Obama to Reverse Bush's Policies

Obama has made clear his intention to scrap as many as 200 of Bush's most controversial decisions during the past eight years. (Reuters)

"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," John D. Podesta, the head of Obama's transition team, said on CBS's "Face the Nation".

"He feels like he has a real mandate for change. We need to get off the course that the Bush administration has set."

Obama was elected on Tuesday, November 4, as America's first-ever black president after crushing Republican rival John McCain.

He has made clear his intention to scrap as many as 200 of Bush's most controversial decisions during the past eight years.

"Senator Obama said that he wanted all the Bush executive orders reviewed, and decide which ones should be kept, and which ones should be repealed, and which ones should be amended," noted Podesta, who was chief of staff in the Bill Clinton administration.

"And that process is going on. It's been undertaken."

Obama was to meet Bush at the White House later on Monday for handover talks.

The Iraq war and the global economic crunch will top the agenda of the first face-to-face talks between the two.

Diverse

Obama is expected to reverse Bush's executive orders on issues as diverse as oil drilling and stem cell research.

"You see the Bush administration even today moving aggressively to do things that I think are probably not in the interest of the country," Podesta said.

"They want to have oil and gas drilling in some of the most sensitive, fragile lands in Utah that they're going to try to do right as they are walking out the door. I think that's a mistake."

Throughout his presidency, Bush has made liberal use of his executive authority to put a stamp on a range of hot-button policy issues.

He has allowed oil and gas drilling in the western state of Utah and restricted the embryonic stem cell research.

In 2001, Bush reinstated the so-called global gag rule to ban government aid to international family planning groups advising women on abortion.

"It will have been eight years that we have been operating in a limited funding environment," Larry Soler, a board member of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, told the New York Times.

"I think everyone in the scientific community and the patient community is geared up and expecting this and excited to make this happen," he added.

"It's been a long struggle."