Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) -- George W. Bush is using the waning days of his presidency to implement a raft of pro-business regulations, triggering vows by the incoming Obama administration and congressional Democrats to gut the measures.

Bush is proposing changes to federal rules that critics say make it more difficult to protect U.S. workers from exposure to toxic chemicals, reduce the use of employee medical leave and open more land to oil and gas exploration. The effort is supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and trade groups representing companies including Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Dow Chemical Co.

The Interior Department today is publishing a rule that would lift a 79-year-old executive order prohibiting oil shale development in Wyoming and Utah. Yesterday, the Bush administration postponed regulations requiring cars and light trucks to be more fuel efficient by 2011.

“The rules will be viewed as pro-business, loosening existing regulatory limits or establishing less stringent standards,” said Tom Goldstein, an attorney at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in Washington.

Bush may issue as many as 45 rules from the Nov. 4 election to his last day in office on Jan. 20, according to Veronique de Rugy, a researcher at the Mercatus Center, a public-policy group affiliated with George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia.

“It’s the Bush administration taking its policies and making sure they’re in place and securing a legacy,” said Matt Madia, a regulatory policy analyst for OMB Watch, a Washington- based government watchdog group. Presidents can order government agencies to fast-track such rules, which critics have dubbed “midnight regulations.”

60 Days

Generally, the regulations become effective 60 or 30 days after being published in the Federal Register, a daily government publication.

Aides to Democratic President-elect Barack Obama say he may block proposed rules that haven’t been published yet. Obama “will review all 11th-hour regulations,” said spokesman Nick Shapiro.

Democratic leaders also may use a 1996 law, employed only once before, that allows rules imposed within the last 60 legislative days to be voided, according to Representative Chris Van Hollen.

“We’re going to take a look at the whole sweep of midnight regulations that the Bush administration has put in place,” Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat who heads the party’s House campaign committee, said in an interview.

“Given the unpopularity of the current administration, and the thin support for these new rules, I can see Congress acting on a handful of them,” said Mike Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity, which studies regulations at New York University’s School of Law.

Weapons in Parks

Some of Bush’s regulations are also being challenged by outside groups. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence asked a federal court Dec. 30 to block a rule that would allow concealed weapons to be carried in national parks. The regulation is backed by the National Rifle Association, which represents gun owners.

Presidents have issued late-term regulations to push agendas and help create their legacies since John Adams named federal judges hours before his presidency ended in 1801. The appointees were nicknamed the midnight judges.

Bush’s father, President George H.W. Bush, set a record among recent presidents for such post-election rules with 56, compared with 13 for Ronald Reagan and 49 for Bill Clinton, according to de Rugy’s analysis.

Bush’s Freeze

New administrations have sought to stop proposals made in the last days of the previous president. Bush froze publication of the Federal Register when he took office, blocking regulations sought by Clinton.

Still, federal court decisions from the 1980s ensure that a new president can’t easily scrap an existing regulation, said Randel Johnson, vice president at the Washington-based U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The chamber is the largest business lobbying group, representing more than 3 million companies.

“You can’t act like there is just a blank slate,” Johnson said. If the measures aren’t nullified by Congress, a president must initiate a new rulemaking procedure in which “you have to explain why the original rule should be repealed,” Johnson said. Because of that, “it’s only the really big, important ones that are going to get repealed,” he said.

Bolten’s Memo

White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten issued a memo to federal agencies in May saying that proposed changes to regulations be made final by Nov. 1. The memo was intended to ensure an open process that avoids last-minute proposals, said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

“The vast majority of regulations finalized in the last months will have been published for public review and comment since June 1, more than six months before the end of the term,” Fratto said. “This is a transparent, responsible process, and it’s been an unequivocal success.”

By issuing those regulations earlier, the administration also ensured that Obama can’t follow Bush’s strategy and delay implementing rules while he figures out how to change them, said Madia of OMB Watch.

Bush’s regulation on toxins, which isn’t final yet, would change the way workplace exposure to poisonous substances is measured, and is supported by associations representing companies such as Dow, the biggest U.S. chemical company, Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest oil company, and 3M Co., the St. Paul, Minnesota-based maker of 55,000 products.

Safety Office

The government “should rely on sound science,” said Laurie Miller, director of regulatory affairs at the Arlington, Virginia-based American Chemistry Council, which represents those companies.

The change is opposed by the United Mineworkers and other unions. They argue it would delay new health protections for workers by requiring a lengthy regulatory process before new standards could be issued.

The Interior Department proposed lifting a ban on oil shale development and has put forward a separate measure setting royalties that energy companies, such as Royal Dutch Shell, pay for discoveries. They will go into effect on Jan. 17, three days before Obama’s inauguration. Obama’s pick to head the department, Democrat Ken Salazar of Colorado, called the royalty rules “premature and flawed.”

“Rather than completing the necessary research and development, the Bush administration is rushing ahead with rules for a development process they know little about,” Salazar said in a statement on Nov. 17. Companies are being asked to pay “a pittance” for royalties, he added.

Shell’s Projects

The Netherlands-based Shell, Europe’s largest oil company, has three shale pilot projects in Colorado, and pressed the Interior Department to issue the rules, saying the company needed to know what royalty rates the government would set before determining if mining shale is profitable. The rates are higher than Shell had sought.

“It gives us clarity,” said Tracy Boyd, communications and sustainability manager for Shell’s shale operations in Colorado.

Union leaders such as AFL-CIO President John Sweeney oppose a Labor Department rule, published in the Federal Register Nov. 17, that would amend the Family and Medical Leave Act. The changes would add limits on the use of accrued unpaid leave, and new requirements for requesting and medically certifying leave.

Sweeney called it a “slap in the face to working families.” The rule, pushed by the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups, would let employers speak directly with employees’ health-care providers to determine if workers have a legitimate reason to go on leave.

To contact the reporters on this story: Holly Rosenkrantz at hrosenkrantz@bloomberg.net; Mark Drajem in Washington at mdrajem@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 8, 2009 00:07 EST