Here is one episode:
Over-regulation was the enemy in many actions, but this was not a liberal convention. Everyone agreed that safety, quality, environment, etc., are important and should be controlled. They just thought that the existing laws were so stupid, that they made everything worse including safety, environment, etc. With enough political will, it would be easy to make laws that improve innovation, price, safety, the environment, and everything else.
For example, consider high-powered flight. High-powered aircraft create “sonic booms”, small explosions that rattle windows and disturb people in their path. Annoyed by these booms, Congress banned private aviation in 1973. Now we have developed better planes whose bombs are invisible, or not visible at all. But because Congress banned supersonic aircraft – rather than the sonic booms themselves – we’re stuck with the usual boring 6-hour coast-to-coast flights. If the flight’s progress had continued at the same rate it was going before the high-force restriction, we would be 2,500 mph by now (coast-to-coast in 2 hours). Can Congress change regulation to prevent booms and busts? Yes, but Congress is busy, and doing it through the FAA and other agencies will take 10-15 years of environmental impact reports.
Or consider solar energy. The average large solar project is delayed 5-10 years by the management system. Part of the problem is NEPA, the infamous environmental protection law that says anyone can sue any project for any reason if they object on environmental grounds. If a fossil fuel company worries about competition from solar, it can sue future solar plants on the grounds that some ants might be crushed under the solar panels; even in the best cases where the solar company fights and wins, it suffers years of delays and loses millions of dollars. Meanwhile, fossil fuel companies are easy; they’ve had good reps for decades, and they get a good collection of formal and informal NEPA exemptions.
Even if a solar project survives court challenges, it must be connected to the grid. This creates its own bureaucracy and potential pitfalls.
Read it all. And congratulations to Jason Crawford and Heike Larson for coming out on top.
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