Regulation Shows Lack of R&D


Dr. John Bartlit
New Mexico Citizens
for Clean Air & Water

Column of May 3, 2015, Los Alamos Monitor


Image Research and development (R&D) is the good genie that improves every technical tool important to society and business. Few tools have more troubling defects than the tools of regulating. We know so by the heated reactions they spark in every interest group.

Why then is R & D used so little to improve these tools? Our lack of R & D ignores the lush fields of opportunity for improving regulatory tools. 

R & D projects can be mapped to show where they fit within the four distinct steps in the regulatory process, namely, (1) rule-making, (2) permitting, (3) inspection and (4) enforcement.

Politics and publicity focus on rule-making, which also involves science and engineering. Yet, most of the day-to-day work is in implementation—permitting and inspecting. Here is where many tasks could be done better, faster and cheaper if aided by 21st century technology. Indeed, this is the founding vision of R & D.

In broad terms, environmental voices are not fond of swift permitting. By the same token, industrial voices are not fond of swift inspection and enforcement.

Over time, each side tweaks certain parts to make them clumsy. Both sides conclude that a clumsy part is a fair reason to add more unwieldy parts. Both sides and all taxpayers suffer the cost of this contest.
     
Better, cheaper tools can be engineered. Suppose an establishment—call it an “inventive entity”—sets out to develop better regulatory tools for the benefit of the nation and its economy. The work might begin by observing the processes in action. For instance, they could attend a public rule-making hearing and tour a state regulatory agency.

They could observe the interactions and analyze how the design of a rule affects the processes of permitting and inspecting. They would observe an inspection in progress.

Next, they might review the great variety of inspection tools commonly used in other fields. A useful category is on-board diagnostics (OBD), the automotive term for a vehicle’s familiar self-diagnostic and reporting system. More details and history are found at OBD on the Internet.

On-board diagnostics have led to complex equipment (motorcars) that comes with built-in sensors to detect faults and improve safety, at less cost. The timely links scout problems.
  
Better, faster and cheaper inspections enable simpler and faster permits. Better, faster permits and inspections let simpler rules do the job.

Best of all, better, faster inspections build confidence in the system.
Inspection technology makes the whole system more fair the same way that instant-replay tools make umpiring more fair. The trend grows.
  • A company’s web site could show real-time operating data that are useful to regulators and the public.
  • Camera-based systems, such as the Hawk-Eye computer system that checks line calls in top-level tennis, have potential for recording quick spot checks.
  • Drones have similar potential. Robots roam the surface of Mars, analyze its chemistry with light beams and radio the findings. Drones can measure and report remotely on Earth.
  • Actuarial science, the basis of insurance, calculates risk and cumulative costs and seeks ways to minimize both. Regulation struggles with similar problems. Yet, actuarial methods lie largely unstudied for this use.
More efficient tools come slowly to the regulating system.

Meanwhile, R & D propels constant advances in cell phones, smart cars, oil technology and systems of data mining. The process of regulating interacts in too many ways to have its tools lag so far behind the times.

The prospects for newer tools in regulation are very good and badly needed. Many inventive entities are well-suited to start such R & D. Think of universities, high-tech companies and national laboratories.

  The race for efficiency offers regulation the same agility achieved in other fields.