Sunday, February 26, 2012

Tangled up in green tape

http://www.economist.com/node/21547804


This article is about the regulation imposed by the EPA and how the nature of it has become enormously confusing. Several pieces of legislation have been approved, only to be struck down right before they come into effect, or end up being severely reworked. This causes difficulties for companies trying to prepare around these regulatory shifts and financial loss on their end.

The article also discusses the difficulty these regulations have in getting approved. Congress had made the issue of environmental safety and reform a partisan one, making it far more difficult to get any regulation through without huge discussion and legal challenges. The difficulty of the American regulatory system makes trying to counter these market externalities a near impossibility, and point out a glaring flaw in the way we operate.

2 comments:

Benjamin Shuller said...

It must be terrible trying to pass the legislation. Congress is pretty broken and many politicians have been advocating to cut programs (such as EPA).

Lena K. said...

It will be interesting to see, now with the elections coming into full swing and more pressure to innvoate and change, whether or not Congress will follow suit. It seems, in a way, that there is a lack of communication, or some mix up between the EPA regulations, and what Congress is looking or aiming to do for future years. With a democratic president in office now, the push for more environmental practices has become more important, however has definitely fallen behind the current economic situation, rebuilding, and the war. It will be very interesting to see what transition the economy and the environmental mindset we go through in the next year or so.