Because it has nothing better to do, the Obama administration is taking on Cheerios and other staples of our everyday lives.

With much of Washington focused on efforts to revamp the health-care system and address climate change, a handful of Obama appointees have been quietly exercising their power over the trappings of daily life. They are awakening a vast regulatory apparatus with authority over nearly every U.S. workplace, 15,000 consumer products, and most items found in kitchen pantries and medicine cabinets.

And, according to the Washington Post, the bureaucrats are passionate about it:

The new regulators display a passion for rules and a belief that government must protect the public from dangers lurking at home and on the job — one more way the new White House is reworking the relationship between government and business.

Interestingly, Obama’s new administrator at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Cass Sunstein, will likely stand in the way of these expensive abuses of power:

The regulators still face significant hurdles if they want to dramatically expand government’s reach. Most proposed regulations have to be vetted by a central White House office headed by another new appointee, Cass R. Sunstein, whose embrace of cost-benefit analyses may mean he will discourage expensive new rules. Some efforts to expand regulation are sure to face legal challenges from industry. And the private sector is likely to assert that new regulations would be an additional burden in a weak economy.

Read the whole thing here and cry. Read some reactions to Cass Sunstein’s nomination here.