Agency Aims to Curb Rules Issued by Lame-Duck Presidents WASHINGTON - It is a political tradition that is almost as old as the White House: a president on the way out, unconstrained by electoral considerations, fast-tracks a flurry of contentious regulations in the waning hours of his term, sometimes even cutting short review from industry or the public. Administrative Conference of the United States Taking a vote at the Administrative Conference of the United States. The group has been studying late-term rule making. As he was leaving, President George W. Bush expanded Justice Department surveillance powers, relaxed rules on certain types of coal mining and altered protections for endangered animals. President Bill Clinton pushed through new rules on chemicals in drinking water and on workplace injuries caused by repetitive movements. Prompted by the fury touched off by such lame-duck orders, an independent federal agency that aims to streamline the administrative procedures of federal agencies is nearing the end of its review of recommendations aimed at curbing this practice known around Washington as midnight rule making. The recommendations from the agency, the Administrative Conference of the United States, are fairly tepid. Even if they are finalized in June, as expected, they would allow President Obama to do more or less what his predecessors did, though with a greater ability for Congress and a new administration to delay the regulations from taking effect. The agency's proposal is just part of the larger political gamesmanship, likely to intensify in coming months, over what presidents can and should do during the months between an election and inauguration. If the president adopts the agency's recommendations this summer, they could prove politically useful for him at a time when Republicans are stepping up attacks on his administration for what they describe as overzealous regulation. The president could take some credit for having - at least ostensibly - tried to impose protections against last-minute regulations. Mr. Obama issued an executive order this month mandating that existing regulations be periodically reviewed to see whether they provide the predicted benefits at a reasonable cost. Republicans remain worried about how Mr. Obama might handle last-minute regulations if he loses the election. And not without reason: studies have shown that midnight rules are more likely when a president serves only one term. In April, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and House Speaker John A. Boehner sent a letter to Mr. Obama saying he would be "ill advised" to issue last-minute regulations that they said could distract a new Congress and potentially a new administration. "We believe that issuing a raft of midnight regulations would be inconsistent with your January 2009 commitment to transparency and accountability in the rule-making process," they wrote. Congressional Republicans are trying to get in front of the problem. In hopes of imposing tougher rules than the Administrative Conference has proposed, they are pushing legislation that would prevent presidents from issuing most kinds of midnight regulations. Senator Ron Johnson, the Wisconsin Republican who introduced the bill in the Senate, said his aim was simply to prevent lame-duck administrations from adding what he said were burdensome regulations that are "chains on job creation" and "holding down our economy." "I don't think we need to increase regulation; we need to limit it," he said. If this administration is inclined to reform or reduce regulation, I'd like to work with them on that. Susan E. Dudley, a member of the Administrative Conference, said she believes the recommendations are a step in the right direction because they could help agency directors resist the temptation to rush through policy changes during their final days in office. "It's like Cinderella leaving the ball," Ms. Dudley, who served in the Bush administration's Office of Management and Budget and is now a professor at George Washington University, said of agency officials who try to set rules "before they turn back into ordinary citizens at noon on Jan. 20." Among the recommendations, the agency would call for administrations to refrain from proposing new rules during a president's final months in office, except in "emergencies," and for Congress to authorize new administrations to delay their predecessor's midnight rules for 60 days.