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There has been a huge push by corporations over the last two decades by corporations successfully lobbying federal agencies to let them self-regulate and the re

There has been a huge push by corporations over the last two decades by corporations successfully lobbying federal agencies to let them self-regulate and the resulting disastrous consequences for our health, safety, and the environment. The Boeing MAX second shitshow is on the front page of HN. Both are the direct result of the FAA "trusting" Boeing to self-regulate/inspect etc. The FRA has let rail freight companies do basically whatever they want. Result? East Palestine, not to mention the railroad industry having free reign to leave trains parked bisecting towns and counties, blocking fire trucks, ambulances, etc. Deregulation of the mortgage industry? Yeah, that's worked so well...twice now. Self-driving cars? That's been going so well, with some company's vehicles caught repeatedly violating traffic laws, and one even killed a woman walking across a road. USDA? The meat processing industries have pushed hard to self-regulate their inspections while we have ever-growing incidents of food contamination...and the number of inspectors has been slashed. ATF? Doing a fraction of the inspections and enforcement they used to because of staff and budget cuts. OSHA? Same. Fraction of the inspections they used to. To then come up with "federal agencies are run amock and need the USSC to reel them in" is a truly wild hot take. What's actually happening is that these disasters are prompting agencies to put back their regulations and folks like you are pretending that this is some new big-bad-wolf crackdown on the poor poor corporations which are currently all enjoying record profits...

rayiner 3y ago
> To then come up with "federal agencies are run amock and need the USSC to reel them in" is a truly wild hot take I agree with most of your points until this one. The only question for the Supreme Court is whether the Constitution allows what has become a fourth branch of government that effectively subsumes the other three. Whether that fourth branch is doing a good job or bad job, or could be doing a better job, is besides the point. Even as a law student reading the case notes in my admin law textbook (https://faculty.westacademic.com/Book/Detail?id=335338 https://faculty.westacademic.com/Book/Detail?id=335338), it seemed pretty clear to me that the justifications for the whole scheme were contrived. In fact, all of the problems you mention are arguably caused by the fact all these important decisions are being made by a court branch of government that isn’t in the Constitution and sits outside the system of checks and balances. The people you can vote on aren’t actually the ones running the country. And the ones running the country are people you can’t vote on. For example, inspecting airplanes seems like exactly the thing the executive branch should do. But deciding that airline makers should be allowed to self-inspect airplanes? That seems like lawmaking Congress should do. And that change never would’ve gotten through Congress.
- aaomidi 3y ago
  The constitution was written 4 centuries ago. None of this could’ve been predicted and the SCOTUS is allowed to reinterpret it.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    The Constitution was written 235 years ago. Even defenders of the administrative state do not argue that the Supreme Court can simply “reinterpret” the Constitution to allow executive agencies to make law. That’s too intellectually dishonest even for the “living Constitution” folks. Instead, they rely on legal fictions to distinguish administrative rules from laws. And in some cases, to be fair, that legal fiction suffices. Congress can outlaw harmful drugs and then have the executive make lists of which drugs are harmful. But in many cases, the rules being made by agencies are indistinguishable from laws. The funny thing is that there’s a couple of agencies that actually respect the distinction between administrative rules and laws, because they date back to the early republic. The USPTO, for example, has all sorts of rules governing the administrative process of getting a patent. But it doesn’t have the power to make or change patent law. It can’t make legislative decisions, such as deciding that patents should be valid for a longer or shorter amount of time. Congress must do that.
    - alphabettsy 3y ago
      > The USPTO, for example, has all sorts of rules governing the administrative process of getting a patent. But it doesn’t have the power to make or change patent law. It can’t make legislative decisions, such as deciding that patents should be valid for a longer or shorter amount of time. This is true of every other agency as well. They can changes rules, not laws and the rules do not supersede the law.
- alphabettsy 3y ago
  > But deciding that airline makers should be allowed to self-inspect airplanes? That seems like lawmaking Congress should do. And that change never would’ve gotten through Congress. Congress has the ability to make laws about that even after it’s been widely publicized and they haven’t. Failed state or does Congress understand and trust the FAA will appropriately make changes?

rayiner 3y ago

> To then come up with "federal agencies are run amock and need the USSC to reel them in" is a truly wild hot take I agree with most of your points until this one. The only question for the Supreme Court is whether the Constitution allows what has become a fourth branch of government that effectively subsumes the other three. Whether that fourth branch is doing a good job or bad job, or could be doing a better job, is besides the point. Even as a law student reading the case notes in my admin law textbook (https://faculty.westacademic.com/Book/Detail?id=335338 https://faculty.westacademic.com/Book/Detail?id=335338), it seemed pretty clear to me that the justifications for the whole scheme were contrived. In fact, all of the problems you mention are arguably caused by the fact all these important decisions are being made by a court branch of government that isn’t in the Constitution and sits outside the system of checks and balances. The people you can vote on aren’t actually the ones running the country. And the ones running the country are people you can’t vote on. For example, inspecting airplanes seems like exactly the thing the executive branch should do. But deciding that airline makers should be allowed to self-inspect airplanes? That seems like lawmaking Congress should do. And that change never would’ve gotten through Congress.

aaomidi 3y ago
The constitution was written 4 centuries ago. None of this could’ve been predicted and the SCOTUS is allowed to reinterpret it.
- rayiner 3y ago
  The Constitution was written 235 years ago. Even defenders of the administrative state do not argue that the Supreme Court can simply “reinterpret” the Constitution to allow executive agencies to make law. That’s too intellectually dishonest even for the “living Constitution” folks. Instead, they rely on legal fictions to distinguish administrative rules from laws. And in some cases, to be fair, that legal fiction suffices. Congress can outlaw harmful drugs and then have the executive make lists of which drugs are harmful. But in many cases, the rules being made by agencies are indistinguishable from laws. The funny thing is that there’s a couple of agencies that actually respect the distinction between administrative rules and laws, because they date back to the early republic. The USPTO, for example, has all sorts of rules governing the administrative process of getting a patent. But it doesn’t have the power to make or change patent law. It can’t make legislative decisions, such as deciding that patents should be valid for a longer or shorter amount of time. Congress must do that.
  - alphabettsy 3y ago
    > The USPTO, for example, has all sorts of rules governing the administrative process of getting a patent. But it doesn’t have the power to make or change patent law. It can’t make legislative decisions, such as deciding that patents should be valid for a longer or shorter amount of time. This is true of every other agency as well. They can changes rules, not laws and the rules do not supersede the law.
alphabettsy 3y ago
> But deciding that airline makers should be allowed to self-inspect airplanes? That seems like lawmaking Congress should do. And that change never would’ve gotten through Congress. Congress has the ability to make laws about that even after it’s been widely publicized and they haven’t. Failed state or does Congress understand and trust the FAA will appropriately make changes?