First appeared February 26, 2008

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) said it was a mistake holding a Valentine’s Day-Eve hearing into whether Roger Clemens took steroids or not. But Waxman also said Clemens lied and now “The Rocket” could be facing some serious charges.

The New York Times reported this morning that the oversight committee has drafted a letter to the Justice Dept., asking Justice to investigate if Clemens lied under oath. Apparently the committee is not also asking Justice to see if Clemens’ trainer, Brian McNamee, lied. But that’s not the only Clemens-incriminating revelation uncovered by this morning’s Times.

Members of Congress took a lot of time asking Clemens whether or not he attended a party in 1998 thrown by Jose Canseco (the reasoning behind the questioning being that Canseco allegedly discussed steroids with Clemens). Clemens denied being at the party, despite testimony from his nanny that Clemens attended Canseco’s house that day.

Clemens told Waxman under oath that the nanny was not only mistaken but her English is really bad and that may explain the confusion. Poor English was also the reason given for why Clemens spoke with the nanny before the nanny formally spoke with the committee. Maybe Clemens thought there was a “bad English speaking” exemption to witness tampering.

Well, the oversight committee has confirmed that the nanny speaks English perfectly well, just with an accent. They’re now circulating a transcript of her deposition where she used idioms such as, “Go ahead, make my day.”

Check The Washington Independent often for a link to this transcript when I find it as well as other breaking news concerning Jose Canseco’s 1998 party.

Now that the roller coaster that was 2008 has come to an end, we thought it would be fun to look back at some of our most popular, thought-provoking and entertaining posts from The Streak over the past year. This post was chosen by TWI staff as one of the most memorable of 2008. ]]> http://washingtonindependent.com/23375/best-of-the-streak-clemens-nanny-quotes-clint-eastwood-clearly-speaks-english/feed 1 http://washingtonindependent.com/20507/waxman http://washingtonindependent.com/20507/waxman#comments Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:00:49 +0000 Matthew Blake http://washingtonindependent.com/?p=20507

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) (WDCpix)



Rep. Henry A. Waxman’s (D-Calif.) successful bid to become chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee closes the door on his brief but eventful tenure as Congress’ No. 1 watchdog over the executive branch.

After the Democrats took over Congress in 2006, Waxman, a member of the House since 1974, became chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. As head of the one congressional committee whose chairman can subpoena anyone, Waxman did what the committee under Republican leadership mostly hadn’t done — investigate waste, fraud and abuse in the Bush administration.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

The committee found plenty of corruption and incompetence in military contracting, Iraq war reconstruction, veterans’ health care, the implementation of clean-air and clean-water laws, executive branch politicization and financial deregulation, among other areas.

And its hearings made for some sensational headlines. Former CIA agent Valerie Plame testified on faulty pre-Iraq War intelligence. Little-known administration officials like Lurita Doan and Stephen Johnson became targets of national ridicule because of their on-the-job political activities. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan famously admitted under oath that his economic model was flawed and led to policy mistakes. And the committee obtained a picture of imprisoned uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff shaking hands with a smiling George W. Bush.

Waxman’s two years of news-making oversight raises a question: What difference did it make?

The answer, in part, is that the efforts of the Waxman-led oversight committee revealed critical information about some of the worst scandals and policy decisions of the Bush administration. In doing so, it helped check an administration that received little congressional scrutiny in its first six years.

Yet oversight probably came too late to significantly alter the course of the Bush presidency.

“Waxman was very effective and served as a deterrent to misbehavior,” said John Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College in California. “But when you’re investigating a lame-duck administration, the political impact is muted.”

Waxman, who represents Beverly Hills, established an early reputation in the House for crafting environmental, public health and consumer protection legislation. During the Bush administration, he added a second legacy — that of oversight czar. From his perch as the oversight committee’s minority leader, Waxman investigated Iraq war contractor Haliburton and faulty pre-Iraq war intelligence.

But the full committee, headed by Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), mostly disregarded these and other reports.

The lack of congressional oversight from 2001 to 2006 may have hurt the administration. Former officials like Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and FEMA Director Mike Brown were excoriated only after their policies led to disaster.

“I think the Republicans in Congress did the administration a disservice,” said Barbara Sinclair, a professor of political science at UCLA. “If federal agencies know they may be looked at, the administration might not have gotten into trouble on a lot of things.”

