Washington (Platts)--4Feb2009

Several Democratic lawmakers said Wednesday that Congress should reverse
a host of controversial regulations that the Bush administration issued in its
final days in office, including rules pertaining to coal mining and oil-shale
development.

Representative Stephen Cohen, Democrat-Tennessee, blasted the Bush
administration for issuing what he dubbed "midnight regulations" during its
waning days and weeks in power, saying the rules were promulgated "under the
cover of darkness" and without a full opportunity for public scrutiny.

"Congress and the American people have an obligation to examine and
rectify the wreckage left behind by the Bush administration, including these
egregious midnight regulations," Cohen said at a hearing of the US House of
Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law,
which he chairs.

One of the regulations at issue, which the Department of the Interior
finalized on December 1, gives coal producers more latitude to dump mining
spoil into streams in conjunction with so-called "mountaintop-removal"
operations.

Mining companies support Interior's so-called "stream-buffer zone"
rule, but environmental groups and many Democratic lawmakers say the
measure -- along with the practice of mountaintop-removal mining -- spawns
widespread environmental destruction.

Robert Kennedy, the chairman of the Waterkeeper Alliance, a clean-water
advocacy group, testified at the hearing that mountaintop-removal mining "has
buried or damaged more than 1,200 miles of irreplaceable headwater streams."

He said the Bush administration's rule "prioritizes the convenience of
the coal-mining industry over the health and safety of Appalachian communities
and their waterways."

Democrats on the panel also took issue with Bush administration rules
that shortened the review process under the Endangered Species Act, and
allowed for oil-shale development in the western US.

They said the rules should be rescinded via the Congressional Review Act,
which allows the Senate and the House to overturn actions by executive-branch
agencies such as Interior.

--Dipka Bhambhani, dipka_bhambhani@platts.co