Important health, safety, and environmental regulations have been under attack since the beginning of the Bush administration. Upon taking office last January, President Bush halted all regulatory actions in progress and began to roll back a slew of regulations implemented at the end of the Clinton administration. This included protections for ergonomics hazards in the workplace, standards for hard rock mining, and a ban on building new roads through national parks, just to name a few.

In Baytown, Texas, there sits an Exxon Mobil oil refinery -- the nation's largest -- with one pitiful environmental record. As documented in this report from the SEED Coalition, the plant has repeatedly violated state and federal laws -- frequently releasing large volumes of pollution on an unsuspecting public without reporting plant problems to the proper authorities. Over the last several years, the refinery has been guilty of dozens of incidents resulting in excessive emissions.

One year after President Bush's election, his administration is still slowly starting to take shape. Many vacancies remain, as pointed out by this Brookings Institution project; there are still 159 confirmations left to go out of a total of 508 positions. Yet from the president's nominees so far, the direction he is taking is clear. As described below, federal agencies are becoming littered with former industry lobbyists -- who must now be counted on to regulate their former employers -- and others who have spent their lives questioning the very existence of the agencies they now represent.

"It is not Congress, but these overly restrictive Agency rules that are repressive, restrictive... [They] unnecessarily and improperly limit the participation of faith-based organizations." This statement, taken from the August White House report on barriers faith-based and community organizations face in applying for federal grants, appeared to lay the groundwork for regulatory, rather than legislative, changes to achieve the "charitable choice" component of the President's faith-based agenda.