In September, Reg•Watch blogged about a New York Times article highlighting a recent trend in which businesses are asking the federal government to regulate them. In some cases, the businesses' intentions seem good. In other cases, the requests may be nothing more than political maneuvering.

An article in yesterday's Times revisits the latter of those two cases:

Business lobbyists, nervously anticipating Democratic gains in next year's elections, are racing to secure final approval for a wide range of health, safety, labor and economic rules, in the belief that they can get better deals from the Bush administration than from its successor.

The article mentions a number of rules that may prove to be battlegrounds including vehicle safety standards, mountaintop mining, and family-related medical leave.

Randel K. Johnson, a vice president for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, made no bones about the intentions of his group. Speaking of industry-supported changes to federal medical leave policy, he said, "We want to get this done before the election," adding, "The next White House may be less hospitable to our position."

There are a number of ways industry interests looking for watered down regulations can take advantage of the current administration. A major one is by funneling their views through the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).

OIRA reviews major agency regulations and proposals, and often solicits the opinions of outside stakeholders in the process. Unfortunately, these meetings occur behind closed doors, with no public disclosure of what was discussed. Under the Bush administration, the White House has frequently brought in industry representatives opposed to the regulations OIRA is reviewing. (See here and here for recent examples.)

This is definitely something to watch out for in the year to come.