1. The CPSC's official policy on employee membership and participation in voluntary standards is published in 16 C.F.R., Part 1031. The commission debated a proposal in 1985 to "acknowledge" private standards and allow for "formal voting" by CPSC participants. [BACK]

2. Young, "Direct Interest Participation in the Regulatory Process." [BACK]

3. Timothy J. O'Neill makes a related and fascinating argument, in an entirely different context, about the educational value of amicus briefs and the "classroom of litigation" (Bakke and the Politics of Equality: Friends and Foes in the Classroom of Litigation [Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1985]), introduction. [BACK]

4. OMB Circular no. A-199, sec. 6(a) (October 26, 1982). [BACK]

5. 15 U.S.C. sec. 2056(b). [BACK]

6. Steven M. Spivak,Implementation of OMB Circular A-1 19, U.S. Department of Commerce, National Bureau of Standards, Office of Product Standards Policy, March 1985, 2. [BACK]

7. As Thomas Dietz and Robert Rycroft (Risk Professionals, 112) explain: "The risk policy system is clearly a 'transcientific' domain. The term was first coined by Alvin Weinberg to describe problems characterized by great uncertainty for which adequate solutions could not be supplied by science alone, and it has been applied to environmental problems for some time." [BACK]

8. For an interesting, but tentative, effort, see Susan Bartlett Foote, "Beyond the Politics of Federalism: An Alternative Model," Yale Journal on Regulation 1, no. 2 (1984): 217-25. See also Advisory Commission on Inter-governmental Relations, Regulatory Federalism: Policy, Process, Impact, and Reform (Washington D.C.: ACIR, 1984). [BACK]

9. For example, the "stringency" of UL's warning label and the overall level of compliance with UL standards. [BACK]

11. See, for example, Cornell, Noll, and Weingast, "Safety Regulations," in Setting National Priorities, 457-503. [BACK]

12. John H. Shenefield, "Standards for Standards-Makers" (Remarks before the American National Standards Institute, Washington, D.C., March 29, 1978), 7. [BACK]

13. The major firms "complied" with the FDA's request for voluntary rating, but different companies used different systems for rating! ("Are Tampons Safer Now?" Consumer Reports, May 1986, 333). Three years later, prompted by a lawsuit, the FDA promulgated a mandatory federal rule ("Judge Orders U.S. to Require Tampon Absorbency Labels," New York Times, August 31, 1989, B8; Warren E. Leary, "Tampons to Get Standard Labels," New York Times, October 27, 1989, A12). [BACK]

14. Philip J. Harter and George C. Eads, "Policy Instruments, Institutions, and Objectives: An Analytical Framework for Assessing 'Alternatives' to Regulation," Administrative Law Review 37, no. 3 (Summer 1985): 221-58. [BACK]

15. Ibid., 223 [BACK]

16. See, for example, Peter Huber, "Safety and the Second Best: The Hazards of Public Risk Management in the Courts," Columbia Law Review 85, no. 2 (March 1985): 277-337. [BACK]

17. S. David Hoffman and Mathew E. Hoffman, "Use of Standards in Products Liability Litigation Revisited—Déjà Vu, but Even More So" (mimeographed, 1985). [BACK]

18. See, for example, Peter Huber, "The Old-New Division in Risk Regulation," Virginia Law Review 69, no. 6 (September 1983): 1025-1107. [BACK]

19. Allied Tube and Conduit Corp. v. Indian Head, 56 U.S.L.W. 4539 (June 13, 1988), 4545 (Justice White dissenting with Justice O'Connor). [BACK]

20. For example, the majority in Indian Head decided that this case differed from other cases involving governmental immunity because "the context and nature of [NFPA's] activity make it the type of commercial activity that has traditionally had its validity determined by the antitrust laws themselves" (ibid., 4542). [BACK]

21. Maitland, "The Limits of Business Self-Regulation." [BACK]

22. Perrow, Normal Accidents, 166. [BACK]

23. Edwin T. Layton, Jr., "Engineering Needs a Loyal Opposition: An Essay Review," Business and Professional Ethics Journal (1985): 51-59. [BACK]

24. The agency's total budget in 1986 was $124 million ("Bureau of Standards Is Pinched Too," New York Times, April 28, 1986). [BACK]

25. See, generally, George S. Emmerson, Engineering Education: A Social History (New York: Crane Russak, 1973). For a description of recent changes aimed at addressing the problem, see Edward Fiske, "M.I.T. Widens Engineer Training," New York Times, June 1, 1987, 1. [BACK]

26. These possibilities include improved state regulation, changes in the agent reward system, and the promotion of purchasing groups. See David Hemenway, "Private Insurance as an Alternative to Protective Regulation: The Market for Residential Fire Insurance," Policy Studies Journal 15, no. 3 (March 1987): 433. [BACK]

27. Ibid. [BACK]