STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

this is from msnbc

"The Bush administration and Republicans in Congress, while voting for more than $60 billion in taxpayer money to be spent on hurricane recovery — and promising many billions more — have implemented some regulatory waivers and are planning to do even more deregulation:

* Starting last Wednesday and until next Wednesday, the federal Department of Transportation has eased rules on how many hours truckers can drive when transporting fuel.
* The Environmental Protection Agency has suspended until next Thursday certain federal fuel standards in response to possible diesel and gasoline shortages. The suspended rules are designed to combat high ozone and sulfur emissions.
* Bush has ordered suspension of provisions of the Jones Act, which requires transport of petroleum, gasoline and other petroleum products on U.S.-flagged ships while operating in U.S. coastal waters.
* Senate Environment and Public Works chairman Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said Congress would need to waive a law that limits federal emergency road building funds to $100 million per state per emergency and that limits full federal funding to 180 days.
* The House unanimously passed a bill allowing the Department of Education to waive the repayment requirement for low-income college students who received Pell grants. Normally if a college student drops out of school, he must pay back the unused portion of his Pell grant.
* On Thursday, Bush suspended the Davis-Bacon law on all federally financed construction in areas hit by Hurricane Katrina. That law requires the federal government to pay the “prevailing wage” on construction projects, which is often higher than the local minimum wage. Suspending Davis-Bacon will allow the government to pay lower than prevailing wages, and Bush said, “will result in greater assistance to these devastated communities and will permit the employment of thousands of additional individuals."
* House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, saw a need for a new energy bill as a result of the hurricane. “When one hurricane, as massive as it was, can knock out about 20 percent of our (oil and natural gas) facilities, it shows how vulnerable we are,” he said. In order to expand the long-term U.S. oil and gas supply, DeLay wants to open parts of the country that are currently off-limits to oil and gas drilling. Large swaths of the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts are under a federal moratorium on oil and gas exploration until the year 2012."

i think the suspension of the davis-bacon act is particularly effed. good way to exploit workers, while helping out your highly paid corporate buddies for rebuilding! (who will no doubt be contracted out. *cough* haliburton *cough*)