Bush, during his term, has advocated against every environmental issue and has done virtually nothing to “protect our nation’s environment”, Now as his term ends, he is engaged in the very “hard work” of his office … to assure that our nation’s environment WILL NOT be protected and to assure that the promises he made to his business associates and contributors WILL be delivered.

These are just a few of the regulations (or deregulations) President Bush has signed-off on in the last few days:

1Large industrial cow, pig, and chicken farms can ignore the Clean Water Act and air pollution controls.

2Power plants can build and operate nearer to national parks and wilderness areas.

3Oil companies can develop a vast area of land in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah to recover the world’s dirtiest fuel, oil shale.

4Coal companies who now mine by removing the tops of ancient mountains can dump the toxic and unstable residue into nearby streams.

5Mining and logging companies can develop projects without considering the impact upon wildlife.

6Power plants can legally operate under downgraded pollution controls.

7Commercial fishery companies, rather than federal employees, are responsible for examining the environmental impacts of ocean management policy.

8Chemical industries can burn thousands of tons of hazardous waste as fuel because categories of waste have been declassified.

The environment is not President Bush’s only target. There are other deregulations associated with civil liberties, traffic safety, worker rights and safety, health and human services and gun control.

How can he do this?

It is legal. The president has the power to issue regulations at any time. Only recently, however, have presidents taken to signing regulations at the last minute. To accomplish his unfinished business in office, President Carter issued 10,000 pages of new rules during the last few months … on issues ranging from crash test for cars to patient access to medical records. Since then, every president has issued an increasing number of regulations, now referred to as “midnight regulations”. It is a particularly popular tactic when the incoming administration is of the opposition party.

What can we do about these regulations Speaker Pelosi refers to as “ghoulish”? The good news is that the incoming Congress or the President can overturn the regulations. The bad news is that, in a new administration, there are overwhelming issues which require more immediate attention.

So, the public must raise the status of an issue. While the traditional advice has been to “call or write your representatives”, an alternative might be to “get on the internet”, research, blog, join like-minded groups of people, and write, call or otherwise contact the powerful and persuasive “talking heads” on the cable networks. We can do it!

As an aside, when President George W. Bush parted from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy at his final G-8 Summit in Japan this past July, he raised his arms, punched the air and grinned widely as he uttered another incredible Bushism “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.” Amen. Finally he spoke the truth!

NOTE: To see many of the regulations President Bush is proposing in his last few days, go to Reg-Watch at: www.ombwatch.org/article/blogs/entry/5494.