Bush's White House Exit Strategy Underway

Unlike Dick Cheney, President Bush is laying low for the rest of the Presidential campaign. Just because the President isn't campaigning for John McCain doesn't mean the White House isn't staying busy during the last days of the administration.

R. Jeffrey Smith of The Washington Post reported Friday that before they leave office in January, the Bush Administration plan to revise "a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment".

The new rules, 90 of them, would ease regulation across the board, from rules about how employees can use leave time to rules about pollution.


CBS Evening News spoke to Matt Madia of OMB Watch on the impact of these proposed changes, which are designed to extend deep into the next administration. In order to undo the changes, the next administration would have to go through an arduous process that includes a mandated public comment period and several other steps.

The administration defended themselves by arguing that the number of changes they've requested is fewer than the number asked for by the Clinton Administration. While that is true, the Clinton Administrations requests were not nearly as damaging--Madia called the changes "a last-minute assault on the public . . . happening on multiple fronts"--and many of them were never enacted because they waited too long to start the process, so the requests were simply canceled by executive order when President Bush took office. That is not a mistake the Bush administration is likely to make.