There is a big problem in the U.S. where people don't trust bureaucratic regulation so we do it through the courts instead, which is much more expensive and 'ra

There is a big problem in the U.S. where people don't trust bureaucratic regulation so we do it through the courts instead, which is much more expensive and 'random' because decisions are made by judges and not technocrats. Those technocrats are in theory more qualified to design regulations and are more accountable to voters who elect their bosses. You can go too far with regulations as well (see regulatory capture), but a new election can in theory more directly improve a regulator than it can improve the complex random set of rules set up by the courts. With laws like CEQA and NEPA, lawsuits just keep layering condition upon condition that needs to be addressed to be compliant. Environmental impact studies have been getting bigger and bigger (and thus much more expensive). Fighting lawsuits is much more burdensome and time consuming than just having a regulator (which is not to say that regulatory oversight is never burdensome, just better than what we have). It also means rich people who can afford lawyers are more able to enforce regulations than poor people. This is a difficult hole to get out of unless we can persuade voters to push politicians to reform these laws.