The only way for this kind of issue to be resolved is with regulation and safety standards.

Are you sure that's not what caused the problem in the first place? Unqualified and/or captured regulators who come up with safety standards that are out of touch with how the system needs to work in the real world?

Do regulators come up with SCADA safety standards? I would have assumed it was IEC.

Regulators coming up with engineering standards is pretty rare in general. Usually they incorporate existing professional standards from organizations like SAE, IEEE, IEC, or ISO.