Washington Post: The transformation of US enviro policy…at the inbox, outbox level
For a feel for how a change of administrations can transform the mood and ambition of federal bureaucracies, take a look at yesterday’s Post. The prolific Juliet Eilperin found herself an illuminating vignette to pull readers behind the granite and limestone facades of the DC agencies that draft and enforce new rules. The tale begins specifically about international regulation of mercury pollution. It then expands. The professional government minders of the public’s weal are happier. We’ll probably all be better off. As this says also, the professional private business executives who make things happen can expect an inevitable downside: more paperwork, more mandated hardware and manufacturing adjustments, more maddening delays when compliance enforcers demand recalls and such, and more costs to pass on to customers. It’ll still be private enterprise, but not so much free enterprise. The story also offers, if one looks for it, a bit of vindication to all those Bush administration political operatives who prowled the corridors and screened every speech and directive – convinced that, otherwise, the career civil servants would revert to their “democrat” ways and start telling businesses and industries what to do and spending taxpayer money on more mounds of regulations. The Bushies were right. And the folks bent over their desks in the cubicles kept planning for this day all along.
Pic – EPA headquarters, source ;
-CP
