Posted on 02/16/2005 10:15:17 AM PST by Hillarys Gate Cult
Robert Stec would like to help clean up the nation's dirty air, but at $1 million a plant to install air-pollution control technology, it would be cheaper for him to move his furniture manufacturing business overseas.
"What good is fresh air if you have a lot of unemployed people breathing it?" asks Stec, president and CEO of Lexington Home Brands. The North Carolina furniture maker employs 1,700 workers at three plants, including one that's in a county with air pollution problems.
"Domestic manufacturing is at a cost disadvantage anyway, so when you lay on all this extra environmental stuff … it becomes the straw that breaks the camel's back," Stec said.
Mayors and economic development officials say Stec's company is one of a growing number of businesses that are not inclined to expand or open new plants in areas cited by the federal government as having too much smog-causing ozone or microscopic soot.
They consider the costs and permits required to operate in those places called "non-attainment zones" because they have not achieved acceptable pollution levels far too burdensome.
"We're taken off of the look list," said Ted vonCannon, president of the Metropolitan Development Board in Birmingham, Ala. "Most of the time, we'll be dismissed right out of hand."
This conflict between jobs and clean air has gained attention as lawmakers consider President Bush's air-pollution plan, which has failed to pass Congress for three years. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee planned to take it up Wednesday but postponed action for two more weeks to allow for more negotiation.
Democrats insisted that the bill, which would revise the Clean Air Act to set caps on industrial emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury, must also limit carbon dioxide, the chief gas scientists blame for global warming.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
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