Energy and natural resources are issues critically important to America's future. Sound energy and resource policy can make our environment cleaner, spur economic growth, and improve national security.

With that in mind, it's perplexing that today the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee wasted time and taxpayer money debated and approved a bill to allow loaded guns in national parks.

The bill would end the 25-year-old ban on carrying loaded guns in national parks. (If state law banned gun possession in parks, the state policy would supersede the new law and remain in effect.) The bill passed the committee in an 18-5, according to CQPolitics.com.

The bill would accomplish the same goal as a Bush administration rule Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne proposed in April. Reg•Watch thinks the Interior rule will be among the many rules the Bush administration pushes through in its final months in order to secure its ideological legacy.

Both the bill and the proposed rule are remarkably unnecessary. An April Associated Press article explains:

There is no data to suggest that the public would be served by allowing visitors to parks to possess concealed handguns, [Coalition of National Park Service Retirees Chairman Bill] Wade and other critics said. They cited statistics showing that national parks are among the safest places in the country. The probability of becoming a victim of a violent crime in a national park is 1 in more than 708,000 — less likely than being struck by lightning, the groups said.

On the other hand, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), unmoved by fact, said, "The purpose of this bill is to protect innocent Americans from violent crime in national parks," according to CQPolitics.com.

However, since Congress almost never actually passes legislation, the Interior regulation is still the best bet for gun rights advocates hoping to arm national parks. Stay tuned to Reg•Watch for updates.

The Bush administration has proposed yet another rule that may be in violation of the controversial Bolten memo. On May 9, White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten instructed federal agencies to propose by June 1 any rule they wished to finalize by the end of the Bush administration. However, a number of agencies are rushing through controversial rules that defy Bolten's deadline, and the White House seems to have no objections.

This time the culprit is the Mine Safety and Health Administration. MSHA is proposing to require mine operators to test employees in "safety-sensitive" positions for drug and alcohol use. Here are some of the provisions from the proposed rule, which MSHA published today in the Federal Register:

• "Any applicant for a safety-sensitive position must be tested for the presence of drugs before performing safety-sensitive job duties."
• "Any applicant for a safety-sensitive position must receive an alcohol test after a conditional offer of employment has been made and before performing safety-sensitive job duties."
• "Mine operators must randomly conduct unannounced alcohol and drug tests of their miners."
• " A mine operator shall conduct an alcohol and/or drug test when the mine operator has reasonable suspicion to believe that the miner has misused a prohibited substance."

(MSHA defines safety-sensitive job duties as, "Any type of work activity where a momentary lapse of critical concentration could result in an accident, injury, or death.")

The Bush administration is working on this rule with surprising swiftness, considering its poor record on mine safety and occupational safety in general. And MSHA will only be taking public comment on the rule for 30 days. (The typical public comment period lasts at least 60 days.)

MSHA has been considering the rule since at least 2005, but the evidence indicates it may be making a final push to get the rule out the door before the end of the Bush administration.

Such a push may be welcomed by industry (or is industry behind the push?). Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette reports, "Coal industry officials have long sought an MSHA rule to require drug testing of miners." For another perspective, Ward adds, "[B]ut the United Mine Workers union has questioned the need for such testing and worried about the specifics of how companies would carry out such testing."