Airline manufacturer Boeing’s newest plane, the 787 Dreamliner, is grounded around the world due to concerns over the lithium battery on which it relies. On January 7, a battery caught fire inside a parked Dreamliner in Japan, raising concerns that similar problems may be prevalent in the new planes.

The Federal Aviation Administration, the airline industry’s regulator, relied heavily on data provided by Boeing showing that the lithium batteries “featured redundant safeguards that were essentially foolproof,” the Wall Street Journal reported this morning. And though the airline industry is safer today that it has ever been, the FAA is increasingly relying on airline manufacturers to regulate themselves because it has “neither the budget nor the expertise” to test battery systems and other aircraft features itself:

Such reliance on manufacturers in certifying new planes is the standard approach for the agency, which today oversees the safest airline fleet in history. But barely days after vouching for the jet’s safety, the FAA’s about-face is focusing renewed attention on how cutting-edge aircraft are brought into service. [...]

The aircraft-approval process has long been a give-and-take between manufacturer and regulator, with the two sides collaborating and sharing information. Compared with the industry, the FAA has neither the budget nor the expertise to do extensive testing on its own. Instead, it often designates company teams to do the bulk of the work, with FAA participation and oversight.

Lithium-ion batteries have never before been used in aircraft, but when Boeing developed its new system for use in the Dreamliner, it ultimately “had the lead in certifying the safety and reliability of the batteries,” the Journal reported. After 200,000 hours testing, the system received final approval from the FAA, which never re-evaluated its 2007 decision to approve the battery’s use. And so, last week, Boeing debuted an aircraft featuring never-before-used technology that it seemingly developed, certified, and regulated itself, with the FAA performing only in an “oversight” role.

The FAA isn’t alone. Allowing industries to self-regulate has become an increasingly common practice in an era of crunched budgets and shrinking staff sizes at enforcement agencies. The Department of Energy has considered outsourcing fracking regulations to the natural gas industry, even as concerns about the environmental implications of the practice continue to mount. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has tested food safety reforms that would shift much of the responsibility for regulating poultry to manufacturers. Trial runs of the program found far higher rates of defects in approved poultry products than there were in samples reviewed by government regulators.

In the financial industry, regulatory agencies can’t afford to fill their staffs or enforce regulations, a problem that played an extensive role in the collapse of the housing market. With less oversight and more responsibility, banks rubber-stamped mortgage applications and foreclosure documents, committing fraud, abusing homeowners, and bringing the American economy to the brink of collapse in the process. Lack of oversight and regulation also played an extensive role in interest rate-rigging and money laundering scandals at large banks.

Some responsibility for regulation will inevitably fall to private companies, no matter how well-funded, staffed, and trained regulatory agencies are. But the concerns that have emerged with the Dreamliner are yet another indication that our regulatory agencies need to be fully-funded, and that leaving too much of the regulatory responsibility to private companies is a recipe for disaster for consumers.

This week, defense and aircraft manufacturing giant Boeing announced that it will be closing the Boeing Defense, Space & Security facility in Wichita by the end of 2013, which “means the loss of 2,100 well-paying jobs at its Kansas facility, which was once considered the centerpiece of Wichita’s claim as the air capital of the world.” Boeing will instead be performing the operations that were scheduled for Wichita in San Antonio and Oklahoma City.

Boeing’s decision — which it blames on possible defense cuts that may take place in the future — is devastating to Wichita community, which also includes more than four hundred Boeing suppliers. Local news station Fox 4 covered the closure in a video report. Watch it:

The announcement is particularly shocking given the fact that Boeing had repeatedly promised to keep jobs in Kansas and add many more if it were able to land a $35 billion contract for an aerial tanker. Kansas lawmakers went to bat for the company in early 2011, with Sen. Pat Roberts (R) even calling on “everybody who’s out there tweeting, chirping and Facebooking” to push for the Air Force to grant the tanker contract to Boeing rather than European rival EADS.

The Air Force initially handed the contract to EADS, but reneged after loud protests from Kansas lawmakers. Boeing then went on to promise as many as 7,500 jobs and “an overall economic impact of $390 million” if it were to receive the contract. “Boeing’s chairman sat in my office 22 months ago during that battle and promised me, then-Senator Brownback and Congressman (Todd) Tiahrt that if we won the fight to get the tanker contract back, Boeing would stay in Wichita,” recalled Roberts.

Not only did Kansas lawmakers in Congress heavily lobby on behalf of Boeing to get the contract over its European rival, but state lawmakers also laid out a wide set of incentives “in the form of tax breaks, research dollars, workforce training” and other gifts. In 2007 alone, the legislature gave Boeing $2,175,355 for the IMPACT — Investments in Major Products and Comprehensive Training — program, to train new employees. The company has also benefited from a machinery and equipment property tax exemption, the repeal of the corporation franchise tax, and other benefits.

“Boeing is the poster child for corporate tax incentives. This company has benefited from property tax incentives, sales tax exemptions, infrastructure investments and other tax breaks at every level of government. These incentives were provided in an effort to retain and create thousands of Kansas jobs,” said Wichita Rep. Jim Ward (D) in response to Boeing’s move. “We will be less trusting in the future of corporate promises.” Indeed, the company’s ruthless behavior — promising jobs if the state granted it special treatment and then fleeing for lower costs elsewhere — is a cautionary tale not just to Kansas but every legislature in the country.

The National Labor Relations Board today dropped a complaint against mega-manufacturer Boeing that had been used as a political football by Republicans for months. Of course, the GOP rushed forward to hail this as some sort of win for conservatism.

