In May and June, I posted about an EPA video contest called “Rulemaking Matters!” in which contestants could send in videos explaining why federal regulations are important.
The libertarians at Reason.tv submitted their own videos, explaining how burdensome federal regulations were, and now bureaucrats typically care little about ordinary Americans. See Reason.tv: Federal Regulations and You – Partners in Democracy and Reason.tv: Rulemaking Matters!
Here’s one of the videos from Reason:
The contest ended in June, and yet there’s still no winner announced. Instead, just this stale promise to pick a winner in June:
The E-Rulemaking Program and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Regulatory and Policy Management (EPA) are reviewing entries now and plan to announce decisions in June. Should a winning video be selected, it will be posted on Regulations.gov as well as the EPA Web site. If eligible, the winners will be awarded $2,500, as well.
(The contest had, by the way, over twenty written rules.)
Did no one win? Couldn’t the EPA find enough dull, pinched, starched, crusty, regulation-loving toadies with a cinematic flair to craft a video? No one? Perhaps, they had no submissions that were not parodies (Reason) or self-parodies (dull, pinched, starched, crusty, regulation-loving toadies).
Government’s not even effective enough to find a few people to make propaganda films.
The EPA should have sent someone to Whitewater, Wisconsin — we’ve more than one apologist for the dull, regulatory status quo.