Washington — George W. Bush may help AIDS drug manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline PLC, hurt RU-486 "abortion pill" sponsor Danco Group, and make it easier for smaller construction bidders like Custom Comforts USA Inc. to avoid union labor—all with a stroke of his pen in his first weeks as U.S. president.
Business lobbyists and conservative groups are pressing Bush to issue executive orders to reverse many of President Bill Clinton's actions soon after Bush takes office Jan 20. Such orders, which don't need approval by Congress, apply to a narrow range of federal policies—not to agency regulations such as a new ergonomics standard to protect workers from repetitive motion injuries. Those types of rules can be changed only after hearings and public comment periods.
The Bush team is "compiling a list and making calls" to see which orders ought to be changed as part of Bush's drive to cut government regulation, said Susan Eckerly, a lobbyist for the National Federation of Independent Businesses. "I think we could see action on them in the first month or two," she said.
Among current orders that various groups want to reverse:
—Clinton's order last summer allowing African countries to import generic versions of AIDS drugs, which Glaxo, the world's largest producer of AIDS drugs, along with Merck & Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Roche Holdings AG said changed the way their drugs are priced.
Other Issues
— A Clinton action from the first days of his presidency that allowed the abortion drug RU-486 to enter the U.S.
— A Clinton order that forces non-union construction companies to enter into labor agreements in order to work on federal construction sites. Some companies such as Adena Corp. and Hess Mechanical, a unit of Custom Comforts, are part of a coalition seeking to have the policy reversed.
"It's going to be a lot harder than people think" for Bush to reverse many of Clinton's orders because they're worded as guidance to agencies, said Tim Maney, director of congressional public affairs for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
"Many of Clinton's executive orders are in the labor and environmental arena, and Bush is not going to win any public relations awards by attacking them right away," Maney said.
Abortion Politics
Two days into his presidency in 1993, Clinton signed a presidential memorandum overturning a ban on public funds for groups such as Planned Parenthood that perform or provide abortion advice overseas. That looks like one of Bush's first targets.
"Organizations that promote abortions are organizations that I don't want to support with taxpayer money," Bush told the New York Times in an interview published Sunday. Abortion rights groups expect Bush to take action in his first month, said Loretta Kane, a spokeswoman for the National Organization for Women.
Anti-abortion activists have asked Bush to prohibit the import of RU-486, which Clinton made legal through an executive order that reversed a ban by his predecessor. They also seek reversal of Clinton orders that allowed facilities at military hospitals to perform abortions and allowed federal funding of research that uses stem cell tissue from aborted fetuses.
Bush does "not have to wait for Congress to act to begin to fulfill" his "pledge to protect the lives of unborn children," the Christian Defense Coalition and Generation Life wrote Bush.
The Food and Drug Administration has since approved RU-486 and Congress has taken action on military hospitals, making it hard to turn back the clock, said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee.
Labor Politics
Two of Clinton's orders that pleased organized labor are under scrutiny. At the start of his presidency, Clinton canceled the policy of Bush's father, President George Bush, that required unions to post notices detailing workers' right to withhold the portion of union dues used for political purposes. George W. Bush has made restricting unions' political spending a tenet of his approach to campaign finance reform.
Bush officials have also been looking at a Clinton order encouraging union labor to be used on federal construction sites.
Timber, mining and oil companies have denounced as "land grabs" Clinton's orders that made federal lands off-limits for mining, drilling and logging.
Rescinding those orders would create such anger from Democrats and environmental groups that it would damage Bush's attempts to encourage bipartisanship, said Jay Cochran, a research fellow at the Mercatus Center, a regulatory studies program at George Mason University in Virginia.
No president has reversed a designation of a national monument. "Bush could do it legally, but it would be a very risky move politically," said the Chamber of Commerce's Maney.
Pinning Hopes on Norton
Industries angered by those orders are confident that Gale Norton, Bush's nominee for interior secretary, will watch out for their interests, Maney said. Norton and Bush support oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, for instance.
Citizens Against Government Waste, a group devoted to keeping an eye on federal expenditures, designated Clinton as its "Porker of the Month" in January for "excessive use of executive orders during his final days in office."
The Mercatus Center found that in the last three months of his presidency, Clinton published more than 20,835 pages of executive orders, rules, regulations and presidential memorandums in the Federal Register, which records government actions.
That's in line with his predecessors, the study said. George Bush added 20,148 pages in his last three months, Ronald Reagan 14,448 pages and Jimmy Carter 24,531 pages.
"I wouldn't expect a flurry of executive actions right away like we saw from Clinton," said Mark Wilson, a research fellow on workplace policy at the Heritage Foundation and former economist at the Labor Department. "Bush and his advisers have indicated that will approach this in a very thoughtful and careful manner."