Clinton's Last-Minute Moves Could Hinder Bush

W A S H I N G T O N, Jan. 5, 2001 -- President Clinton rolled out a new ban on logging and road-building today, as he uses his final days in office to create a slew of rules and regulations that will be tough for incoming chief executive George W. Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress to reverse.

The new regulations amount to the largest land conservation initiative in more than two decades, putting nearly a third of all national forest lands — some 58 million acres in 39 states — permanently off-limits from development.

“This is about preserving the land which the American people own,” Clinton said this afternoon, announcing the measure at the National Arboretum in Washington. “Today, we free the land so that they will remain unspoiled by bulldozers, undisturbed by chainsaws and untouched for our children.”

Environmentalists hailed the move. William Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society, called it “one of the nation’s greatest environmental achievements.”

“[T]his legacy of protection for our wild forests … should never and can never be rolled back,” he added.

But congressional Republicans say the sweeping restrictions block potentially profitable development by energy, timber and mining industries.

“We haven’t seen this much environmental and economic damage going out the door since Saddam Hussein torched the oil fields in Kuwait during the Gulf War,” Sen. Frank Murkowski of Alaska, the top Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said at a news conference on Capitol Hill this afternoon.

Bush to Review Clinton Actions

The new regulations today were the latest in a string of executive actions taken by Clinton in the closing weeks of his term — a record-long list that includes everything from imposing labeling standards for organic food to setting new confidentiality rules for medical records to restricting fishing off the Hawaii coral reefs.

Clinton also signed an executive order establishing a so-called secrets czar to identify potential national security threats and espionage vulnerabilities.

“President Clinton is exercising his prerogatives as President Clinton sees fit,” Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters at a briefing at Bush-Cheney Transition headquarters in McLean, Va. this afternoon. “This administration, in its final days, has been a busy beaver.”

Fleishcer stopped short of criticizing the final flurry of activity by the outgoing president, but said the president’s last-minute executive orders and proclamations are not going unnoticed by the administration in-waiting.

“We will review each and every one of them and after Jan. 20 [Inauguration Day], we will have more to say on some, less to say [on others],” he said. “It is part and parcel of any new administration’s duty to review those things they seek to maintain, change, accelerate, decelerate.”

Political science professor Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia says no one should be surprised by Clinton’s unusually active final days.

“This is very controversial, but it’s very much in keeping with the Clinton presidency,” Sabato explained. “Both the substance of the presidency and also what we know about Bill Clinton the person — ‘Mr. Frenetic.’”

Congress Cries Foul

The White House insists the rash of executive actions — which do not require congressional approval — are not a parting shot aimed at an incoming Republican president.

“The president is the president until Jan. 20, and he’s going to use his executive authority to protect the environment,” White House Press Secretary Jake Siewert said at a news conference this afternoon. “We would have done this one way or the other, whether the president was President Gore or President Bush.”

But many lawmakers are angered by what they perceive as an attempt by a lame duck Democratic president to bypass the GOP-led Congress.

“I think it’s really an abuse of his power,” Rep. James Hansen, R-Utah, the chairman of the House Resources Committee said of today’s action. “It really amazes me that the president would want to do this … I guess he wants to leave a legacy.”

Hansen and other GOP members on the committee are already urging Bush to consider rolling back 14 specific regulations set by President Clinton.

“After many years of being frustrated by the Clinton administration’s unreasoned and frequently absurd interpretation of law … I am elated at finally having the opportunity to work with your administration to correct the misguided direction the Clinton administration has taken in their attempt to manage our natural resources,” Hansen wrote in a letter to Bush and Vice President-elect Dick Cheney.

“[Hansen’s letter] gives us an indication on how serious they are. I don’t think they’re going to spare any effort,” responded Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the committee in the last Congress.

“We’re being put on clear notice that this is going to be a major battle in this Congress,” he added.

Reversing any of Clinton’s executive orders or initiative would require the Bush administration to negotiate a complex and cumbersone rulemaking process and hold months of public hearings.

“President-elect has his hands full, his incoming administration has [its] hands full,” says Sabato. “They’re not going to pick a fight with the outgoing president — they have too much on the griddle right now themselves.”

For his part, Clinton plans to use his executive powers to protect five more scenic areas by declaring them national monuments before he becomes a private citizen again in two weeks, aides to the president said today.

ABCNEWS’ John Cochran and Bettina Gregory and The Associated Press contributed to this report.