"In what has become a kind of presidential right-of-passage, the president (or really, the federal agencies that answer to him) has been pushing through a series of last-minute regulations that have the force of law. Everything from pollution controls to family-leave standards can be set by these rules.
And you thought your high school government teacher said that Congress made all the laws.
These de-facto laws are called "midnight rules" or "midnight regulations" because they happen at the end -- or midnight period -- of an administration. If the rules are published in the Federal Register by Friday, Nov. 21, they'll be very hard for President-elect Obama to reverse when he gets into office.
And that's the point. Sure, the administration had eight years to get a lot of this stuff accomplished. But according senior research fellow at George Mason University Veronique de Rugy, most midnight regulations "cater to special interests," and "that is why they are hurried into effect without the usual checks and balances."
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The Wall Street Journal reports that the new rules, "open the way for commercial development of oil shale on federal land, allow truckers to drive for longer periods, and add certain restrictions on employee time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act."
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