Think about the ubiquitous Environmental Impact Statement. Every time anything is to be built, you need to file that statement. Today, if Dagny were to re-engineer the Rio Norte Line, there would have been at least one environmental study comducted by a politically connected consulting firm before a spade of earth could be turned. That study would have cost a bundle and taken at least a year to perform.
In my #7, your question got me going on another facet of the "disinterested third party" phenomenon. In AS, when people describe themselves as "disinterested" the media assumes (1) They ARE disinterested, and (2) That this renders their opinions worthy of consideration and of respect. This is similar to today's assumption that anyone spouting the liberal line is altruistic, while anyone taking the other side is assumed to have sinister motives.