Bureaucracy In General

Seen in the Washington Times:

False identifications based on a terrorist no-fly list have for years prevented some federal air marshals from boarding flights they are assigned to protect, according to officials with the agency, which is finally taking steps to address the problem. [...]

“In some cases, planes have departed without any coverage because the airline employees were adamant they would not fly,” said the air marshal, who asked not to be named because the job requires anonymity. “I’ve seen guys actually being denied boarding.”

Having a no fly list is not necessarily a bad thing.  After all, it makes sense that you’d keep folks who might want to turn aircraft into manually-guided cruise missiles off those aircraft.

The problem with the no-fly list arises from the hassles faced by folks who are confused as being a suspect on the list.  It seems to be rather challenging to prove that you are you rather than someone with a similar name, in a manner to appease paranoid bureaucrat.

That folks working in a different branch of the air-security theater are getting snagged by the no-fly list, is just very amusing to me.

Last week, I expressed concerns about the politicization in the identification of judges and attorneys general, and pondered about the potential drag on society from political motivations trumping objective justice.

Another area of the judicial system that I worry about is just how overloaded the entire system seems to be, and how slowly the wheels of justice move.

This is a subject I have a personal interest in, thanks to what my family has been through in the past several years, after my wife was disabled in a car accident. 

For example, it took just shy of 3 years for Social Security disability payments to start up.  Two thirds of that time was just spent waiting, for my wife’s case to move up through a very long queue on the docket, before it could be reviewed by an Administrative law Judge.

Then there’s the lawsuit associated with the accident itself.  We’re scheduled to go to finally go trial this October, 6½ years after the accident.   True, our case is a little unusual, but the slowness with which the wheels of justice have turned has been remarkable.

Tort reform is a popular subject for those of us in the insurance industry to prattle on about, when talking about what’s wrong with the country.  And, while I do share many of my colleagues’ concerns about excessive awards, jurisdictions in which rulings tend to be biased against industry, and the degree of influence trial lawyers associations seem to have… I wonder if a decent part of the problem is structural.

Considering the speed with which the world moves today, shouldn’t we be attempting an objective look to the mechanics with which the legal system operates?

Yes, easing the drag caused by the presence of some frivolous lawsuits on the docket would help “real” cases move forward faster, but surely we have enough creativity in this country to look at how the legal system can be made to operate more efficiently, without significantly impairing the prospects of fairness for all parties involved.

This article at Insurance Journal caught my eye:

The Professional Insurance Agents Association of Ohio (PIA) recently testified before the House Insurance Committee in support of a resolution for Ohio to formally oppose any “new layers of needless federal bureaucracy to insurance regulation.”

Of course, I had to see that comment about an hour after I received conflicting demands from state regulators on a couple of filings I have outstanding. And that’s just two lines for one product in one state. There are fifty other jurisdictions I get to deal with in the U.S. too.

Some days, it’s very easy to wish for a single federal regulatory agency to deal with.

As a result of the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons, many Americans became familiar with FEMA trailers—the little white structures driven in after a catastrophe, to provide basic shelter to area residents whose homes had been destroyed.

Unfortunately, FEMA trailers have problems. They’re extremely cramped, somewhat dehumanizing, rather susceptible to wind damage, emit toxic fumes…and oh yes, we found out the hard way that they have to be stored properly, or they become useless. (Witness the large trailer-park of unusable FEMA trailers in Arkansas.)

Not surprisingly, folks have been looking for alternatives.

One of the more interesting alternatives has been the “Mississippi cottage”, which was mentioned recently in the New York Times:

The only units FEMA says it is planning to test are the Mississippi Cottages, which have tin roofs, small porches and are colored like Easter eggs — rose-hip pink, malted mint, cloudless blue. The cottages are on wheels, but the larger models can be put on permanent foundations. All are equipped with appliances, beds, a table and chairs, ceiling fans, even pots and pans, and cost an average of $32,000 apiece to build.[...]

With its built-in closets and spacious kitchen cupboards, their cottage feels like a mansion, said Vicki Ladner Meshell and her husband, Rickey, whose apartment in Long Beach was washed away by Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge.[...]

The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency has installed more than 2,000 of them throughout southern Mississippi, and plans to put in 3,500.

But local governments in Mississippi have resisted the cottages. They fear people who get cottages will simply live in them and not rebuild their houses, said Mike Womack, executive director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.

“They’re too nice,” he said. “I’ve heard this over and over again.”

“They’re too nice”?!!

So we have an area, which is suffering from lack of affordable housing, a need to keep workers in the area both to staff recovering businesses and to help with reconstruction, a need to reduce stress in difficult recovery process, and problems with “demand surge” prompted by a lot of pressure to reconstruct as quickly as possible.

