Business Matters

A ten-part series on resolving Washington's anti-business climate

"We will do everything in our power to guarantee a thriving, environmentally-sustainable business climate." – Governor Gary Locke –

Part 6: Common sense regulatory reform

It looks like the state may finally be taking seriously the regulatory nightmare that Washington businesses face. The first step toward reforming Washington’s current regulatory system (which bleeds businesses to death by a thousand paper cuts) was House Bill 2049, signed into law on May 7, 2001.

The bill’s prime sponsor, Rep. Kirk Pearson, illustrated the necessity of the bill by stating,

"Washington has nearly 16,000 pages of agency-created rules and regulations. It’s difficult for businesses to know and comply with every rule on the book, especially when there are so many. It used to be that agencies would come in to a business and automatically begin issuing fines for those out of compliance. A few years ago, the Legislature required agencies to develop technical assistance programs to help businesses comply. But some agencies still lean toward fining businesses first and asking questions later."

Thus, without a single dissenting vote, HB 2049 put into place some common sense reform by providing businesses "a reasonable period of time to correct violations during a technical assistance visit before any civil penalty provided for by law is imposed for those violations."

Though the bill was a good first step, the legislature still needs to take immediate action to shrink those 16,000 pages of regulations down to the bare minimum necessary. One glaring example of where they should take action is Washington’s soon-to-be imposed ergonomic standards. Businesses have already voiced their lack of confidence in the legislature by forming a coalition and filing suit this last month to halt the implementation of the new ergonomic rules.

Depending on who is conducting the study, these ergonomic rules will cost businesses in the state anywhere from $80 million to $800 million. Compliance with the rules will require businesses to spend their time and effort reviewing the rules, identifying jobs that come into question, developing engineering and administrative controls, producing ergonomic awareness education workshops, scheduling job hazard training, and hiring training evaluators whose job will be spent ensuring the employers are in compliance with the detailed regulations.

Reasonable regulations exist to create a safe work environment. No one objects to that. However, there is much debate over the scientific veracity of the "evidence" used to mandate new ergonomic standards.

The Mayo Clinic conducted a study (published in the June 12, 2001 issue of Neurology) to determine the effect of heavy computer use on the development of carpal tunnel syndrome. Contrary to all conventional wisdom within the rule-making community, the study found that there was no correlation.

Dr. Stevens of the Mayo clinic stated in that article, "I’d like computer users to know that prolonged use of a computer does not seem to lead to carpal tunnel, at least not in our employees who used computers up to seven hours per day. Carpal tunnel syndrom is a common condition in the population, however, which means that some computer users will develop CTS. Our study suggests, however, that the risk of developing the syndrome is not increased by working at a computer."

Findings like these by the Mayo clinic point out the folly behind forcing ergonomic rules upon businesses before conducting the thorough and necessary scientific research required to justify increased costs and regulations. If real harm will befall an employee as a result of his or her job, safeguards must be put into place. However, "conventional wisdom" should never suffice as grounds for creating and imposing rules that put an undue burden on our state’s businesses.

The Evergreen Freedom Foundation wholeheartedly agrees with Rep. Pearson’s assessment that, "If we want to keep and attract business and jobs to our state, we need to provide an atmosphere that is friendly and conducive to business. Out-of-control agency enforcement is not the way to do that."

Along with removing the burden that the new ergonomic rules will place on businesses, our Legislature should provide for a sunset review of all regulatory WACs. Rather than force our state businesses to toil under an onerous and meaningless regulatory burden (stealing precious time and resources away from their ability to strengthen our economy), Washington state leaders must take additional steps to reform the state’s regulatory environment. When business resources are released from constant enslavement to regulations, all of Washington’s workers will benefit.

This is part six in a ten-part series on resolving Washington’s anti-business climate.

Intro | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10

Contact: Jason Mercier, Deputy Communications Director, (360) 956-3482 or jmercier@effwa.org.

Evergreen Freedom Foundation P.O. Box 552, Olympia, WA 98507 Phone: (360) 956-3482, Fax: (360) 352-1874 Email: effwa@effwa.org