Bush’s last rule-making hurrah

With just 60 days left in his tenure, you might think that W.'s lame-duck administration was sitting around relieved that another guy was taking over, and Bush was counting the minutes until his flight leaves for Crawford. Not quite. Based on the flurry of quiet directives coming from the White House as the end of the term nears, it looks like the Bush goose (or is it turducken?) isn't quite cooked yet. In what has become a kind of presidential right-of-passage, the president (or really, the federal agencies that answer to him) has been pushing through a series of last-minute regulations that have the force of law. Everything from pollution controls to family-leave standards can be set by these rules. And you thought your high school government teacher said that Congress made all the laws. These de-facto laws are called "midnight rules" or "midnight regulations" because they happen at the end -- or midnight period -- of an administration. If the rules are published in the Federal Register by Friday, Nov. 21, they'll be very hard for President-elect Obama to reverse when he gets into office.