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GOVERNMENT
TAKING CHARGE Bush delays regulations issued in the last days of Clinton Administration
W
BUSH
ITHIN HOURS OF BECOM-
ing the nation's chiefexecutive, President George W. Bush put the kibosh on the spate of regulations issued at the very end of the Clinton term. The Occupational Safety & Health Administration's revised regulation on how employers track and record workplace injuries and illnesses is one of the rules affected. That rule would update OSHA record-keeping requirements that date back to 1971. Other affected regulations include the Environmental Protection Agency's recently issued
standards lowering the permissible amount of sulfur in diesel fuel and arsenic in drinking water. Bush took the action so his Administration officials can review—and possibly change or withdraw—the crop of rules completed just before Bill Clinton left office. According to an EPA spokesman, such orders are common during presidential transitions. Most regulations affected likely will end up issued after Bush Administration officials get a chance to look them over and make any alterations deemed necessary, he adds.
The directive, issued byWhite House Chief of StaffAndrew H. Card Jr., delays for 60 days the effective date ofjust-issued regulations—those published in the FederalRegister— to allow time for the review Changing these rules would likely be cumbersome, since agencies would have to formally propose alterations, then solicit and review public comments before making any changes final. In addition to rules already issued, the order applies to final or proposed regulations signed by a Clinton Administration official but not yet published in the Federal Register. These rules and proposals are to be formally issued only after they have been reviewed—possibly changed, which requires no public notice —and approved by a Bush appointee.—CHERYL HOGUE
SCIENCE
mercial fuels and organic solvents including benzene, gasoline, and kerosene. They solubilized the gelator in two-phase mixtures of and one of these organic Amino acid derivative selectively gels water liquids either by heating or by injecting an ethanolic solution oil in mixtures of oil and water and then leaving the mixture to ONTAINING OIL SPILLS IN of diesel oil into the Galapagos equilibrate. "Remarkably as soon as room the sea is virtually impossi- archipelago. NH ble, as evidenced by the Organic chemists at the Indian temperature was attained, the oil environmental crisis caused by Institute of Science, Bangalore, layer was found to be completely HOOCT* the Ecuadorian tanker Jessica. It have come up with a possible an- gelated, leaving the aqueous layer W-Lauroylran aground two weeks ago, swer to the problem. They've dis- unaffected," they note. "Even L-alanine spilling more than 200,000 gal covered that an amino acid deriv- upon standing for about a week, ative selectively gels the oil phase both phases remain intact in their in two-phase mixtures of water and respective states of gelation and oH[Chem. Commun., 2001,185}. nongelation." According to Ben L. Feringa, "We discovered that a fatty acid-derived amino acid, N-lau- chemistry professor at Groninroyl-L-alanine, is a simple, bio- gen University, the Netherlands, compatible, and effective system and an expert on organogelators, for the selective gelation of non- the discovery is intriguing and has polar organic solvents such as aro- considerable potential. 'Although matic and aliphatic hydrocar- the usefulness in removal of oil bons," report associate professor contamination needs to be estabof organic chemistry Santanu lished, applications in reaction Bhattacharya and graduate stu- and separation technology employing two-phase systems dent Yamuna Krishnan- Ghosh. M O P P I N G U P Galapagos National Park employees The two chemists tested the can also be foreseen," he says.— clean oil-contaminated beach. compound on a range of com- MICHAEL FREEMANTLE
GETTING THE OIL OUT
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C&EN /
J A N U A R Y 29, 2001
HTTP://PUBS.ACS.ORG/CEN
