Oh no, the government is not doing something… so someone can turn it into a business or start a nonprofit or academia can do something useful.
And government resources can help other more critical projects.
1. The trust of the public. (This is essential for certifications.)
2. The ability to borrow at the lowest interest rate. (This is mainly due to the above.)
That makes spending to organize or coordinate the industry and the public a natural government activity.
Even the empire had Imperial Bureau of Standards.
Poor analogy.
Not sure why a long running and effective program needs government to borrow money, especially if industry finds the program valuable (enough to fund).
I’m fine with government starting programs like this, but think they should eventually be divested and run as self sufficient organizations and not constantly be a drain on the taxpayer.
If anything, distrust of government is nearly a core value inherent to being an American, again - regardless of which side you're on. Stonewall, George Floyd Protests, and Jan 6 were all protests against government, and they're all progress compared to the past, when these tensions would have instead started armed conflicts, like the anti-government sentiment that started both the revolutionary war and the civil war.
Instead of their being one central neutral auditor.
Three things that can all be true:
1. Industry has no incentive to improve per-unit efficiency if it impacts price
2. Government is largely beholden to industry, especially in oligarch America.
3. A government efficiency mandate can be better than nothing.
You are exactly right. Industry can create their own certification scheme with some independent entity, which sets the certification standards. Energy star is not safety relevant, which is the one thing which government arguably should have oversight over.
Because the additional cost is worth it when lives are at stake.
Cost doesn't mean just mean money. Government oversight creates significant friction and there needs to be a very good reason to accept that friction into an industry. Risk to human lives is one of the few things where it is sensible to introduce that friction.
Government are there to prevent friction for its citizens, not for faceless entities.
>Government are there to prevent friction for its citizens, not for faceless entities.
Have you ever tried to get a safety critical system certified by a government authority?
Public safety is an externality. The air and water are externalities.
Private industry can't effectively compete to optimize a cost which is not "priced in". That's the whole point. If you can pollute, damage public safety, et al, it amounts to a free subsidy, you are externalizing costs which should show up in your balance sheet.
It's like people read Ayn Rand, or some cliff notes version of free market capitalism, but don't read any of the deep philosophical economic arguments in the literature, and then parrot slogans around.