Issues in Safety and Health Regulation.

The article focuses on federal regulation related to health and safety in the U.S. The Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed in 1970 without any systematic discussion of three fundamental issues: (1) how much risk of injury and disease should be removed from the workplace; (2) how necessary it is for the government to intervene to encourage the socially desirable level of risk; and (3) the most efficient mode of governmental intervention. Judging from the near unanimous decisions in both Senate and House, virtually everyone in Congress believed a detailed set of safety and health standards was required to accomplish the legislative goal of reducing occupational hazards to the technologically feasible minimum. As a result, society has been saddled with a law, which, in large part, is of dubious necessity and is inefficiently attempting to do the irrational. Safety and health protection ought to be provided so long as the beneficiaries are willing to pay for it. This criterion is not inhumane or callous. Resources to satisfy human wants are scarce, and if such resources are used to satisfy some wants they cannot be used to satisfy others.