Special Interests Acquiring Control Of Government Agencies
From the WSJ, a quote from from James Q. Wilson's The Politics of Regulation
As government regulates more aspects of our lives, a greater variety of interests--occupations, professions, institutions, associations--acquire a stake in influencing the behavior of the regulatory agencies.If we assume that the airline companies will try to capture the Civil Aeronautics Board, it makes sense to assume that professors will try to capture the National Science Foundation, teachers to capture the Department of Education, environmentalists to capture the Council on Environmental Quality, and civil rights activists to capture the Office for Civil Rights.
The plausibility of this assumption is sometimes obscured by calling agency-interest relations of which we approve "citizen participation" and agency-interest relations of which we disapprove "capture," but the issue is very much the same whatever rhetorical label we choose to employ.
Seems like a variation of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy. He was describing NASA, but it's applicable to any organization.
BigFire at July 6, 2013 2:13 AM
If I remember correctly back when the EPA was taking comments on decreasing green house gas limits for coal plants they included both CO2 and sulfur dioxide (SO2) as well.
At the time there were only like two CO2 and three SO2 scrubber companies. But the then the approval for effective CO2 and SO2 scrubbers come from the EPA as well.
Does anyone see a possible conflict of interest?
Jim P. at July 6, 2013 7:19 AM
"Special Interests Acquiring Control Of Government Agencies"
I have always assumed that was the purpose of Government Agencies.
Dave B at July 6, 2013 11:44 AM
It's ironic that the Civil Aeronautics Board was mentioned, since it doesn't exist anymore. It was one of the few rare success cases in devolving government power: the federal government decided it had no business regulating airline routes and fares. Accordingly, it dissolved the CAB, which was the agency that performed that function. How many of our existing agencies are performing functions that the government doesn't really need to perform?
Cousin Dave at July 7, 2013 8:20 PM
Well the FCC needs to be there, but needs extreme reformation. They are needed to de-conflict the airwaves. They should have zero ruling on the content of the airwaves.
Jim P. at July 7, 2013 10:08 PM
Leave a comment