The number one reason US manufacturing has left the US is, and always has been. cheap labor. And the trend has been going on since the 1950s before the EPA and most regulations even existed. There are other factors, but whatever is next has been a distant second to cheap labor.
Maybe the trend is beginning to reverse to some extent due to rising wages in some cheap labor nations. But to pretend that cheap labor has not been the biggest factor in the loss of manufacturing jobs just indicates some have agendas other than dealing with reality.
Based on that kind of thinking and the current "trend" to repatriate business to the USA, I guess we'll have to pass a big immigration bill with amnesty and even a Dream Act. That'll provide us the cheap labor we need...now, who is running a re-election campaign based on an immigration bill?
Or maybe just stop pretending that the use of cheap foreign labor actually saves any costs once all the unemployed and low wage workers in the US receive their government welfare and low wage subsidies.
The pretend ‘savings’ are being paid for elsewhere.