List the five reasons why the consumer and environmental protection agencies may not be as vulnerable to capture as some critics contend.

What will be an ideal response?

? First, these agencies often enforce laws that impose specific standards in accordance with strict timetables, and so they have relatively little discretion. (The Environmental Protection Agency, for example, is required by law to reduce certain pollutants by a fixed percentage within a stated number of years.)
? Second, the newer agencies, unlike the FDA, usually regulate many different industries and so do not confront a single, unified opponent. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, for example, deals with virtually every industry.
? Third, the very existence of these agencies has helped strengthen the hand of the "public-interest" lobbies that initially demanded their creation.
? Fourth, these lobbies can now call upon many sympathetic allies in the media who will attack agencies thought to have a pro-business bias.
? Finally, it has become easier for groups to use the federal courts to put pressure on the regulatory agencies. These groups do not have to be large or broadly representative of the public; all they need are the services of one or two able lawyers. If the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issues a rule disliked by a chemical company, the company will promptly sue the EPA; if it issues a ruling that pleases the company, the Environmental Defense Fund will sue.