Let’s Do Away With Regulations!

[RANT]

That is the Republican manta, but why were regulations put in place in the first place?

EPA

• Who remembers Love Canal in Buffalo?
• Who remembers when the Chicago River caught fire?
• Who remembers the Naugatuck River? Watching the piles of foam blowing in the wind from the tire companies or watching the Housatonic River change colors, going from yellow to blue to red to green from all the chemical companies along the river.
• I remember coming down the Wilbur Cross Highway in Wethersfield and seeing Hartford in a brown fog.

OSHA

• I am old enough to remember seniors with missing limbs or fingers from work related accidents.
• I am old enough to remember construction accidents, cave-ins, and falls.

DOT

• I was with some people who were complaining about all the records that truck drivers had to keep.

Police

• New regulations that hold the police accountable.

All these regulations came about for one reason… industry didn’t self-police themselves.

• Businesses dumped their waste on the ground and the waterways where it migrated to other people properties. Their motivation… profit over the environment.
• Safety costed profits, hand guards, safety interlocks they all cost money… profit over safety.
• Limiting weight, driving time, and safety checks all cut into operating costs… profit over safety.
• The Thin Blue Line… silence costs lives.

In all of these cases they didn’t regulate themselves so government had to step in and force companies and individuals to protect the environment, to protect the workers, and to protect the public.

For work I was a mandatory reporter… by government regulation I was required if I just “thought” and not knew of a defect I had to report it the code was 10CFR21. And I bet that one hundred percent of you think that is a right to have those regulations because we made parts that could go into a nuclear plant.

But somehow requiring truck drivers to record limit their drive excessive as they hurl down the highway in an 80,000 pound truck doing 80 mph's.

I was also a mandatory reporter when I was a social worker, I was required to report to the DCF if I “thought” there might be children abuse. But somehow a police officers who sees another officer planting evidence or using excessive force being forced to report it is excessive.

[/RANT]