So Little Time, So Much Damage

[AYHJA]

While Americans eagerly vote for the next president, here’s a sobering reminder: As of Tuesday, George W. Bush still has 77 days left in the White House — and he’s not wasting a minute.

President Bush’s aides have been scrambling to change rules and regulations on the environment, civil liberties and abortion rights, among others — few for the good. Most presidents put on a last-minute policy stamp, but in Mr. Bush’s case it is more like a wrecking ball. We fear it could take months, or years, for the next president to identify and then undo all of the damage.

Here is a look — by no means comprehensive — at some of Mr. Bush’s recent parting gifts and those we fear are yet to come.

More/Source: http://snipurl.com/55id2 [www_nytimes_com]

[raum]

do you guys really want to hear what is going on with energy policy?

some of this is grossly misrepresented. dude hates bush.

I am not doing this to defend Bush. I am doing it to temper the expectation of a president or show how it can be misconstrued. Be careful because I am sure critics of any president (especially Obama) will do the same kind of spinning out of context.

Like the EPA stuff. It is very simple.

We do DOE reports. We do FERC reports. We do CEC reports. We do EPA reports. We do so many reports it is really no time to check most the data we were feeding to agencies of people who usually take the data, give it a one over, and then archive it.

All these reports have some of the same information on them.

We made ONE report with all of these on it. The report works. it is a lot bigger, but more clear, and easier to do. They can track EVERYTHING. It consolidated about 9 reports and makes about 12 so redundant they serve no purpose but to eat money, time, resources, and increase reporting burdens. It also tracks new things never tracked before like MSHA (the Mine safety code of where the coal came from) and mercury content of fossil fuels (was required to test, not report). We report more data to one report - things that were never reported before. We argued that the government might find *this* data useful... They listened. Now that the reports work, he is phasing out the old reporting structures, that simply are casualties of a new step in the information age. It is a good idea to let this happen, so govt is more streamlined.

Process improvement efforts led to your energy bills going down, and my job getting easier. As part of the FERC committee's reporting analysts, THIS was more the work of US than the President who just shifted budgets of regulatory bodies as the workload was expected to shift. and it is exactly doing what it should do - eliminate bullshit double reporting and make the entire data stream more fluid approachable, and AVAILABLE, even to consumers. Now, all the agencies have to share the data, and their findings... and we get inquiries into our filings in days not months. We kept the old systems on while we tested the new one, and now after a year of reliable testing, we are set to close the old ones down. This happens about every 6-8 years. Last time it happened was 2002. This plan has been worked on since 2005.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricit ... e_923.html

I am not sure everything he says can be excused away, but this one issue is one he is spinning out of context.

[AYHJA]

I got a sense of that from this article as well...

We all know Bush has not been the greatest of presidents...But one would be hard pressed to think that he's done this all by himself for sure...He's just unpopular, which all too often people feel it means the worst of things...Some of his decisions that may have seemed OK when he made them are now viewed as monstrous, and we knock him for not having the foresight to tell us to go to hell prior to making them...So much shit has gone down on his watch its unbelievable...Still find it hard to think about why Obama would want this job, but I hope he's the right person for it...

[raum]

but some of the things that have happened ARE GREAT and are spun to be horrible.

Notice the difference between these two statements:

He cut environmental regulation by 50,000,000 dollars and there were 15% less fines.

He saved 50,000,000 dollars with system and policy upgrades that had a cross impact NET POSITIVE effect, and greater oversight resulted in more accurate assessment of inquiries.

One shows action and progress, one exposes dirty corruption and ineffectiveness.

That 15% of fines were like this.

EPA: "We suspect you of fine. Pay it and we will investigate when in 4 months if we realize we made a mistake we will return the funds."

Company: "OK. but you are going to pay it back, right?"
*crickets for four months*

EPA: "Well, we found no wrong doing THIS time, but we are sure someone somewhere must have done something - so we're gonna keep the money. besides, we already spent it. suckah!!!"

*legal battle*

NOW:

EPA: "We looked at and saw you are in violation here... and incurred this inescapable fine. If you clean it up now, we can close earlier on this and avoid further violation. If you persist, the fine will grow and the impact of other regulations could incur other fines. The DOE will notify you if this mistake also impacts their compliance mandates. FERC says you are no in violation of your market authority, but has you on a watchlist for the next three months."

Company: "Ouch. (checks to see if it is valid, or legal chances of escaping fine). Fine, here is your money. (goes back to company and see why this happened and what else might be. handles business, or hides it according to their own internal integrity, with close SARBOX oversight in most cases, so hiding isn't easy.)"