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Marine Environmental Update Bulletin

January 24, 2001: Review of New and Pending Regulations Planned

On January 20, 2001, the Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff, on behalf of President George W. Bush, issued a regulatory review plan in order to ensure that the President's appointees have an opportunity to review any new or pending regulations. The memorandum called upon the heads and acting heads of executive departments or agencies to:

1. Send no proposed or final regulation to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) unless and until a department or agency head appointed by the President after noon on January 20, 2001, reviews and approves the regulatory action (subject to any allowable exceptions for emergency or other urgent situations relating to health and safety).
2. Withdraw regulations that have been sent to the OFR, but not published in the Federal Register, for review and approval as described in paragraph 1, subject to exception as described above.
3. Temporarily postpone the effective date of the regulations for 60 days, regulations that have been published in the OFR but have not taken effect, subject to exception described in paragraph 1.
4. Exclude from the requested actions in paragraphs 1-3 any regulations promulgated pursuant to statutory or judicial deadlines and identify such exclusions to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as soon as possible.
5. Notify the OMB Director promptly of any regulations that, in your view, impact critical health and safety functions of the agency and therefore should be also excluded from the directives in paragraphs 1-3.
6. Continue in all instances to comply with Executive Order 12866 (58 FR 51735, October 4, 1993), pending our review of that order, as well as any other applicable Executive Orders concerning regulatory management.

The regulatory review will be implemented by the Director or Acting Director of the OMB. The OMB Director will also address exceptions to the review, or questions regarding the review generally.

Federal Register, Volume 66, Number 16, Wednesday, January 24, 2001, pp. 7701-7702 (text only or 400 KB Adobe™ Acrobat™ file).