“Too nice” seems like a rather foolish concern under such circumstances.

So, the financial press and the related segment of the blogosphere is all abuzz with Treasury Secretary Paulson’s plans to overhaul the financial regulatory bureaucracy of the federal government.

While talk on the subject is definitely interesting, I can’t help but notice that the entire Executive Branch of the government is deep into Lame Duck season, there is a major election 7 months away.

Do people really expect anything to come of this this year…except perhaps some intriguing talking points to be formed for the general election campaign trail this fall?

After the past couple of weeks, that the feds would want to be more actively involved in regulating industry should be no surprise. Seen in the Wall Street Journal (subscriber link):

The U.S. Treasury Department has chosen sides in the fight over state versus federal insurance regulation, standing squarely in the corner of large insurers who want the option to be regulated at the national level.

An executive summary of the Treasury Department’s blueprint for overhauling regulation of financial firms calls for the creation of an Office of National Insurance to be housed within Treasury. The new regulator would have oversight over insurance firms that chose an optional federal charter.

The support for the federal charter marks the first time the Bush administration has officially weighed in on the long-running debate over insurance regulation. States currently have the authority to oversee insurers, and though efforts have been made to standardize forms and other requirements, a number of differences still exist between states.

Professionally, I’d welcome a single regulatory body to deal with. I’ve spent too effing much of my time recently working on state filings for countrywide rollouts of new specialty commercial lines products. In fact, my calendar this coming week is almost full with time blocked off to respond to frequently conflicting requests from different states’ DOI’s. Give me one regulatory body to deal with, rather than 52, and I could get back to doing real work.

However, as an armchair consumer advocate, I do have some concerns. Consider, for example, some recent “fun” my wife and I have had with health insurance, made possible by a lack of consumer protections in federal regulation.

Sure, the feds do a pretty good job in protecting the public from fiscal insecurity of regulated businesses, but otherwise consumer protection is seemingly a heretical concept among federal regulators.

One thing that seems virtually certain about this year’s election is that the climate in Washington will likely be different. If Hillary or Obama win, the Dems will control the executive and legislative branches, leaving them mostly free to pursue their own, probably somewhat pro-consumer agenda. And if McCain wins…well, let’s be diplomatic and express some expectation that he seems somewhat less likely to demonstrate the “creativity” of our current MBA-in-chief.

So, it’s probably no surprise that big business and certain interest groups are pushing for some regulatory changes and decisions to be resolved before 20 January. Seen in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal (free link):

This week, the Interior Department is expected to publish its decision to remove the gray wolf from its endangered species list in three Northern Rockies states. Ranchers sought such a decision, which angers environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is fighting the de-listing.

The Small Business Administration recently released its Top Ten list of rules businesses want changed before President Bush leaves office in January. Business owners and their representatives nominated more than 80 rules for the list, including workplace safety, tax, and contracting regulations.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is challenging several pending employment and labor rules, including one that would tighten the requirements for employees seeking family medical leave. If the lobbying group can’t influence the wording of regulations, it will try to influence the instructions on interpreting them issued by the agency, said Randel Johnson, vice president of the group, which lists battles against regulation as a key challenge for the next five years.

While some acceleration in the turning of the wheels of bureaucracy would be most welcome, I suspect that not everyone would be happy with what the Executive Branch will be publishing into the Federal Register in coming months….

One of my usual Sunday evening chores is to map out what I want to get done this week for work.  Looking at my calendar and task list, I’m left with one rather overpowering thought:

It’s nice to see that the Georgia state legislature is focusing its efforts on important issues of the day. Not only have legislators sought to annex part of a neighboring state to grab water, but they’re also apparently indicating that license plates are a matter of most dire concern. From the AJC:

In a 142 to 10 vote, the chamber voted to stop making out-of-state university mascot tags if neighboring states don’t return the favor.

“Whatever is good for the goose is good for the gander,” said state Rep. Barry Fleming (R-Harlem), speaking with great earnestness on the matter.

Fleming was really talking about Bulldogs. He and the vast majority of his House colleagues think the citizens of the Bulldog nation living in South Carolina, Alabama and Florida, should get mascot tags of their own in those states.

At a time when Georgians are bearing the burden of the worst drought in memory, isn’t it a little odd that lawmakers would place border disputes and license plates up at the top of the agenda?

Georgia voters have to be loving this circus.

Either British Parliament is overly paranoid, or perhaps some thought ought to be given as to how compact fluorescent light bulbs are designed and protected.

The Daily Mail is sharing with its readers the following card that is being handed to MP’s and parliamentary staff on what to do with broken light bulbs:

Annoyingly, LED bulbs don’t seem quite ready yet to pick up for the shortcomings of CFL’s.