While these rules have yet to be enacted, they represent an abrupt about-face from the policies of Mary Peters, the last Secretary of Transportation. In response to a raft of airline horror stories, most notably the 10-hour delay of a Jet Blue flight on Valentine's Day, 2007, Peters convened what came to be called the "Tarmac Delay Task Force." Despite its impressive name, the task force was an a bureaucratic sham of near-Orwellian proportions. Of its 36 members, 34 were either representatives or "allies" of the airline industry; as might be expected, their conclusions were strongly tailored toward maintaining business as usual. Tasked with developing rules to rectify the delay situation, the task force instead took almost a year to develop a set of non-binding recommendations. Even the wording was weak: for example, the report noted that airlines "should make every reasonable effort" to maintain functional bathrooms aboard planes.

A fair part of the problem with the Tarmac Delay Task Force probably lay with Secretary Peters. Over the course of her career at the Arizona Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration, and the US Department of Transportation, she established a strong record of favoring private industry over private citizens. A prime example was her endorsement of plans that would lease federally-funded roads to private corporations, allowing them to charge tolls for usage. While her successor, Ray LaHood, is still something of a mystery, the fact that he has earned the emnity of conservative watchdog groups Club for Growth and Citizens Against Government Waste suggests that he endorses government-funded solutions for infrastructure problems.

Admittedly, the new, improved DOT policy doesn't quite solve the problem. As Kate Hanni, the sole dissenting vote on the Tarmac Delay Task Force, has noted, the new rules don't explicitly levy new fines, nor do they require DOT approval for the airlines' contingency plans. Even Hanni's dissent, however, doesn't dim the importance of this moment. Rather than relying on industry to police itself, the federal government has signaled a willingness to take the reins of commercial regulation. If this policy shift continues, the consequences could be amazing. Lead-free toys, E. coli-free tomatoes and salmonella-free peanut butter could be right around the corner!