Yesterday’s post, about how some regulations help businesses and save jobs as well as lives, was based on a theoretical example. But you can find plenty of examples in the real world. In 2007, for example, after years of pressing the Bush administration to strip away as many pro-consumer regulations as they could, some businesses started to lobbyfor new rules.
Last year, almost all of the nation’s spinach crop was destroyed after contaminated spinach from one 50-acre California farm sickened nearly 200 people in 26 states, killing a Wisconsin woman. It was the last straw for large growers, who now support mandatory safety standards.
Ditto for manufacturers who followed voluntary standards that their overseas competitors ignore it.
Concerns about competition have led to other proposals. As imports from China have grown in recent years, low-priced Chinese products that do not meet voluntary industry standards have motivated trade groups to seek new safety mandates.After a series of recalls this year, for example, American toymakers recently asked the federal government to allow the Consumer Product Safety Commission to require premarket safety testing of all toys.
The all-terrain vehicle industry for years opposed mandatory standards dictating the way they build their machines. But the industry has changed course as it lost market share to lower-priced Chinese-made A.T.V.’s that do not meet voluntary standards, including some with inadequate brakes and top speeds that exceed guidelines.
“When you move from voluntary to mandatory you give the government policing power to make sure that products on the market meet safety standards — so we are all on a level playing field,” said Tim Buche, president of the Specialty Vehicle Institute of America, which represents companies that manufacture A.T.V.’s in the United States.
There are, of course, plenty of times when companies fight for regulations to try to stomp out competitors or give themselves a big advantage. But when we’re talking about trying to avoid another entire spinach crop being wiped out, it takes a pretty big tinfoil hat to see it as a corporate power grab. And I don’t think most of us care what manufacturers’ motives are if they are fighting for rules to make sure ATV brakes have to work.
