Regulatory Quotes & Sayings

Ninety-five percent of the work in the attorney general's office is civil litigation and regulatory work, and I think I certainly have a lot more experience in that than most of the folks who have served in the office. — Eric Schneiderman

The regulatory systems in place disincentive innovation. It's intense to fight the red tape. — Travis Kalanick

Rudeness instantly establishes a set of norms, a set of regulatory orders, authority, and power. To be rude is to go against an established accepted concept or ordered regulation. Thus rudeness could be in kind, a deviation from the norm. Rudeness can also be in kind an instantiation outside a set foundation. A deviation from a norm holds the same set foundation as the norm, their disagreement merely a manner of degrees. — Dew Platt

When giant companies wanted more tax loopholes, Washington got it done. When huge energy companies wanted to tear up our environment, Washington got it done. When enormous Wall Street banks wanted new regulatory loopholes, Washington got it done. No gridlock there! — Elizabeth Warren

A state-based regulatory system is quite burdensome. It allows price controls to create market distortions. It can hinder development of national products and can directly impact the competitiveness of U.S. insurers. — Henry Paulson

The Ministry places great importance and focus on the waste management issue as one of the most pressing priorities in the UAE, given its economic, social, environmental and medical effects. The Ministry addresses this issue through two approaches, the first in limiting the generation of waste form the source, by organizing awareness programs that target families and individuals, or by regulations and developing a national regulatory framework for waste management. The second revolves around the reuse and recycling of waste as a national commitment and one of the major objectives of the national agenda of the UAE Vision 2021. We all hope that we can strengthen the cooperation between the public and private sector in that domain, and encourage private companies to play a more vital role in waste management in a way that exceeds corporate social responsibility initiatives. — Anonymous

Every regulatory speech on derivatives takes a bow to their hedging 'benefits.' Less publicly, regulators pay their respects to derivative profits, a blessed relief from the banks' troubled loans to less-developed countries, highly leveraged companies, and real estate swingers. — Carol Loomis

I think we will have continuing danger from these markets and that we will have repeats of the financial crisis - [they] may differ in details but there will be significant financial downturns and disasters attributed to this regulatory gap, over and over, until we learn from experience — Brooksley Born

The larger Europe grows, the more diverse must be the forms of co-operation it requires. Instead of a centralised bureaucracy, the model should be a market - not only a market of individuals and companies, but also a market in which the players are governments.
Thus governments would compete with each other for foreign investments, top management and high earners through lower taxes and less regulation.
Such a market would impose a fiscal discipline on governments because they would not want to drive away expertise and business.
It would also help to establish which fiscal and regulatory policies produced the best overall economic results.
No wonder socialists don't like it. — Margaret Thatcher

Fortunately, when Korea was struck by the 1997/8 financial crisis, that was a good opportunity for us to engage in fundamental reforms and strengthen our financial structure. As a result, our financial regulatory structure and regime have been very much strengthened. — Lee Myung-bak

Our goal should be to make decision makers internalize the full consequences of their decisions, rather than prevent them from making decisions altogether [...] But we tend to reform under the delusion that the regulated institutions and the markets they operate in are static and passive, and that the regulatory environment will not vary with the cycle. Ironically, faith in draconian regulation is strongest at the bottom of the cycle, when there is little need for participants to be regulated. By contrast, the misconception that markets will govern themselves is most widespread at the top of the cycle, at the point of maximum danger to the system. We need to acknowledge these differences and enact cycle-proof regulation, for a regulation set against the cycle will not stand. To have a better chance of creating stability throughout the cycle--of being cycle-proof--new regulations should be comprehensive, nondiscretionary, contingent, and cost-effective. — Raghuram G. Rajan

So what are people actually referring to when they talk about "deregulation"? In ordinary usage, the word seems to mean "changing the regulatory structure in a way that I like. — David Graeber

Unlike national markets, which tend to be supported by domestic regulatory and political institutions, global markets are only 'weakly embedded'. There is no global lender of last resort, no global safety net, and of course, no global democracy. In other words, global markets suffer from weak governance, and are therefore prone to instability, inefficiency, and weak popular legitimacy. — Dani Rodrik

