Regulatory Capture: "You In Trouble Now!"

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source: Investopedia

Regulatory Capture:


Regulatory capture is a theory associated with George Stigler, a Nobel laureate economist. It is the process by which regulatory agencies eventually come to be dominated by the very industries they were charged with regulating. Regulatory capture happens when a regulatory agency, formed to act in the public's interest, eventually acts in ways that benefit the industry it is supposed to be regulating, rather than the public.


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source: Vox

Mick Mulvaney once called the CFPB a “sick, sad” joke. Now he might be in charge of it.

The Trump administration’s budget-cutter is poised to lead the consumer watchdog bureau he has attacked.

Updated by Emily Stewart Nov 16, 2017, 4:50pm EST

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OMB Director Mick Mulvaney. Alex Wong/Getty Images


President Donald Trump’s rumored pick to temporarily head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a conservative budget-cutter who once called the agency a “sick, sad” joke.

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney is, according to reports from Bloomberg and CNN, under consideration to become interim director of the federal government’s consumer watchdog after current director Richard Cordray steps down later this month. Mulvaney has made little secret of his distaste for the agency in the past.

“It’s a wonderful example of how a bureaucracy will function if it has no accountability to anybody,” Mulvaney, a former South Carolina representative, said in a 2014 interview with the Credit Union Times. “It turns up being a joke, and that’s what the CFPB really has been, in a sick, sad kind of way, because you’ve got an institution that has tremendous authority over what you all do for a living.”



In the same interview, he called the CFPB “extraordinarily frightening.” He said that “some of us would like to get rid of it” altogether but acknowledged that it was unlikely, instead proposing reforms such as replacing the single director with a five-person commission.

When asked by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) about the comments during one of his confirmation hearings to become OMB director in January, Mulvaney stood by them.

“Do you still believe the CFPB is a sad, sick joke?” Merkley asked.

“Yes, sir, I do,” he said.

He went on to say that the agency, created under the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul, is run by “essentially a one-person dictator” and added he had “probably had more complaints about the CFPB in my office, from small local banks and credit agencies, than every other government agency put together.”

Now Mulvaney is reportedly poised to become that “one-person dictator.” He would be another in a string of appointees who have previously attacked the agencies they now head, including EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who sued the agency as Oklahoma attorney general, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who previously proposed abolishing the department he now heads.

The White House declined to comment on whether Mulvaney would indeed be Trump’s interim pick. "The Administration will announce an acting director and the President's choice to replace Mr. Cordray at the appropriate time,” said spokesperson Raj Shah in an emailed statement.
 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator

Regulatory capture happens when a regulatory agency, formed to act in the public's interest, eventually acts in ways that benefit the industry it is supposed to be regulating, rather than the public.

Is this an example:
Deepwater Horizon led to new protections for US waters.
Trump just repealed them.


Trump’s executive order voids an Obama policy that aimed to prevent oil spills.


Vox
By Umair Irfan Updated Jun 23, 2018, 9:34am EDT


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President Trump signed an executive order this week undoing an executive order signed by Barack Obama that
imposed regulations on offshore drilling after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. US Coast Guard

The Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig exploded on April 20, 2010, killing 11 workers. Gas erupted into a massive fireball, and then the rig gushed 4.9 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It soon became the largest and most expensive marine oil spill in history, with an estimated $17.2 billion in damages to properties, fisheries, and tourism across the Gulf Coast.

In response, President Barack Obama signed an executive order creating a commission to study the spill. The commission recommended new safety rules, accountability standards, and environmental regulations for drilling in US waters. Obama then signed another executive order to promote environmental stewardship of the ocean, coasts, and the Great Lakes in light of the oil spill. According to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the new rules were “the most aggressive and comprehensive reforms to offshore oil and gas regulation and oversight in U.S. history.”

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump revoked Obama’s stewardship directive, replacing it with a new executive order giving more responsibility to states for offshore oil and gas drilling, as well as prioritizing business interests ahead of the environment. Trump said the measure isrolling back excessive bureaucracy created by the previous administration.” (There was no mention of the Deepwater Horizon spill in his announcement or in the executive order.)

Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, said the order “puts our country’s ocean policy back on the right track.”

A former member of the Coast Guard who served during Deepwater Horizon was appalled:




House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) told the Associated Press the order was “unilaterally throwing out” years of environmental preservation efforts.

Perhaps most importantly, the order unravels coastal protection rules put in place to avoid future disasters like the Deepwater Horizon spill. The provisions limited where and how energy companies could drill, and the industry has been chafing at the regulations.



The new executive order is the oil industry’s wish come true

The Deepwater Horizon disaster showed that there were systemic failures in the offshore oil industry that came to a head on that day eight years ago. Oil major BP, which was leasing the rig, was pushing operators to work faster and had racked up hundreds of safety violations at the time of the explosion. The operator, Transocean, also made mistakes in reporting alerts and in interpreting critical data, highlighting poor training. And government regulators quickly approved last-minute changes to the well’s design shortly before it exploded.


The disaster also illustrated how ill-prepared coastal communities were for such a spill, and how vulnerable their economies were to such a traumatic event.

The Obama administration added new requirements and rules to reduce the risk of these factors aligning again. They strengthened the drilling permit review process, added stricter safety requirements, and forced companies to conduct better environmental reviews.

But in April 2017, Trump issued an executive order directing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to “reconsider” rules implemented after the Deepwater Horizon spill. This week’s executive order is the culmination of that effort.

Industry groups were elated at the prospect of undoing the changes.

Environmental groups were aghast.




It’s unlikely that the new executive order will lead to more drilling right away, given that the United States already has abundant onshore oil and drilling in the water can be up to 20 times more expensive. But oil prices are rising, and lower safety requirements and weaker environmental protections would lower operating costs for coastal rigs. Activists are worried looser regulations would lead to more drilling and less safe operations, increasing the likelihood of another disaster.

The Interior Department is also presiding over the largest rollback of federal land protections in US history, opening up public lands to fossil fuel extraction and mineral mining. Plus, Secretary Zinke opened up nearly all coastal waters to drilling last year and started the process for the largest offshore lease sale ever.


SOURCE: https://www.vox.com/2018/6/22/17493414/trump-executive-order-deepwater-horizon-drilling-oceans


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