Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Big business hails Bush as watchdog

President Bush has spent much of his time in office pulling the tail of the federal regulatory process. He appointed industry insiders to important regulatory jobs and tried to rewrite landmark regulatory laws, such as the Endangered Species Act. The result has been a reversal of tough enforcement of laws protecting public health and safety and the environment.

Now that Democrats control Congress, it won't be as easy to skin that cat. Bush's nomination of antiregulatory hardliner Susan Dudley (who favors sunsetting federal safety standards) to head the White House office that oversees regulation has been blocked by Senate Democrats. So the other day Bush signed an executive order giving his office even more control over the federal rulemaking process. It's a significant power play because Congress often passes overarching regulatory laws and leaves it up to professional administrators and experts to write the rules.

Bush will turn that job over to political appointees. From now on, every agency under the executive branch will have to identify a "specific market failure" (whatever that means) to justify government intervention, a position advocated by Dudley. Corporate America quickly embraced the position, with William Kovacs, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, saying "regulations will be less onerous and more reasonable."

Maybe so, or maybe federal regulations will no longer have teeth and be blithely ignored in the pursuit of profit. That's what some watchdog groups fear, particularly when it comes to protecting the environment and workplace safety.

Bush didn't get his way with Dudley's nomination, but there's an old saying in Texas ...

[Last modified January 31, 2007, 01:03:57]