Those externalized costs have always included labor. It is only the decline over time of the minimum wage in real dollars that's made the fast food industry possible, along with feedlot agriculture, pharmaceuticals on the farm, pesticides and regulatory forbearance. All these things are part of the answer to the question: Why is that crap so cheap? Our food is dishonestly priced. One of the ways in which it's dishonestly priced is the fact that people are not paid a living wage to process it, to serve it, to grow it, to slaughter it. — Michael Pollan

Skousen's movement (it changed its name from the Freemen Institute to the National Center for Constitutional Studies after militia groups began to use the "freemen" label) persisted. Skousen, claiming to represent the beliefs of the Founding Fathers, called for the abolition of Social Security, farm subsidies, and education and welfare funding; pulling out of the United Nations; and eliminating federal income taxes and most federal regulatory agencies. Skousen's ideas might have died with him, but all that changed when Beck turned The 5,000 Year Leap into his manifesto. Skousen, — Dana Milbank

For those people who are going to tune in strictly for the pyrotechnics, we have better and bigger explosions. That's a prerequisite of any sequel. But in terms of this, what we're really monitoring is watching the gas industry light our institutions, light our regulatory agencies, light our democracy on fire. — Josh Fox

The best approach here if at all possible is to use supervisory and regulatory methods to restrain undue risk-taking and to make sure the system is resilient in case an asset price bubble bursts in the future. — Ben Bernanke

Regulatory fiat cannot create a market at a technologically interdependent interface. And by the same token, regulation and so-called monopoly power rarely prevail at modular interfaces between stages of value-added technology. — Clayton Christensen

Electricity transmission operates on a frequency between 49.7 Hertz and 50.2 Hertz. What I have done is petitioned the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission and squeezed this band to now 49.9 Hertz to 50.1 Hertz. This will contain volatility. — Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia

Creating a regulatory system that reflects the modern-day realities of financial markets is not as difficult as it may appear. — Paul Singer

That the power regimes of heterosexism and phallogocentrism seek to augment themselves through a constant repetition of their logic, their metaphysic, and their naturalized ontologies does not imply that repetition itself ought to be stopped - as if it could be. If repetition is bound to persist as the mechanism of the cultural reproduction of identities, then the crucial question emerges: What kind of subversive repetition might call into question the regulatory practice of identity itself? — Judith Butler

I continue to hear concerns from health professional organizations that dried marijuana is not an approved drug or medicine in Canada. They want clearer guidance on safety and effectiveness and want authorizations to be monitored. That is why I asked Health Canada to consult with provincial and territorial regulatory bodies, companies licensed to produce marijuana and other professional organizations to enhance information-sharing on how doctors and nurse practitioners are authorizing the use of marijuana. — Rona Ambrose

Legislation must be passed which undoes the damage caused by excessive de-regulation. That means reinstalling the regulatory firewalls that were ripped down in 1999. — Bernie Sanders

The goal of federal regulations should be to promote health and safety, but regulatory enforcement must be balanced with common-sense policies and assistance for businesses. — James Lankford

We pursued the wrong policies. George Bush is not on the ballot. Bill Clinton is not on the ballot. Mitt Romney is on the ballot, and Barack Obama is on the ballot. And Mitt Romney is proposing tax reform, regulatory reform, a wise budget strategy and trade. The president has proposed tax increases. — Glenn Hubbard

Intrusive government and layer upon layer of regulatory red tape. When — Matt Taibbi

Delayed energy projects and regulatory hurdles to domestic oil production not only cost the United States economy billions of dollars and millions of jobs, but they also stand in the way of an elusive goal: true American energy security. — John Hoeven

If you are going to start a regulatory regime from scratch, you'd design it to protect middle-and lower-middle-income people, because the opportunity for them to get ripped off was so high. Instead what we had was a regime where those were the people who were protected the least. — Michael Lewis

I do not recall ever receiving a suggestion, let alone an order, from the White House as to how I should make a regulatory decision. How times have changed. — Russell E. Train

