Defective: Toyota Cars and Automobile Regulation
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently chastised the Toyota Motor Company for claiming that no defect existed in its cars, even while recalling 3.8 million of them. Toyota instituted the recall one month after a Lexus sedan suddenly accelerated out of control killing four people near San Diego. When Toyota blamed the problem on improperly installed floor mats, NHTSA said it expected the company to provide a “suitable vehicle solution.” The company then said that it was working on “vehicle-based remedies” for the problem.
Government regulators have two methods of promoting safer cars. NHTSA can adopt binding regulations requiring car manufacturers to adopt safety equipment, such as airbags. But Congress also authorized the agency to order a company to recall defective cars. In light of this authority, companies will voluntarily engage in a recall, as Toyota has done. According to news reports, there had been over 2,000 reports from the owners of Toyota cars that they have surged forward without warning reaching speeds of up to 100 miles per hour. NHTSA has investigated Toyota for runaway cars on eight separate occasions, but the agency only ordered two small recalls, which addressed floor mats and carpet panels …
This posting is reprinted, by permission from Legal Planet.
The Fish and Wildlife Service yesterday announced some very good news — the brown pelican will soon be removed from the list of 
endangered and threatened species. This enormous fish-eating bird has been protected since 1970, when it was included on the very first list of US endangered species under a predecessor to the current Endangered Species Act. Its population rebounded after DDT was banned in 1972. By 1985, the pelican had recovered enough to justify delisting along the Atlantic coast. Now the Service has determined that populations are also stable off the Gulf and Pacific Coasts, such that the species as a whole no longer needs the protection of the ESA. Lest that judgment be wrong, the Act requires that the Service monitor the pelican’s status for at least five years after delisting.
The success of the …
When the Electric Power Research Institute (ERPI)—the research arm of the U.S. power industry—met with OIRA last month to discuss the various “beneficial uses” of spent coal ash from power plants, their timing was impeccable. Or so it would seem. On the day of the meeting, October 16, EPA submitted for OIRA review its pre-rule proposals regarding the regulation of coal ash disposal under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). In reality, the meeting demonstrates how eager regulated industries are to air their complaints to OIRA on rules they dislike, or in this case, expect to dislike. The industry’s lobbyists earned their paycheck this time around, getting in to see their traditional champions at OIRA to lay the groundwork for protesting a rule that has not yet even reached the notice-and-comment stage of rulemaking.
Coal ash comprises all the solid waste that …
New in movie theaters this past weekend was a horror flick called, “The Box,” starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden as a couple given a disturbing choice. They are presented with a mysterious box, equipped with a button. If they press the button, they’ll get $1 million, but someone they do not know will die.
The premise is striking, but it’s not quite so fictional as we’d like to think. Every day in the United States and across the globe, manufacturers produce products that cause unnecessary injury and death. Sorry to put it so bluntly, but there it is. Our lives are full of products that increase our risk of cancer or other deadly diseases – not just cigarettes, the harm from which is widely known and understood, but other products, including certain nonstick cookware, some kinds of paint, discarded computers and more. Manufacturers use …
Though few agencies or legislatures have begun to actually develop programs for cultivating adaptation to climate change, at least discussions on climate change adaptation are starting to take place. Unfortunately, as I detail in a forthcoming article, adaptation is still being given short shrift at local, state and federal levels of government, and those who are considering it lack the information and tools to engage in proactive adaptation.
Some of the key developments on adaptation in the past few weeks include:
1. A GAO report and legislative hearings detailing the poor existing capacity for adapting to climate change in the United States.
The General Accountability Office released a report that surveyed local, state and federal officials, concluding that federal and other government agencies are ill-prepared for adaptation to the effects of climate change. Consistent with my earlier research, the study found that few federal agencies are developing …
Today the Administration released its draft strategy for the Chesapeake Bay. Public comment runs through January 8, and the final strategy is due in May.
There's a lot to read. But here's one point off the bat that's of note:
Regulatory authority will be expanded to increase accountability for pollution and strengthen permits for animal agriculture, urban/suburban stormwater and new sources. . . . EPA will also initiate rulemaking to increase coverage and raise standards for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), municipal stormwater, and new dischargers of pollution.
EPA is taking a step in the right direction with these proposed steps to address runoff from agricultural pollution sources. Right now the EPA has the authority, under the Clean Water Act, to start tackling this problem. But EPA's approach to CAFOs (factory farms), as we’ve said before, has been frustrating for many years. CAFOs are …
For an analysis of the news from California this week -- where the legislature passed a group of bills Wednesday on water protection -- do check out Richard Frank on Legal Planet, who looks at the good and the less-than-good.
It commits substantial public funding and commitment to desperately needed Delta ecosystem restoration. The bill package fundamentally re-organizes the state governance system that will oversee Delta regulatory, planning and restoration efforts. And it reflects long-overdue and necessary steps to address water rights enforcement and water conservation efforts on a statewide basis.
But, he says:
The water conservation mandates contained in the legislation are largely aspirational, and lack strong means of enforcement. The water rights reform provisions were greatly weakened in the course of the legislative debates, and it’s questionable at best whether they will have much long-term effect in reforming California’s dysfunctional water rights system. Finally–and …
The latest version of the Senate climate bill, released by Senator Boxer on Friday, October 30, retains EPA’s authority to establish meaningful facility regulations under the Clean Air Act (CAA) while freeing EPA of the obligation to implement CAA provisions that are ill-suited to controlling greenhouse gases (GHG). (Section 128(g): Amendments Clarifying Regulation of Greenhouse Gases under Clean Air Act (at page 867). The Friday version of the bill is available by E&E subscription here.) The Senate bill’s continuing preservation of core regulatory authority is superior to the House bill’s sweeping preemption of traditional regulation (see my previous analysis). Ultimately, however, Congress should give EPA regulatory authority in a manner uniquely suited to the character of GHG emissions, rather than continuing to refine existing CAA authority.
The Senate bill limits EPA authority to require pollution controls to large facilities: those that emit more …
Cass Sunstein had barely begun settling in to his new position as Administrator of OMB’s Office of Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in September, when OIRA released a draft of OMB’s 2009 Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations. Today marks the deadline for submitting comments to OMB on the draft, and I joined CPR President Rena Steinzor and Policy Analyst James Goodwin in submitting comments.
We read this year’s report with interest, curious to see how the new administration would approach this annual ritual. While OIRA has in the past been a nerve-center of anti-regulatory ideology and the annual report a ritualized hymn to the virtues of cost-benefit analysis, we hoped Obama’s OIRA would use the annual report as an opportunity to fundamentally re-envision its mission – to perhaps re-invent itself as a resource providing positive and constructive assistance to the …
CPR Member Scholar Rebecca Bratspies has a piece on the Atlantic's food website today -- "Saving Seafood From Extinction" -- on how the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is making a last-ditch effort to overhaul the nation's devastated fisheries. The agency's new regulations -- including lower catch limites -- have faced some opposition, but the choice is clear, writes Bratspies:
Allowing this overfishing to continue means abandoning all hope of either stock recovery or a healthy fishery. Such a tactic doesn't do anybody any favors. Overfishing is disastrous not only for the fish but also for broader marine ecosystems, and ultimately for the fishing communities themselves. Those communities are already hurting, and the new restrictions will definitely cause more pain. But, business as usual is simply not an option. Current management practices have not only failed to restore fish stocks to sustainable levels but have often allowed …
