The White House has approved a controversial rule that would change the way occupational health agencies calculate on-the-job risks. The rule cleared the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs yesterday.

According to OIRA's website, the office approved the rule "consistent with change." That's the most common designation OIRA uses to summarize its review of agency regulations. Basically, consistent with change means OIRA has done some meddling with and editing of the rule, but the big picture remains the same.

Approval by OIRA — a politically-minded office inside the White House that is responsible for reviewing and approving agency policy — does not come as a surprise. The rule, which the office of Labor Secretary Elaine Chao is pushing without the consultation of her department's occupational health experts, would create a system that downplays occupational risks in order to weaken the argument in favor of workplace regulations. Such a policy is consistent with the Bush White House's disdain for regulation. (OMB Watch has more on the rule here.)

The next step in the process is formal publication of the proposal in the Federal Register. The Department of Labor may borrow the strategy of other federal departments that have been trying to rush through other bad regulations. The departments of Health and Human Services and Interior both recently proposed new rules but only allowed for 30 days of public comment. (The standard is 60 days.) Stay tuned to Reg•Watch for updates.

In case there is any question as to whether the Bush administration is trying to hurry a new rule that could potentially limit access to reproductive health services, Reg•Watch offers the following nugget of information.

The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which acts as the administration's clearinghouse for proposed and final regulations, reviewed the rule in less than one day. The Department of Health and Human Services sent the rule to OIRA on Thursday, August 21 and OIRA sent it back "consistent with change" later that day.

All of that must have occurred before about 2:00 pm when HHS announced the proposal on its website.

For perspective's sake, as of today, the average review time for the 367 proposed rules OIRA has reviewed this year is 65 days. OIRA's average review time for the 69 HHS proposals submitted is 55 days.

Reg•Watch is often critical of OIRA for taking too long to review proposed and final rules. There are lots of rules that would benefit from only a cursory glance by officials at the White House and other federal agencies, who are also given an opportunity to comment. (For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's rule to protect the North Atlantic right whale has languished at OIRA for more than a year and a half.)

But in this case, the quick review is not good news. Officials in HHS Secretary Leavitt's office and officials at the White House are clearly moving in lock step on this rule. We should all expect them to do their damndest to get this rule out the door as soon as possible.

The Department of Health and Human Services is going forward with a controversial proposal that would require government grantees that provide health care services to certify they do not discriminate against providers who oppose abortion. From the Associated Press:

The proposed rule, which applies to institutions receiving government money, would require as many as 584,000 employers ranging from major hospitals to doctors' offices and nursing homes to certify in writing that they are complying with several federal laws that protect the conscience rights of health care workers. Violations could lead to a loss of government funding and legal action to recoup federal money already paid.

Abortion rights supporters served notice that they intend to challenge the new rule.

"Women's ability to manage their own health care is at risk of being compromised by politics and ideology," Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.

HHS claims the rule is needed "to ensure that Department funds do not support morally coercive or discriminatory practices or policies in violation of federal law."

The administration is trying to hurry the rule through the usual regulatory process. The rule appears to have bypassed the required White House review period during which the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs gets its say on a rule before approving it for public viewing. (This is not to say the White House wasn't involved in the early stages of the rule's drafting.) [Correction: New information shows OIRA did review the rule, but approved it in only a few hours. Read more here.]

The rule will only be opened to public comment for 30 days, further indicating that time is of the essence for Bush administration officials hoping to finalize the rule in the next few months. A typical public comment period lasts 60 days.

Furthermore, the rule is in blatant violation of a White House policy announced in May that told agencies the Bush administration would "resist the historical tendency of administrations to increase regulatory activity in their final months." The policy, which takes the form of a memo to Department heads from White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, instructed agencies to propose "no later than June 1, 2008" any regulation the agency wishes to finalize during Bush's tenure. The HHS rule announced today misses that deadline by more than 80 days.

The Bush administration announced yesterday that it will not enforce new requirements that would have made it more difficult for states to enroll children in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). USA Today reports that the administration will not be taking "compliance action" at this time on regulations that would have forced states to wait until children are uninsured for one year before being covered by SCHIP and also require states to enroll 95 percent of extremely low-income children in the state before expanding health care coverage to only somewhat low-income families:

The directive was aimed at 15 states that extended health insurance to children in families with incomes above 250% of the federal poverty level — $44,000 for a family of three.

Many governors and Democratic lawmakers criticized the administration's new guidelines as impossible to meet. They said the final result would be that more children would go without health coverage as states rein in their programs.

With the deadline fast approaching, the administration made clear that states were under no immediate threat of losing federal funding.

We commented at the end of July about how Democrats in Congress really dropped the ball in using the Congressional Review Act to impede the Bush administration's efforts to keep kids from having health care. Fortunately, at least for the time being, it looks like they are off the hook.

Last week, a group of EPA staffers wrote to administrator Stephen Johnson chiding him for the agency's recent decision to delay federal action on greenhouse gas emissions and the damaging climatic effects they cause. In July, EPA issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (a relatively minor step in the rulemaking process) that solicits public comment on various regulatory options for curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

Strangely, the notice was accompanied by a raft of statements from senior officials across the Bush administration which ridicule the proposal and undermine it ultimate intent — to slow the effects of global climate change. Susan Dudley, head of the White House's regulatory clearinghouse, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, said the policy "cannot be considered Administration policy or representative of the views of the Administration."

In their July 30 letter, the EPA staffers blasted Johnson for including the views of political officials (including the secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and Energy) while basically ignoring the hard work of EPA experts: "The way in which you subverted the work of EPA staff in your preamble statement on the merits of the supporting rationale for the ANPRM was as unprecedented as it was stunning to your staff and damaging to EPA's reputation for sound science and policy."

On one important point, the letter corners Johnson as a hypocrite. Johnson chose to include the views of officials in other agencies in the name of transparency. But when it comes to decision making on environmental policy, Johnson has been downright opaque over the past few months:

The decision to publish the critiques of other agencies in the name of "transparency" in decision-making is both disingenuous and counterproductive. A far more direct contribution would be made to the credibility and transparency of EPA decision-making if you cooperated with congressional requests for documents and hearings.

Johnson's refusal to cooperate with Congress isn't limited to the greenhouse gas rulemaking. Congressional committees have repeatedly requested information from Johnson on EPA's controversial revision to an air quality standard for smog and on his decision to refuse to let the state of California write its own rules to deal with climate change.

On all of these issues, internal documents and anecdotal evidence show that the White House exerted some level of pressure on Johnson in order to sway his opinion. And when the Bush White House weighs in on environmental policy, it unfailingly does so on behalf of polluters, not the public.

But when Congress subpoenas Johnson, Dudley, and others, they claim executive privilege. While they argue that these communications must be kept secret in order to ensure good government, EPA staffers say otherwise:

The professional staff of EPA has nothing to hide. In fact, contrary to your assertions of executive privilege, the free flow of policy recommendations would be aided by opening up all (not just selected) communications to public scrutiny.

Toward the end of the letter, the staffers say: "You were once one of us. We were proud when you were nominated as the first of us to occupy the Administrator's Office, and we expected great things. Our disappointment is profound."