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White House scraps proposal requiring airlines to disclose bag fees
- notliketherest 9y agoHere's a novel idea: regulations should be created by the congress, not by the President.
- vivalibre 9y ago"Today, Congress passed a bill in both houses requiring airlines to disclose baggage fees. Riders to the bill also funded $100M for pork-related research in Alabama."
- shakethemonkey 9y agoLaws. Those are called laws. Regulations are lawmaking delegated to the executive branch.
- DaiPlusPlus 9y agoI thought regulations are laws, just with a focus on technical details that can be changed more frequently and easily.
- shakethemonkey 9y agoThey often have the force of law (if permitted by statute), but they are definitely not law.
- rgbrenner 9y agoThe executive branch is granted authority by Congress to issue rules. This saves the congress from writing every detail into each law. It's similar to pork -- congress can write: spend $X on whatever; or they can write: spend $1 on project A, $2 on project B, etc with a final total of $X. If congress writes the first, then the executive branch will make the decisions about the specifics of how $X will be spent. If congress does not want the executive branch to decide, it's up to Congress to put the details into the law, and restrain the authority of the agencies. Federal rules can never override a law passed by congress.
- rayiner 9y agoAside from the unconstitutionality of the whole thing it’s fine.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- rgbrenner 9y agoyou're a lawyer, so can you explain for me? What makes administrative law unconstitutional? Is Congress not allowed to delegate authority to the executive branch?
- jeremyt 9y agoThere’s a whole book on it - ‘why administrative law is unlawful’
- rayiner 9y agoCongress can clearly delegate enforcement authority and give the executive some enforcement discretion. But calling modern administrative regulations, with agencies that make laws and try people in front of executive-branch judges, an exercise of enforcement discretion is a reach. See: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3d45/15c4f13933f50394a0a22008b19fc6187182.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3d45/15c4f13933f50394a0a220... > The post-New Deal administrative state is unconstitutional,* and its validation by the legal system amounts to nothing less than a bloodless constitutional revolution.
- meritt 9y agoCongress grants agencies (in this case, DOT) the authority to issue regulations as long as those actions do not go beyond their statutory authority or violate the constitution. https://www.federalregister.gov/uploads/2011/01/the_rulemaking_process.pdf https://www.federalregister.gov/uploads/2011/01/the_rulemaki...
- marshray 9y agoIt's not a novel idea, it's an old and discarded idea. Regulatory agencies such as FDA and EPA exist because it actually takes an agency to do a competent job regulating drugs and medical devices and investigating the toxicity of effluent. They were created by Congress, but under the Executive branch.
- techsupporter 9y agoOf course they are. OF COURSE THEY ARE. Why is it that every...single...time a rule that purports to give "more information to the customer" is deemed "an unreasonable regulatory burden?" The ENTIRE FUCKING POINT of capitalism is that market participants are supposed to trade based on equality of information. But no, not now. Customers aren't entitled to know what something will cost before they buy it or in a way that enables comparisons. That's just unreasonable. How can we possibly expect a business whose entire model is the juggling of pricing and availability information for maximum profit to EVER be able to figure out how to display the costs for ancillary services at point of purchase? Damn.
- roenxi 9y agoI dunno the nuances in America, but from an Australian perspective; this sort of rule is a great target for removal, it is too prescriptive. It would be better to have a rule 'costs must be clearly identified to consumers before the time of purchase' and then hit everyone with it. Companies have to comply with regulation. That literally means they need to have a person who audits that the rule is being complied with (amongst other compliance duties). If the rule is not being complied with, someone must fix it even if the airline ticket would be easily comparable without the rule. Management must put valuable time and attention into this process because they are obliged to comply with the rules. On the other hand, the government has to check the rule. They have to read it, interpret it and enforce it. If they don't then why exactly bother having it? Less rules (but still clear, and possibly with guidelines that while not strictly mandatory are /strongly recommended/) is easier to audit and enforce.
- ghostly_s 9y agoGood point, this is a great candidate for replacement with a more broadly-defined regulation, like the replacement regulation the white house also ann- oh, wait.
