Regulation is now taken for granted, like rules relating to child labor, food safety, transportation safety (including airplanes and school buses), and pollution. Nonetheless, voters (and their representatives) often oppose new fees and taxes for regulatory purposes, as they dispute the need for the programs the charges would fund or claim that the funds would be wastefully spent. Frequently, it is only when the rubber hits the road that people rethink their almost visceral resistance to such charges. The Guadalupe River flooding in the Texas Hill Country on July 4, 2025, resulting in the death of at least 135 people, many of them children attending a summer camp, is a case in point. Only in the aftermath of that event is sufficient attention (slowly) being given to regulatory and policy failures that likely contributed to that area's vulnerability to flash floods--including failures to fund a comprehensive flood warning system, a unified alert system, updated flood mapping, and robust programs to oversee uses within high-risk floodways. Of course, protocols are needed to guard against wasteful public spending, but it is regrettable that recommended regulatory action nowadays is often viewed with deep suspicion and often proposed only after loss of life.
Ellen Sward
Vancouver
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