Ball of Confusion
Sometimes, there can be a striking inconsistency in regulatory approach across regions.
Unintended consequences strike again.
‘In the European Union, sunscreens are regulated as cosmetics, which means greater flexibility in approving active ingredients. In the U.S., sunscreens are regulated as drugs, which means getting new ingredients approved is an expensive and time-consuming process. Because they’re treated as cosmetics, European-made sunscreens can draw on a wider variety of ingredients that protect better and are also less oily, less chalky and last longer. Does the FDA’s lengthier and more demanding approval process mean U.S. sunscreens are safer than their European counterparts? Not at all. In fact, American sunscreens may be less safe.’
Macron and Scholz: we must strengthen European sovereignty
EU wants to reduce reporting obligations for EU companies by 25%.
‘We call for an ambitious bureaucracy reduction agenda to deliver on simpler and faster administrative procedures and cutting bureaucratic burdens for businesses of all sizes. We welcome the European Commission’s initiative to reduce reporting obligations for our companies by 25 per cent. This promise has to be implemented with specific legislation. The principles of subsidiarity and proportionality need a fresh start, too.‘
Bureaucrats vs. Kidney Patients
Bureaucrats stand in the way of early kidney failure diagnosis. Because reasons.
‘So what’s the problem? Bureaucratic confusion, government codes and quality measures have made it impossible to get kidney patients the screenings they need. NCQA said it retracted its approval for the test because it discovered the code had been “erroneously misclassified” as a lab test. Hmmm. The home tests were expected to be used by about a million patients in 2024. Did NCQA’s action prevent a testing cost surge for Medicare?
‘NCQA says approved tests “should align with guideline recommendations” from the American Diabetes Association and the National Kidney Foundation. That’s a red herring. Both organizations have endorsed the use of home tests to monitor kidney health when lab tests aren’t easily available. For patients who live in rural areas, access to lab tests is often challenging, requiring time off work and more than an hour of driving.’
Why Do We Even Have College Sports Anymore?
Will college sports move to unshackle themselves from academic bureaucracy by severing the requirements for student-athletes to study? Is this the end-game?
‘Many have cheered the professionalization of college sports, pushing for a full free market in recruiting and compensating players. But a free market for college football, basketball, volleyball, and other sports is incompatible with those sports being attached to American universities. Capitalism in sports doesn’t mix with higher-education bureaucracy.’
Giles scandal shows we disdain bureaucracies until we need services
Bureaucratic reform is difficult. Add to that the lapse in the old rule that principals (in the case of government, this means the minister or cabinet secretary) should take responsibility for failure on their watch, and one has a recipe for difficult execution.
Cutting bureaucracy is at least as difficult as putting it in place. It requires leadership, not just management. It demands an understanding of how complex systems work.
‘Ministerial accountability used to be a reasonably straightforward thing: if something went wrong in your portfolio, it was your responsibility and you resigned.
‘Equally, there was a pragmatic rule in politics that if you became embroiled in a controversy that was damaging the government or distracting it from its day-to-day work, you would step down.’
NYC's 'last-mile' delivery warehouses face a potential reckoning with regulation
There are a lot of moving pieces involved in negotiating legislation. Here, NYC agrees to regulate so-called last mile delivery warehouses that companies like Amazon use. Amazon stages packages for delivery at these nodes close to the final address.
This was included in a bill intended to attract commerce to the city by making it easier to do business here.
‘In her letter, Torres-Springer promised that the mayor's team would advance a bill this year to allow the city Department of Environmental Protection to regulate air pollution from vehicle traffic at a given warehouse. She also wrote that the Department of City Planning would propose changing zoning rules to require a special permit for last-mile warehouses. She said the department would release a draft on the scope of the proposal by the end of March 2025.’
UK Tech Regulation: Surveillance Shouldn’t Trump Privacy
UK government wants to ensure the ability to look over your shoulder when using apps. They have proposed making it more difficult for tech companies to allow anyone to look over your shoulder because it may impede the government’s surveillance.
Note the potential conflict with the government’s stated privacy policies. We’ve written about regulatory conflict before.
‘The updated Investigatory Powers Act would allow the government to direct tech companies to delay or halt “relevant changes,” product feature updates that undermine law enforcement investigation powers. To ensure that no feature goes unnoticed, the Home Office could require tech companies to notify them before making changes to their products.
‘The updated Investigatory Powers Act would allow the government to direct tech companies to delay or halt “relevant changes,” product feature updates that undermine law enforcement investigation powers. To ensure that no feature goes unnoticed, the Home Office could require tech companies to notify them before making changes to their products.
‘The updated Investigatory Powers Act would allow the government to direct tech companies to delay or halt “relevant changes,” product feature updates that undermine law enforcement investigation powers. To ensure that no feature goes unnoticed, the Home Office could require tech companies to notify them before making changes to their products.’