[ShareTompkins] New Article: Designed to Fail: Why Regulatory Agencies Don’t Work

[A Wilson]

Dear Friends and Colleagues

This article is relevant to the Big Picture of Hydrofracking (and to  
any other regulatory situation where the public interest conflicts  
with powerful industry interests, e.g. GMO regulation/labeling,  
pesticides, herbicides, food additives, financial regulation, reducing  
carbon emissions etc etc).
William Sanjour is happy to be interviewed or to answer further  
questions.
Join in the discussion on Independent Science News or contact him at: mailto:jurason at comcast.net


Designed to Fail: Why Regulatory Agencies Don’t Work by William  
Sanjour (1) is published today by Independent Science News


Synopsis: Deepwater Horizon, the Financial System Meltdown, the Big  
Branch Mine explosion, BPA, Vioxx, as well as many others, were all  
preventable disasters characterised by the failure of government  
regulatory agencies. Across the board, agencies such as the FDA, EPA,  
SEC, OSHA, and others, are failing to fulfill their Congressional  
mandates of protecting the public and the environment. Repeated and  
systemic failures across widely varying jurisdictions suggest that the  
problems with effective regulation run much deeper than leadership,  
competence or corruption. Based on a personal 30 year struggle to  
protect public health from within the EPA, William Sanjour examines  
what typically goes wrong at regulatory agencies, and proposes some  
novel solutions: chief among these solutions is that the  
administrative powers of rule-making should be separated from those of  
enforcement. Separation into independent organisations of legislative  
and judicial functions would align regulatory activity with the  
intention of the US constitution and the rest of government. It would  
also remove a chronic and debilitating internal conflict that prevents  
regulation from being an effective tool of government.

Extract: "When I was writing regulations, I was told on more than one  
occasion to make sure I put in enough loopholes."

We hope you will circulate this important article. Please communicate,  
tweet, and share it with your colleagues, listserves and networks.
Apologies also for cross-posting.
Yours sincerely

Allison Wilson
http://www.bioscienceresource.org/
http://independentsciencenews.org/

(1) Mr. William Sanjour is a native of New York where he attended  
college at CCNY and earned a master's degree in physics at Columbia  
University. His career started as an operations research analyst with  
the Navy's "think tank," the Center for Naval Analysis. He later  
worked as an operations research analyst with the American Cyanamid  
Company and then as a management consultant for Ernst & Ernst.
In the late sixties he became involved in environmental issues as a  
consultant to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Several  
years later he accepted a position with EPA as Branch Chief in the  
newly established Hazardous Waste Management Division. In this  
capacity he supervised studies of hazardous waste damages and  
treatment technologies. These efforts culminated in the passage of the  
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976, after which,  
Mr. Sanjour was in charge of drafting regulations for the treatment,  
storage, and disposal of hazardous waste.
In 1978 the Carter administration, concerned about inflation, took  
steps to protect industry by removing the teeth of the hazardous waste  
regulatory effort. At first, Sanjour fought from within the EPA to  
make RCRA work in the true spirit of the legislation. The agency  
responded by transferring him in 1979 to a position with no duties. He  
then became an outspoken EPA whistleblower. He alerted Congress,  
environmental groups, and the press to this attack on RCRA.
He fought his transfer and after a year long legal bout, he won. In  
1980 he was made head of the Hazardous Waste implementation Branch  
where he set up hazardous waste data management systems and wrote  
regulations for the transportation of hazardous waste. However, he  
continued to expose Agency waste, fraud and abuse. He testified in  
Congressional hearings several times and was active in helping  
grassroots environmental groups on his own time.
When Rita Lavelle (later jailed) was Assistant Administrator in the  
Reagan Administration, the agency retaliated by fabricating an  
unsatisfactory performance evaluation, the only one Mr. Sanjour ever  
received. This too was fought and won by Mr. Sanjour under the Agency  
grievance procedures.
In 1984, Mr. Sanjour took a break from Agency harassment to go on loan  
to the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) where he  
wrote a critique of EPA hazardous waste regulations which appeared in  
the 1985 OTA study entitled Superfund Strategy.
When he returned to EPA, the Agency had retaliated by removing him  
from his Branch Chief position. Assigned as a Policy Analyst, Mr.  
Sanjour issued regulations for procurement of recycled paper, re- 
refined lubricating oil, retread tires and insulation products in a  
period of only four years. Mr. Sanjour received an outstanding  
performance award for this unprecedented achievement.
Meanwhile, EPA, with the collusion of the Office of Government Ethics,  
issued regulations to prevent Mr. Sanjour and one other whistleblower  
from receiving travel expenses when addressing citizens groups on  
their own time. Over a four year period, this law was fought and  
defeated in the federal courts by the National Whistleblower Center  
and Sanjour v EPA now stands as a landmark decision preventing the  
government from silencing government employees who criticize the  
government.
In 1995 Mr. Sanjour was detailed, at his request, to assist the  
Superfund Ombudsman. Here he investigated citizen complaints against  
the Agency's regional offices in their implementation of the Superfund  
program. Although this was a position which well suited him, the  
failure of the Agency to cooperate in the investigations made the  
position pointless. After a year, he was permanently transferred to  
the Technology Information Office where he functioned briefly as a  
policy analyst in an obscure and relatively unimportant post.
Mr. Sanjour had to fight several legal battles in the Labor Department  
to halt the Agency's continuous harassment, all of which the Agency  
settled out of court. Despite his reduction in status and having to  
continually fight for his legal rights. Mr. Sanjour stubbornly  
continued his government service while assisting grassroots  
environmentalists and fellow whistleblowers.
Upon retirement he continues to write and speak about regulatory  
reform, environmental and whistleblower protection issues when he is  
not traveling or sailing. He presently sits on the Board of Directors  
of the National Whistleblowers Center.

Allison Wilson, PhD
Science Director
The Bioscience Resource Project

phone: 1 (607) 319 0279
a.wilson at bioscienceresource.org
http://www.bioscienceresource.org/
http://independentsciencenews.org/
"Good with Science"





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