Dems Still Unsure How They’ll Reverse Bush’s ‘Midnight Regs’ « The Washington Independent

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“Congress is going to have to roll up its sleeves and review these midnight regulations,” Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said in an interview, “because it’s clear that they are part of a desire for the administration, as it heads out the door, to put some ideological trophies on the wall.”

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Mr. Wyden, the chairman of a subcommittee on natural resources, said he was focusing on a series of recently issued environmental rules. Among them are measures relaxing protections for endangered species, allowing uranium mining near the Grand Canyon, and making it easier for coal companies to dump mining debris in nearby streams and valleys. [...]

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Spokesmen for the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said they shared their colleagues’ desire to overturn some of the regulations but were waiting for guidance from the administration before adopting a specific strategy.

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President-elect Barack Obama’s incoming White House counsel, Gregory B. Craig, said in a statement that their team was in the process of reviewing “these new regulations that are being issued during the final days” of the Bush administration and “will take appropriate steps to address any concerns in a timely manner.”