regulation

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• 1/22/2023
  

  As the Progressive Era Ideal of Regulation Vanishes, What Will Stop the March of AI?

  by Walter G. Moss

  If capital decides that artificial intelligence is sufficiently profitable to put in charge of driving our cars, writing our essays, or even teaching our history classes, what is left to stop it, even if the products are terrible or even dangerous? 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/12/2023
  

  Why Guns Have Been Shielded from Consumer Safety Regulations for a Half Century

  Gun industry lobbyists secured a carveout for firearms from the 1972 legislation establishing the Consumer Product Safety Commission, meaning that federal regulation can't treat guns like any other consumer product. 

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  10/25/2022
  

  God Save Us From the Economists

  by Timothy Noah

  Actress Jayne Mansfield was killed in a 1967 traffic accident; a truck trailer safety regulation review prompted in part by her highly public demise was finally implemented in 1996, after nearly 9,000 people were killed in similar crashes. Why? Blame a bipartisan faith in economists as policymakers. 

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• SOURCE: Legal History Blog
  6/30/2022
  

  Legal Historians as Authority in West Virginia v. EPA

  This is a note identifying the legal history sources cited in both Elena Kagan's dissent and Neil Gorsuch's concurrence in the court's ruling limiting the power of the EPA to limit emissions. 

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• SOURCE: Politico
  6/14/2022
  

  If Ending Roe Isn't Enough, SCOTUS May Blow Up the Regulatory State

  The court could decide that Congress must explicitly define the rules of regulations it passes, which could make things like environmental protection law burdensome or impossible to enforce and effectively cripple federal regulations. 

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  4/6/2022
  

  Deconstructing the Meaning and Politics of "Accidents"

  A new book argues that the use of the word "accident" normalizes injury and death caused by failures of regulation and unequal distribution of vulnerability in society. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  12/14/2021
  

  Government Regulation is Necessary, but it has to be Smart

  by Paul Sabin

  Two legislative initiatives championed by the Carter administration show the challenge of balancing strong environmental regulation with administrative efficiency and accountability. The balance has, of course, been difficult to strike. 

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  8/2/2021
  

  The Liberals Who Weakened Trust in Government

  by Kim Phillips-Fein

  Historian Kim Phillips-Fein writes that Paul Sabin's new book "Public Citizens" adds to understanding of the rise of conservatism and the power of attacks on "big government" by focusing on the role of liberal public interest groups in exposing the capture of the liberal regulatory state by big business interests. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  7/13/2021
  

  America’s 40-Year Experiment With Big Business Is Over

  by Nelson Lichtenstein

  Biden's executive order returns to a longstanding American view of concentrated economic power as a threat to democracy. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  2/19/2021
  

  Restoring the Fairness Doctrine Can't Prevent Another Rush Limbaugh

  by Heather Hendershot

  "The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine alone did not create Limbaugh or the presidency of Donald Trump. Catering to market demands for shock and awe programming did, and that is why neither Limbaugh’s death nor a return to this network-era regulation will solve the problem."

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  8/10/2020
  

  Amazon Is a Private Government. Congress Needs to Step Up.

  by Stacy Mitchell

  A handful of tech companies constitute a private government with potentially dangerous control over information and commerce. Congress should boost antitrust law to reduce this power. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  7/30/2020
  

  The Last Days of the Tech Emperors?

  by Margaret O'Mara

  The mood of Congressional questioning of tech executives recalled the traffic safety debates of the mid-1960s that helped catalyze significantly more regulation for the auto industry.

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  6/16/2020
  

  Why America’s Institutions Are Failing

  Two major parts of American institutional life--law enforcement and the regulatory state--have failed spectaculary as the culmination of long-term historical trends. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/1/2020
  

  Meatpacking Work has Become Less Safe. Now it Threatens Our Meat Supply

  by Chris Deutsch

  The modern food system rests on a thin reed of worker abuse and poor sanitation that covid-19 has finally broken.

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• SOURCE: Bloomberg
  4/28/2020
  

  OSHA Inspectors Are Key to Re-Opening. Their Ranks Are at a 45-Year Low

  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has a key role to play in reopening the economy, but it has fewer inspectors than at any time since 1975, continuing a pattern of decline that dates to 1981. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/18/2020
  

  As Amazon Rises, So Does the Opposition

  Ms. Mitchell is 47, a historian by training. But her real role is the strategist of the demise of Amazon as we know it.

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• SOURCE: Washington Monthly
  4/7/2020
  

  When Environmentalists Won Over the Supreme Court

  How one improbable legal case drove the federal government to regulate greenhouse gases.  

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  2/19/19
  

  A Centuries-Old Idea Could Revolutionize Climate Policy

  The Green New Deal’s mastermind is a precocious New Yorker with big ambitions. Sound familiar?

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• SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
  11-26-13
  

  The History of the 501(c)(4) Exemption

  The roots go back to 1913.

• SOURCE: WSJ
  6-18-13
  

  Niall Ferguson: The Regulated States of America

  In "Democracy in America," published in 1833, Alexis de Tocqueville marveled at the way Americans preferred voluntary association to government regulation. "The inhabitant of the United States," he wrote, "has only a defiant and restive regard for social authority and he appeals to it . . . only when he cannot do without it."Unlike Frenchmen, he continued, who instinctively looked to the state to provide economic and social order, Americans relied on their own efforts. "In the United States, they associate for the goals of public security, of commerce and industry, of morality and religion. There is nothing the human will despairs of attaining by the free action of the collective power of individuals."What especially amazed Tocqueville was the sheer range of nongovernmental organizations Americans formed: "Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations . . . but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small; Americans use associations to give fetes, to found seminaries, to build inns, to raise churches, to distribute books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they create hospitals, prisons, schools."