When I worked for Illinois EPA, a very wise woman lawyer named Lisa Merino (who has since passed away) accused me of thinking everything was black and white. I explored this with her as she and I did not agree on an approach to rule making to curb air pollution and she was astounded at my insistence that I had found the right way to approach the situation when I was lacking in experience that she had in droves.

She was right. I had been a criminal prosecutor before my EPA job and that job had trained me to make quick decisions on the right and wrong scale. It helped me do the job to see things as right and wrong even as I also expressed mercy in negotiating sentences for the accused.

As the EPA job continued and I was in charge of several pivotal rule makings, I distinctly detected that rule making was completely grey. Right answers were non-existent until I came up with them through a lot of study and reflection and gathering of intelligence and views from others with differing backgrounds within the environmental agency and outside in the regulated community of industrial sources of pollution.

For 30 years I have likened it this way: Rule making is like being given a jigsaw puzzle with no picture on the box. When you open the box, you find that all of the pieces are grey. That may have been one of my hardest jobs!

Thanks for the progression of your thoughts here.