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December 21, 2011 in City
Shawn Vestal: ‘Job-killing’ regulations not so deadly – or even real
You’ve heard, no doubt, of all the burdensome and complex regulations that are ruining the economy.
But what, exactly, are they? Specifically? Are there any examples?
Indeed there are, curious reader. There are many, many, many examples, each more heart-rending than the last. And some of them have been compiled in a report from the Senate Republican Conference, titled “The United States of Regulation.”
“Small businesses are being hurt in each of America’s 50 states by Washington’s red tape,” the report says. “Washington regulations are often burdensome, expensive and time consuming. In 2011 alone, the Obama Administration’s proposed and final rules have a cost of over $230 billion and will impose 120 million hours of paper pushing.”
The report provides one example from each state. Washington’s involves the story of Dixie Kolditz, of Cathlamet, a small town on the Columbia River. Kolditz and her husband own a home décor business that imports items from Africa and Asia. Sometimes, their shipments are inspected to make sure they’re not breaking rules against, for example, importing “raw wood” illegally, Kolditz testified in February before a House committee. These inspections can be quite costly – she noted that one of them cost her $1,705.
There are also Homeland Security inspections. Kolditz suspects that, while Homeland Security is important and all, maybe all these inspections are a money-making scheme for the federal government.
A customs official later noted that the fees are charged by private companies, not the government.
Kolditz also testified of her concern that an important government program was not being renewed quickly enough. This government program allows people like Kolditz to avoid paying duties on certain items imported from certain countries.
She urged Congress to renew the program quickly, and offer refunds for the interim period in which duties were paid.
It has done so. Obama signed the extension in October.
Another example occurred in Idaho. A representative of the J.R. Simplot Co. testified about difficulties the company faced in getting a hazardous materials permit. The major problem was that a Minnesota state department had been enforcing its rules and the federal government had not overruled them.
The examples grow more fascinating. M.L. Mackey, CEO of Beacon Interactive Systems, a Defense Department contractor, testified in May on a proposed executive order requiring that government contractors disclose political contributions.
Mackey said this was likely to “politicize the procurement process … which should be completely independent and transparent.” It would also invade the privacy of senior managers, and stifle the “grass-roots” contributions of people who might want to donate privately. Some small businesses might decide it’s not even worth it to do business with the federal government.
“None of these consequences are acceptable,” Mackey said.
Luckily for job-creating government, none of those consequences is occurring. The executive order remains on hold; efforts to require contractor disclosure in Congress stalled.
But is small business safe? Oh, no. A short-rail company in Indiana complained that federal rules requiring safer locomotives will force it to neglect the safety of its rail lines. A business consultant from Atlanta testified that the yet-to-be-implemented “Obamacare” drove the value of her company from $1.2 million to zero.
A guitar company complained that it had been caught with illegally logged rosewood from Madagascar. Trucking companies said that new regulations requiring drivers to stop periodically so they don’t fall asleep at the wheel will destroy them. A Maryland jeweler estimated that a new paperwork requirement was going to cost her $35,000 a year to meet.
Fortunately, that paperwork requirement was repealed by Congress before it could take effect. Signed by Obama in April.
That is by no means the only example in the report of deep concerns over the complexity and burdensomeness of regulations that do not, upon further investigation, exist. A Louisiana rice farmer worried that he might be required, someday, conceivably, to have a permit for putting pesticides into a waterway. A Florida ice cream company expressed concerns that it would not be exempted – as seemed likely – from oil-spill regulations. A for-profit education company said that fears of impending, unspecified regulations are causing its enrollments to drop.
Not every example is ridiculous. Take the new standards for toxins in smokestack emissions. These standards are decried as the job-killer of all job-killers. An Indiana chamber of commerce official says they’ll wreak havoc with the entire state’s economy. A Louisiana concrete company claims it will no longer be able to help with the vital rebuilding of New Orleans.
The industry estimates it will cost $14.3 billion to comply. Of course, it will also save an estimated 6,500 lives a year – people who won’t get sick from toxic air pollution.
