Filed under: Economy, Law, Liberalism, Statism | Tags: Eliminating Regulations?, Excessive Regulation, Obama's Regulatory Morass
If, as we asserted, excessive regulation is one of the biggest barriers to hiring, to more job creation, what is the Obama administration doing about it?
Is is truly, as law professor Todd Zywiki says: the Obama administration believes “in a regulatory state in which regulators are seen as disinterested experts with the factual knowledge, practical wisdom, and unwavering integrity to manage the economy. They alone are presumed to be capable of steering the nation toward prosperity.”
I certainly don’t believe in any ‘disinterested experts.’ I’m a little suspicious of anyone claiming to be an expert in much of anything, and when you get into ‘practical wisdom’ and ‘unwavering integrity’ you have lost me entirely.
Remember that President Obama has hired a regulatory czar, Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, whose official title is Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which is part of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. Mr. Sunstein recently wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal titled “21st Century Regulation: An Update of the President’s Reforms.”
He said “A 21-st century regulatory system must promote economic growth, innovation and job-creation while also protecting public health and welfare. Earlier this year, President Obama outlined his plan to create such a system by adopting a simpler, smarter and more cost-effective approach to regulation. As a key part of that plan, he called for an unprecedented government-wide review of regulations already on the books so that we can improve or remove those that are out-of-date, unnecessary, excessively burdensome or in conflict with other rules.
I’ll bet there is a regulation that requires all members of the administration, when speaking about policies, to include ‘21st Century.’ “innovation,” simpler, smarter and more cost-effective,” and “unprecedented.” The Obama administration seems unusually determined to insist that everything they do is 21st Century. I spent most of my life in the 20th Century, and I can’t recall anyone ever making a big deal about what century it was.
At any rate, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is “eliminating over 1.9 million hours of redundant reporting burdens on employers, saving tens of millions of dollars every year.” They are getting rid of regulations that require ‘film x-rays instead of digital.’
The EPA is going to quit defining milk as an “oil” as it has been since 1970, and eliminating the costly rules on the agricultural community designed to prevent “oil spills.” Dairy farmers will get an exemption. This will save $1.4 billion over the next decade. They also propose to eliminate the obligation for many states to require air pollution vapor recovery systems at local gas stations, since modern vehicles already have effective air pollution control technologies. The projected annual savings are $67 million.
Other agencies are proposing, or considering, or pursuing. They have been listening, and developing plans, and two-and-a-half-years into the Obama administration, Mr. Sunstein is releasing reform plans. Which, of course, is a defining moment.
Heritage defines this as the low-hanging fruit of regulatory relief — things that should have never been instituted and repealed long ago. Dairy farmers have been asking for repeal of the “oil spill” regulations since 2007. Most “actions” are simply suggestions for change at some later date. Of the 31 rules in the EPA’s formal plan, only two are actual rule changes. The fact that it took 4 years to get the oil spill regulations changed demonstrates how broken the regulatory system is. The EPA is a veritable treasure vault of unnecessary regulation, and the spigot of new regulation is still flowing full-on.
It is encouraging that they are trying to do something, but it remains way easier to issue new rules than it is to get everybody to agree that one can be parted with. Don’t expect too much. The uncertainty remains.
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You’ve now referred to giving dairy farmers an exemption. Clearly, milk is not the same as petroleum. Petroleum is more persistent in the aquatic environment. But milk is hardly benign in waterways.
The Right is all in a tizzy about this, and in one blog I saw the writer claimed he searched in vain for any evidence that a spill of dairy products caused any fish kills. If he really did look, he didn’t look very hard.
http://www.dairyherd.com/dairy-news/latest/cheese-plant-spill-causes-fish-kill-in-missouri-113958209.html
In the short run, a large amount of milk in a stream can clog up the gills of fish and kill them directly. Over a slightly longer period, the milk raises biological oxygen demand (BOD), leaving little oxygen for the fish.
http://www.sra.dst.tx.us/srwmp/tcrp/state_of_the_basin/sabine_basin_currents/articles/2001/20010402_01.asp
The EPA and other agencies have had long experience with having to deal with fish kills following illegal dumping by dairy farmers of milk. (E.g., because the milk was unfit to be sold).
Dairy famers should not have to meet the stringent preparedness requirements of oil companies. But neither should they get an exemption from water-pollution regulations.
Comment by Subsidy Eye June 5, 2011 @ 11:39 pmIt”s Cass Sunstein that said they are giving an exemption to dairy farmers. I would think that most dairy farmers, alerted to the fact that dumping large amounts of milk in a river would be apt to create a fish kill, would be happy to arrange an alternate disposal. Dairy farmers have no desire to tangle with the regulatory police, any more than the rest of us do. However regulating milk as an oil spill does seem a little extreme. But then I think the EPA is an out-of-control bunch of power-hungry environmental activists, and the agency should be abolished. They’re responsible for an awful lot of deaths from Malaria.
Comment by The Elephant's Child June 6, 2011 @ 12:47 amTo say that the EPA are “responsible for an awful lot of deaths from Malaria” is a serious allegation. How can you conclude that? Here is the history of the EPA’s eventual prohibition of the use of DDT in the United States.
http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/ddt/index.htm
Note that by the time it was banned (by an EPA headed by a Republican appointee), substitute pesticides — less persistent and less harmful to birds — had become available. Also, it was clear that mosquitoes in the United States were starting to develop resistance to DDT. I was a teenager then, and remember that there was a lot of support from conservationists, especially conservative conservationists, because of the effects that DDT was having on that icon of all true-blue Americans (before they became true-red Americans, thanks to CNN), the bald eagle.
The EPA did not stop the use of DDT elsewhere to control malaria. Although in the year 2000, 120 UN Member countries adopted the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, which called for phasing out persistent organic pollutants (including DDT), the treaty allows for limited use for control of malaria. About 25 countries still use DDT for that purpose. The Malaria Foundation International seems to have some good ideas about DDT. They have campaigned to prevent a ban on DDT for malaria control, but also counsel that its use should be limited (and not used for insect control on crops).
Repeating the mantra that the EPA is responsible for millions of deaths from malaria may make for good Republican sound bites, but it is not faithful to history.
Comment by Subsidy Eye June 6, 2011 @ 4:14 pm[...] Will There Actually Be Real Regulatory Reform? Don’t Bet On It. [...]
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