When Waxman moved up to the committee’s chair after the 2006 elections, Time magazine called him “the Scariest Guy in Washington.” The New Republic declared “The Waxman Cometh.”

And he hit the ground running, holding four hearings in one week in February 2007 and wasting no time in using his subpoena powers.

Paul Bremer, former head of Iraq’s Coalition Provisional Authority, appeared before the committee to answer questions about the lack of Iraq reconstruction. The committee also delved into the abhorrent conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center faced by returning Iraq soldiers.

A month later, Plame testified that the White House “carelessly and recklessly” revealed her CIA identity out of “purely political motives.” Three days after her testimony, NASA scientists accused administration officials of alteringd climate-change reports to cast doubt on global warming.

These early hearings helped establish the committee’s focus over the next two years. Iraq reconstruction was perhaps its most scrutinized subject, particularly wartime contractors like Blackwater and former Haliburton subsidiary KBR.

The politicization of science was also a subject the oversight committee frequently returned to, especially its effect on the Environmental Protection Agency’s failure to deal adequately with global warming.

But the committee wasn’t entirely fixated on administration wrongdoing. For example, in February 2008, it held hearings on the use of steriods in baseball, calling Roger Clemens to testify.

“The committee has very broad jurisdiction over all areas of government activity,” said Eleanor Hill, a partner at King & Spaulding law firm and former staff director of the Joint Intelligence Committee looking into the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “Waxman has made the most of that.”

The consensus among congressional experts is that Waxman did all he could — and it was the job of Congress and the administration to act on his oversight.

“He was the grand inquisitor,” said Ross Baker, political science professor at Rutgers University. “His job wasn’t to pass legislation but to hold hearings and do the oversight that was sadly neglected between 2001 and 2006.”

Waxman’s wide-ranging interests led him into areas that might have otherwise avoided scrutiny. Chief among these was the committee’s probe of the General Services Administration, whose head was illegally using her post to promote Republican candidates for Congress. At the end of a May 2007 hearing, Waxman called on Doan to resign. She stayed in her position for about a year.

But in other cases, Waxman was unable to get the information he sought from the administration, much less change its behavior. The most notable case involved Environmental Protection Agency head Johnson.

At a May 2008 hearing, Johnson repeatedly evaded questions from committee members about how the White House influenced the agency’s rule making on global warming and ozone standards. When Waxman asked Johnson to produce documents about his conversations with the White House, Johnson claimed executive privilege.

Atty. Gen. Michael Mukasey similarly claimed executive privilege when asked to provide a transcript of Vice President Dick Cheney’s interview with the FBI on the leak Plame’s CIA identity.

In the cases of Mukasey and Johnson, the White House appears to have succeeded in running out the clock.

Waxman wrapped up his chairmanship of the oversight committee with a flourish, though, holding five separate hearings into the causes of the financial crisis and what Congress should do about it.

The hearings exposed executive greed at Lehman Bros. and American Insurance Group, and prompted former federal regulators like Greenspan to admit they were “partially” wrong in their policy choices.

With Waxman moving over to the Energy and Commerce Committee, dramatic moments like Greenspan’s testimony may now be few and far between. His replacement as oversight chair has not been picked, and it’s not clear if Democrats will do what they said Republicans didn’t — keep a close eye on a president from their party.

“Waxman’s committee did show a virtue of a very divided government,” said Pitney, the Claremont professor. “And that’s vigorous oversight.”

Flickr: davipt

The Environmental Protection Agency seems on the brink of issuing a new regulation that would make it easier for power plants to operate longer hours — and emit more pollution.

Under the proposed rule, power plants would be able to measure their rate of emissions on an hourly basis instead of their annual total output. As long as the hourly emissions stay at or below the plant’s established maximum, the plant would be treated as if it were operating cleanly — even if its total annual emissions increased as plant managers stepped up output.

Illustration by:Matt Mahurin

Under the current policy, power plants that seek to operate longer must install pollution-control equipment. The proposed rule, expected to be finalized in the next two weeks, would increase the life span of older power plants without owners having to install costly new pollution-control equipment.

The rule, though, may be in conflict with a 2007 Supreme Court case, Environmental Defense v. Duke Energy Corp. In a 9-0 ruling, the justices decided that the Clean Air Act required Duke Energy to install pollution-control equipment if its annual pollution output increased. The court made clear that power plants must measure their pollution based on annual output, not an hourly rate.

