Book Description

On January 20, 2001, President Bush's Chief of Staff Andrew Card issued a directive to all federal agency heads not to put into effect any rules or regulations until they were reviewed by the new administration. A number of regulations were reversed. Senator Lieberman asked Governmental Affairs Committee staff to review the Card memo and its effect on three rules that had previously been final: the Department of Agriculture's rule conserving roadless areas in national forests, the Department of the Interior's rule regulating hard roc mining on public lands, and the Environmental Protection Agency's rule capping the permissible level of arsenic in drinking water. The report concludes that the Card memo was of questionable legality and that the administration has demonstrated lack of respect for established regulatory procedures.