The Wall Street Journal’s Deborah Solomon reports that Treasury Sec. Henry Paulson is diligently preparing to pass the proverbial baton to the next Treasury Sec. Solomon says that Paulson has set up a phone (ooh!) and internet connection (aah!) in the Treasury’s office for an official from either Obama or McCain’s next administration to use starting next Wednesday (that would be a day after the election).

Solomon seems to suggest that Paulson is doing a good and necessary thing. But it’s also a shrewd move: statesmanlike assistance to the next administration can increase the chances of Paulson working for that administration. I mean it’s not exactly a great time for the Goldman Sachs CEO to jump back to the private sector.-MB

The New York Times’ Julia Preston reports that federal immigration agents arrested Shalom Rubashkin yesterday, the CEO at Agriprocessors, Inc. the rural Iowa kosher meatpacking company that was subjected to one of the biggest ever immigration raids this May. Iowa prosecutors have already charged about 300 undocumented immigrants rounded-up by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents for identity theft. Now they’re charging the employer who looked the other way when these workers presented false documents. (more…)

The Washington Post’s Peter Finn and Del Quentin Wilbur report that the Justice Dept. has dropped its charge that Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohammed, a 30 year-old from Britain, was part of a "dirty bomb" plot. The charges were dropped after– ahem– a federal judge asked for actual evidence of Mohammed’s plotting. (more…)

The Washington Post’s R. Jeffrey Smith reports that executive branch agencies are scrambling to pass new regulatory rules before the Bush administration’s self-imposed Nov. 1 deadline. These include 90 different rules that will largely weaken environmental and workplace protections.  Nine of these rules are judged "economically significant" because they could have more than $100 million worth of social costs.

Why Nov. 1 as a deadline to pass rules when Bush is president until Jan. 20? A federal regulation does not become law until after a 60 day comment period by Congress (which, evidently, is just that, a "comment period" and can’t jeopardize the rule). That means if the Bush administration were to truly issue "midnight regulations"– those right before Jan. 20– the next administration could easily reverse them. Indeed, Bush did just that with Bill Clinton’s midnight regulations.

By making the deadline Nov. 1, though, the White House has given itself some room for error: Nov. 20 is actually the key date, as it is 60 days before the next administration.-MB

The New York Times’ Tara Parker-Pope reports that a scientific advisory panel unloaded on the Food and Drug Administration in a report that concerns their regulation of bisphenol-A. FDA ignored a series of studies that warned of the dangers of bisphenol-A, a chemical found in baby bottles, water bottles, soft drink cans and canned foods.

Biphenol-A has been found in animal studies to possibly lead to cancer, diabetes and heart disease. The seven-member panel, partly composed of scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency and Centers for Disease Control, rips FDA for ignoring these studies. FDA has promised to review the report tomorrow. Whether it issues any regulatory changes is another matter.-MB

What with all the financial turmoil and the frenzied days before a presidential election, it’s nice to see something predictable in the news: the Dept. of Homeland Security’s "Advanced Spectroscopic portal monitors" to detect radiation in airports are still way too expensive and ineffective to deploy throughout airports. This is a report from the Government Accountability Office. As the Washington Post’s Robert O’Harrow Jr. points out, an almost identical report was issued by GAO last year. And in 2006.

GAO ripping a Bush administration program is routine. But the Bush administration directly questioning the auditor’s findings is not– and that is what has been happening here. GAO and DHS’s Domestic Nuclear Detention Office have now waged a three-year battle over these $778,000 machines. I, for one, side with GAO. The credibility of Congress’s investigative arm is rarely in question. The efficiency and priorities of DHS, though, are often in doubt.-MB

So says the Washington Post’s Peter Whoriskey, David Cho, and Zachary Goldfarb: the Treasury Dept. and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. are "nearing agreement" on a plan to guarantee the mortgages of millions of homeowners threatened by foreclosure. The plan would use between $40-50 billion of the $700 billion Congress gave Treasury in the bailout bill.  The money would be spread around to about three million homeowners and be used to lower interest rates, lower the total amount owed or extend the re-payment period.

The government has already spent $350 billion bailing out big banks so it only seems fair to help the homeowner. The president has threatened to veto the plan, which is usually a sign something is sound policy.

There was, though, at least one piece in the Post’s description that made me skeptical: government is wary of guaranteeing mortgages that are too risky. They won’t help homeowners who mostly keep up with their mortgage payments and they won’t help those careening toward foreclosures. Like Goldilocks (or like a commercial bank), they will guarantee mortgages that are "just right": risky but not doomed to foreclosure.

If I’m a homeowner who faces foreclosure, I got to be thinking: "If the government bailed out AIG, haven’t they lowered the bar enough to bailout me?"-MB

That non-breaking news comes from the Wall Street Journal’s Brody Mullins and Mary Jacoby. They give a positive profile of Donald McGahn, the 40 year-old chairman of the Federal Election Commission, positing that McGahan, a lifelong Republican, has tempered his partisan ideology as FEC chair. This argument is lent credibility by a favorable quote from noted FEC foe Meredith McGhee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center.

In the ancient history of May, the FEC seemed like a big deal: Would they investigate John McCain for possibly breaking public finance rules in the GOP primary? Would they ever get enough commissioners for a quorum? The answers turned out to be no and yes, leading to a campaign finance watchdog that is at least on the prowl but not attacking any political spenders. This McGahn guy, though, owns a lot of guitars and the Journal gives video of some of his notable cover-band performances.-MB

It’s strange to read about a product recall when the product hasn’t already killed or maimed someone.  Unfortunately, the reality is usually just that gruesome — a child is killed by a crib or a high chair, or an adult suffers lung damage from a hazardous home cleaning product, and then the Consumer Product Safety Commission weighs in and orders a recall.  But today’s Washington Post features an odd news item:  a product recall was ordered even though there have been no injuries reported.  It was found that a "Serta zipper-covered foam-core mattress" does not "meet federal standards to prevent them from igniting in the presence of open flames."  Turns out there are standards and CPSC can stop products from getting to the marketplace and hurting people.  As Matt Blake’s report on the CPSC makes clear, more product recalls are the likely result if CPSC gets aggressive about using the standards it already has on the books.  -NH

I think it is intuitive to presume that since George W. Bush’s popularity is 22 percent and his successor will be elected in six days that the Bush administration has given up. But that’s not at all true. Besides the financial rescue plan, the administration is also about to issue a slew of federal regulations on environmental and health issues before their self-imposed Nov. 1 deadline.

And the Pentagon has stepped up its "war on terror." (more…)