And the price we pay is a stagnant economy, loss of manufacturing base, millions unemployed, entire industries wiped out, reduced national security, national sovereignty at risk, loss of freedom, unsustainable increases to our national debt, federal government overreaching, regulations up the wazoo, forced globalization, international bodies interfering in our domestic affairs, and on and on and on until eventually we lose our nation.
That is a requisite for rebuilding industry.
Even more than that, we need secure supplies of raw materials, or ones which can be recycled. Again, industries which suffer from over regulation.
We need economical means of transporting raw materials, feedstocks, refined materials and finished goods, again industries which are rendered more expensive through excessive regulation.
While no one wants to live in a polluted environment, there are reasonable and rational amounts of restriction on pollution and then there are prohibitively expensive limits which are of questionable value to the environment or humans or wildlife, some of which rely on technology that hasn't been invented.
And then, there are the substances regulated, which now include CO2.
In short, our industry has been strangled by our own government.
Add to that trade policies which have us trading with people who have no such encumbrances, and they will be able to produce products far cheaper, even if of the same quality (which they seldom are, but that is another topic for discussion).
Bringing industry back home will have to be done in part by relaxing regulations which make no sense, and by fixing rational standards so regulatory agencies cannot keep moving compliance targets, something which cost a fortune in downtime, materials, refitting, and technology to remain in compliance.
One of the biggest impediments is the EPA.
It is the one single Agency which has done immeasurable damage to American Industry, from the coalfields of West Virginia to Silicon Valley, to the textile mills of the Carolinas to the drilling rigs offshore in the Gulf.
Sure, there are other Federal Agencies which make life more difficult for industry, be they the USFWS, the BLM (Bureau of Land Management), OSHA, and others, but the EPA has been the bludgeon which has either killed industry where it stood or chased it from our borders to where it can produce unencumbered.
We're an inventive lot, we are problem solvers, which has placed America ahead of the world in many things, but those who once dared to try the impossible not only have to overcome the problems and challenges of accomplishing their goals, but have to navigate the morass of Federal Regulation to do so.
As Walt Kelly's Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."