Intelligent Regulation

Intelligent Regulation was a term coined by the previous Administration. It was a euphemism for blocking and curtailing regulation of business and industry. Yet, real intelligent regulation, crafting legislation that protects the consumer and guides industry, is really needed.

The best example of real intelligent regulation I can appreciate is garage door openers. In the late 1970s garage door openers went from being a premium item of the very rich to a commodity. Sears and Montgomery Ward, the giant national retailers at the time, had turned it into a commodity available to the masses by the 1980s. But it was also accompanied with legislation. The legislation has proved to be “intelligent”.

The heaviest moving item in a home is a garage door. Double wide doors weight over a couple of hundred pounds. Legislation was crafted and adopted by industry to incorporate a standard set of safety features in all garage doors sold. The safety features were “stop and automatic reverse” when an obstacle to its motion was encountered. Another feature was limiting remote control wireless reach to restrict the remote operating the door at a distance that might be out of sight. This intelligent regulation that mandated these items has stood the test of time. My garage door openers over the last couple of decades have an additional safety feature. They have infra-red motion sensors near ground level. If the beam is broken, the “stop and automatic reverse” is initiated.

At the very end of the 1980s cell phones were getting smaller than shoe box size. They were moving in the range to be truly handheld. It seemed obvious that they would become a driving hazard. I got my first cell phone in 1991. I opted for one wired in the vehicle that could be used “hands free”. Intelligent legislation way back at that point would have made operating a cell phone in the car illegal that was not “hands free”. Legislation should have went a step further and mandated all cell phones have a universal access jack and all new car radios have a male end of the jack wired through the radio. The retail price of a mini jack was a bout 30 cents at Radio Shack. But cell phone manufacturers and auto companies would not be paying retail. They would be buying in volume and paying wholesale. The wholesale price would be approximately 5 cents. The additional costs to manufacturers of incorporating the jacks per unit would be about $1.00 dollar. How many lives have been lost because of lack of this intelligent regulation?

There are numerous examples of failing to apply “intelligent regulation”. In capitalism there are three costs avoided; maintenance, safety and recycling. These things should never be left to the “market”. We can clearly see the maintenance issue with recent Buffalo plane crash. We can see the safety issue with polycarbonate plastic. We can see the recycling issue with toxic computer components in land fills.

The most egregious lack of intelligent regulation is patents. America should not be granting “fundamental” patents nor what amounts to perpetual patents. Here is an analogy of fundamental patents to bring the issue into prospective. A person or company patents the movement of air. Never mind that the movement of air has been freely used for centuries. The owner of the patent now sends “cease and desist” orders to companies and users of blowers, air conditioners and even your church that uses handheld fans. The company tells them they must pay. In the technology arena this kind of thing referenced by the analogy is occurring all the time.

The pharmaceutical industry practices are an example of perpetual patents. When a profitable drug patent is about to expire, the pharmaceutical company tweaks the formula just enough to apply for a new patent. Nothing substantial has really changed with the medication.

The most pressing man-made catastrophe waiting to happen requiring intelligent regulation is probably nuclear power. Legislation should be enacted that no nuclear power plant licenses for construction should be issued until there is suitable waste storage facilities up and running. It should also state the plants under construction cannot come on line until the storage issue is resolved.

There is decidedly a place in America for intelligent regulation. Will we ever get there in this system of things?