The proposed power-plant rule marks a final attempt by the Bush administration to radically revise the way environmental laws are applied, especially the Clean Air Act. Throughout his presidency, George W. Bush has sought to weaken the traditional regulatory authority of many federal agencies — like the Food and Drug Admin. and Consumer Product Safety Commission — to make them more friendly to business. This anti-regulatory stand has had perhaps its most sweeping effect on the EPA.

But the administration’s drive to weaken environment safeguards has gotten it into legal trouble. Since Bush took office in 2001, the EPA has issued 27 air-pollution regulations. Seventeen were either partly or entirely thrown out by the D.C. circuit court, which oversees cases involving federal regulation. One, the Duke Energy case, was reversed by the Supreme Court.

In many of the rulings, judges used caustic language in striking down the administration’s position. They lectured EPA officials on elementary legal principles, like the importance of carefully reading the language of a law. The agency has been compared to Humpty Dumpty and the Queen of Hearts in “Alice in Wonderland.”

Not only judges have given the administration a tongue-lashing. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Henry A. Waxman, (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, have repeatedly charged that the EPA is undermining the spirit of the Clean Air Act, which passed in 1963 and was strengthened in 1977 and 1990.

Boxer and Waxman have vowed to fight the proposed power-plant regulation. They may well have an ally in the federal court system.

“EPA historically has great credibility in federal courts,” said E. Donald Elliot, who was the agency’s chief lawyer during the George H.W. Bush administration and is now in private practice. “But it has recently had a pretty abysmal record. It has lost the confidence of the courts.”

The easing of pollution controls on power plants stems from an interpretation of “new source review” rules outlined in the Clean Air Act. The law says that before an industry can create a new source of air pollution, the EPA must review it.

In this case, coal-fired power plants — 70 percent of which are between 27 and 57 years old — could install new equipment that would allow them to operate for longer periods of time. Increased operational hours would lead to more emissions of chemical compounds, like nitrogen oxide, that produce smog.

To avoid EPA review — likely to result in the plants having to install pollution-control equipment– the new regulation would measure pollution at an hourly rate.

“We’re changing the way we evaluate totals, not the amount of pollution put out by plants,” said Jonathan Shradar, an EPA spokesman.

But the change in how totals are evaluated could go against Environmental Defense v. Duke Energy Corp.

In that case, Duke Energy, which operates power plants in North and South Carolina, upgraded its plants to keep them running longer hours, resulting in more pollution emissions.

The company contended that it did not have to submit its plant modifications to the EPA for review because its hourly rate of emissions had stayed steady. In rejecting that argument, Justice David Souter wrote that the relevant Clean Air Act provisions “clearly do not define a major modification in terms of an increase in the hourly emissions rate.”

“Each of the thresholds,” Souter continued, “is described in tons per year.”

Environmental lawyers see no reason why the administration’s new power plant regulation would be judged any differently.

“This is the latest in a long line of EPA rules regarding coal-fired power plants that will be overturned,” predicted Jennifer Peterson, an attorney at the Environmental Integrity Project, which specializes in clean-air litigation.

One such rule is the 2006 D.C. circuit court decision, New York v. EPA. In that case, the court decided that the EPA misread a Clean Air Act provision that says “any physical change” in a power plant that increases pollutants requires the power plant to install pollution control equipment.

EPA said that the word “any” was superfluous and that the agency can decide when physical changes are big enough to merit regulation. The D.C. circuit court found EPA’s logical unfathomable.

“Only in a Humpty Dumpty world,” wrote Judge Judith Rogers, “would Congress be required to use superfluous words while an agency could ignore an expansive word that Congress did use. We decline to adopt such a world view.”

Shrader, the EPA spokesman, declined to go into why the new power plant rule would pass legal muster. He pointed out that the EPA is still working on the rule, and language has not been finalized.

EPA has not only lost 18 of 27 clean air court decisions, fully13 of those cases were rejected as contrary to the language of the Clean Air Act. At times, EPA’s defiance of the Clean Air Act has appeared to exasperate the court.

In overturning an EPA rule that allowed some power plants to exceed limits on mercury emissions, the court compared the EPA with the Queen of Hearts from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland.” The Queen disregarded laws and proclaimed “off with her head” before a verdict was issued.

