Obama Agencies Press On With What GOP Decries as ‘Midnight Rules’

With an anti-regulation Trump presidency looming, Obama administration-led agencies in their final two months are forging ahead to complete long-in-the-works regulations that Republicans in Congress tried to ban as “midnight” rules.

A roundup by a team of Politico reporters published Monday found that “regulations on commodities speculation, air pollution from the oil industry, doctors’ Medicare drug payments and high-skilled immigrant workers are among the rules moving through the pipeline as Obama’s administration grasps at one last chance to cement his legacy. So are regulations tightening states’ oversight of online colleges and protecting funding for Planned Parenthood.”

One agency that is “pulling back” from the perennial last-minute push is the Interior Department, the reporters noted, which “failed to release a long-awaited rule to protect streams from coal mining pollution — and indications are it might never issue it.”

Still, as many as 98 rules were moving through the pipeline as of Nov. 15, in part because of guidance issued a year ago by Howard Shelanski, administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, urging regulation writers to speed up. Seventeen regulations awaiting final approval are considered “economically significant,” with an estimated economic impact of at least $100 million a year, Politico wrote.

A House Republican bill to ban such “midnight regulations” drew a veto threat from Obama earlier this month.

Also advancing, according to Politico, are U.S. Trade Representative negotiations on an investment treaty with China, an Education Department decision on whether to offer debt relief to students at defunct for-profit colleges and a Transportation Department ban on cellphone calls on commercial flights.