The Administrative State is a Sham and a Shame

Using regulation to achieve ends not intended when legislators passed a law is increasing. Revising regulations allows the Executive Branch to exercise unprecedented control over the economy and personal liberties WITHOUT the bother of getting a majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Moreover, costs of many of the revisions will substantially exceed their benefits.

This recent opinion by the Editorial Board of the WSJ identifies a recent onslaught of new and proposed regulations.

1. "The Transportation Department on Friday proposed a 696-page rule raising corporate average fuel economy (Cafe) standards that would effectively require 100% of new cars to be electric by 2032." ... "The Administration claims the proposal will reduce CO2 emissions through 2050 by 885 million metric tons—about half as much as Canada’s wildfires are projected to release this year."
2. "The Administration on Friday also proposed a 236-page revision to National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) guidelines that will require federal agencies to consider climate change and “environmental justice” in project reviews. If a utility wants to build a gas pipeline, agencies might have to evaluate if a solar plant would better promote environmental justice, however regulators define it."
3. "The Administration is also quietly using collusive legal settlements with green groups to end-run judicial review of rules—a practice known as “sue and settle.”
4. "Last week Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler jammed through a rule requiring public companies to disclose to investors cyber-security breaches within four days of discovering them—no matter if they are still trying to repair their systems." ... "the unprecedented rule could 'tell successful attackers when the company finds out about the attack, what the company knows about it, and what the financial fallout is likely to be (i.e., how much ransom the attacker can get)' and 'will signal to other would-be attackers an opportune time to attack.'”
5. "the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, a quasi-private entity overseen by the SEC, in June proposed rules that would vastly expand the remit of auditors under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act."

Focus on reducing emissions is a shame and a

Steven Levitt is wise and knowledgeable. 

TSA checkpoints are a sham and a shame

Kriston Capps reports: "Using the same formula* as the researchers (and some similar assumptions), I estimated the same costs for airport pre-boarding security. TSA checkpoints have an annual cost per life saved of $667,000,000—two-thirds of one billion dollars."

Why does the government require screenings if the cost per life saved is so high? 

1. TSA gives the appearance of doing something and politicians love to be able to claim that they have done something to solve a problem. 
2. Regulation gives politicians the ability to reward some constituents to create a base for funds and votes. 
3. Politicians love power and regulation puts them in charge.
4. The inefficiency of TSA is not obvious and many people say that no cost is too high to save a life. Of course, many of these same people make choices that unnecessarily reduce their expected life.

The Green Agenda is a Shame and a Sham

I agree with Lomborg's assessment of climate change with the WSJ assessment that politicians pursuing the "Green Agenda" insist "on ignoring reason, logic, truth and economics." Here are some key points on which I think we agree.

1. The climate is warming.
2. Human activity is contributing to the warming.
3. How much human activity contributes is unknown.
4. Efforts by the USA and Europe to address climate change will be ineffective unless China and India cooperate. 
5. A smartly-conceived carbon tax is a much more efficient way to reduce emissions than government regulation of production and consumption. 
6. The Carbon Dividend Plan put forward by the Climate Leadership Council is a blueprint for a smartly-conceived tax.
7. The costs of regulating consumption directly usually far exceed the benefits. For example, the Paris Climate Accord would yield on $0.11 in benefits in climate change for every $1 spent even if every country meets its promise. 
8. A well-conceived carbon tax, on the other hand, could yield up to $2 in climate benefits for every $1 spent.
9. I trust the decisions of millions of people around the world making billions of decisions to achieve efficient reductions in emissions more than the decisions made by 535 politicians in Washington, D. C.

I fear, however, that politicians prefer government regulations to reduce emissions to a smartly-conceived carbon tax. Four factors create my fear. 

1. Regulation gives the appearance of doing something and politicians love to be able to claim that they have done something to solve a problem. 
2. Regulation gives politicians the ability to reward some constituents to create a base for funds and votes. 
3. Politicians love power and regulation puts them in charge.
4. The inefficiency of regulation relative to a smartly-conceived carbon tax is not obvious.