The Office of Management and Budget is burning oil – midnight oil, that is. They’re lucky it’s fairly cheap these days.
They’re working overtime to review a trainload of proposed rule changes that have been submitted by a variety of agencies in the twilight of the Bush Administration.
Late last spring, I flagged in this blog a memo issued by White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten to regulatory agencies advising them to pull together any proposed rule changes they might wish to pursue by June 1, with an aim toward making them final by November 1. This, Mr. Bolten explained, was to avoid a mad dash for midnight regulations -- those last-minute tweaks to federal rules made in the final weeks and months of a departing administration. The memo made an exception for “extraordinary circumstances” -- of course.