In reversing EPA’s loosening of when industrial plants need to seek emission permits, the court implored EPA regulators to do three things: “(1) read the statute; (2) read the statute, (3) read the statute.”

“Repeated losses on plain language grounds,” wrote Waxman, the oversight chairman, in a letter to Stephen Johnson, the EPA administrator, “suggest a reckless determination to pursue the administration’s policy objectives regardless of legal limits.”

Waxman added that he was “gravely concerned” about the proposed regulation to change how power plant pollution is measured. Meanwhile, Boxer, (D-Calif.) chairman of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, said she will investigate EPA if the regulation is finalized.

Environmentalists who are veterans to battling EPA over air regulations say that the Bush administration is unique in its flouting of environmental law.

“I’ve never seen such a sheer volume of cases and such a dismal track record by the EPA in court,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch. “They’ve lost so many cases that you either have to conclude their lawyers are idiots or their polices are illegal. I’d go with the second.”

Elliot, the EPA’s counsel during the George H.W. Bush administration, also said that the number of court losses is without precedent.

“The administration has intentionally pushed the limits of its discretion,” Elliot said. “They do things that might make sense from a policy perspective but not from the language of the statute.”

The result, Elliot said, was that the “good reputation of EPA” has been lost in the D.C. court.

But while this Bush administration has not succeeded in changing the legal reading of the Clean Air Act, critics contend that its actions have had a strong effect on air pollution regulation.

“The failure to weaken rules should be celebrated,” said John Walke, a senior attorney at the National Resources Defense Council who has litigated several cases against Bush’s EPA. “But the failure to carry out the Clean Air Act has enormous public-health consequences.”

Sen. Joe Lieberman (BiggerPictureImages flickr)

When Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) switched from Democrat to independent in 2006, Democrats needed him to remain in their caucus to control the Senate with 51 votes.

Yet many Democrats openly disdained Lieberman for championing the war in Iraq. The disdain escalated this year, when Lieberman campaigned tirelessly for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the Republican nominee for president.

It was something of a surprise, then, when a newly configured Democratic Senate caucus — no longer clinging to a one-vote majority — decided Tuesday, by a vote of 42-13, to keep Lieberman as one of their own. He will even retain his chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which is responsible for oversight of the executive branch.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

The vote appears to be less about Lieberman and more about Democrats and President-elect Barack Obama building a consensus. While highly critical of Lieberman’s straying allegiance, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was careful never to cut him loose. And Obama signaled that that he wanted Lieberman to remain in the caucus.

“The Democrats wanted to string up Lieberman by his toes and hit him with a broom,” said Kenneth Dautrich, a public policy professor at the University of Connecticut. “But by extending this olive branch, they’ve learned to overcome their emotional response and not be vindictive.”

“The result of the vote is not because the Democrats want to forgive him,” said Dautrich. “It’s because he’ll be an important vote.”

The 55-member Democratic Senate caucus — including at least five newly elected members — also allowed Lieberman to hold onto his chairmanship of an Armed Services subcommittee. But it stripped him of his chairmanship of a subcommittee of the Environmental and Public Works Committee.

After the caucus meeting, Lieberman said the vote “was done in a spirit of reconciliation.”

The vote came after 11 months of Lieberman stumping for McCain. The Arizona Republican even wanted Lieberman as his running mate before GOP strategists persuaded McCain to choose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

That didn’t stop Lieberman from delivering a speech at Republican National Convention exalting McCain and blasting Obama.

“Sen. Obama is a gifted and eloquent young man,” Lieberman said in his Sept. 3 address. “But eloquence is no substitute for a record — not in these tough times. In the Senate, he has not reached across party lines to get anything significant done, nor has he been willing to take on powerful interest groups in the Democratic Party.”

Two days after Obama won the presidency and Democrats widened their margin in the Senate, an aide to Reid told the Associated Press that Lieberman would likely lose his chairmanship of the homeland security committee. Reid himself told a CNN reporter that, “Joe Lieberman has done something that I think was improper, wrong — and if we weren’t on television, I’d use a stronger word of describing what he did.”

The statement made headlines but Reid also hinted at reconciliation. “Joe Lieberman votes with me a lot more than a lot of my senators. He didn’t support us on military stuff, and he didn’t support us on Iraq stuff. But you look at his record — it’s pretty good.”

Then last week Obama informed Reid that he held no grudges toward Lieberman and wanted him to remain in the Democratic caucus.

