The order was thought to apply to such orders as new regulations for managed-care programs under Medicare, and new environmental rules on runoff from animal feeding operations.
Mr Bush's move did not apply to the 140 presidential pardons and 36 prison sentence commutations that Mr Clinton issued less than two hours before his term expired.
Mr Bush's order, signed by the new White House chief of staff, Andrew Card, said the decision was made to ensure that the President's appointees "have the opportunity to review any new or pending" regulations.
The order meant that no new rules could be printed in the Federal Register. This blocked them because the rules cannot take effect until they have been in the register for a set time. Mr Bush also issued a 60-day stay on regulations that were published in the Federal Register but had not yet taken effect.
Some of the blizzard of rules issued by Mr Clinton in his last days in office angered Republicans, particularly his decision to declare nearly 24 million hectares of federal land, mostly in the western states, off limits to logging.
That order, however, came after a lengthy federal review period and would appear to be extremely difficult to withdraw.