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While I am not one to argue that there shouldn't be regulations as there has to be some, I will note.
The report also faulted the government, citing weak regulation insufficient review of Enbridge's oil spill response plan by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
Regulations not enforced are not much better than no regulations at all. Seems the kneejerk reactions when regulations are not enfoced isn't to hold the agency that failed us accountable but rather a call for more regulations.
Is your arguement that there were no regulations in place?
The presence of regulations means nothing when the central government bureaucracy is too bloated and incompetant to enforce them. You cannot regulate people to do the right thing. If we could the banking debacles never would have happened, nor would spills like this one. Banking and energy are among the highest regulated sectors. Look at all the good it has done.
Industrial accidents happen and that has always been part of life. A government "expert" sitting in some office does not deal with the cost of regulations or burden so he just dreams up more of them. Certain industries are dangerous and have an element of risk. If we want to shut down all the dangerous industries to ensure there are never any oil spills we might just as well live in trees.
We have a government that produces almost infinite regulations. The number of pages of regulations is probably in the hundreds of millions, if not more. Every day our government produces more. There are huge books worth of regulations for every single possible action a human could make, and most of them accomplish nothing but costing money and making government more powerful and intrusive.
Regulations also effectively stop citizens from doing things that would improve and protect the environment, as I found when I tried to improve and fix problems at my family's old home.
On the other hand, no matter what your neighbors do to make your life miserable, there is some technical reason that government regulations don't apply or can't be enforced. My last house abutted a property line where the non-resident neighbors rented a small house to a band of teenagers who slept all day and played loud and bad rock music all night long. The rented house was within 15' of my property line, and the speakers faced my house (about 100' away). I tried calling the police since very loud parties lasting until dawn (7 days a week) were technically not allowed, but the teens simply posted other partiers at the end of the street and notified the party house that the police were heading down the road. The teens then turned off the music and hid, leaving two cute teenage girls to answer the door and tell the police that the neighbors who called the police were just crazy. The partiers then threw broken glass across my property line into the pasture where my horses and 2 goats had access. The police thereafter refused to respond to our calls, and told us to move. We did move a year or two later, having learned yet another valuable lesson from government.
Most of the ones who cause all the problems on a state and national level are the corporations and the ultra-rich who have no ethics or morals, and who OWN the politicians who make and enforce regulations.
Well, the article suggests that they were guilty of neglect. Some of the disband the EPA types seem to think industry will always miraculously do the right thing with no oversight needed.
there is a difference between proper regulation and oversight, and excessive regulation. too much regulation is just as bad as not enough, in fact its worse than not enough regulation.
Some regulation is necessary.. but who is regulating the regulators?
Hehehe good one...!
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