"I’m pretty alert to such problems
these days. Soap doesn’t work. Toilets don’t flush. Clothes washers don’t
clean. Light bulbs don’t illuminate. Refrigerators break too soon. Paint
discolors. Lawmakers have to be hacked. It’s all caused by idiotic
government regulations that are wrecking our lives one consumer product
at a time, all in ways we hardly notice."
How Government Wrecked the Gas
Can
Jeffrey Tucker ·
May 7, 2012
The gas gauge broke. There was no smartphone app to tell me how much was
left, so I ran out. I had to call the local gas station to give me enough
to get on my way. The gruff but lovable attendant arrived in his truck
and started to pour gas in my car’s tank. And pour. And pour.
“Hmmm, I just hate how slow these gas cans are these days,” he grumbled.
“There’s no vent on them.”
That sound of frustration in this guy’s voice was strangely familiar, the
grumble that comes when something that used to work but doesn’t work
anymore, for some odd reason we can’t identify.
I’m pretty alert to such problems these days. Soap doesn’t work. Toilets
don’t flush. Clothes washers don’t clean. Light bulbs don’t illuminate.
Refrigerators break too soon. Paint discolors. Lawmakers have to be
hacked. It’s all caused by idiotic government regulations that are
wrecking our lives one consumer product at a time, all in ways we hardly
notice.
It’s like the barbarian invasions that wrecked Rome, taking away the
gains we’ve made in bettering our lives. It’s the bureaucrats’ way of
reminding market producers and consumers who is in charge.
Surely, the gas can is protected. It’s just a can, for goodness sake. Yet
he was right. This one doesn’t have a vent. Who would make a can without
a vent unless it was done under duress? After all, everyone knows to vent
anything that pours. Otherwise, it doesn’t pour right and is likely to
spill.
It took one quick search. The whole trend began in (wait for it)
California. Regulations began in 2000, with the idea of preventing
spillage. The notion spread and was picked up by the EPA, which is always
looking for new and innovative ways to spread as much human misery as
possible.
An ominous regulatory announcement from the EPA came in 2007: “Starting
with containers manufactured in 2009… it is expected that the new cans
will be built with a simple and inexpensive permeation barrier and new
spouts that close automatically.”
The government never said “no vents.” It abolished them de facto with new
standards that every state had to adopt by 2009. So for the last three
years, you have not been able to buy gas cans that work properly. They
are not permitted to have a separate vent. The top has to close
automatically. There are other silly things now, too, but the biggest
problem is that they do not do well what cans are supposed to
do.
And don’t tell me about spillage. It is far more likely to spill when the
gas is gurgling out in various uneven ways, when one spout has to both
pour and suck in air. That’s when the lawn mower tank becomes suddenly
full without warning, when you are shifting the can this way and that
just to get the stuff out.
There’s also the problem of the exploding can. On hot days, the plastic
models to which this regulation applies can blow up like balloons. When
you release the top, gas flies everywhere, including possibly on a hot
engine. Then the trouble really begins.
Never heard of this rule? You will know about it if you go to the local
store. Most people buy one or two of these items in the course of a
lifetime, so you might otherwise have not encountered this
outrage.
Yet let enough time go by. A whole generation will come to expect these
things to work badly. Then some wise young entrepreneur will have the
bright idea, “Hey, let’s put a hole on the other side so this can work
properly.” But he will never be able to bring it into production. The
government won’t allow it because it is protecting us!
It’s striking to me that the websites and institutions that complain
about government involvement in our lives never mentioned this, at least
not so far as I can tell. The only sites that seem to have discussed this
are the boating forums and the lawn forums. These are the people who use
these cans more than most. The level of anger and vitriol is amazing to
read, and every bit of it is justified.
There is no possible rationale for these kinds of regulations. It can’t
be about emissions really, since the new cans are more likely to result
in spills. It’s as if some bureaucrat were sitting around thinking of
ways to make life worse for everyone, and hit upon this new, cockamamie
rule.
These days, government is always open to a misery-making suggestion. The
notion that public policy would somehow make life better is a relic of
days gone by. It’s as if government has decided to specialize in what it
is best at and adopt a new principle: “Let’s leave social progress to the
private sector; we in the government will concentrate on causing
suffering and regress.”
You are already thinking of hacks. Why not just stab the thing with a
knife and be done with it? If you have to transport the can in the car,
that’s a problem. You need a way to plug the vent with
something.
Some boating forums have suggested drilling a hole and putting a tire
stem in there and using the screw top as the way to close the hole. Great
idea. Just what I wanted to do with my Saturday afternoon, hacking the
gas can to make it work exactly as well as it did three years ago, before
government wrecked it.
You can also buy an old-time metal can. It turns out that special
regulations pertain here, too, and it’s all about the spout, which is not
easy to fill. They are also unusually expensive. I’m not sure that either
of these options is ideal.
It fascinates me to see how these regulations give rise to market-based
workarounds. I’ve elsewhere called this the speak-easy economy. The
government bans something. No one likes the ban. People are determined to
get on with their lives, regardless. They step outside the narrow bounds
of the law.
It wouldn’t surprise me to find, for example, a sudden proliferation of
heavy-duty “water cans” in 1- and 5-gallon sizes, complete with nice
spouts and vents, looking almost exactly like the gas cans you could get
anywhere just a few years ago. How very interesting to discover
this.
Of course, this law-abiding writer would never advocate buying one of
these and using it for some purpose other than what is written on the
package. Doing something like that would show profound disrespect for our
betters in the bureaucracies. And if I did suggest something like that,
there’s no telling the trouble that it would bring down on my
head.
Ask yourself this: If they can wreck such a normal and traditional item
like this, and do it largely under the radar screen, what else have they
mandatorily malfunctioned? How many other things in our daily lives have
been distorted, deformed and destroyed by government
regulations?
If some product annoys you in surprising ways, there’s a good chance that
it is not the invisible hand at work, but rather the regulatory grip that
is squeezing the life out of civilization itself.
http://lfb.org/today/how-government-wrecked-the-gas-can/
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