1. Lave, The Strategy of Social Regulation, 26-27. [BACK]

2. For example, AGA Labs is trying to cut the cost of standards-writing by calling fewer meetings. The result will be cheaper standards that are longer in the making. [BACK]

3. The one time that UL engaged in cost-benefit analysis—as an "offeror" to the CPSC on television receivers—it spent over $300,000 on the standard. Even though some considered the effort a public relations ploy, it demonstrated that an extraordinarily expensive standard by UL's own standards would still be an inexpensive one to OSHA. [BACK]

4. Compliance costs, as distinguished from the cost of developing a standard, are often much higher in the private sector because manufacturers must pay to have their products tested. The certification process assures higher compliance, but at a significant cost. In the case of woodstoves, for example, one manufacturer reports paying $70,000 a year for UL labels. With total industry production of several hundred thousand units annually, this adds a considerable private cost to UL 1482. In some cases, particularly for large firms that have engineering departments and conduct their own testing, this cost may be unreasonable. It is most justified for products that vary in the production process in ways that directly affect safety. In the case of woodstoves, however, the private sector, surprisingly, imposes compliance costs far in excess of the most stringent government inspection system. [BACK]

5. Harold L. Wilensky, Organizational Intelligence: Knowledge and Policy in Government and Industry (New York: Basic Books, 1967). [BACK]

6. Injury data often do not include reliable information on venting, causing considerable disagreements in data interpretation. See chapter 6, note 29. [BACK]

7. The program was officially called the National Field Observation Program (or NFOP). [BACK]

8. Eads and Reuter, Designing Safer Products, 42 n. 52. [BACK]

9. For an example of the criticisms lodged against the CPSC's hospital survey information, see Edward Heiden, Allan Pittaway, and Rosalind O'Connor, "Utility of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's Injury Data System as a Basis for Product Hazard Assessment," Journal of Products Liability 5 (1982): 295. [BACK]

10. For a fifteen-page memo detailing the issues and evidence on this point, see S. L. Blachman, interoffice memorandum (AGA Labs) to D. T. King, November 2, 1979. [BACK]

11. Edwin I. Colodny, chairman and president, USAir Group Inc., in "Proceedings of Cabin Safety Conference," p. 165. [BACK]

12. Douglas and Wildavsky, Risk and Culture, 196-97. [BACK]

13. Lave, The Strategy of Social Regulation, 8-28. [BACK]

14. Eugene Bardach and Robert A. Kagan, Going by the Book: The Problem of Regulatory Unreasonableness (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982), 184-213. [BACK]

15. Dissenting Opinion of Vice Chairman Saundra Brown Armstrong, in the Matter of Revocation of the Mandatory Standard for Unvented Gas-fired Space Heaters, 2 n. 2. [BACK]

16. The Enforcement Directorate sought to obtain an informal agreement among all testing laboratories to require certain detailed information not specifically required by the CPSC rule. Ironically, the Enforcement Directorate used as a "model" an instruction booklet already used by a major UL client. In other words, even in this effort the CPSC was deferring to the private sector. [BACK]

18. For example, the dust-control and housekeeping recommendations offered in 1980 by representatives of USDA and OSHA were held over "for further study" and rejected without discussion in 1985. NFPA, Technical Committee Reports: 1986 Fall Meeting, Comment 61B-61-Chapter 8 (Log #72), 12. [BACK]