-Caveat Lector- conservativeinfo - Subscribe to the Conservative Information email list at http://conservativeinfo.listbot.com Bush Is Putting Team in Place for a Full-Bore Assault on Regulation By STEPHEN LABATON New York Times WASHINGTON, May 22 — Across an array of federal agencies, the Bush administration has begun to make good on its commitment of broad deregulation, promoting a policy transformation long sought by the business community and opposed by consumer, labor and environmental organizations. Well beyond the intersecting spheres of energy and the environment, where the shifting policies have been apparent for months and crystallized last week in the proposal for a relaxation of regulations to encourage energy development, the scaffolding of a new regulatory framework is taking shape. It would affect antitrust enforcement, telecommunications, workplace rules, consumer protections, financial services and even how the military and other agencies buy goods and services from the private sector. For instance, Mary Sheila Gall, the official selected to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission, has a decade-long track record at the agency of voting against proposed safety rules because she has often said that injuries are caused not by faulty product designs but by negligent consumers. Her record has attracted widespread support from many manufacturers and strong criticism from Consumers Union and other similar groups. She has criticized the agency for promoting "a federal nanny state." Safety experts and industry executives predict that after she takes over, a number of proposals under consideration, like one requiring flame-resistant treatment of upholstered furniture and another regulating baby bath seats, will be dropped. Timothy J. Muris, the nominee to head the Federal Trade Commission, has repeatedly said that the Clinton administration was insensitive to the economic benefits of large corporate mergers and too aggressive in bringing major monopoly cases and challenging a large airline for predatory pricing. Mr. Muris, a top antitrust official in the Reagan administration, complained at his Senate confirmation hearing last Wednesday that under the previous administration, "there were many large monopoly investigations at the Department of Justice sending a signal that I thought was inappropriate." And John D. Graham, another Bush appointee for a senior regulatory post, has long maintained that the federal government has imposed too many onerous environmental, health and safety regulations on big business without properly calculating the financial costs of such regulations. Dr. Graham, a Harvard professor whose research on risks has been sponsored by corporations with stakes in the outcome of regulatory debates, has maintained that exposure to low levels of dioxins, which the government classifies as a human carcinogen, may actually reduce cancer and that there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate any harmful effect of residual pesticides on food. He is expected to become the White House's senior budget official for reviewing almost every proposed federal regulation. The approach being pursued by the Bush regulators involves a far more rigorous examination of the financial costs and benefits of regulation, one that experts predict will tip the balance of power from consumer, environmental and labor groups to businesses and will lead to a wholesale elimination of scores of rules that have prevented American companies from both growing and having more flexibility in making business decisions. Supporters of the existing regulations say that the rules promote many benefits that are not easily quantifiable and are certain to be overlooked under such cost-benefit analyses, from protecting consumers from dangerous products to preserving the environment and limiting companies from dominating certain crucial industries like telecommunications. But the administration is sympathetic to companies that have been deeply critical of the financial costs of such rules. "There are those who believe cost should be no object," said Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., the White House budget director and a central player in the regulatory process. "They take the position that if an objective feels good, we should impose a regulation without regard to costs. That's not a very realistic approach." While many of the Bush appointees are still awaiting confirmation, leaders of American businesses say they can already feel the different regulatory climate in Washington. "Under Clinton, some of the regulatory agencies had a view that they didn't trust business and the government did a lot of things even if they had to go over the line," said Thomas J. Donohue, president and chief executive of the United States Chamber of Commerce. "The Bush guys have more of an understanding of the effect of regulation on the business community and on the economy. And they are doing it while there is an energy crisis on their hands and an economy that is not doing well." But others say that the administration is simply repaying its campaign debts to its most important supporters. "The big oak tree is bending all the way over," said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, a public advocacy group, and a senior safety regulator in the Carter administration. "Bush is going full bore to support his industry supporters. He wants to completely change the regulatory process to be one that supports the industry." Not since the Reagan administration's wholesale reversals of regulatory policies have the scales tipped so abruptly, according to lobbyists for both sides in the long-running regulatory debate. Just as during the so-called Reagan Revolution, the deregulatory renaissance is largely a reflection of the pro-business agenda that President Bush campaigned on. But the change is especially swift this time because Congress and the White House are controlled by the Republicans for the first time in nearly half a century. When the legislative and executive branches of government are controlled by different parties, the regulatory agencies typically take more moderate positions as they walk a line between Congress and the White House. While Bill Clinton and his administration courted business from Silicon Valley to Wall Street, certain agencies in the 1990's were far more aggressive in their rules and enforcement than in the prior administration. 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