Politics

Parting Shots

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 5, 2001 / 5:01 PM EST / CBS

With just two weeks left in office, President Clinton continues to invoke the full powers of the presidency, reports CBS News Chief White House Correspondent John Roberts.

On Friday, Mr. Clinton permanently put almost 60 million acres of national forest in 39 states off-limits to developers.

"Today we free the land so that it will remain unspoiled by bulldozers, undisturbed by chain saws and untouched for our children," he announced at the National Arboretum in Washington.

It was the latest in a flurry of so-called "midnight rules," in which the president uses his executive powers to outflank a stonewalling Congress – and some Republicans on Capitol Hill are seething.

"The process has been totally flawed," charged Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Ark.

It's not just the forest initiative that has Republicans irked. In recent days, Mr. Clinton also:

Rescinded his own 8-year-old order to prohibit top administration officials from lobbying their former agencies for five years after leaving government.
Bypassed the Senate's confirmation process to temporarily put the first black judge onto the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which serves several Southern states. Virginia lawyer Roger Gregory's nomination had been stalled in the Senate.
Issued a batch of regulations imposing new workplace safety rules, including one requiring employers to provide ergonomics programs.
Ordered a new D.C. license plate with the slogan "Taxation Without Representation" affixed to his presidential limousine, protesting Washington's lack of statehood or a vote in Congress.

He's Still The Boss

A president doesn't have to go to Congress for every last thing he wants to get done. Here are some highlights of the Clinton administration's lame-duck whirlwind of activity:

Protection for coral reefs in Hawaii

New rules to cut truck and bus pollution by more than 90 percent over the next decade

Rules on organic foods

Dozens of pardons, including former House Ways and Means committee chairman Dan Rostenkowski and two women who were serving long jail terms for drug crimes in which they were not major players

A proposal to make it easier fr battered women to apply for asylum in the U.S.

A plan to make prescription drug labels more likely to be read, and thus, safer

Rules on privacy of medical records

Presidents often leave office with a flurry of executive orders and rule changes. But in Mr. Clinton's case, it's been a blizzard.

"It's just the sheer volume," said Norman Ornstein, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who specializes in Congress and the presidency. "But that's Bill Clinton. He's going to squeeze as much out of his presidency as he can."

Publicly, the incoming administration isn't criticizing Mr. Clinton's exercise of his legal and regulatory authority to produce late-term changes. After all, it is something all outgoing presidents do – presidents who, in turn, had it done to them while they were waiting to assume power.

However, George W. Bush is feeling the heat from special interest groups to undo much of what the Clinton administration has done.

"He has been a busy beaver," Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said Friday, promising a review of "each and every one" of Mr. Clinton's orders once Bush takes office. "We are taking note of them all."

"His term ends Jan. 20. President Clinton's staff has made it clear to us that he will remain a vigorous president," Fleischer said.

The business community is anxious for Bush to try to block some of the Clinton orders. "It's frustrating to see Clinton do through the backdoor of the White House what he could not do through the legislative process," said Bill Miller of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Miller suggested one possibility: that Bush declare a temporary moratorium on all recent regulations when he takes office so they can be studied.

However, rescinding a midnight rule is nearly impossible. Ronald Reagan vowed to overturn regulations Jimmy Carter enacted, but was blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court.

President-elect Bush may have a better chance to turn back his predecessor's work than Mr. Reagan did. A never-used 1996 law allows Congress to revoke new rules within 60 days. But in a Congress as closely divided as this one, it's unlikely that any regulation could be undone without a bitter fight.

White House spokesman Jake Siewert defended the Clinton administration's rush of executive orders, recess appointments and executive orders.

"The president is the president until Jan. 20, and he's going to use his executive authority to protect the environment and to do everything he can to protect worker safety and people's safety," Siewert said Friday.