The unfortunate truth is that
regulations exist because without such measures people will cut corners and
take chances that make no bloody sense, even if those behaviors have no real
chance of increasing their personal wealth. So as much as we would all like to
avoid government interference in business operations that chokes off trade and
curtails personal freedom, whether that involves increased tax incentives for
small business start-ups or legalization of certain controversial agricultural
products, I think we can all agree that FAA regulations that prevent passenger
aircraft from catching fire and exploding in mid-air are probably worth keeping…
Unfortunately, as a story
from the Associated Press last week makes clear, not everyone in our current
Administration understands this principle. It seems that under certain
conditions lithium-ion batteries can self-ignite, which is generally not a good
thing on an airliner carrying hundreds (or thousands) of gallons of highly flammable,
potentially explosive fuel. Over the past few years three cargo aircraft have
experienced such fires (and have been destroyed in flight), and the UN agency
that deals with international flight safety has been trying to get all of the
nations that have airlines to adopt safety regulations about transporting these
batteries by air. One might think that this sort of common-sense measure would
appeal to both the people who own airplanes and the people who fly on them, and
so far it has, but that doesn’t consider the people who make lithium-ion
batteries…
Sure enough, the battery
industry has been lobbying to prevent exactly this sort of regulation, and the
current business-friendly government in Washington has placed a freeze on this
and all other new safety regulations pending additional study of their effect
on business. Apparently, they are arguing that people in remote areas, such as
the Alaskan back country, would be unable to get the batteries they need if
this regulation was applied to all flights. They also seem to be blaming the
Chinese, whom they claim manufacture sub-standard batteries and avoid the
existing safety regulations, even though neither of these claims have any
relationship with reality…
Now, the truth is, I have no
idea how often the need for lithium-ion rechargeable batteries becomes so acute
(and so immediate) that it isn’t possible to ship them using surface
transportation, let alone cargo aircraft, and requires that large loads of batteries
arrive by the first and fastest mode of transportation. I am dubious about how
often, or even whether, such a spike in demand is more important than the
safety of hundreds of innocent passengers, not to mention the potential loss of
airliners that can easily cost hundreds of millions of dollars in their own
right. It’s also not clear to me how the battery lobby has been able to push
its agenda past that of the airline lobby and the consumer protection lobby…
I can’t tell you if the
current Administration in Washington will actually be able to make America
great again; I’m no expert on politics or economics, and I think the country is
pretty great as it is. What I can tell you with complete certainty is that I’m
not going to be purchasing tickets on any airline that is still accepting loads
of rechargeable batteries as air freight on passenger flights, and that if I
had any stock in any airlines that did this I would be raising every possible
kind of stockholder protest right now. And if I was in charge of running an
airline, any airline, I’d make absolutely certain that we stopped carrying such
cargoes, no matter how much the battery companies were willing to pay. Before
things get any worse…
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