Delay In The Regulatory Process

At the start of the Bush administration, as in other recent new administrations, there 1 were hundreds of federal regulations at various stages of the rulemaking process. Some were about to be sent to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR)for publication in the Federal Register, some had been sent to OFR but had not been published, and others had been published in the Federal Register but had not taken effect. Citing the desire to ensure that the President s appointees have the opportunity to review any new or pending regulations, on January 20,2001,Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card, Jr.sent a memorandum (Card memorandum)to the heads and acting heads of all executive departments and agencies generally directing them to (1)not send proposed or final regulations to OFR, (2)withdraw from OFR regulations that had been sent to the Office but not yet published in the Federal Register, and (3)postpone for 60 days the effective date of regulations that had been published in the Federal Register but had not yet taken effect. The Card memorandum instructed the officials to exclude any regulations that were promulgated pursuant to statutory or judicial deadlines, and to identify any such exclusions to the Director of the Office of Management Budget (OMB). It also said that agencies should notify the OMB Director of any regulations that should be excluded because they impact critical health and safety functions of the agency, and that the Director would determine whether the exception was appropriate. Although the Card memorandum did not expressly cover independent regulatoryagencies, it said that those agencies were encouraged to participate voluntarily in this review.