Bush Extends His Suspension of New Government Regulations

President Bush moved with vigor Wednesday to establish himself as an enemy of big government, extending by 120 days a controversial moratorium on new federal regulations.

Bush said the extension would give his advisers more time to revise pending regulations and eliminate what they see as burdensome requirements for businesses and private citizens. This winnowing-out process will spur the economy and ultimately save American consumers at least $10 billion a year, he said.

But as Bush spoke of taking a “wrecking ball” to rigid government rule-making, senior officials inside the White House hinted at another motivation when they referred reporters to new polls showing public distaste for such regulation.

The extension won praise from business leaders invited by the White House to the announcement at a Rose Garden ceremony.

But it also brought new warnings from critics and prompted a leading environmentalist aligned with the Administration to deride the extension as “a wholesale handout to the American business community.”

For its part, the White House seemed less concerned by such attacks than by the political need to overcome the impression that Bush is part of the big-government problem. For three years his Administration took steps that added enormously to regulatory burdens, but on Wednesday the President promised a red-tape revolution.

“There will be no--I repeat, no--return to business as usual,” he said.

Bush and senior White House officials described the first three months of the moratorium, which began Jan. 28, as an unmitigated success. Bush said that efforts to ease the burden of federal regulations would save the average family at least $225 a year.

The rules affected by the ban are issued by the federal bureaucracy to carry out laws passed by Congress, such as cleaning up the environment, protecting consumers and making workplaces safe.

Industry pays a “tax in disguise” when it spends billions of dollars a year to abide by those regulations, Bush said.