Regulations

There are so many people living on this crowded planet, there must be regulations. Traffic lanes, "No Swimming" signs near dangerous waters, etc.

Some folks, however, want more regulations and government bureaucrats are quick to accommodate.

Some years ago I had an advertising client who operated a small meat packing operation. In the meat-cutting room, there were, unavoidably, scraps of meat that hit the floor. The Dept. of Agriculture arbitrarily determined that this floor be cleaned up and mopped every two hours.

An OSHA inspector checked the plant soon after one mopping and decided it was unsafe for the butchers to work with their sharp knives while standing on a wet concrete floor. He ordered that the butchers be forbidden to work until the floor was dry.

Obeying both orders would essentially shut down the operation.

Shortly after I heard this news, I attended a marketing meeting. Something was said about government regulations and I immediately started grousing. One attendee, Chairman of a large Chicago direct marketing advertising agency challenged me, demanding "Are you suggesting there be no regulations?". I began to criticize Michael Pertschuk, then Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, and immediately became invisible. The others just turned away from me and proceeded to discuss another subject.

Okay, as a teen may have said, "My bad." In a discussion with any liberal - or even a sane person - never lead with your emotions.

No, I do not believe there should be no regulations. I do insist, however, that regulations which serve to control the behavior of others, whether in business or personal life, are a serious matter. They should never be taken lightly or imposed without adequate scrutiny.

Given the government's abject failure at managing almost anything, I believe no government should be empowered to formulate regulations without public input.

It is a fact that some government agencies do offer proposed new regulations for public comment before final enactment. Even this, however, has shortcomings.

About fifty years ago, the Federal Communications Commission proposed new rule making governing the way broadcasters maintain program logs. At the time, broadcasters were required to maintain a log, recording the beginning and ending time of every program, the time every commercial was broadcast, etc.

The proposed rules included a requirement that a station log every time the station's call letter was announced. In those days of analog electronics, dial position was difficult to determine on radio sets, so stations promoted their call letter. Most disk jockeys announced their call letters several times during every break. It would be impossible to record every time.

I proposed that the new rules require that station ID announcements be logged on the hour and half hour... but not every time in between. While I was at it, I proposed several other changes.

I couldn't imagine that the mighty FCC would incorporate my suggestions. When the new rules were finally published, they did, to my amazement, include every one of my proposals.

Conclusions? 1. The bureaucrats who originally wrote the new rules had no idea what they were writing. 2. People in the industry are too busy trying to do their jobs to read and respond to proposed rule-making.

Maybe we should just adopt only regulations warning of an immediate matter of public safety. The only permissible punishment for breaking the rule would be to suffer the consequences of the unsafe situation, and no one could file a lawsuit.