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Article:
Should the Foxes be Guarding the Hen House?
Jacksonville Attorney - Lawyer,
providing experienced Consumer Protection, Family Law, Estate Law,
Employment Law, Business Law, and Bankruptcy Law legal
representation in Jacksonville, Hilliard, Duval County,
Nassau County and the surrounding Northeast Florida areas.
Life in the country is
great. Since my wife and family moved back home, we
have raised goats and cows. Unfortunately, we have not
had any success raising chickens because we have a dog
that just loves chickens, dead or alive. No matter what
I do, she finds a way to get access to the chickens.
Although she has only chased a chicken once in my
presence, it does not take a CSI investigator to figure
out who the culprit was when the few chickens I was
trying to raise were massacred. I’ve tried to create
boundaries with goat fence, barbed wire, flaming
trenches and mine fields but my dog will not mind the
rules without constant oversight. This reminds me of
the old adage that you don’t want a fox guarding the hen
house. Unfortunately, the folks in Washington have
forgotten that lesson when it comes to regulatory
agencies.
Regulatory agencies have
been given more and more power in our society. Although
it is unconstitutional to delegate legislative power to
agencies, we have allowed them to take control. By law,
a legislative agency is not to be given decision making
power without telling the agency what standards or
guidelines to develop so that it knows its rights and
obligations. Therefore, administrative rules that are
inconsistent with legislative guidelines are
unconstitutional. Corporations have successfully
challenged legislative rules on this basis when agencies
try to engraft additional requirements to regulations
that were not envisioned by the legislature.
Unfortunately, in the last
eight years, agencies have taken a new tack. Although
there are still zillions of troublesome regulations,
legislative agencies have repeatedly sought to block
competing regulation, even if it was signed into law by
states to protect their citizens. The agencies have
done this by asserting a legal doctrine known as
preemption by arguing that Congress wanted the federal
agency to be the sole regulators of everything in a
particular field. Preemption has become a dirty word.
I have previously written
about how the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
(OCC) issued new rules in 2004 saying that its
regulations "preempt"- that is, override-a number of
state laws that conflict with a national bank's exercise
of its banking powers. Indeed, the New York Attorney
General wrote a Washington Post article about a lawsuit
filed against him by the OCC entitled
Predatory
Lenders' Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration
Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers.
Other examples of
preemption efforts abound. Rather than using agencies
as a sword to challenge wrongdoers, agencies have in
recent times sought to use their regulatory power to
shield corporate wrongdoers. One of the latest examples
was an argument by drug makers and the FDA that the
FDA’s approval of a drug supercedes state law claims
challenging safety, effectiveness, or labeling.
Believe it or not, a case pending before the Supreme
Court involves whether a person who lost her arm because
of a botched drug injection may sue the drug maker.
My question is whether
this is what we really want as a society. Do we want to
limit oversight to the same agencies whose hands off
policies led to the need for a bailout of AIG and
others. The latest example of lax oversight is the $50
billion dollar scam allegedly perpetrated by
Bernard Madoff, the
former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market, while other
money managers were raising suspicions to the SEC for
almost a decade. Can you believe this guy is out on
bail walking the streets!
Unfortunately, money
has proven to be a corrupting influence in Washington,
the foxes that want access to the hen house have a lot
of it, and so long as Washington is beholden to them,
they will write the rules that let them guard the hen
house and stop others from doing so. If this ever
changes, it will take some time. I’m not ready to order
chickens just yet.
Disclaimer: The above Article
is intended to give you, the consumer, insight into various legal topics. This
information is not intended as legal advice, but rather helpful topical
information.
 If
you require professional legal services regarding
Consumer Protection, Family Law, Estate Law,
Employment Law, Business Law, and Bankruptcy Law issues, be proactive in
protecting your legal
rights by seeking the legal advice of
an experienced
Jacksonville criminal defense attorney
& lawyer. Contact
The Law Offices of
Steven M. Fahlgren, P.A.,
by calling
904.845.2255.
Jacksonville Attorney - Lawyer,
providing experienced Consumer Protection, Family Law, Estate Law,
Employment Law, Business Law, and Bankruptcy Law legal
representation in Jacksonville, Hilliard, Duval County,
Nassau County and the surrounding Northeast Florida areas.
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