I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Photo by Zach Kowalczyk
As NMI noted earlier this week (and earlier this year), the Bush administration is considering enacting a last-minute rule that could make it much more difficult for women to get information about and access to birth control, abortion and sterilization. The rule is opposed by major health care organizations, Democratic legislators and many state government health groups.
Now Politico and ProPublica have taken a look at some of Bush’s so-called “midnight regulations,” and how difficult it would be for President-elect Barack Obama to make them go away. We’re talking about stuff like allowing people to take loaded guns into national parks, allowing more uranium mining near the Grand Canyon, lowering air quality restrictions on lead and other things that the public might be cranky about — if only they were paying any attention.
From the story:
“The problem with what the Bush administration is doing is that these rules are extremely cumbersome to adopt, and they are every bit as cumbersome to undo,” said David Vladeck, an administrative law professor at Georgetown University. “It condemns the next administration to spend years fighting on the old administration’s agenda.”
Although ProPublica is tracking the conscience rule, it’s not one of the regulations that Politico examined. Nevertheless, we can infer that if Bush’s Health and Human Services Department does in fact push through this controversial rule, and Obama tries to overturn it (as he has said he would), then it could be a long and arduous process.
The silver lining, you ask? As Politico mentions, the administration had urged all departments to publish their final rules by Nov. 1 so that they could take effect before the end of Bush’s term. But the conscience rule missed this deadline, making it slightly more vulnerable to being overturned.
