This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, January 9th, 2009.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The regulatory regime of the Bush administration is preparing to depart, and that means furiously attempting

to assemble a regulatory legacy.

And that means wide-ranging regulatory changes.

Tom Fiery, managing editor of Regulation magazine, says as changes. first branch of government, Congress.

It's been shown statistically, at least since the 1940s,

with the start of kind of the modern bureaucratic state. The final quarter of every presidency is

dramatic how quickly the regulation activity kicks up. But the bigger

question is are there any really dramatic changes that go down in this final quarter?

And interestingly, you know, my sense looking back over the history of midnight regulations,

very few dramatic changes occur here. These are almost entirely moving the goal

posts. I mean there's often a lot of Sterman Drang from the new guy when these things go down.

If you think President Clinton, when he left office,

at that time, he ended, his midnight regulation period was probably the most dramatic of any

president my guess is Bush is going to to eclipse that but there was a lot of

outcry about two different Clinton administration initiatives in the final period.

One was the arsenic rule and we'll talk about that in a second because I think that really highlights

what this period is really all about.

And the other was an ergonomics rule

Workplace safety ergonomics the ergonomics the ergonomics rule was ultimately thrown out

By the Bush administration in Congress. It was the only time Congress has ever tossed

...