Team Obama hints at roll back of Bush's anti-green measures

Barack Obama will act swiftly to reverse some of the environmentally damaging measures undertaken by the Bush administration, according to a senior member of the president-elect's transition team.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday yesterday, John Podesta said that the incoming president would use his executive authority to reverse some of the more divisive policies of the Bush White House as soon as possible, including controversial plans to open up large areas of public land for oil drilling.

"There's a lot that the president can do using his executive authority without waiting for congressional action, and I think we'll see the president do that," said Podesta, a former chief of staff for Bill Clinton and joint leader of Obama's transition team.

Restrictions on stem cell research funding and moves by the Bush administration to open up environmentally protected areas to oil drilling were singled out by Podesta as two policies that Obama could look to reverse as quickly as possible.

Citing the recent decision by the US Bureau of Land Management to offer about 360,000 acres in Utah to oil and gas companies for drilling, with auctions of the leases likely before Obama takes office, Podesta hinted that environmental protections could be reinforced.

"They want to have oil and gas drilling in some of the most sensitive, fragile lands in Utah," he said of the Bush administration. "I think that's a mistake."

In what has been interpreted in a veiled warning to the Bush administration that any divisive legislation forced through before the inauguration of Obama will be repealed, Podesta said that "you see the Bush administration, even today, moving aggressively to do things that are probably not in the interest of the country".

The comments come days after a report from a House of Representatives Select Committee warned that President Bush was poised to enact a raft of potentially environmentally damaging measures during his last 100 days in office.

The Committee said that alongside awarding new oil drilling deals, the EPA is planning to introduce new rules that would exempt power plants from installing pollution control technologies, the Department of the Interior is seeking to " gut" the Endangered Species Act, and the administration is aiming to water down proposed fuel economy standards.

"While the first 100 days of the Bush administration initiated perhaps the worst period of environmental deregulation in American history, the last 100 days of a Bush presidency could be even worse," the report said.