2012 GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich called it “a victory for South Carolina and all right-to-work states,” while Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) said it is “a victory for American manufacturers, workers and the cause of job creation.”

Ever since the NLRB first filed the complaint, the GOP has mischaracterized it as having something to do with so-called “right-to-work” states, states where workers are allowed to free-ride on union contracts. However, the actual complaint was about whether or not Boeing moved a production line from Washington to South Carolina in retaliation against workers for striking.

It is illegal to shift production in order to retaliate against workers, and Boeing executives, on-tape, pretty clearly said that their motive for moving to South Carolina was to do just that. As Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick wrote, “there is ample precedent for the argument that threatening to move facilities because of strikes is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act. And certainly the NLRB might reasonably have taken a Boeing executive at his word when he told the Seattle Times (on video!) that this was precisely what motivated the relocation.”

However, Boeing and its workers this week completed a new contract, in which the company agreed to build a new line of airplanes in Washington:

About 74 percent supported the contract on Wednesday in a ballot among 31,000 union members, mostly in the Seattle area, who accepted the surprise proposal unveiled last week.

Boeing plans to increase output by 60 percent after four union walkouts since 1989 delayed hundreds of deliveries. Workers were promised that a revamped 737 jet would be built at a current factory near Seattle, and the union requested that the N.L.R.B. retract the complaint filed over a new 787 plant in South Carolina.

The moral of the story is that collective bargaining worked and the workers in Washington will not be unfairly punished by Boeing for exercising their rights. “Both sides were faced with uncertainty and real losses, and the nature of collective bargaining is seizing the moment,” said Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California at Berkeley. “The agreement reached between Boeing and workers in Washington demonstrates that the law that protects workers’ rights is vital to our economy and necessary to enforce,” Rep. George Miller (D-CA) added.

NLRB’s dropping of the complaint doesn’t mean that the initial charge was without merit or that union-busting is any less of a concern. It signals that the workers were able to work through their differences with the company, rendering the complaint unnecessary. Contrary to everything Republicans, at both the federal and state level have been saying for the last two years, collective bargaining is a critical tool to ensure a fair deal for workers, and the case with Boeing reflects that reality.

Last week, Citizens for Tax Justice released a report showing that 30 major corporations have paid no income taxes for the last three years, as they made $160 billion. CTJ looked at 280 companies in the Fortune 500, and found that “while the federal corporate tax code ostensibly requires big corporations to pay a 35 percent corporate income tax rate, on average, the 280 corporations in our study paid only about half that amount.”

In fact, over the last three years, only two industries — retail and health care — paid an effective tax rate of 30 percent or more. And as the Hill noted today, one industry is doing very well when it comes to tax avoidance — defense contractors:

American defense manufacturers pay an average annual tax rate of 17.5 percent, placing them in a class with some of the nation’s least-taxed sectors like information technology, telecommunications, financial services and energy, Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy concluded. [...]

Boeing, which also makes commercial aircraft, came in with the lowest tax rate among defense firms at -1.8 percent; SAIC had the highest at 28.7 percent, according to the report.

Boeing has been outspoken about its desire to see the corporate tax rate cut, even as it pays nothing in taxes. Prominent Republicans like House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) have joined Boeing’s griping about corporate taxes, ignoring that the company doesn’t actually pay them.

Defense contractors have made billions in profits this year, and “so far earnings by defense contractors have yet to see the effects of the end of fighting in Iraq, plans to draw down Afghanistan and expected cuts in defense spending.”

Since the Affordable Care Act passed last week, some of the country’s largest companies have complained about a provision that preserves a federal subsidy they receive for providing retirees with prescription drug coverage, but prevents them from deducting the subsidy from their taxes. Republicans and right-wing media have latched on, claiming health care reform is going to hurt American businesses.

Today, Boeing Co. is the latest corporation to complain, announcing that it expects to take a $150 million tax hit because of the new law:

“Boeing will no longer be able to claim an income tax deduction related to prescription drug benefits provided to retirees and reimbursed under the Medicare Part D retiree drug subsidy,” the company stated in a release. “Although this tax increase does not take effect until 2013, accounting standards require that a deferred income tax asset be written down in the period legislation changing the tax law was enacted.”

An association representing 300 of the largest U.S. corporations is pushing for a repeal of the provision that ends the tax break on the government subsidy, something the Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky called “the worst kind” of taxpayer waste and “the most egregious form of corporate welfare.” These companies will still receive their subsidy, but they’ll no longer be able to take the tax deduction as well (so-called “double dipping“).

But Boeing’s complaint further rings hollow because the industry giant is among the largest U.S. companies that pay the least in corporate taxes. Conservatives complain about the high 35 percent U.S. corporate tax rate, but because of corporate welfare such as the prescription drug deduction, Boeing’s tax rate was just 3.2 percent averaged over the last 4 years and just 0.7 percent averaged from 2002 to 2007. And Boeing’s three-year effective tax rate from 2001-2003 was -18.8 percent.

But also, according to Boeing’s 2009 annual report, the company paid no federal income tax in 2009 and actually received $132 million back from the IRS. And in 2008, Boeing paid just $44 million in federal income taxes while netting $2.7 billion in earnings that year.

Therefore, it’s difficult to take Boeing’s whining seriously. After all, if they had any complaints, they could have aired them back in September when the Senate Finance Committee inserted the provision to end the tax break in the health care reform bill. And even then, the measure won approval from many business interests, with the chairman of Business Roundtable saying “it’s very closely aligned to [our] principles.”