“Once Obama intervened on this, it made it more likely that Democrats would treat Lieberman gently,” said Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Julian E. Zelizer, a history professor at Princeton University, praised Obama’s support for the Connecticut independent as consistent with the president-elect’s calls for post-partisanship. “The Obama strategy of wanting to keep broadening his coalition is genuine,” Zelizer said. “Obama’s aware of the political flack he’ll take. But it’s a pragmatic move. He’s a non-ideologue.”

With Lieberman in the fold, the Democrats still have an outside shot of a 60-member caucus that could end Republican filibusters. That possibility hinges on yet-to-be decided races in Georgia and Minnesota.

“Lieberman will be a senator until 2012,” said Dautrich. “In the next four years, there will probably be votes on health-care reform legislation and Supreme Court nominees. … The Republicans will try to filibuster and the Democrats will need 60 votes.”

Lieberman, a senator since 1988, has had a rocky relationship with Democrats since he lost to Ned Lamont in the 2006 Democratic primary in Connecticut. After declaring himself an independent, Lieberman went on to defeat Lamont in the general election. He vowed to continue to caucus with Senate Democrats.

His chairmanship of the homeland security committee was largely viewed as both a reward and an incentive to prevent his defection to the GOP.

But the same issues that cost Lieberman in the Democratic primary also made him an oft-criticized chairman, especially his unflagging support of the Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq and overall “war on terror.”

It is unlikely that Lieberman will provide tougher oversight of an Obama administration that has welcomed him back into the Democratic Party.

“Lieberman is a very calculating politician,” said Zelizer. “I don’t think he wants to spend his political capital on investigations.”

Lieberman is thus expected to tread carefully. Thanks to the new configuration of the Senate, he needs the Democrats at least as much as the Democrats need him.

President George W. Bush (WDCpix)

It’s something of a tradition– administrations using their final weeks in power to ram through a slew of federal regulations. With the election grabbing the headlines, outgoing federal bureaucrats quietly propose and finalize rules that can affect the health and safety of millions.

The Bush administration has followed this tradition and expanded it. Up to 90 proposed regulations could be finalized before President George W. Bush leaves office Jan. 20. If adopted, these rules could weaken workplace safety protections, allow local police to spy in the “war on terror” and make it easier for federal agencies to ignore the Endangered Species Act.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

What’s more, the administration has accelerated the rule-making process to ensure that the changes it wants will be finalized by Nov. 22.

That’s a key date, Nov. 22. It is 60 days before the next administration takes control — and most federal rules go into effect 60 days after they have been finalized. It would be a major bureaucratic undertaking for the Obama administration to reverse federal rules already in effect.

“The Bush administration has thought through last-minute regulations much more than past administrations,” said Rick Melberth, director of OMB Watch, a nonprofit group that tracks federal regulations. “They’ve said, ‘Let’s not only get them finalized; let’s get them in effect.’”

So what are the new rules?

The Washington Independent has highlighted five regulations notable for their potential effect and the way they slipped through the regulatory process. Four could to be finalized by Nov. 22. One was already — on Election Day.

1) The Dept. of Labor proposed a regulation Aug. 30 that changes how workplace safety standards are met. Labor experts contend that the administration, which previously issued only one new workplace safety standard and that under court order, is trying to make it a bureaucratic nightmare for future administrations to make workplace safety rules.

Here’s what it would do:

Currently, if the Occupational Safety and Health Admin. or the Mine Health and Safety Admin. want to introduce a new safety standard on, say, the level of exposure to toxic chemicals, it issues what is called a notice of proposed rule-making. This notice is published in the Federal Register and then debated by labor, business and relevant federal agencies.

The new regulation would add an “advanced notice of proposed rule-making,” meaning OSHA and MSHA would have prove that, say, the said chemical was seriously harming workers.

This would open the door for industry to challenge the validity of the risk assessment and then, if necessary, the actual safety standard that may come from that risk assessment.

“The purpose of this sort of rule is to require agencies to spend more time on a regulation which gives them less of a chance to actually regulate,” said David Michaels, a professor of workplace safety at George Washington University, “You’re adding at least a year, maybe two years, to the process.”

The regulation has not been finalized.

2) The administration proposed a rule that changes the employer-employee relationship laid out in the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act.

