The Regulatory Review

How does that help. "By my weightings, freedom is more important than public health." "My weightings say the opposite." That's where we are today. Putting numbers on it, numbers that can't be determined except by our personal biases, doesn't help. Here's a fun story about cost benefit analysis in the real world, a bureaucrat deciding which kinds of rape hurt enough to be worth preventing: Criticism: https://gulcfac.typepad.com/georgetown_university_law/ Defense: https://www.theregreview.org/2013/09/13/13-sunstein-cost-benefit/

I was interested, but also didn't want to scrub through a podcast. Summary: Cass Sunstein was the administer of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The OIRA is given the remit to review drafted rules (ie regulations) that various federal agencies want to enact. The OIRA is supposed to perform an external cost-benefit analysis of the proposed regulations. OIRA is suppose to turn around rulings in 90 days. While Cass Sunstein was administrator (2009 to 2012), various pieces of regulation were submitted for review, and ended up being reviewed for ~3+ years. Examples include: * Requiring rear-view cameras (submitted for review in 2011, regulation finally passed in 2014 with a 2018 deadline for compliance) * The silicosis workplace safety regulations (as mentioned - submitted in 2011, finally passed review in 2013) * Coal ash handling regulations (from the EPA) delayed from 2009 to 2014 For the specific case of silicosis specifically, it doesn't appear that the OIRA ended up blocking the regulation, though it certainly slowed it down. Some news articles: * https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/attacks-on-science/white-house-delaye… * https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-regulations-oi… * https://www.theregreview.org/2013/11/26/26-verchick-silica/ It is worth noting that these delays continued after Sunstein left office, and there's certainly evidence of OIRA significantly delaying review…

I... don't think that's right? edit: I did some research. Ghost kitchens are generally inspected by federal or state authorities, but laws for inspection vary widely by state, and it can be difficult for customers to see or understand inspection results. E.g. You go to a restaurant and see the health grade in the window, but when you order from an online vendor who shares the same kitchen with 5 other vendors, it's very hard to trace the food your getting to the kitchen it's being prepared in and the relevant inspection history. more here: https://www.theregreview.org/2021/01/13/verniero-paranormal-nature-gho…

To elaborate, around 21 million eligible voters in the US do not have an ID that would be acceptable under current and proposed voter ID laws. In some states the necessary ID is free, but "free" just means that there is no fee for the ID or to apply for it. It does not mean that getting copies of the necessary documents that must be submitted with the application are free. Those can sometimes run to over $100. Here's a collection of links I've saved over the years on…

>> The Major Questions doctrine is an invention of the Roberts court that no court before has even considered "The major questions doctrine originated in two Supreme Court decisions: MCI Telecommunications Corporation v. American Telephone & Telegraph in 1994 and FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation in 2000." -- https://www.theregreview.org/2021/11/15/revesz-brunstein-regulatory-co… Roberts was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2005.

>>> Reminder that Netflix was a big proponent for axing net neutrality No, I remember the opposite. Netflix argues for net neutrality because that forces last-mile internet providers to absorb the bandwidth costs of Netflix's business model. https://www.theregreview.org/2021/11/10/kim-can-netflix-win-neutrality… ' In the original claim, Netflix v. SK Broadband, Netflix invoked a net neutrality argument—based on the idea that internet service providers should treat all content equally—and argued that SK Broadband would discriminate against Netflix by imposing high network usage fees. Netflix also argued that SK Broadband should cover the increased costs of network traffic since it has an obligation to provide internet services to its customers. '

The negatives of these zoning laws are vastly worse than most people know. US GDP would be 50% higher than it is now if we did not have exclusionary zoning laws. (https://www.theregreview.org/2018/06/14/somogyi-zoning-codes-gdp/) If New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area alone removed their exclusionary and needlessly restrictive zoning laws, the average worker's income would rise by $9,000 per year.

A commons that flourishes instead of wilting from tragedy. https://www.theregreview.org/2019/08/21/kadich-fixing-shortfall-highwa… https://infrastructurereportcard.org/

I found a stat that suggested ~100 [1] (another stat says 500 and 15,000 injuries (!) [2] and there's a 3rd between them [3]), so say 600 million. Given the insurance cost of replacing vehicles, that would only be 30k accidents prevented to pay for itself. FWIW, I've heard anecdotally that the insurance companies pushed for backup cameras more than anyone else, but given the benefits to lower insurance (arguable, but in theory), less deaths and less injuries, it seems like a win. The technology will also get cheaper over the years. [1] https://www.theregreview.org/2012/05/30/30-rowell-camera/ [2] https://safetyresourcesblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/vehicle-backin… [3] https://kelleyuustal.com/rear-view-cameras-reduce-90-of-back-over-acci…

