Right, the employees would have to be liable to their bosses. Their bosses would have to be answering up the chain, to congress and the president.

Presumably, for a regulatory agency to be held to a deadline, they would need to outline up front (or with reasonable notice) all of the things they would need to know and the inspections they would have to make. Those time tables would have to be defined early on.

This is where the idea breaks down.

    How does a regulator devise a fixed schedule to regulate a novel technology?

    How do you hold government employees accountable without upsetting powerful interests like politicians and unions, or get staffing funded properly on demand?

    How do you even get the government to hold itself accountable on something like this when the DOD can't even *complete a clean audit*?

We'll probably just keep winging it, badly.