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.

It's a bad week to be a forest-dweller. Yesterday, Reg•Watch blogged about the Bush administration's proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act that would make it easier for big development projects to move forward without due consideration to vulnerable species.

Today, headlines bear bad news for the threatened northern spotted owl. The owl was listed as threatened under ESA years ago. Now, the Bush administration's Fish and Wildlife Service — an agency within the Interior Department which released the controversial proposal covered yesterday — wants to reduce protections for the owl. The Associated Press reports:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday that the federal forest land designated as critical habitat for the owl in Washington, Oregon and Northern California would be cut by 23%, a reduction of 1.6 million acres. Critical habitat is a requirement of the Endangered Species Act and offers increased protections against logging.

Endangered and threatened species need special protections for their habitats in order to recover and thrive. Even though the northern spotted owl has enjoyed a critical habitat area since the 1990s, its numbers are struggling to climb. "Research shows that spotted owl numbers are dropping by 4% annually as a result of logging, wildfires and an invasion of its habitat by the barred owl, a more aggressive East Coast cousin," according to AP.

It's as though the Bush administration is employing hard-nosed management techniques to spur the owl toward recovery. As a species, the owl is underperforming (down four percent annually, not even accounting for inflation), so the administration will send it a message by cutting benefits. Next it will be the parking space, then the key to the executive wash room. Fear can be strong motivation.

Of course, the northern spotted owl is unlikely to turn things around in a smaller protected habitat. According to AP, "Tom Partin, president of the American Forest Resources Council in Portland, said the recovery plan and critical habitat would make it more difficult to thin overgrown forests to reduce the risks to wildlife and to promote the old-growth characteristics the owls favor."

The Bush administration is proposing major changes to the Endangered Species Act that would sideline government experts and allow development projects to proceed unchecked, all at the expense of endangered plants, animals, and other organisms. The Washington Post reports:

The new rules, which will be subject to a 30-day comment period, would use administrative powers to make broad changes in the law that Congress has resisted for years. Under current law, agencies must subject any plans that potentially affect endangered animals and plants to an independent review by the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service. Under the proposed new rules, dam and highway construction and other federal projects could proceed without delay if the agency in charge decides they would not harm vulnerable species.

The proposal would give extraordinary control of biological health decisions to officials whose primary responsibilities include infrastructure creation, minerals extraction, or logging.

For example, take the Minerals Management Service whose mission is to "manage the ocean energy and mineral resources on the Outer Continental Shelf and Federal and Indian mineral revenues to enhance public and trust benefits, promote responsible use, and realize fair value." If an official is considering a project that would yield huge energy benefits and please MMS higher-ups but would also decimate one or more endangered species and violate the law, what's a bureaucrat to do? Talk about a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

The proposal fits in with the Bush administration's record, or lack thereof, on enforcing the Endangered Species Act. A March investigation by the Post found that Bush had listed only 59 species under the act. Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush listed 231 species in only four years as president. President Bill Clinton listed 521 species in eight years.

If finalized before Bush leaves office in January, the rule would also violate a new White House policy intended to slow the usual proliferation of rules that occurs at the end of an administration, often called midnight regulations. On May 9, White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten issued a memo telling regulatory agencies that "regulations to be finalized in this Administration should be proposed no later than June 1, 2008."

The proposed rule wasn't announced until yesterday, and has yet to be officially published in the Federal Register. Of course, the Bolten memo isn't binding, nor does it carry any legal consequence.

The Bush administration is applying the memo selectively, using it to delay policies that might expand protections for public health, workers, or the environment and ignoring it when it finds a new opportunity to cement an anti-regulatory legacy. The proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act — which could lead to environmentally damaging, scientifically uniformed decisions in a future administration — is a perfect example.

(Another rule that would change the way the Department of Labor studies the toxic substances workers are exposed to is equally sneaky. A Health and Human Services rule that may make it harder for women to receive birth control provides yet another example.)

The proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act will be open to public comment once published in the Federal Register. But the 30-day comment period indicates the administration is trying to hustle this rule through before it leaves office. (60 days is the norm for a comment period on a proposed rule.) Stay tuned to Reg•Watch for updates.