• prole@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    Isn’t it great that we have to make every single regulation perfect without any possible loopholes because it’s just accepted fact that corporations will spend absurd sums of money to avoid having to do anything that might cut into their profit margins?

    Awesome stuff.

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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      9 months ago

      This isn’t a loophole. This isn’t an example of inadequate pedantry. It’s not even an example of regulatory capture or corruption. This is straight up incompetence on the part of the regulators. They established an easy to meet standard, and a difficult to meet standard, and they went all Pikachu-face when the regulated manufacturers opted for the easier option.

      Regulatory Incompetence like this (and malfeasance, like on the part of Ajit Pai’s FCC) are why Chevron Deference needs to be severely modified. We should be allowed to sue the NHTSA for this egregious a failure.

      • prole@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        We should be allowed to sue the NHTSA for this egregious a failure.

        Can you not? Are you sure? Honest question. It seems wrong to me, but if you have evidence that’s true…

        Federal regulatory agencies seemingly get sued all of the time. It’s literally the basis for the current case regarding Chevron deference. There are other cases where the Justice Department is a party to the case.

        It’s not incompetence, it’s just the inability to make regulations that are 100% bullet proof, it’s impossible because people are very creative. There is a constant conflict occurring between the regulators doing the best they can to create regulations that can’t be rendered useless, and greedy, amoral corporations that are doing everything in their power to worm their way through a crack and come up with some (often expensive), convoluted way to render the regulation null.

        It’s like how DRM in video games kept changing and “improving,” because no matter how secure they were sure they made it, there was always some ridiculously intelligent teenager that comes up with a creative, novel way to crack it.

        It’s an arms race, and said corporations will keep finding workarounds until the amount it costs to dodge a regulation becomes higher than what they would have lost had they just followed the rule in the first place… And even then I’m not sure.

        I hate that Americans are so ignorant that we have to re-learn, the hard way, step-by-step as to why regulations that we already have exist. It would almost be funny if it didn’t mean that people have to die unnecessarily before they learn the same exact lesson that we already figured out (the hard way).

        • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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          9 months ago

          Can you not? Are you sure? Honest question. It seems wrong to me, but if you have evidence that’s true…

          You can sue anyone at any time and for any reason, but that doesn’t mean you’ll prevail. Chevron Deference basically says that unless the agency is actually violating legislation, the courts must defer to the agency’s expertise. Even if the agency’s rule is counterproductive (NHTSA’s CAFE standards) or overtly hostile to the public interest (FCC overturning Net Neutrality under Ajit Pai’s leadership), the courts can only rule against them on the basis that they are violating legislated law.