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5 | George h. W. Bush Twilight Time for the Deregulation Revolution President George H. W. Bush began 1992 in a place he should perhaps have avoided: in chilly New Hampshire campaigning to fend off a primary challenge to his own renomination. His popularity had fallen precipitously over the past year, the economy was in recession, and he was facing criticism for breaking his pledge not to raise taxes. In addition to an icy reception from the conservative wing of his party, Bush received a cold critique from former OMB director James Miller III, who dubbed him the “regulatory president” because of the increase in rules promulgated during the first three years of his term.1 Deregulation was the issue that built his reputation in the Reagan White House, and Bush made it a theme throughout his presidency.After campaigning on a platform of continuing Reagan’s policies, he tangled with congressional Democrats who sought to reverse White House control over agency rulemaking . He pushed back against an assertive Congress by creating the Council on Competitiveness, chaired by Vice President Quayle, and empowered the council to review regulations and to advocate further regulatory relief. Bush had a record of domestic policy achievement that appealed to moderate voters , but hundreds of new regulations were required to implement the centrist legislation he helped enact. For example, the EPA was preparing to write more than 200 new regulations for hazardous air pollutants, as required by Title III of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments.2 Thus a major accomplishment now looked like a liability in an election year. After arguing during the Reagan years that regulations suppressed economic growth, Bush found himself in an awkward position. the reluctant regulatory president Bush had walked a fine line when running to succeed Reagan four years earlier. He made campaign pledges to deliver a stronger Clean Air Act and promised 88 • chapter 5 “no net loss” of wetlands. Thus he distanced himself from his predecessor’s environmental record without criticizing Reagan directly. Since Bush was elected along with solid Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, compromise was essential to his governing strategy. There is little doubt that legislative leadership was a priority during the first two years of his presidency, as he actively negotiated with Congress to pass a fiscally responsible budget as well as major legislation on civil rights and the environment. The unilateral actions at the end of his presidency followed a trajectory of diminishing cooperation with an opposition Congress. Divided government frustrated the Republican agenda, giving the Bush Administration license to take advantage of administrative strategies. This meant preserving and defending as far as possible the framework of the administrative presidency inherited from the Reagan White House. In a 1991 commencement address at Princeton University, Bush offered a candid expression of his theory of separation of powers. The president, he argued, is the sole elected representative of the people and is responsible for the bureaucracy. Congress, on the other hand, has “taken aggressive action against specific Presidential powers, including the power to appoint or remove employees who serve at the President’s pleasure. It sometimes tries to manage the executive branch—micromanage the executive branch—by writing too-specific directions for carrying out a particular law.”3 Modern presidents, in particular, must use all the administrative tools at their disposal to reshape legislation and contain congressional and bureaucratic overreach. Bush cast his presidential administration in defensive terms: separation of powers had tilted so far in the direction of the legislative branch that he had an obligation to act as a bulwark against further unchecked accumulation of congressional power.4 Later, White House Chief of Staff John Sununu put it more bluntly, telling an interviewer, “If Congress wants to meet one more time and adjourn for the rest of the session, then that would be fine with us.” In practice, this theory meant finding new ways to influence policy through implementation, such as the assertive use of signing statements.5 It also meant continuing Reagan’s practice of using centralized regulatory review to manage the bureaucracy. Bush left Reagan’s executive order intact, in spite of increasing congressional skepticism and mistrust. regulatory review Shortly after Bush took office, Representative John Dingell criticized the lastminute maneuvering over rulemaking under Superfund by the outgoing Reagan Administration. He called on the new president to begin by sending a strong message to the White House budget office that secrecy, delay, and unwarranted [3.12.36.30] Project MUSE...

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