The Obama administration continues its rollback – or at least reconsideration – of environmental policies from the Bush days.

On Tuesday, Interior secretary Ken Salazar announced that the agency would spend another 180 days accepting public comments on a Bush-instigated rule that would dramatically expand oil and gas exploration off the nation’s coasts (Washington Post). The extension likely signals that the rule will eventually get scrapped altogether: “In my view, it was a headlong rush of the worst kind,” Salazar is quoted in the ”https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/10/MNB015R7TQ.DTL&tsp=1">San Francisco Chronicle.

The change is the latest in a series of environmental policy reversals instigated under Obama. Among them:

The Interior Department withdrew freshly-granted leases for oil and gas explorations on public lands in Utah.

The Environmental Protection Agency will reconsider its decision to deny California a waiver that would allow the state to regulate its greenhouse gas emissions.

The EPA will also delay the effective date of, and further study, a ruling that would have eased pollution regulations on new sources of industrial pollution.

And the Justice Department dropped an appeal that would have set up a cap-and-trade system for mercury at power plants, suggesting that the new administration will instead regulate mercury directly.