Going public is 18-month process, while an acquisition is a 6-month process. Going public means going under so much scrutiny, regulatory approval, auditing, magnified 10 times. Having the stomach to do that isn't necessarily in my DNA. My DNA is building a product and a service. — Brian Acton

When the commission finds that a pig has entered the parlor, the exercise of its regulatory power does not depend on proof that the pig is obscene. — John Paul Stevens

The government is commonly conceptualized as a business. If it is seen as a service industry, taxes can be seen as payment for services provided to the public. Those services can include protection (by the military, the criminal justice system, and regulatory agencies), adjudication of disputes (by the judiciary and other agencies), social insurance (as in Social Security and Medicare and various "safety nets"), and so on. Under — George Lakoff

My research interests since then have shifted strongly towards the economic and regulatory problems of the financial services industry, and especially of the securities and options exchanges. — Merton Miller

We don't really have any kind of regulatory structure at all. — Barack Obama

So Bush certainly wasn't the greatest, and Obama has not done the job. And he's created a lot of disincentive. He's created a lot of great dissatisfaction. Regulations and regulatory is going through the roof. It's almost impossible to get anything done in the country. — Donald Trump

In response to the recession, the Obama administration chose to emphasize costly, short-term fixes - ineffective stimulus programs, myriad housing programs that went nowhere, and a rush to invest in 'green' companies. As a consequence, uncertainty over policy - particularly over tax and regulatory policy - slowed the recovery. — Glenn Hubbard

So, we're saying, if we can give developers and builders incentives to cut down on the regulatory barriers that are faced in this country, then we might be able to address the needs of affordable housing. — Alphonso Jackson

Financial regulatory reform is one of the top legislative priorities of the Obama Administration. — Valerie Jarrett

We have lost certainty and predictability in the regulatory and tax climate in America, and this is why we're recovering so slowly. — Bob McDonnell

One would think that the record of already existing regulatory agencies is sufficiently eloquent in showing that it is Big Business that does the regulating rather than vice versa . — Paul A. Baran

Every telecomm company is as big a corporate welfare bum as you could ask for. Try to imagine what it would cost at market rates to go around to every house in every town in every country and pay for the right to block traffic and dig up roads and erect poles and string wires and pierce every home with cabling. The regulatory fiat that allows these companies to get their networks up and running is worth hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars.
If phone companies want to operate in the "free market," then let them: the FCC could give them 60 days to get all their rotten copper out of our dirt, or we'll buy it from them at the going scrappage rates. Then, let's hold an auction for the right to be the next big telecomm company, on one condition: in exchange for using the public's rights-of-way, you have to agree to connect us to the people we want to talk to, and vice-versa, as quickly and efficiently as you can. — Cory Doctorow

President Obama has called for economic and political empowerment of women globally. The Equal Futures Partnership promotes removal of policy, legal, and regulatory barriers that hold women back at local, state and national levels. — Lael Brainard

When it comes to solving problems of poverty, impact investing can act as a catalyst, but it is not a silver bullet. Successful businesses serving the poor need more than investment capital. They also need infrastructure to enable effective distribution, strong regulatory systems, access to markets, technical assistance as they scale up, and more — Jacqueline Novogratz

I'm a capitalist by conviction and profession. I believe the best economic system is one that rewards entrepreneurship and risk-taking, maximizes customer choice, uses markets to allocate scarce resources and minimizes the regulatory burden on business. — Gary Hamel

A US firm with a large "government affairs" division dedicated to lobbying politicians in Washington, a Russian company founded by an oligarch with personal friendships in the Kremlin, and an Indian company finding its way through the tangle of decades-old licensing and bureaucratic requirements face drastically different regulatory environments from one another, let alone from a start-up seeking to enter an industry for the first time. — Moises Naim

They're the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and they will not do that. They will not pull the trigger. — Gray Davis

