Tag Archives: regulation

What I’m Reading, April 4, 2014

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By Djembayz (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsIf You Criticize Wealthy Donors, You’re Basically Hitler, David Weigel, Slate, April 3, 2014

The Charles Koch standard is problematic if you think (like I think) that campaign donations should be uncapped but totally disclosed. That, according to the donors (though not McCutcheon himself), leads to character assassination. Donors have a First Amendment right to give money, but their opponents flout that right when they criticize them. Why? That’s an excellent question.

Self-Regulation Means No Regulation: Five Lessons We Should Have Learned from Agent Orange, PR Newswire, April 2, 2014

Economic crises. Foodborne disease outbreaks. Oil and chemical spills. According to Peter Sills, each is the natural result of the widespread demonization of a tool our government should wield more often. Regulation.

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Many politicians and industries push for self-regulation, and Sills says that might actually work in a perfect world. But in the real world, he insists, it won’t—and here are five reasons why:

If a hard, unpleasant task is optional, then most companies won’t do it (especially if it will cost them money). Consider Wyeth Pharmaceuticals’ refusal to change the label requirements on Phenergan even though it knew the method suggested could lead to infection and amputation. Wyeth finally made the change after being sued by a patient who had lost most of her arm.

“Sometimes, for the safety of the public, it is necessary for the government to force companies into performing unpleasant tasks,” says Sills.

Photo credit: By Djembayz (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Texas Embarrasses Itself Again. About Reproductive Rights. Again.

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Via picardfacepalm.com

Via picardfacepalm.com

The Texas Senate passed three new abortion regulations today, during a special session that was supposed to be about things like jobs or the economy. Apparently, Texas legislators can’t focus on jobs so long as they are distracted by thoughts of unregulated ladybits. These regulations serve no purpose other than to make operating a clinic that provides abortion services either impractical or impossible, and driving them out of business. (The fact that this is a direct regulation on business that is likely to eliminate jobs probably isn’t lost on state Republicans. They just don’t care.) Here’s as good a summary as I can manage off the top of my head (copied from a series of Facebook comments), so some of this may not be 100% accurate.

The first regulation requires abortions to take place in ambulatory surgical centers, which are facilities that provide outpatient surgical care and must conform to a set of health and safety standards geared towards procedures involving anesthesia and incisions. Abortions generally don’t involve either of those things, so requiring them to take place in an ambulatory surgical center means that either (1) existing ASCs must take in existing abortion providers, or (2) facilities that currently provide abortions must meet state requirements for ASCs, even though they will never perform a surgery. Existing ASCs have no reason to start providing abortions, and nearly every incentive not to be targeted by protesters, and upgrades to ASC certification would cost current providers thousands upon thousands of dollars and give ideologues on the bodies that handle licensing endless opportunities to find ways to deny them. There is no reason for this regulation except to drive abortion provers out of business.

The second regulation requires doctors providing abortions to have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles. I’m not sure what goes into getting admitting privileges, but I think it generally involve doctors who routinely work at or with that hospital. Again, this requirement serves no purpose but to make life harder for abortion providers. More and more doctors who provide abortions travel to clinics around the state, so this regulation would force them either to undertake an unreasonable and unsustainable level of admitting privileges, or stay within a 30-mile radius of wherever they are. The one plausible justification I’ve heard for this is that doctors who perform abortions need admitting privileges to local hospitals in case complications occur that require an immediate trip to the emergency room, but that’s not true, from what I’ve read.

The third regulation requires doctors to administer RU-486 in person. I’m not sure how that particular drug is administered. I know it’s more than just a pill or an injection, but so is chemotherapy, and nothing requires doctors to do that personally. Same goes for pain medication infusers. In fact, we entrust most routine procedures to nurses and medical techs, not to mention physician’s assistants and nurse practitioners. Unless administering RU-486 requires monitoring and reactions to complications on par with open heart surgery (I’m sure it doesn’t), this is just another way to make it difficult for doctors.

This is about controlling women’s sexuality. Period. I have yet to see an argument against abortion, along with the trumped-up arguments against birth control and reproductive care, that didn’t eventually boil down to “she shouldn’t have had sex.” The argument flagrantly fails to take into account the myriad ways people can become pregnant, the non-birth-control benefits of the pill, or the fact that people are redefining the very definitions of “birth control” and “abortion” as we go along. At this point, given all the information out there, I have to conclude that people who still oppose abortion on the grounds I’ve heard cited are either lying or are too dumb to have an opinion worth taking seriously.

Photo credit: Via picardfacepalm.com.

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“The Wild West approach to protecting public health and safety”

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It is unsurprising, while still disappointing, that Texas lawmakers, along with many citizens, seem to have learned nothing at all from the disaster in West, Texas a few weeks ago. Many have used it as an opportunity to rail against government regulation.

Even in West, last month’s devastating blast did little to shake local skepticism of government regulations. Tommy Muska, the mayor, echoed Governor Perry in the view that tougher zoning or fire safety rules would not have saved his town. “Monday morning quarterbacking,” he said.

Raymond J. Snokhous, a retired lawyer in West who lost two cousins — brothers who were volunteer firefighters — in the explosion, said, “There has been nobody saying anything about more regulations.”

Texas has always prided itself on its free-market posture. It is the only state that does not require companies to contribute to workers’ compensation coverage. It boasts the largest city in the country, Houston, with no zoning laws. It does not have a state fire code, and it prohibits smaller counties from having such codes. Some Texas counties even cite the lack of local fire codes as a reason for companies to move there.

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As federal investigators sift through the rubble at the West Fertilizer Company plant seeking clues about the April 17 blast that killed at least 14 people and injured roughly 200 others, some here argue that Texas’ culture itself contributed to the calamity.

I actually am sympathetic to the argument that additional regulations would not have prevented the explosion, but not in a way that reflects favorably on Governor Perry or anyone else who sides with him. The problem is not a lack of regulations. The problem is that our “business-friendly” culture in Texas has no intention of enforcing the regulations we already have. Spare us the bullshit about not needing more regulations until you have at least tried to do your damn job.

The New York Times quoted my torts professor from UT Law, Thomas McGarity, who sums it up far better than I ever could:

The Wild West approach to protecting public health and safety is what you get when you give companies too much economic freedom and not enough responsibility and accountability.

The greatest irony of West, perhaps, is that the fertilizer involved in the explosion is regulated by the Department of Homeland Security, because it is explosive. If someone had stolen fertilizer from the plant and blown it up somewhere else, these anti-regulation types might be singing a very different tune. Why is an explosion allegedly caused by greed and incompetence that much different from one allegedly caused by terroristic intent?

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