happen at the end -- or midnight period -- of an administration. If the rules are published in the
Federal Register by Friday, Nov. 21, they'll be
very hard for President-elect Obama to reverse when he gets into office.
And that's the point. Sure, the administration had eight years to get a lot of this stuff accomplished. But according to senior research fellow at George Mason University, Veronique de Rugy, most midnight regulations "cater to special interests" and "that is why they are hurried into effect without the usual checks and balances."
...In recent days, the Bush administration announced new rules to speed oil shale development across 2 million rocky acres in the West. It scheduled an auction for drilling rights alongside three national parks. It has also set in motion processes to finalize major changes in endangered species protection, allow more mining waste to flow into rivers and streams, and exempt factory farms from air pollution reporting.