What propels an embryo from one stage to the next-and makes one species different from another-is not a blueprint but rather an enormous autonomous library of the instructions contained within its genome. Each gene does double duty, specifying both a recipe for a protein and a set of regulatory conditions for when and where it should be built. Taken together suites of these IF-THEN genes give cells the power to act as parts of complicated improvisational orchestras. Like real musicians, what they play depends on both their own artistic impulses and what the other members of the orchestra are playing. As we will see in the next chapter, every bit of this process-from the Cellular Big 4 to the combination of regulatory cues-holds as much for development of the brain as it does for the body. — Gary F. Marcus

If even one new drug of the stature of penicillin or digitalis has been unjustifiably banished to a company's back shelf because of exceedingly stringent regulatory requirements, that event will have harmed more people than all the toxicity that has occurred in the history of modern drug development. — William Wardell

I believe that the many administration officials, lawmakers, and regulatory policymakers - and their staffs - who poured a year and a half of prodigious work into the legislation had been guided, knowingly or not, by a simultaneously high-minded and pragmatic sentiment that Woodrow Wilson voiced before he launched the effort that would establish the Federal Reserve System. "We shall deal with our economic system as it is and as it may be modified, not as it might be if we had a clean sheet of paper to write upon; and step by step we shall make it what it should be," Wilson said in his first inaugural address. Wilson's words continued to make good sense a century later. — Ben S. Bernanke

I don't think any foreign Internet company can effectively compete against Chinese companies in the Chinese market. The regulatory environment is so difficult that it's almost impossible for foreigners to have an advantage over locals who have better political connections and who can manipulate the regulatory system much more effectively. — Rebecca MacKinnon

The evolvement of proteolysis as a centrally important regulatory mechanism is a remarkable example for the development of a novel biological concept and the accompanying battles to change paradigms. — Aaron Ciechanover

For far too long the American public and business sector have kept their silence as civil liberties have been whittled away by statutory and regulatory measures. — Bob Barr

There are over 170,000 pages of regulations in Washington, D.C. I want to streamline the rules in the federal government to basically allow businesses to grow without fear of burdensome federal regulations. That's a passion to me, regulatory reform. — Jason T. Smith

Our regulatory bodies strive to create honest dealings, fair trades, and a situation in which no one has an advantage over anyone else. But human beings aren't honest. And all trades are made because one person thinks he's getting the better of the other, and the other person thinks the same. — P. J. O'Rourke

As it stands today we have too many lawyers in government - many of whom are very smart and decent people - but they are not immune from acting like lawyers. Consequently, we have far too much regulatory legislation. Also, what do many lawyers learn in law school? They learn to win by hook or by crook; it doesn't matter how you fight as long as you win. Imagine a roomful of Democratic and Republican lawyers, each with one overriding goal to win, and this certainly helps one understand the distasteful partisan politics that characterizes Congress today. — Ben Carson

Corporations aren't citizens or neighbors or parents. They can't vote or serve in combat. They don't learn the Pledge of Allegiance. They don't have souls. They're revenue machines. I don't have any problem with that. I think it's absurd to lay moral or civic obligations on them. Their only obligations are strategic, and while they can get very complex, at root they're not civic entities. With corporations, I have no problem with government enforcement of statutes and regulatory policy serving a conscience function. — David Foster Wallace

China is a political beast, with the Party at its heart, and the importance of political and regulatory due diligence cannot be overstated. — Jeremy Gordon

There's been so much corruption and so much cronyism in the taxi industry and so much regulatory capture, that if you ask for permission upfront for something that's already legal, you'll never get it. — Travis Kalanick

Global warming may be a 'crisis,' even 'the most pressing environmental problem of our time.' ... Indeed, it may ultimately affect nearly everyone on the planet in some potentially adverse way, and it may be that governments have done too little to address it. It is not a problem, however, that has escaped the attention of policymakers in the Executive and Legislative Branches of our Government, who continue to consider regulatory, legislative, and treaty-based means of addressing global climate change. — John Roberts

We share management's vision that the recent regulatory changes, the large presence of Sprint Nextel in the 2.5 GHz band, and the near-term implementation of 4G systems make Oneida the right company in the right place at the right time. — Peter Schiff

From zoning to labor to food safety to insurance, local food systems daily face a phalanx of regulatory hurdles designed and implemented to police industrial food models but which prejudicially wipe out the antidote: appropriate scaled local food systems. — Joel Salatin

Today, we are announcing that agencies are releasing their final regulatory reform plans, including hundreds of initiatives that will reduce costs, simplify the system, and eliminate redundancy and inconsistency. — Cass Sunstein

The future regulatory arrangements for the newspaper industry need to be done in a much calmer deliberative way, in slower time when we've got beyond this media firestorm. — Thomas Watson Jr.

