The Evolving Federal Approach to Private Legislation and the Twilight of Government

Chris Sagers, Cleveland State University - Cleveland-Marshall College of Law

9/19/2008
(Original Publish Date: 10/26/2004)

Among the most significant behaviors in the United States today is one of the least known and least understood: private regulatory conduct, commonly called standard setting. The federal government has a policy of sorts to address this phenomenon, which has gradually evolved throughout the past century. That policy, however, is a complex, highly disaggregated collection of tenuously connected initiatives, sometimes at cross-purposes with one another. Both for this reason and because standard setting itself remains a seriously undertheorized phenomenon, the federal approach contains certain problems. It is one goal of this paper to piece together the variety of relevant policy instruments to see how they might work together, to provide some sorely needed theoretical consideration, and to consider what might be good or not so good about the situation.