Last week, the House Democrats unveiled their version of the $825 billion economic stimulus package.

The proposed bill provides billions of dollars for roads, schools, global warming research, information technology upgrades, food stamps, and unemployment insurance. However, it also allocates more than half a billion dollars for digital-to analog converter box coupons. From the report accompanying the bill (pdf):

DIGITAL-TO-ANALOG CONVERTER BOX PROGRAM

Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Coupons
Recovery funding: $650 million
Funding provides for additional implementation and administration of the digital-to-analog converter box coupon program, including additional coupons to meet new projected demands and consumer support, outreach and administration.

That’s a lot of money for coupons. To put that figure in perspective, that’s more than last year’s entire budget for the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA).

Analog television broadcasts are set to cease Feb. 17, when TV stations drop their analog simulcasts as part of the Congressionally mandated switchover to digital television. The change won’t affect digital televisions or analog sets hooked up to cable or satellite. However, consumers with analog TVs and “bunny ears” will need to buy a digital-to-analog converter box in order to continue receiving free programing.

Even before the stimulus, American households could apply for up to two $40 coupons for the purchase of converter boxes through a program administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The units typically sell for about $40-$70 each. As of May 2008, 10 million households had already requested coupons, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The deadline to apply for a coupon is March 31.

In one sense, the converter box subsidy is a laudably progressive program. By law, all TVs sold in the United States since 2005 must have digital tuners. So, the only people who will benefit from the coupons are those who have older TVs, no cable, and the inclination to apply for their coupons instead of replacing their sets. By far the greatest beneficiaries will be poorer and older Americans, who are less likely to have digital television or cable.

On the other hand, the government has already spent $1.34 billion on the converter box program, according a story in the Washington Post last week. The government has struggled to get coupons out to applicants. The Post reports that 1.7 million people who requested coupons have yet to receive them, and are unlikely to get one before the Feb. 17 transition date.

My question is this: What are they going to spend $650 million additional stimulus dollars on, if there are fewer than two million people on the waiting list, and less than three months left to apply for the coupons?

Only 13 million households in the United States relied exclusively on analog TV without cable, according to a Nielsen study published in early 2008. There may be even fewer today. If 10 million have already applied and all but 1.7 million of those applicants have already gotten their coupons, that means there are fewer than 5 million American households at risk of losing their free TV reception next month. The converter coupons have been available for over a year. So it’s probably fair to assume that a good chunk of the eligible non-applicants are never going to apply, perhaps because they’ve already upgraded their TVs, or because they just aren’t interested. But even if every one of those nearly 5 million households applied for the maximum of two $40 coupons — an unlikely scenario — the coupon program would have a total price tag of less than $400 million. The numbers don’t add up.

Spending an additional $650 million dollars to extend the lives of old televisions seems like a misallocation of resources, relative to other potential targets for stimulus spending. Besides, in terms of “bang for the buck,” isn’t it counterproductive to spend stimulus money on something that will discourage consumers from buying televisions and, you know, stimulating the economy?

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.”

The nonpartisan, nonprofit group issued a “report card” grading 15 federal agencies on their communication policies. Some agencies, it found,  “stifle communication” even if their policies encourage free speech. Other agencies simply have weak policies regarding communication with the media.

The Centers for Disease Control, for example, was found to have the best media policy, one that allows scientists to state personal views and review press releases about their own research. But the agency poorly implemented the policy.

According to the study released today, the agencies with the best communication policies, and which most effectively implemented them, were NASA, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA). The Union of Concerned Scientists has commended NASA for improving its media policy after a political appointee in the agency reportedly censored leading climate scientist James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The agencies with the worst policies include the Environmental Protection Agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service (within the Dept. of Interior), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

The report card is below. The full report can be found here (pdf).