Regulation of the Day: School Buses

The ninth in an occasional series that shines a bit of light on the regulatory state.

Today’s Regulation of the Day comes to us from the Department of Transportation ($70.3 billion 2009 budget, 58,622 employees).

Before any regulation goes into effect, the proposal is released to the public for a comment period. Anyone who is interested can write the agency and say why they think the new rule is a good or a bad idea. CEI does this regularly, by the way (see here and here).

Agencies are legally obliged to take all comments into account before going forward with the rule. And sometimes, they really do listen.

Because of overwhelmingly negative comments, DOT has decided not to go forward with a proposed change to federal school bus policy (isn’t education supposed to be a local issue?).

Read all about it on page 30,499 of the 2009 Federal Register.