Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
I am trying to wrap my head around a scenario where Edwards lobbied for loosening design criteria for mine construction and in particular the walls. I can't come up with a scenario that isn't completely outlandish.
Its like Edwards lobbying the AER to not require casing on oil wells. You would never not case a well. Or a structural engineer not using rebar in concrete because the rules say you do not need to. Just ludicrous to even consider.
90% of standards/regulations are things that are just good business practice and the regulation will actually refer to the design standard not set the standard itself.
If you accept that mine wall standards were relaxed due to lobbying, Imperial mines sure won there eh?
If he was to lobby he would need to lobby the technical organization that sets the standard.
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It's actually quite easy to imagine a scenario where the government, prompted by documented warning by the previous owners, contemplated tightening regulations that might have resulted in extra cost to bring the mine in line. Wealthy contributor uses his influence to get the changes scrapped.
It's also not hard to imagine the company found certain provisions of the current act to be onerous - like maybe how often they needed to do inspections or file reports or whatever and lobbied to get them relaxed.
In both cases they would argue it's unnecessary red tape and adds to their costs. In no way would they be deliberately wanting to cause spills like this but there's no question that less oversight is better for business.
Note I used the word 'imagine' here as I have just made up these scenarios - not suggesting either happened. Just helping Fotze wrap his head around some alternatives.