Thomas W. Hazlett analyzes the effectiveness of the 1996 Telecommunications Act in encouraging competition in the telephone and cable television industries for the journal Regulation (volume 23, number 3): "A sober assessment of the major economic provisions of the 1996 Telecommunications Act reveals that the legislation scores at the top of its class on standardized tests.

In the principal markets reformed by the act, prices are not rising in quality-adjusted terms and, increasingly, customers are facing choices in service suppliers. More importantly, the capital markets—always looking to the future—indicate that those competitive forces will intensify. Billions of dollars are at stake in the growth and prosperity of firms that offer competitive local telephone and cable service. Monopoly services in the interim may cause justifiable impatience," concludes Hazlett, "but it must be pointed out that previous legislation—two comprehensive and much heralded Cable Acts in 1984 and 1992, for instance—never succeeded in producing the degree of local telecommunications service rivalry that now exists on the competitive fringe."

What is the appropriate regulatory approach to the hazards of cellular phone use by drivers? A study of that issue by Robert W. Hahn; one of his research assistants, Jason K. Burnett; and a summer intern, Paul C. Tetlock, has been published in Regulation (volume 23, number 3). After presenting extensive statistical analysis, the three researchers recommend that, although the government should not yet regulate cellular phone use by drivers, it should continue to assess the problem: "Instead of regulating now, the government should carefully monitor the problem and improve the information base for making regulatory decisions. It is possible that fatalities are significantly underestimated now. Moreover, an argument can be made that accidents will increase more than linearly as more drivers use cellular phones." The authors continue, "The government should also assess the benefits and costs of mandating the use of promising new technologies, such as voice activation, as well as older ones, such as hands-free devices. . . . There is also a need for research on the extent to which cellular phones increase net accidents and fatalities, while taking into account the potential positive impacts that cellular phones could have on the reporting of hazards and accidents."

"An attack on a Navy ship is an attack against the United States," writes Seth Cropsey of the attack on the USS Cole in an op-ed for the Washington Times (October 16). "It is an act of war. And, as an act of war, it demands appropriate military response. We may not be able to do so because as in this case, it may not be clear immediately who is responsible. But American presidents should be careful in their public distinctions. Terrorism kills and threatens civilians in their person. Acts of war threaten the collective body, in this case, the United States. Those who commit acts of war against the United States need to understand that there will be a military response less discriminate and less punctilious than what is called for by the crime of terror. Failing to make this vital distinction diminishes the respect of others as well as our own self-respect."

Randall Lutter

In a November 7 op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Randall Lutter discusses a critical flaw in the Environmental Protection Agency’s stringent 1997 air quality standards: "The EPA’s pledge to consider costs when reviewing states’ plans to meet the standards rings hollow if the standards require impossibly low emissions. The agency’s data indicate that in five cities the emissions reductions needed to meet the ozone standard are at least seven times greater than the emissions cuts achievable from known control measures. Eliminating all motor vehicles emissions would not be enough to meet the standards in Los Angeles and San Francisco. A plain reading of the EPA’s data suggests that meeting the ozone standard is simply out of reach. The EPA dodged this conclusion by constructing flawed cost estimates." Lutter concludes, "Regulations that are infeasible and binding demean both the integrity of law and the social covenant to be law-abiding. Considering costs in setting standards would promote respect for the law by deterring federal agencies from issuing infeasible regulations that ask people to accept the impossible as binding."