Safe food. Seatbelts. Safety on the job. Clean air and water. A functioning financial system. These are all things that we as Americans have come to take for granted in our daily lives. And, though it has become unfashionable to say so, these are all things provided by robust federal regulation.
Regulations are getting a bad rap in Washington these days. Despite the collapse of our financial system, financial regulatory reform has been chastised. Despite the continued need for clean air and water, some in Congress are exploring ways to prevent the implementation of rules to stem pollution. And, Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has devoted his time not to finding ways to reduce the deficit through duplicity in federal agencies, but instead by rallying against any and all regulations that large corporations have suggested they would like to see go.
These misguided efforts distract from dealing with the real issues impacting economic growth. While over-burdensome government regulations may be harmful, those which Congress is currently focusing on will not strangle job creation. This is a myth repeated by politicians and CEOs who stand to increase profits while decreasing safety if standards disappear -- standards that ensure product and food safety, protect our environment, and guarantee the proper regulation of our financial, medical, and legal industries.
Though the Obama administration recently identified thousands of non-functioning, or wasteful rules that are unnecessary and can burden businesses or agencies, responsible reform must leave in place and ensure proper enforcement of the many hard-won regulations that protect the health and safety of Americans.
The anti-regulation mania that's swept Washington conveniently ignores the positive impact that common sense regulations have on all of our daily lives, while threatening to harm the basic protections that we have come to expect. For instance:
The fact is that time and again, the impact of lax regulations is felt more broadly by the country -- from the cost of a near depression to the cost of environmental clean-up. This is not good for most businesses, nor the economy.
In the short run, regulations require investment, but that does not translate into a drag on the economy -- in fact, analyses show that the economic benefits of smart regulation greatly outweigh their costs.
The Office of Management and Budget studied all the major regulations issued between 2001 and 2010, and found that compliance costs of $44 billion to $62 billion were dwarfed in comparison to the $136 billion to $651 billion of annual benefits that those rules created. The OMB in part calculates the economic benefits of regulations by assigning monetary values to the human lives saved. We would like to think that the saving of those lives alone would be reason enough to applaud, rather than scorn, the government's regulatory efforts.
Those investments also create jobs. And, if companies began investing earlier, they would reduce overall costs, benefit from early compliance and be in a position to spread out the cost of regulations over a longer period of time, thus dampening any economic impact.
While Congress engages in ways to prevent implementation of important health and safety regulations, it is sleeping when it comes to identifying real efforts that can jump start the economy, including:
Too much time has been spent on Capitol Hill arguing over one message or another. When will our elected officials stop the rhetoric, end the charge to implement everything they think their campaign contributors are seeking and start putting Americans first? As supporters and founders of businesses that have proven that we can thrive in a world that encourages a balance in meeting environmental goals, employee goals and profit, we are urging Congress to move away from the lexicon of corporate protection at all costs, and toward the lexicon of protecting the citizens they are supposed to represent.
We must work toward this: real, forward-moving regulatory reform that helps to create a new economy -- one that values people, planet and profit.
David Levine is the co-founder and executive director of the American Sustainable Business Council, a growing coalition of business networks and businesses who represent more than 100,000 businesses and more than 200,000 entrepreneurs, owners, executives, investors and business professionals, advancing a new vision, framework and policies that support a sustainable economy.
Jeffrey Hollender is the co-founder and former CEO of Seventh Generation and the co-founder of the American Sustainable Business Council. He also blogs about these topics and more at JeffreyHollender.com.
Follow Jeffrey Hollender on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JeffHollender
David Katz, M.D.: Why Salmonella Strikes Ground Meat
In the 70's 80's and early 90's the EPA I would bet had great approval numbers but as manufacturing jobs disappeared because of trade policies their numbers started to drop.
Then they decided to make a real easy target of themselves by attacking, fossil fuels, climate change and CO2. It doesn't matter if they are right or wrong to many people see their livelihood tied in with cheap energy.
Americans like fair play, if the President was to make a speech saying American CO2, European CO2, or Asian CO2 are all causing environmental problems and we should tax or apply tariffs on all products sold here equally, I believe it would be an easier sale.
We need a paradigm shift in how we are going to handle the future and climate change. Thinking in terms of buying products from Asia with high CO2 footprints while cutting our CO2 footprints here is not going to slow down climate change!
It seems all it does is lower the EPA's approval ratings.
Something to ponder.
But conservatives believe in that BS!
We've lived for over 30 years with conservative chipping away regulations. Some of our good democrats have joined forces with them, e.g. Bill Clinton eliminating Glass/Steiger Act. These deregulations have created economic, environmental, climate, food safety chaos for all of us, especially the middle and lower income folks.
Obama talked about getting rid of out dated regulations that do stifle businesses growth. I agree with that so why aren't the WH or congressional dems, especially the senate taking up this cause.
Also, we know why repubs are so dead set against regulations - they want to establish true 'free market' ideology which gives corporations complete control over our society and privatize all govt functions. Fight this, dems. We can't have this private sector monster controlling us.
Also , why are we allowing the republicns to protect wall street's mischief? Didnt this country and the world suffer enough with the recent ne meltdown to allow stricter regulations to protect the people and investors from another collapse? They shoud have had to submitt themselves to regulations in order to receive a bail out and all their CEOs responsible should have had to sell out and contribute to the bail out and then be fired. What a lousy job we did, thanks to the GOP.
The arguement from conservatives is that they *are* responsible and don't need them. Reality proves otherwise.
Ask yourself the next time someone wants to get rid of regulations, what are they doing wrong that they want to get away with?
Regulations, and regulatory agencies, only came about because of abuses. Government is basically reactive, and it takes a long time at that for most things.
The big problem has been that either Congress failes to properly finance the agency charged with enforcement, or in the case of the GOP, have actively worked over the past 4 decades to gut the enforcement power. Couple this with the industry infiltration and corruption of the agencies and we have set the stage for things like the financial collapse. Another one will come unless we address these issues.
President Obama could begin to reverse some of this if he would restore our civil servants to their positions which were taken away under Reagan.
Here's an example: How long would it take Congress to act if 2 747's were crashing every day in the U.S.? A week?
In 1999, the IOM reported that up to 98,000 Americans were dying every year from being admitted to a healthcare facility. We now know that an additional 100,000 people die every year from infections and "consequences" af being in a healthcare facility. The equivalent of 2 fully loaded 747's crashing every day.
It's 2011, and no data to suggest it has improved.
Oh, that's right, the AHA is the 5th most influential lobbying group. CMMS had to punish JCAHO to start getting anything moveing. JCAHO is an industry "front".