Reversing environmental, gun regulations could take time
Pete Chagnon - OneNewsNow
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=394648Obama could experience difficulty trying to reverse some of Bush's last-minute regulations.
One of President Barack Obama's first actions in office was to halt pending regulations the Bush administration passed in its final days in office. However, Michael Franc, vice president for government relations at The Heritage Foundation, believes Obama will have a tough time reversing the Endangered Species Act. Before he left office, Bush blocked the Act from being used to fight climate change.
"The Endangered Species Act was never intended to come anywhere near global warming policy," Franc contends. "Yet what we've seen, the pattern for the last maybe 15 or so years, is that the proponents of some kind of global-warming regulatory scheme are trying to get their way through the back door by tweaking existing laws and forcing them to become global-warming control laws when Congress, when they first adopted them, never intended that to be the case."
Because the changes occurred before Obama was sworn into office, Franc says it will take at least 18 months just to go through the rule-making process. Similarly, Franc believes Obama will have a hard time overturning the relaxation of gun laws in national parks.
"The politics of gun control have flipped over the last six or seven years, so that if you notice the politicians who tend to be very willing to grab anyone's guns and ignore the Second Amendment have backed away from engaging in these different debates," he points out.
Since Obama won the election, Franc notes gun and ammo sales have dramatically increased. He believes Washington would see a backlash from tens of millions of gun owners if stricter gun laws were discussed on Capitol Hill.