But that’s not the upside. The upside is this: Somebody has to manufacture all this new, job-killing technology. The economic impact, one executive predicts, is expected to be $12 billion to $24 billion.
Shawn Vestal can be reached at (509) 459-5431 or shawnv@spokesman.com. Follow him on Twitter at @vestal13.
The draw of the unknowable 
jimvw2 on December 21 at 6:01 a.m.
Thank you for taking the time to investigate some of the complaints and dire warnings about regulation.
Exposing billionnaires club, Tea Party campaign lies for what they are before the Newscorp disinformation machine turns them into conventional wisdom is a fulltime job for a batallion of real reporters. Thank you, Shawn for at least one bold salvo of truth testing.
Wake up Tea Partiers, there’s a reason an independent survey found that Fox News viewers are the most frequently misinformed of news viewers for all networks.
If you’re going to vote on issues and candidates who affect my future, get educated, watch and read some mainstream media. Investigate claims that include no citations or data sources. Get a clue before you mindlessly repeat the nonsense you pick up on Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity hate radio.
Pigrobin on December 21 at 6:21 a.m.
Thanks for the comedy relief so early this morning.
skierdc1 on December 21 at 6:31 a.m.
Shawn, did you read the extensive article in the Wall Street Journal recently published detailing the damage caused to Gibson Guitar company by the above mentioned regulations? The Feds showed up with AK 47’s in an environmentally friendly company’s business and took guitars, wood and electronic records, without trial. No charges have been filed yet the business owner was told he could face 5 years in jail for not complying with the poorly written Lacey Act. Their business has been disrupted by this in numerous ways. Threatening a CEO with prison is serious stuff last time I checked.
It would be nice if you did your research and got your facts correct before publishing your opinions. Perhaps they should put reporters in jail for 5 years for not getting their facts correct.
Here is the Link for those of us who prefer to research our opinions:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903895904576542942027859286.html
Or ask the guy in the NPR story how he liked losing 40% of his overseas business in this NPR article. Also note the federale back pedaling in the article preview:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2011/08/31/140090116/why-gibson-guitar-was-raided-by-the-justice-department
WillyPeter on December 21 at 7:01 a.m.
jimvw2 - You mean like PMSNBC? double HOOT here!
P.S. Vestal is a ‘fringe’ journalist. He simply has the title of journalist because he works for Spokane’s left-leaning newspaper. He’s actually their most in-your-face liberal propagandist.
libmark on December 21 at 7:54 a.m.
Here’s the point about regulations, especially environmental regulations: starting in the 60’s, business looked at the groundswell of environmental activism and requested that the federal government establish regulations, thereby providing legal cover for industry to pollute up to a certain threshold without fear of being held legally liable. The right-wing tends to get all incensed about regulations as whole but they seem to forget they were the ones who asked for some of the most sweeping regulations in the first place.
DDC on December 21 at 8:48 a.m.
“A guitar company complained that it had been caught with illegally logged rosewood from Madagascar”.
Shawn, your reporting as reflecting the facts is akin to running a Blu-Ray Movie through a cathode ray tube.
In case you don’t get that analogy….”not much definition”.
edwardf on December 21 at 10:30 a.m.
It seems to me Mr, Vestal did a pretty good job of pointing out the inconsistencies in the job killing argument. And the statement of the liberal bias of the Review, the Review is very conservative, just as is Spokane and most of Eastern Washington. The Review could not have stayed in business as the regions main paper being liberal in a very conservative area. A reporter has the job of finding a story and writing about it. Mr. Vestal has every right to report on and give his slant, that is called journalism. His job.
DDC on December 21 at 12:06 p.m.
The Review has lost massive market share, as many papers have done across the country, and cut two thirds of it’s workforce. For my part, I’m not accusing Mr. Vestal of being “liberal”…I could care less. I’m stating that the broad brush he used to describe the Gibson Guitar Company’s issues with the Feds has much more nuance than his reporting disclosed.
