Regulation articles from September 2002

Regulation archives from September 2002

Drug re-importation reconsidered. (For the Record).
September 22, 2002... IT TROUBLES ME TO FIND THE Mercatus Center and the Cato Institute -- two pro-free-trade organizations -- critical of efforts to lift a trade barrier (Jonathan Klick, "Drug Re-Importation's No-Win Solution," Spring 2002). Mr. Klick's...

A "good neighbor" policy for land management? (For the Record).
September 22, 2002... Robert Nelson is quite right in suggesting that ending the quasi-colonial Status in which many rural Westerners live will require the creation of a new legal framework aimed at devolving decision-making authority from Washington to state and...

Mercatus Center.
September 22, 2002... Caption: The Mercatus Center at George Mason University is an education, research, and outreach organization that works with scholars, policy experts, and government officials to bridge academic theory and real-world practice. The center's...

Information Disseminated by Federal Agencies. (Mercatus Reports).
September 22, 2002... STATUS: Various agencies analyzing public comment The Office of Management and Budget's Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity of Information Disseminated by Federal Agencies require the...

Water Quality Trading Policy. (Mercatus Reports).
September 22, 2002... STATUS: EPA instituting program In May, the Environmental Protection Agency requested comment on its proposed Policy on Water Quality Trading. The policy looks to use permit trading and other market mechanisms to achieve environmental...

Costs and benefits of federal regulations. (Mercatus Reports).
September 22, 2002... STATUS: 0MB analyzing public comment Since 1997, Congress has required the Office of Management and Budget to report on the costs and benefits of federal regulations and identify regulations to review or rescind. The 0MB received 38...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac governance. (Mercatus Reports).
September 22, 2002... STATUS: OFHEO developing rules In September of 2001, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) proposed codification of the corporate governance requirements for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rather than allowing the...

FDA first amendment issues. (Mercatus Reports).
September 22, 2002... STATUS: FDA analyzing public comment Last May 16, the Food and Drug Administration requested public comment as to whether its regulations, guidances, policies, and practices comply with First Amendment case law. Commentators have long...

Pollution from non-road diesel engines. (Mercatus Reports).
September 22, 2002... STATUS: EPA and OMB collaborating on new rule The Environmental Protection Agency and the Office of Management and Budget are collaborating on a rule that would curb pollution from diesel powered non-road vehicles and equipment. As a...

The coming shift in regulation. (Mercatus Reports: Commentary).
September 22, 2002... THE SIZE OF THE CODE OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS (often measured in the number of feet of shelf space that it occupies) provides a sense of the magnitude of the stock of existing regulations with which American businesses, workers, and consumers...

Real campaign reform. (Briefly Noted).
September 22, 2002... IT WAS McCAIN-FEINGOLD IN THE SENATE, Shays-Meehan in the House, and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002 in the statute books. Now, in the courts, it is McConnell v. Federal Election Commission--a consolidation of 10 separate...

EPA's $32 trillion negligible risk. (Briefly Noted).
September 22, 2002... IT IS NO SURPRISE THAT FEDERAL AGENCIES often tailor their interpretation of the facts and the law to support various policy goals. It should also be no surprise that the agencies sometimes "re-tailor" those interpretations if they conflict...

Toward truly open skies: liberalizing the U.S.-European air transport market would benefit both sides of the Atlantic. (Transportation).
September 22, 2002... AFTER THE U.S. DOMESTIC AIR MARKET, the Europe-North America international market is the largest air transport market in the world, accounting for 419,961 billion revenue-passenger-kilometers in 2000. It has also traditionally been one of the...

A new approach to private roads: using an innovative method for awarding franchise rights, states can entice more effective private investment in highways. (Transportation).
September 22, 2002... DURING MOST OF THE TWENTIETH century, highways, tunnels, and bridges were viewed as public goods that government must provide. By the end of the century, however, chronic budgetary problems had led governments to allow some participation of...

Zoning's steep price: in the nation's tightest housing markets, laud-use regulation contributes heavily to high housing costs. (Real Estate).
September 22, 2002... A CHORUS OF VOICES APPEARS TO proclaim unanimously that America is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis. In his introduction to a Housing and Urban Development report in March of 2000, then-secretary Andrew Cuomo asserted the existence...

CAFE changes, by the numbers: stricter fuel standards would increase air pollution and hurt U.S. auto makers and consumers, but would save little gasoline. (Energy).
September 22, 2002... LAST MARCH, THE U.S. SENATE CONSIDered a proposal by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) to raise the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for cars and light trucks by 50 percent. Kerry and other proponents of stricter standards had the...

FERC's new regulatory agenda: federal officials increasingly are turning to command-and-control policies for the nation's power grid. (Energy).
September 22, 2002... DURING THE PAST YEAR AND A HALF, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has embarked on a significantly more regulatory course than it was on before. The new approach is most evident with respect to transmission, where FERC's...

A free-market scorecard: how should we judge whether states' telecommunications policies are deregulatory and pro-competitive? (Telecommunications).
September 22, 2002... MUCH OF THE UNITED STATES' communications infrastructure is used to carry both interstate and intrastate communications services. Even before the passage of the Communications Act of 1934, it was clear that the states and the federal government...

The antitrust emperor's clothes: we need to base policy on what we know. (25th Anniversary Special Section: Antitrust).
September 22, 2002... ANTITRUST POLICY IS ON A BETTER footing today than it was 25 years ago, but it still shares some features with the story of the emperor's new clothes. The tailors of antitrust policy tell us that the antitrust laws are the "Magna Carta of...

Safety at any price? Following a dramatic expansion of federal health and safety regulation, Americans' gains are uncertain. (25th Anniversary Special Section: Risk).
September 22, 2002... THE 1970S MARKED THE ADVENT OF A major wave of health and safety regulations. Before that time, the standards that we now take for granted were completely absent from the American economy, with the exception of selected regulations for food...

Reds in suits. (In Review).
September 22, 2002... THE FUTURE OF IDEAS: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World By Lawrence Lessig 352 pp., New York, N.Y.: Random House, 2001 Lawrence Lessig's first book, Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace (Basic Books, 1999), was a big hit,...

Defending speech from 'reformers'. (In Review).
September 22, 2002... MONEY TALKS: Speech, Economic Power, and the Values of Democracy By Martin H. Redish 319 pp., New York, N.Y: New York University Press, 2001. A midst the chatter over the collapse of Enron, the voices of campaign finance zealots...

An economic theory shortage. (In Review).
September 22, 2002... HUBBERT'S PEAK: THE IMPENDING WORLD OIL SHORTAGE By Kenneth S. Deffeyes 285 pp., Princeton, N.J.: Princeton university Press, 2001 Kenneth Deffeyes' book Hubbert's Peak has gained a wide audience in the oil production community....

Too insufferable for professional satirists. (The Final Word).
September 22, 2002... AS SOMEONE WHO USES COMEDY FOR A LIVING, I take notice of news stories that are too funny or too messed up for good comedians to touch. If a punter chuckles when hearing a news story, the pros should stay away; if Connie Chung smiles, run away....