Mean Bureacracies

This post is based off of an article in the Wall Street Journal, so you might not be able to read the full article, but it was just too good to pass up.  The National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) is upholding a $10,000 fine issued to an Austrian man for "recklessly" flying a drone around the University of Virginia back in 2011 while he was filming the school for a commercial film.  The NTSB ruled that drones used for commercial purposes must follow Federal Aviation Administration rules: “An aircraft is ‘any’ ‘device’ that is ‘used for flight’.  We acknowledge the definitions are as broad as they are clear, but they are clear nonetheless.”  The fact that the  NTSB thinks this is clear is entertaining enough to make this post worthwhile, but it also provides us with a window into the principal-agent problem associated with bureaucracies  that Niskanen hashed out.  Why would the NTSB go out of their way to punish a man for flying around an "aircraft" no bigger than a Frisbee around UVA?  Economically it makes no sense; establishing a precedent that limits the commercial opportunities associated with small drone aircraft certainly isn't beneficial to constituents (and thus their representatives), and it's still unclear just how dangerous these drones are compared to the other crazy things that fly around a college campus or elsewhere.  I think Niskanen would say the NTSB ruled the way they did because the senior bureaucrat of the NTSB was looking to expand the budget and output of his organization and thus increase his own utility.  Adding a whole new responsibility (commercial drone regulation) to his organization requires a higher budget and leads to a higher perceived output, thus increasing the senior bureaucrat's salary, perqs, power, etc.  Personal utility over welfare seems to have dictated an important bureaucracy decision.