1. For Gibson to be compliant with the Fed’s interpretation of the charges, they needed more finishing work done in the country of the wood’s origin.
2. That would mean that Gibson Guitars would need to be made in Madagascar (so much for American jobs).
3. Fender and numerous other Guitar manufacturers have been using the same guidelines as Gibson for years and have never had a Swat team show up at their offices to seize their assets.
As far as the inconsistencies go, yes, but many of those inconsistencies are due to selective application of the law, like in Gibson’s case.
As far as regulation goes, we are “ruling” ourselves into ineffectuality. It’s why the most profitable Corporation on the planet now resides outside the US…and that ratio will become more and more noticeable over the years as China, Brazil, India and Russia embrace the Capitalist directive while we slip inexorably into the bondage of Socialism.
greenlibertarian on December 21 at 12:36 p.m.
According to Forbes Magazine, here are the top 10 countries most friendly to business:
Canada
New Zealand
Hong Kong
Ireland
Denmark
Singapore
Sweden
Norway
United Kingdom
10. United States
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2011/6/best-countries-11_United-States_CHI004.html
Notice that every single country beating the US has some sort of socialized, universal healthcare.
DDC on December 21 at 1:34 p.m.
It’s very possible that that’s why they are NOW so friendly to business and aggressively trying to attract it.
DDC on December 21 at 4:00 p.m.
Full disclosure, updated 2011 information indicates that the highest dollar profit resides in the US (Nestle’) by $1 billion over the second place corporation (Gazprom) in Russia. Gazprom was number 1 last year.
DDC on December 21 at 4:14 p.m.
Annnnnd…Nestle’s in Switzerland, so it’s still not in the States. Chocolate and Oil…go figure.
richard on December 21 at 4:16 p.m.
How many businesses have you run jim? My guess is the answer is 0, none, nada, zilch. but you are more than willing to to lap-up the selective “reporting” of ultra-liberal shawn V.
I could refer you to many sources of the ridiculous, costly and mind-numbingly arbitrary regulations proulgated by the feds.
Vestal’s piece is, by every objective definition, a piece of liberal propaganda. He selected what fit his viewpiont and then underscored those.
I typically refuse to even look at a Vestal article because it should never be placed into the news section. Opinions are for the opinion section.
and edwardf; it is not “reporting” when you hand-pick your examples to express your OPINION. The review is not a conservative paper or you would find at least one conservative voice. there are none to be seen.
DDC on December 21 at 10:01 p.m.
Government does not contribute to GDP. It’s a zero sum component. Any aspect that does contribute (like technology) has no method of accountability or asset valuation. There is no system in place to measure the productivity or effectiveness of the myriads of departments. That is not to insinuate that Government does not have good people, a purpose, place and value. It’s just that, being a monopoly, that value normally comes at a cost 8 to 10 times that of what the private sector could accomplish, given similar tasks.
Garbage (Solid Waste) is a good example. I spoke with an associate who resides on the east coast. His neighborhood contracts with a private sector vendor to have their garbage removed. The neighborhood is moderately affluent so they contract garbage pickup every weekday, or basically 20 pickups a month. It’s been this way for decades until recently, the local government started mandating community controlled pickup once per week (contracted with you know who). In the wake of this non-voluntary mandate, the neighborhood still elected to keep it’s 5 day per week pickup in addition to the municipal pickup. The reason? Municipal pickup for 4 times per month is $80.00. The cost for the 20 private sector pickups per month?…..$35.00.
Before you start wondering why we’re not doing the same thing in Spokane, it’s easy. The County and City have signed no bid contracts with vendors (you know who they are) and guarantee county wide flow control so that free enterprise is essentially locked out…yet another example of lost productivity and value due to Government regulation….brought to you by the City Council and the 3 Republicans elected to the County Commissioner posts. And you’d think the Republican County Commissioners are private sector/smaller government disciples….right?….yeah…right.
But I’m off topic and guessing you won’t see that subject in the SR anytime soon….unless Mr. Vestal wanted to tackle it.