Regulation

As congressional gridlock continues, there is a lot more at stake than payroll taxes, unemployment benefits, doctors' payments, improving job growth and a better budget outlook. Too often good policy gets forgotten amid financial decisions. Unfortunately, spectrum auctions are treated as merely a budgetary means to pay for other programs.

Today, President Obama will visit Milwaukee to deliver yet another campaign speech about his plan for American manufacturing.  On the other side of the city, there are 117 employees at the Wisconsin Electric Power Company producing power for 140,000 residents, including countless manufacturers and small businesses. 

EPA just released new regulations on Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) production but what does the rule actually do? The regulation dictates new maximum achievable control technologies (MACTs), the most stringent standard under law.  These changes were dictated to reduce facility emission of PVC below 10 tons a year or below 25 tons a year for all toxic chemicals.

What is being regulated: vents, stripped resins, equipment leaks, wastewater, heat exchanges, and storage vessels.

Costs:

On regulations: “In the coming year, agencies will continue to pursue the regulatory reforms identified in the retrospective review process, producing billions more in savings by simplifying rules, eliminating redundancies, and identifying more cost-effective ways of doing things.”

“It was a reminder of the benefits and power of competition.” Words of a capitalist fanatic praising free markets and a light regulatory state? Sadly, this was Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski defending his regulatory attack against AT&T and T-Mobile.

Dodd-Frank implementation marches on into 2012. Yesterday the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) finalized one rule and proposed another implementing Dodd-Frank.

The final rule establishes the framework for “Resolution Plans” for institutions with more than $50 billion in total assets.  A resolution plan (or “living will”) is a report from a covered entity on how it expects to unwind its assets should it fail and fall into FDIC receivership.  The rule applies to 37 institutions.

In Martin Luther King, Jr., America had its national conscience.  A voice for the poor, the oppressed, the repressed, the disadvantaged, the discriminated and the hopeless. 

Throughout my lifetime, as a younger man, and now, as the father of two children who are about the same age as I was during the time that King walked the Earth, I still find his wisdom as enduring today, as I did then.

Today the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled major greenhouse gas data: “Release and Demonstration of the U.S. EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program’s Data Publication Tool.”  In furtherance of regulating stationary greenhouse gas sources, EPA is using the tool to illustrate emission sites to the general public.

Executive orders, congressional attempts to rescind rules, and a flood of novel rulemakings made 2011 the year of regulation.