Here’s what it would do:

The Family and Medical Leave Act says that employers must give their workers 12 weeks of unpaid leave if they are sick or need to take care of a family member or newborn. The employer’s health-care staff can check the legitimacy of the family or medical leave claim with the employee’s doctor or health-care provider.

The proposed regulation would allow the employer to directly speak with the employee’s doctor or health-care provider. The employer could also ask employees to provide more medical documentation of their conditions.

Why such a rule — which may threaten an employee’s privacy– is needed is unclear. The only study the Labor Dept. has done on the act was in 2000. The department collected comments from employers before issuing the proposed regulation, but a report analyzing the comments was never issued.

The regulation also would gives employees the right to waive their rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act, making it the first national labor law to be optional. A worker, for instance, cannot waive his right to earn a minimum wage or get paid more for overtime.

The regulation was finalized on Election Day.

3) The Dept. of Health and Human Services proposed a rule Sept. 26 that would expand the reasons that physicians or health care entities could decline to provide any procedure to include moral and religious grounds. The language of the regulation says the department hopes to correct “an attitude toward the health-care profession that health-care professionals and institutions should be required to provide or assist in the provision of medicine or procedures to which they object, or else risk being subjected to discrimination.”

Here’s what it would do:

The rule change seems to apply to abortion. But they are already several rules that say physicians or health-care entities can deny an abortion request. Some women’s health advocates contend that the proposed regulation’s broad language is meant to increase the number of physicians who not only don’t provide abortions but don’t provide contraception.

“Contraception is certainly the target of this rule,” contends Marylin Keefe, director for Reproductive Health at the National Partnership for Women and Families. “The moral and religious objections of health-care workers are now starting to take precedence over patients.”

The regulation is notable for another reason. A rule involving an employee’s religious rights must be referred to the Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission, yet the commission was never told of this proposed regulation.

A bureaucratic battled erupted when EEOC’s legal counsel, Reed Russell, wrote a regulation comment (pdf) blasting both the substance of the proposed rule and its disregard for the rule-making process.

The regulation has not been finalized.

4) On July 31, the Justice Dept. proposed a regulation that would allow state and local law enforcement agencies to collect “intelligence” information on individuals and organizations even if the information is unrelated to a criminal matter.

“This is a continuum that started back on 9/11 to reform law enforcement and the intelligence community to focus on the terrorism threat,” said Bush homeland security adviser Kenneth L. Wainstein in a statement.

Critics say it could infringe on civil liberties.

Here’s what it would do:

“It expands local law enforcement’s ability to investigate criminal activity that it deems suspicious,” said Melberth of OMB Watch. “But what’s suspicious to you may not be suspicious to me. They could be investigating community organizations they think are two or three steps away from a terrorist group.”

The regulation has not been finalized.

5) Before a federal agency approves any construction project– anything from building a dam to a post office — government officials must consult the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service. These two agencies enforce the Endangered Species Act, and they can veto any project that adversely affects an animal on the endangered species list.

Here’s what it would do:

A regulation proposed by the Interior Dept. Aug. 12 would end this approval process. “It destroys a system of checks and balances that have been in place for two decades,” claimed Bob Davison, senior scientist at Defenders of the Wildlife. “[A federal agency] wants to go forward with a project that [it wants] to do. So you need an independent agency to look at the decision.”

Davison is not the only conservation advocate up in arms. The Interior Dept. has received 200,000 public comments, which may affect the final rule.

Or not — the department shortened the comment period from 60 to 30 days in its effort to get the regulation finalized.

In May, White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten vowed that the administration would propose no regulations after June 1. He and White House spokesman Tony Fratto have repeatedly stated their contempt for what they call “midnight regulations.”

Yet with the exception of the Family and Medical Leave changes, each of these regulations were proposed after June 1. And if finalized, they will effect worker’s safety, women’s health-care choices, local police powers and endangered species.

“It was a pretty resounding election,” said Keefe of the National Partnership for Women and Families. “But this administration acts like it still has a mandate.”

While no announcement was made after the meeting, a Reid aide told the Associated Press that the Senate leader is “leaning toward” stripping Lieberman of his chairman duties.

Lieberman gave no indication about his future, telling reporters this afternoon that he will spend a “few days thinking about what Sen. Reid and I discussed.”

It’s not as high profile as stumping for McCain, but Lieberman’s performance as oversight chairman was also a betrayal of the Democratic Party– and, more important, Congress’ role as a check on executive power.