I don’t see how having article III remedies addresses the separation of powers issue. It just means you can kinda maybe fix up the damage afterward. I think it’s fair to ask how far a non-delegation principle should go. There is clearly a continuum between legislation and enforcement discretion. But does that mean we should have no non-delegation principle at all? Is there a definable middle ground between Congress leaving it to executive discretion address technical minutea and Congress delegating oversight over entire sections of the economy to unelected bodies that can serve as judge, jury, and executioner? There are ways to maintain an administrative state without stuffing everything into the executive branch: https://www.theregreview.org/2019/12/18/rappaport-stronger-separation-…

It’s an idea that is studied in political economy. If the idea resonates with you there are a lot of discussions around it: https://www.theregreview.org/2016/07/07/lupo-a-resource-list-on-regula…

Section 230 permits the platform to decide for themselves what is violent, according to https://www.theregreview.org/2019/07/15/kosseff-correcting-persistent-…

On related but tangential news: The Académie came up recently in the news in their opposition to a book designed to teach history to third graders that used "gender inclusive" forms (https://www.theregreview.org/2018/03/21/sen-france-linguistic-battle/)… Under standard French grammar rules Under the standard rules "a male and a female friend are described as “amis”. Two or more friends are called “amies” only when no men are included.", i.e. a group with only one male member becomes masculine.

I actually started to do something similar to this when Uber was Lobbying the state legislature of Texas[1] to preempt Austin's goals of regulating background checks and fingerprinting drivers, but never really kept up with it. --- [1] https://www.theregreview.org/2018/06/28/schriever-uber-lyft-lobby-dere…

> Algorithms are generally incapable of bias. This is nonsense unless you define-down "bias" in such a way as to mean "performing contrary to the deterministic result of its implementation" (which seems to be what you're doing, and I agree is impossible). A more sensible definition of bias might be something like "preferentially favouring one outcome over another for reasons unrelated (or even contrary) to the core purpose of the software". Imagine a vending machine that when prompted generically by a user saying "I'm thirsty" always provided sugary soda instead of bottled water. Modern machine learning algorithms are extremely complex and opaque, and depending on the dataset they're trained on, and the features they're trained to focus on, they can very easily wind up just encoding human biases. https://www.theregreview.org/2017/10/10/cramer-bias-computer-algorithm…

> Look at the treatment of Boeing after 2 airplane crashes for example Well, Boeing was taken to task not for trying to innovate and making mistakes but for lying (fraud) and regulatory capture of the FAA (something a smaller competitor can’t do and in fact likely prevents smaller competitors). As an investor, the former should make you wary and as a flier the latter should make you scared. > The US has particulate air pollution that is half of South Korea's and a quarter of China. It is a pretty reasonable guess that air pollution would be mostly industrial production that the US would shut down for environmental concerns. Considering the primary stated motivator by many industrial companies for outsourcing to China was labor costs and not environmental regulations, I wouldn’t be so confident in this claim. This is borne out by research which tries to compare environmental regulations across regulatory regimes: > In our newest research, we compared risk regulation in China and the United States, and we have also found a more complex pattern that does not support the longstanding conventional view of U.S. regulation being much more stringent than in China. https://www.theregreview.org/2021/12/20/xu-wiener-comparing-us-chinese… > * US labour laws are an impediment. That new fab plant that TSMC was trying to build in the US seemed to be falling over because it was illegal to use skilled, experienced labour. I don’t know what you’re…

It is fairly true (yeah, it's more complicated than a simple flat comparison, but in general, yes the EU and elsewhere does a better job and takes a more proactive approach). Also, nice throwaway account. California is not the US (and frankly much of the US balks at California attempts to push things from gas mileage standards to any environmental quality standard to privacy, etc), and since the tail end of the Reagan years the US has largely given up its affirmative regulatory concerns to the EU. We're great at providing space for for-profit middlemen, but categorically mediocre or worse on preventative concerns. * https://www.safeopedia.com/2/4270/ehs/comparing-eu-health-safety-laws-… * https://www.theregreview.org/2013/01/01/01-oxholm-ppr-vogel/ * https://info.orrsafety.com/safety-hub/usa-vs-europe-biggest-difference… * https://www.fooddocs.com/post/food-safety-standards * https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2014/jun/mi…

> There is an original painting of a pipe. Under it I append the comment: "This is not a pipe". You're wondering off and getting lost in the weeds with your example. Twitter replied on its platform using a new mechanism that it created. Trying to twist that reply into an "edit" (with the implication that it's some kind of illegitimate corruption of the work replied to) is drifting towards a denial of free speech and other nonsensical implications. > When I publish it, who is the information content provider as defined by section 230? On Section 230 more generally: Correcting a Persistent Myth About the Law that Created the Internet (https://www.theregreview.org/2019/07/15/kosseff-correcting-persistent-… > Understanding section 230’s history is essential to informing the current debate about the law. And that history tells us that one of the main reasons for enacting section 230 was to encourage online services to moderate content.... > Section 230’s “findings” states that the internet offers “a forum for a true diversity of political discourse.” Nothing in section 230’s history, however, suggests that this goal requires platforms to be “neutral.” Indeed, section 230 allows platforms to develop different content standards, and customers ultimately can determine whether those standards meet their expectations. [Emphasis mine.]