Federal and local regulations are usually created with the intent of protecting someone/ something from exploitation or contamination of some sort. The enforcement of said regulations has historically been correlated to the equivalent of a “fool’s errand’, this is not to say that enforcement agencies don’t do their job. Guidelines put in place are often highly difficult to impose so the regulating agency will have the company/institution in question corroborate their compliance via personal records. This is not necessarily a guaranteed way to have regulations applied. If corruption exists in the system and the “proof” given by the company has not been substantiated, the given regulations don’t count for much, potentially contributing to the successful changing of the rules due to the lack of evidence brought to the table. The legislation involved with creating the regulations can also be a source of shortcomings when it comes to undercutting the underlying goal.
“The Oregon Department of Agriculture established a million-acre rectangle in the Willamette Valley as a canola-prohibited zone, except for farmers who secured special permits. But last month, the department issued new policies to allow the expansion of canola production.” (1)
The open ended wording of regulations can lead to a broad interpretation of the guidelines which may result in the inability to enforce. This has led to more specific and well organized bills such as HB2427.
“Late in the 2013 Oregon Legislative Session, after multiple public hearings, the Oregon Legislature passed HB 2427 with bipartisan support. The bill maintains an existing ban commercial production of canola until 2019 inside the 3 million acre Willamette Valley Protected District in order to protect one of the world’s preeminent vegetable seed producing regions, an effort widely supported by family farmers across the Willamette Valley.” (2)
This bill replaced the old policy that allowed for the growth of canola within the no-grow zone, which essentially defeated the purpose of the original policy. The use of lobbying is a key component in the creation, or destruction, of regulatory processes. While it’s not illegal, the repercussions such as corruption and the resulting exploitation should be. A lack of transparency and responsibility have and will continue to cater regulations to the specifications preferred by those that the regulations were created to thwart.
With the costs dropping and availability increasing of new technological sensors, the future of regulation enforcement looks bright. The higher amount of sensors being used will lead to increasingly reliable data and more of it. This could be a blessing and a curse. The higher quality of data can have only positive effects while the larger quantities may result in each data set becoming lost like a drop of water in the ocean. The overflow of data may make it near impossible to differentiate between “noise” and pertinent information gathered via the sensors. Problems like this may be more of a positive thing than first anticipated for both the regulation agencies and those who are protected by them. The increase in data/sensors may lead to a large increase in jobs in the field of regulation enforcement which would help to minimize the chance of corruption along with increasing the awareness of the issues at hand by the public. The future may hold a time where pollution and corruption become nonexistent because of the forced transparency (and associated responsibility) our new technologies will bring.
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So ultimately where would you want to start to regulate? by state or by federal? and how would you improve the current situation in enforcing the law when the law itself is pretty transparent.. Technologies could also be the possible part to cause the transparency, such the the genetic modification gun, with each new technology we need new regulations or something the law has never written about. How you you regulate that?