While colleagues like Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-CA) and Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) spent the past two years investigating the Iraq war and torture, Lieberman never probed any Bush administration conduct related to national security.

A piece I did in February looked at how Lieberman refused a request to investigate Blackwater after its security employees opened fire on civilians in an Iraq public square. Since February, the Senate oversight committee has held hearings on important topics like FEMA’s response to Hurricane Ike and the workplace rights of government employees. But Lieberman has steadfastly refused to use his subpoena power to investigate the biggest administration scandals.

Besides foreign policy, Lieberman was also noticeably silent on the financial crisis. Maybe he would be more interested in investigating an Obama administration. But it looks like he won’t get the chance.

As Mike flagged yesterday, Waxman, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, will challenge Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) for the post of House Energy and Commerce Committee chair. Waxman called Dingell this morning. A Dingell spokesman has called the challenge “unhealthy.”

Dingell is the most senior member of the Democratic caucus,  having been in Congress since 1955.

But Waxman may be well-positioned to challenge Dingell for the chairmanship of the committee that has jurisdiction over energy, the environment and health care policy.

In his two years as House oversight chair, he’s been– perhaps along with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) — the most outspoken critic of George W. Bush’s environmental policies. While Waxman spent much of 2007 investigating the Iraq war, his focus this year has largely been on the EPA’s failure to draw up global- warming regulations.

Dingell has been criticized by Waxman and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for putting the needs of the auto industry ahead of environmental concerns. Pelosi even campaigned for Dingell’s primary opponent in 2002.

A 50-member Democrat steering committee and then the full Democratic caucus will vote on whether Waxman or Dingell gets the powerful post. If Waxman loses, it’s not known whether he would return to the oversight committee. The No. 2 Democrat on the committee in terms of seniority is Rep. Edolphus Towns, (D-NY), chairman of the committee’s government management subcommittee.

The last hearings that Towns held were on the presidential transition and “Management of the Digital TV Transition: Is New York Prepared?”

Waxman’s possible departure would not be the only big change in the world of House oversight. Top committee Republican Tom Davis of Virginia retired. And No. 3 Republican Chris Shays was not reelected. Shays was the lone remaining New England Republican in the House.

Partly due to the bad economy and partly due to the president’s historic unpopularity (24 percent is his latest approval rating), more than 3,000 political appointees don’t have a job lined up after Jan. 20.  Fairly high-profile officials like Education Secretary Margaret Spellings have been turned down for jobs.

This is strange. Clinton administration officials, for example, are leaders of prominent think tanks (John Podesta at Center for American Progress, Strobe Talbott at the Brookings Institutions), big banks (Jacob Lew at Citigroup) and major universities (Donna Shalala at the University of Miami).

But the transition has, relatively speaking, been a struggle for officials either disgraced during the administration, like Alberto Gonzales, or just hurt by their association with it, like Spellings.

Perhaps top Bush officials will eventually get the plum private-sector work that appointees of previous presidential administration’s enjoy. But for now, these officials are too radioactive to participate in the public-private revolving door in Washington.

Some, such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates, favor money for less conventional warfare. Others, such as Rep. Jack Murtha, (D-Penn.), chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee, want cash for fancy weapons to fight future conflicts.

However interesting, this debate has little basis in reality. The Pentagon spends an incomprehensible sum of money on both current and “future” wars — and will continue doing so next year, thanks to a 7 percent increase in its budget. The $488-billion spending plan, which does not include money for Iraq and Afghanistan, was passed at the height of the financial crisis, which means that the Wall Street meltdown probably wasn’t a factor in lawmakers’ thinking.

Gates wasn’t much of a factor either, because spending on such programs as Future Combat Systems and F-22 fighters, which he has criticized, increased.

The Journal article liberally quotes from Gates and Murtha as if their competing priorities will force defense appropriators to make a choice somewhere down the road.

But that’s unlikely to happen in the next administration. Both Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain wish to increase defense spending. The Pentagon, meanwhile, wants to add $450 billion over the next five years.

And Congress is least likely to go along with any tough spending choices. The defense bill it just passed shows that lawmakers depend on these pricey weapons programs for jobs in their districts.

Pentagon spending has more than doubled during the Bush administration. It’s not clear where the political will to reduce defense outlays will come from.