The president of Stanford University, Gerhard Casper, has quantified how much "irrational red tape" due to "excessive government regulation" is costing his school. Using "extremely conservative accounting" and not including any capital costs, he has put the figure at $21 million a year.

Here are some of his horror stories:

• To install some combustibles in a laboratory, Stanford had to spend $600,000 to comply with government regulations

• Regulations covering the use of a one-pint bottle of alcohol used in a university lab fall under six agency jurisdictions -- the air quality management district, sewer district, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, the local fire department, the county environmental health department and the state hazardous waste agency.

• State regulations require that lab containers carry a special label itemizing six specific pieces of technical information -- even if the chemical might be in its original container and labeled by the manufacturer.

• The Environmental Protection Agency alone has imposed $460,000 in fines on the university, $235,000 in state administrative costs and $300,000 in contributions to private environmental groups.

That's money, Casper points out, that might have gone to scholarships or lowering tuition costs.