Here is a good example of what is wrong with our regulatory state:
[EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson] was questioned [by a House subcommittee] on a variety of topics, ranging from the effects of the agency’s proposed climate rules to whether the EPA would regulate spilled milk.
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) made the spilled-milk allegation, asking: “How can the EPA promulgate new rules like this? What’s next — sippy-cups in the House cafeteria?”
Jackson said the agency moved to exempt milk storage from proposed regulations on inland oil containment facilities. “We made it clear in our rules that we were not going to apply the rules to spilled milk,” she said.
(Via Instapundit.)
So these people are writing regulations so broad that they cover spilled milk, but not to worry: they won’t apply them in that case!
How about some freakin’ rule of law, dammit?!
Write the regulation so it means what it says! If you have to institute arbitrary exceptions to avoid obviously absurd results, you’ve written the regulation too broadly. You are giving the power to determine our fate to people, rather than to the law.
And that brings us back, once again, to health care nationalization. Philip Hamburger explains that the myriad waivers that the Obama administration is issuing for the new health care regime violate the Constitution, because they give the president the power to decide who does and who does not have to follow the law. (More here.)
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