Rewriting the Rules: Report, Volume 4

Front Cover
U.S. Government Printing Office, 2002 - 55 pages
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.

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Page 6 - It shall (A) compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed; and (B) hold unlawful and set aside agency action, findings, and conclusions found to be (1) arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law...
Page 19 - No public forest reservation shall be established, except to improve and protect the forest within the reservation, or for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens of the United States...
Page 6 - The reviewing court shall: 1. compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed; and 2. hold unlawful and set aside agency action, findings, and conclusions found to be: a) arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law; b) contrary to constitutional right, power, privilege, or immunity; c) in excess of statutory jurisdiction, authority, or limitations, or short of statutory right...
Page 15 - Sustained yield of the several products and services" means the achievement and maintenance in perpetuity of a high-level annual or regular periodic output of the various renewable resources of the national forests without impairment of the productivity of the land.
Page 15 - ... some land will be used for less than all of the resources; and harmonious and coordinated management of the various resources, each with the other, without impairment of the productivity of the land, with consideration being given to the relative values of the various resources, and not necessarily the combination of uses that will give the greatest...
Page 6 - If Congress shall lay down by legislative act an intelligible principle to which the person or body authorized to fix such rates is directed to conform, such legislative action is not a forbidden .delegation of legislative power.
Page 29 - That, in managing the public lands the Secretary shall by regulation or otherwise take any action required to prevent unnecessary or undue degradation of the lands and their resources or to afford environmental protection.
Page 10 - Seeking public comment is impracticable, unnecessary and contrary to the public interest. The temporary 60-day delay in effective date is necessary to give Department officials the opportunity for further review and consideration of new regulations, consistent with the Assistant to the President's memorandum of January 20, 2001. Given the imminence of the effective date, seeking prior public comment on this temporary delay would have been impractical, as well as contrary to the public interest in...
Page 15 - The management of all the various renewable surface resources of the national forests so that they are utilized in the combination that will best meet the needs of the American people; making the most judicious use of the land for some or all of these resources or related services over areas large enough to provide sufficient latitude for periodic adjustments in use to conform to changing needs and conditions; that some...
Page 2 - Government with particular reference to— (i) the effectiveness of present national security methods, staffing, and processes as tested against the requirements imposed by the rapidly mounting complexity of national security problems...

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