Legislative Strategy, Constitutional Duty, Keys To Overturning Bush Administration "Midnight Regs"

The Chess-board — Image credit:Victorian Web,Illustration to the second chapter of Through the Looking Glass by John Tenniel. Wood-engraving by the Dalziels.

I declare it's marked like a large chess-board!" Alice said at last. "There ought to be some men moving about somewhere — and so there are!

A few days ago we noted that President-elect Obama's "suggestion box" might be full - and that his transition team was busy with big-picture strategy. See: Fall In TreeHuggers: Obama's Environmental Suggestion Box Is Full

Politico now reports that US Democratic Congressional leaders may have a relatively clean and fast way to dump last minute de-regulatory initiatives: Dems eye midnight regulations reversal. This one hangs on congressional strategy as well as on legal and constitutional acceptability.

Wouldn't it be nice not to have to spend the first quarter of the new Administration undoing the so-called "midnight-rules" and instead focus on comprehensive energy and climate policy? From Politico story:-

Congressional Democrats are eyeing a little-known, Clinton-era law as a way to reverse Bush administration midnight regulations — even ones that have already taken effect...The law contains a clause determining that any regulation finalized within 60 legislative days of congressional adjournment is considered to have been legally finalized on the 15th legislative day of the new Congress, likely sometime in February. Congress then has 60 days to review it and reverse it with a joint resolution that can’t be filibustered in the Senate.

In other words, any regulation finalized in the last half-year of the Bush administration could be wiped out with a simple party-line vote in the Democrat-controlled Congress.