Smart businesses do not look at labor costs alone anymore. They do look at market access, transportation, telecommunications infrastructure and the education and skill level of the workforce, the development of capital and the regulatory market. — Janet Napolitano

Every new rule, mandate, and regulatory edict is one more obstacle that small business owners, entrepreneurs, and job creators have to swallow. — Marsha Blackburn

Early 2000s, we get Enron, which tells us the books are dirty. And what is our repeated response? We just keep pulling the threads out of the regulatory fabric. — Elizabeth Warren

If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose. Most die within that area, because it's an alpha emitter. The cells on the periphery remain viable. They mutate, and the regulatory genes are damaged. Years later, that person develops cancer. Now, that's true for radioactive iodine, that goes to the thyroid; cesium-137, that goes to the brain and muscles; strontium-90 goes to bone, causing bone cancer and leukemia. — Helen Caldicott

If the power to tax is the power to destroy, the power to regulate is no less so. — Markham Shaw Pyle

Small-business people do not want to have more than 50 employees, because that's when all the regulatory burden of Obamacare kicks in. — Michele Bachmann

For market discipline to constrain risk effectively, financial institutions must be allowed to fail. Under optimal financial regulatory and financial system infrastructures, such a failure would not threaten the overall system. — Henry Paulson

I am pleased to be part of Promontory's steady efforts to assist banks and other financial firms in meeting legal and regulatory obligations and challenges. — Laurence D. Fink

Kafka would surely have been impressed by the twin ambitions of the modern empathetic state: the need to set up hyper-regulatory bodies preventing you from doing anything yourself, while simultaneously endowing lavish pseudo-agencies to hand out leaflets listing a 1-800 number you can dial to order more leaflets. — Mark Steyn

What I've seen around the world is if the regulatory desires are combined with things that affect consumer behavior - such as in Europe, they tax gasoline very heavily - you do get people to move to very fuel efficient cars; trade off bigger vs. smaller cars. — Rick Wagoner

Apple raised $17 billion in a bond offering in 2013. Not to invest in new products or business lines, but to pay a dividend to stockholders. The company is awash with cash, but much of that money is overseas, and there would be a tax charge if it were repatriated to the USA. For many other companies, the tax-favoured status of debt relative to equity encourages financial engineering. Most large multinational companies have corporate and financial structures of mind-blowing complexity. The mechanics of these arrangements, which are mainly directed at tax avoidance or regulatory arbitrage, are understood by only a handful of specialists. Much of the securities issuance undertaken by Goldman Sachs was not 'helping companies to grow' but represented financial engineering of the kind undertaken at Apple. What — John Kay

Intel continues ... to abuse their monopoly, and that's why, around the world, governments and regulatory agencies continue to go after them. — Hector Ruiz

Without adjustments to our economic system and regulatory policies, we may be in for an extended period of social turmoil. — Jerry Kaplan

When regulations on the housing industry are reasonable, the cost of housing goes down. Regulatory relief is needed to make housing more affordable to more Americans. — Randy Neugebauer

Conservatives ... are so opposed to government regulations that they are skeptical of anyone who identifies a problem that requires regulatory solutions - and they are inherently accepting of those who downplay such problems. — Joseph J. Romm

We have to build the capacity of our institutions, employees and workers. Our regulatory environment has not been encouraging to research, innovation and enterprise. — Narendra Modi

We actually are waiting for more people to be killed before we can do something that makes sense. We don't kill enough people in aviation to merit regulatory changes. — Deborah Hersman

