Regulation articles from June 2004

Regulation archives from June 2004

A second look at Regulation's cost.(For The Record)
June 22, 2004... The Mercatus Reports section of the Spring 2004 issue of Regulation includes a discussion of OMB's draft 2004 Report to Congress on the Costs and Benefits of Federal Regulation. The discussion refers to a Mercatus Center study that "found that...

Reconsidering highway financing.(For The Record)
June 22, 2004... Alan Pisarski is probably the most acute observer of the U.S. transportation scene, so his support of unending federal financing of state roads has to be taken seriously. Nevertheless, I am not convinced by his proposition ("Reconsidering the...

Shrinking the FHTF by attrition.(For The Record)(Federal Highway Trust Fund)
June 22, 2004... Recent articles by Gabriel Roth ("Road Policy for the Future," Spring 2003) and Alan Pisarski ("Reconsidering the FHTF," Spring 2004) call to mind what happened when Patrick J. McCue, executive director of the local toll road authority in...

Financial privacy notices.(Mercatus Reports)
June 22, 2004... STATUS: Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking has been issued. Late last December, a group of eight financial regulators (including Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and the FDIC) published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking...

FTC e-commerce studies.(Mercatus Reports)(Federal Trade Commission)
June 22, 2004... STATUS: New report released March 29 The Federal Trade Commission released a staff report on Internet contact lens sales last March that urged states to avoid imposing professional licensing requirements on firms that sell contact lenses...

A regulated day in the life.(Mercatus reports: commentary)
June 22, 2004... YOU PROBABLY KNOW HOW MUCH YOU PAY in taxes each year. According to the Tax Foundation, the average citizen spent over $6,500 in federal income taxes in 2003. But do you know how much you pay for regulations imposed by the federal government? A...

The biggest pest of all.(Briefly Noted)(Biotechnology industries)
June 22, 2004... THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE'S biotechnology regulations have been a shambles for more than 15 years. Its compulsory case-by-case review, costly field test design, and other requirements have made gene-spliced plants...

Reactionary regulation.(Briefly Noted)
June 22, 2004... WELL-PUBLICIZED BUSINESS scandals often result in the enactment of new government regulation. Policymakers and industry leaders worry that if they do not enact new laws and rules, the public might confuse them with the unethical actors,...

The EPA's risky reasoning: recent revisions to the air quality standards show a worrisome misuse of science.(Environment)(Environmental Protection Agency)
June 22, 2004... FOR REGULATORY DECISIONMAKERS, science provides a systematic basis for understanding policy problems and the consequences of different policy options. Thus, scientific evidence needs to play a key role in agency decision-making. But even though...

Assigning broadband rights: could private control of access and standards lead to a balkanization of the Internet?(Telecommunications)(Cover Story)
June 22, 2004... SOME INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS (ISPs) and portals like Yahoo! and Earthlink are concerned that cable television and telephone companies that now provide residential high-speed Internet access may branch out into the provision of content or...

Making lawyers compete: is the market for contingent fee-financed tort litigation competitive?(Law)(Excerpt)
June 22, 2004... THE RANGE OF ACTS THAT CAN GIVE rise to tort liability has burgeoned over the past four decades. During that period, the costs of the tort system have increased far in excess of the growth in the Gross Domestic Product. After a slowdown in...

How lawyers compete: can the legal services market become more competitive?(Law)(Column)
June 22, 2004... LESTER BRICKMAN'S ARTICLE (P. 30) establishes that the market for contingent fee lawyers is unusual, perhaps even bizarre. Indeed, the market seems so unlike other markets for goods and services that readers may think Brickman adventurous for...

The private neighborhood: will homeowners associations lead to a revolution in local government?(Property)(neighborhood associations)
June 22, 2004... For most of American history, the standard form of housing has been the single home or apartment that is owned or rented by an individual household. If there was a need for collective action among individual homeowners, that need was met by a...

A growing technology ecosystem.
June 22, 2004... Despite a hesitant global economy and the burst of the dot-com bubble, the information technology market is poised to exceed $1 trillion this year and is expected to grow another 40 percent by 2005. With millions of people employed at...

Revolution or evolution? Do homeowners association members benefit from--or even want--the dissolution of municipalities and local zoning?(Property)
June 22, 2004... IN HIS ARTICLE (P. 40), ROBERT H. NELSON suggests that states should replace municipalities with private community associations. As his data show, his goal seems to be well on the way to fruition. Developer-designed community associations have...

Is there a biomedical anticommons? Patent holders have a strong interest in profiting from their patents.(Health & Medicine)(patent protection)
June 22, 2004... SIX YEARS AGO IN SCIENCE, MICHAEL HELLER and Rebecca Eisenberg asked the disarmingly simple question whether patent protection could deter biomedical research. They treated patent protection as a two-edged sword: Happily, it spurs innovation by...

Who certifies off-label? FDA efficacy requirements may do more medical harm than good.(Health & Medicine)(Food and Drug Administration)
June 22, 2004... FEDERAL LAW FORBIDS A NEW DRUG from being sold in the United States unless it has passed tests approved by the Food and Drug Administration examining the drug's safety and efficacy in a specified use. The specified use is called the "on-label"...

Breaking the FDA monopoly: with dual-tracking, patients can have early access to potential miracle drugs while the FDA maintains its testing regimen.(Health & Medicine)
June 22, 2004... MOST AMERICANS RARELY encounter the Food and Drug Administration and consequently are not alarmed by its significant growth over the last few decades. Congress has facilitated FDA expansion by using well publicized episodes of unsafe products...

Trade Wars and the Silver Screen.(Book Review)
June 22, 2004... BLOCKBUSTERS AND TRADE WARS: POPULAR CULTURE IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD By Peter S. Grant and Chris Wood 454 pp., Vancouver, B.C.: Douglas & McIntyre, 2004 OP-ED PAGES, POLITICAL Web sites, and call-in radio shows were abuzz last spring with...

Visions of 'Ecodemics'.(Book Review)
June 22, 2004... SIX MODERN PLAGUES AND HOW WE ARE CAUSING THEM By Mark Jerome Waiters 206 pages; Washington, D.C.: Shearwater Books, 2003 IN SIX MODERN PLAGUES, VETerinarian and journalist Mark Jerome Walters, like many modern-day greens, deems humankind...

Towards Libertarian Electricity.(Book Review)
June 22, 2004... THE END OF A NATURAL MONOPOLY: REGULATION AND COMPETITION IN THE ELECTRIC POWER INDUSTRY Edited by Peter Z. Grossman and Daniel H. Cole 256 pp; New York, N.Y.: Taylor & Francis, Inc. For at least four decades, much of the discussion of...

Don't tread on my ...(The Final Word)(obesity working group)(Column)
June 22, 2004... I'VE NEVER SUSPECTED ANY BRANCH OF THE government of being a brain trust. But when Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson publicly emphasized that the Bush administration would take a "personal responsibility" approach to battling...