- tyingq 9y agoAt a high level I see your frustration. But, for airlines, the US government has implemented lots of rules around pricing/fee displays, website accessibility, length of time on the tarmac, and tons more. So, I disagree, in this space, with the "every single time" part.
- asabjorn 9y agoThat is unfortunate. As a consumer the creative nickling and diming of airlines not only creates a worse product, but it also makes it hard to figure out what the real price of an airlines trip is.
- tanilama 9y agoUnder the umbrella of business friendly? How surprising.
- Feniks 9y agoLobbyists doing their work. I bet we could find a few airliners in the campaign finances of the GOP. Technically still public info I think? Although I doubt Americans even care at this point.
- good-econ1351 9y agoLobbyists are a necessity so that poorly thought out populist ideas don't destroy our country from the inside out. Lots of "popular" regulations are poorly thought out.
- gozur88 9y agoI don't fly, so I'm just kind of curious if, in the US, we've reached the point where it's cheaper to mail your luggage to the destination if you have time.
- Fezzik 9y agoIt may be close... my only point of reference is I recently shipped an older 50 lb Mac Pro from Oregon to the Midwest (I forget where, exactly) and that was $42.00, with insurance, through USPS Priority Mail. I paid online which gives you a discount, but shipping rectangular boxes is cheap.
- entee 9y agoDepends, for things like bikes (which cost even more to fly with at most airlines) it sometimes makes sense to ship. I don't think it's worth it for most bags though, $25 (common fee) is a pretty low price compared to what it costs to ship 10s of pounds. I guess maybe ground? But yeah it's expensive to ship things too.
- grandalf 9y agoWouldn’t the companies offering flight searches have a strong incentive to include this information? I’ve been burned a few times after booking a flight that did not disclose the hefty additional fees.
- plandis 9y agoCan someone argue why this is beneficial for US citizens? I can’t find even a round-about way where this will benefit your average consumer.
- cletus 9y agoThe sad thing here is that the GOP has seemingly given up all pretense of doing anything for the people. This term in Congress will probably be looked back upon as both a disaster for the country and a generational boon to the GOP in terms of setting themselves up for political donations for many years to come. This is all made possible by an increasingly desperate and increasingly irrelevant white "Christian" movement that seems to have completely bought into the ends justifying the means to the point of electing a pedophile over a Democrat (Alabama). Interestingly this actually seems to be right out of Vladimir Putin's political playbook. Putin's stranglehold on power was and is made possibly by him placating a politically active conservative movement within Russia that also feared sliding into irrelevance and that their beliefs and way of life were under attack by what they perceived to be an increasingly hostile and militant progressive class. This simply won't change while the vast majority of people will vote for their particular party no matter what. And that goes both ways.
- malchow 9y agoYour general point of: information requirements are a relatively superior way to do consumer protection regulations: is certainly true enough. Maybe this is just the result of lobbying, but people frequently fail to compare the ex ante case with the proposed legislation; they just buy the [putatively] pro-consumer excitement of the proposed legislation hook, line, and sinker. It looks as though this was a proposal that has now been scrapped. So we've been living, till now, in a world not governed by this proposal. In that world, have you ever been shocked at a bag fee? I haven't. I either expect no fee (at United, where I have status), or expect one (everywhere else). And what about the bag fees that airline passengers paid from 1903 to 2010, when they were totally legal with no disclosure obligations, and assessed even against people bringing no bags at all on the plane? Were those high ticket prices fair to the innocent people traveling light? Estimating 2010 as the year when most airlines starting charging.
- akhilcacharya 9y agoThis is exactly what people in coal country demanded.
- netsharc 9y agoOn the topic of jobs that will be replaced by AI, her job can be replaced by a casette player: > Mia Garlick, Facebook’s director of Asia-Pacific safety programs, said, “We are committed to helping ensure that journalists around the world feel safe on Facebook as they connect their audiences with meaningful stories. We permit open and critical discussion of people who are featured in the news or have a large public audience based on their profession or chosen activities, but will remove any threats or hate speech directed at journalists, even those who are public figures, when reported to us.”