It is not human nature which can assign the variable limits necessary to our needs. They are thus unlimited so far as they depend on the individual alone. Irrespective of any external regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss. — Emile Durkheim

The comparison to the old world is something to get excited about. We have the potential for more choice and innovation, and a different regulatory environment that doesn't place as much weight on economic regulations of terms and conditions. — Michael K. Powell

We are pleased with the very positive reception our offer has received, and are confident that progress is being made towards establishing the regulatory framework for the offer. — Lakshmi Mittal

Some regulatory phenomenon could drive us to gain weight, which would in turn cause a positive energy balance - and thus overeating and/or sedentary behavior. — Gary Taubes

At this time we should take a brife moment to mention quacks: alternative therapists who sell vitamins and homeopathy sugar pills [the latter of which, by definition, contain no active ingredients], which perform no better than placebo in fair tests, and who use even cruder marketing tricks than the ones described in this book. In these people profit at all from the justified anger that people feel towards the pharmaceutical industry, then it comes at the expense of genuinely constructive activity. Selling ineffective sugar pills is not a meaningful policy response to the regulatory failure we have seen in this book — Ben Goldacre

The concept of industry domination of regulatory agencies was well known and documented in the literature by the 1960s. — Nick Johnson

History has shown that there are very few mechanisms as effective at maintaining the status quo as a set of institutionalized regulations. Once set in regulatory concrete, reconsideration of the basic underlying assumptions is very difficult. While it will be an uphill fight to re-examine the basic underlying assumptions of any law or administrative rule, it is clearly not impossible. It will just take longer than if not so well institutionalized. — Paul Baran

America is sinking under the crushing weight of the ever-expanding regulatory state. This burden threatens to disrupt our recovery, hamper long-term growth, undermine our global competitiveness, and suffocate the entrepreneurial spirit so vital to America's success. — Tom J. Donohue

We've already seen the federal government stretch their regulatory tentacles into our homes and determine what kind of light bulbs we have to use. — Marsha Blackburn

Regulatory failings mean that the cost of breaking the law is far below that of obeying it - businesses are happier to pay fines than to control pollution. — Ma Jun

The motivation should come from regulatory enforcement, but enforcement is weak, and environmental litigation is near to impossible. So there's an urgent need for extensive public participation to generate another kind of motivation. — Ma Jun

Blight has descended on our regulatory agencies
and a dry rot, beginning in Washington, is seeping into every corner of America
in the payola mentality, the expense account way of life, the confusion between what is legal and what is right. — John F. Kennedy

[A]lthough there are many arguments that strongly support the establishment of a national securities regulator in Canada, it is not entirely clear that the regulatory response to the ABCP meltdown is among them. — Paul Halpern

San Francisco businesses face many challenges, including high rents, regulatory burdens, and the rising cost of workers compensation insurance and employee health plans. — Gavin Newsom

What we're going to do is redouble our efforts on financial regulatory reform, because that has in it sensible things like say on pay, so at least the shareholders are minding the store, sensible things like saying, for heaven's sakes, compensation should be focused on - on long term, so that you don't have rewards for short-term risk-taking. — Christina Romer

With the discovery of vast new North American energy resources - thanks to the application of proven technologies like hydraulic fracturing and commonsense regulatory processes on non-federal lands - the U.S. government should no longer be in the business of spending taxpayer dollars on risky, exotic energy projects. — Fred Upton

All of us are going to have to find ways to do things more efficiently, find ways to get our costs more in line, and do it in a time of higher regulatory and environmental standards. — N. Murray Edwards

For too long, the system has been biased in favor of oil and gas developers: sweetheart lease deals, generous subsidies and a regulatory process so slanted in favor of Big Oil that often permit reviews are simply waived. — Chellie Pingree

You just can't get anything done. You can't get hearings, you can't get legislation, you can't get responses by the regulatory agencies - you can't get anything done. I'm a realist. I don't work harder and harder to get less and less. — Ralph Nader

I think global coordination is tremendously important. I hope we can see this happening through the G20 and through coordination of regulatory regimes around the world. I guess those are the main features of this bill that are important. — Robert F. Engle