Trying to Regulate the Regulators

By Hugh Sidey

"Regulations should be as simple and clear as possible. They should achieve legislative goals effectively and efficiently. They should not impose unnecessary burdens on the economy, on individuals, on public or private organizations, or on state and local governments."

That unusually straightforward passage of governmental prose, printed in the Federal Register a few days ago, is a declaration of intent by Jimmy Carter. It is the preamble to a presidential order he hopes to issue before the end of the year. For those who dwell in the world of red tape, which is most of America, the words shone like diamonds in a mountain of slag. The wisdom rivaled that of Solomon.

Georgia's Charles Henson, had he read this, would have wept. For 28 years he manufactured Red Fox denims. Then one day came a ruling from the Federal Trade Commission: since his denims did not have any red fox fur in them, he could no longer use the name. Think of the joy Carter's sensible proclamation would have brought to the parsimonious New Hampshirite who had to spend $26.23 in postage to mail the bulky forms for a license renewal for his small radio station. Pity the distress the Carter doctrine will cause the Occupational Safety and Health Administration bureaucrat who propounded the 39-word, single-sentence definition of EXIT: "That portion of a means of egress which is separated from all other spaces of the building or structure by construction or equipment as required in this subpart to provide a protected way of travel to the exit discharge."

And, surely, had the folks at the Bureau of Land Management known about the new dictum, they never would have issued 155 pages of requirements, including 23 fold-out diagrams, for fire equipment to be purchased for two bureau pickup trucks. The low bid was $31,000, an estimated $8,000 for the equipment and the rest for processing the regulations.

Carter's campaign to force Government rulemakers to think before they promulgate may not be the moral equivalent of war, but if he wins a few skirmishes he will be blessed from Bangor to Chula Vista.

Fred J. Emery, director of the Federal Register, looks over his desk each day at a 15-ft. shelf containing 73,000 pages of the Code of Federal Regulation. There are millions of entries, new rules for life in these United States. It grows as much as 5,000 pages a year. Emery has started a school for the rule writers. He is trying to make the language at least understandable. He illustrates the problem with a parable: "It is like the two fellows in the hot air balloon who get lost in a cloud and, emerging, call down to a man on the ground, 'Where are we?' The fellow calls back, 'In a hot air balloon.' The answer, like a lot of regulations, is absolutely accurate but totally useless."

Wayne Granquist and Stanley Morris at the Office of Management and Budget are guiding Carter's campaign. They drafted the presidential proclamation. In a few weeks they will present Carter with a final draft of an Executive order to all federal agencies and departments.

The next task will be to pump the order through the governmental circulatory system. Part of the problem is that the proliferation of rules often takes place in the depths of the bureaucracy, not at the top. A program chief hears a complaint and summons a committee, which calls in lawyers. New regulations are drafted, then sent to a boss who approves them. The regulations are printed; sent to the field; and one morning a federal authority is insisting--to take actual cases--that ice cannot be added to drinking water, chickens cannot be processed in rooms with tile floors, fire extinguishers are to be lowered 6 in., and cowboys must work within 5 min. ride of a toilet. The reasons for, and meanings of, the regulations have been lost somewhere between Washington and Pocatello.

At the very heart of the issue is the attitude of the thousands of people who concoct and enforce the Government rules. The best of the bureaucratic breed talk sincerely of transforming regulators from cops who are out to punish offenders to public servants who help citizens solve their problems. After all, it was partly a rejection of oppressive, expensive regulation by far-off authorities that led to the creation of this country 201 years ago.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.