Bush Rule Changes Curtail Rights of States, Consumers

[marmar]

via ReclaimDemocracy!:



Bush Rule Changes Curtail Rights of States, Consumers
End-run around Congress would immunize corporations from civil suits in many cases

By Alicia Mundy
First Published by the Wall St. Journal, October 15, 2008


Bush administration officials, in their last weeks in office, are pushing to rewrite a wide array of federal rules with changes or additions that could block product-safety lawsuits by consumers and states.

The administration has written language aimed at pre-empting product-liability litigation into 50 rules governing everything from motorcycle brakes to pain medicine. The latest changes cap a multiyear effort that could be one of the administration's lasting legacies, depending in part on how the underlying principle of pre-emption fares in a case the Supreme Court will hear next month.

Bush Administration officials are using their last days in office to rewrite a wide array of federal rules in order to block product safety lawsuits by consumers and states.

This year, lawsuit-protection language has been added to 10 new regulations, including one issued Oct. 8 at the Department of Transportation that limits the number of seatbelts car makers can be forced to install and prohibits suits by injured passengers who didn't get to wear one.

These new rules can't quickly be undone by order of the next president. Federal rules usually must go through lengthy review processes before they are changed. Rulemaking at the Food and Drug Administration, where most of the new pre-emption rules have appeared, can take a year or more. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://reclaimdemocracy.org/articles/2008/bush_rule_changes_preemption.php

[ThePowerofWill]

1. I'll give it a K&R because this is just wrong, and folk need to see it.

More protection for business, less for us.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. I say this without any shame: I absolutely detest George W. Bush and Richard Cheney!

[OneBlueSky]

3. BushCo: The Gift That Keeps On Giving . . . n/t

.

[tinymontgomery]

4. Can't Obama just void the changes

or write them back to the way congress intended?

[Hubert Flottz]

5. Nancy said Bush was a nice guy!

[paparush]

6. Fsking Bastards! Have they not screwed the middle class and working poor enough?

I know, I know...

Ask a rich man, "How much is enough?"
Answer, "A little more!"

My first response to any Republicon that I encounter is - "Name one thing Bush has done for the middle class and working poor?" I'm usually met with 20 seconds of frustrated silence.

[TahitiNut]

7. They argue for "states rights" when states are willing to infringe on our civil rights ...

... and argue against "states rights" when the states attempt to protect human beings from predatory corporations. This is the basest kind of hypocrisy ... 'principles' only when convenient. Bastards.
:puke: