When regulations aren't enforced, disaster can strike

Too cozy? Payoffs? Or just negligence? What's going on? There are plenty of regulations designed to prevent disasters, so how come they are not enforced? Where do we turn when disasters happen — oil spills, coal mines, outrageous mismanagement of taxpayer dollars — who's in charge?

The BP disaster should be a wake-up call for our elected leaders; no matter how many laws they pass or regulations are written to implement them, it won't make any difference in preventing disasters if they are not, or are only seldom, enforced. Often, violations of regulations are not deliberate; rather, they happen because of the friendly relationship that is often developed between the compliance agency staff and business or contractor. It is human nature and must be consistently supervised by someone with the authority to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

Agencies are responsible for writing regulations that frequently seem burdensome and are designed more to protect them from criticism, rather than carrying out what lawmakers intended. It creates an environment where risk-taking by administrators is punished. Agency administrators are merely reacting to a culture where lawmakers are quick to blame failures on administrators rather than clarifying what they intended in passing the law. Legislators unwittingly become responsible for government bloat and red tape, where everyone and no one is responsible, blame is placed on those at the bottom of the food chain, and the public they are supposed to serve remains vulnerable.

Who is ultimately responsible for assuring laws and regulations are being followed? Utah legislators are quick to order a legislative audit when a problem becomes public. In the last two years, there have been 21 audits conducted on public agencies; however, the public knows little about results to correct deficiencies. The 2009 audit on the Department of Workforce Services found a needless cost of $28 million due to agency mismanagement of medical payments. Who is responsible for correcting the problem — legislators who ordered the audit or the governor as chief executive officer of the state? The public is lulled into believing the problem will be corrected, but it often seems to be forgotten until the next public outcry or disaster. Are the problems ever corrected — and by whom? Similar problems exist with audits of other agencies.