Ponder this: the EPA is so out-of-control that if they provided physical red tape for every regulation they enacted they would not only fail to produce enough tape to keep up but would likely regulate their own red tape factories out of business.
Such is the state of affairs at the Environmental(ism) Protection Agency under the Obama administration, and Congress has stepped in (again) to pass a bill focused on regulating the regulators.
The bill/regulation in question targets America’s cement makers… because if there’s one thing we can all do without, it’s cement!
A bill making its way through Congress would roll back new EPA regulations on cement manufacturers to preserve jobs and help companies avoid expensive equipment upgrades to control emissions.
HR 2681, known as the Cement Sector Regulatory Act, recently passed the House of Representatives. The measure requires the EPA administrator to develop more realistic and achievable regulations within 15 months, supporters say.
In September 2010, the EPA published new performance standards for cement kilns, and last March, it published two additional rules.
The EPA edicts seek to control the material used to heat the kilns the cement factories use to make the cement. As you may have guessed, that’s a pretty integral part of the operation.
It will have in impact on Missouri jobs…
Buzzi Unicem's Festus, Mo., plant will be affected if the new regulations are imposed because its primary fuel is petroleum.
"It will affect us companywide," [Buzzi Unicem environmental engineer Paul] Schell said. "With the recent downturn in the economy, we've already closed one plant and idled others.”
And it couldn’t come at a worse time…
Stricter standards come at a time when cement production in the U.S. has already slowed as a result of the recent recession and sluggish construction industry.
Schell said the Cape Girardeau plant's production is 80 to 90 percent of what it was before the economic downturn. About 175 people work at the Cape Girardeau facility.
Not surprisingly for an environmentalist bureaucratic agency, they juked the stats when it came to determining what and how they would regulate:
"The way the EPA has gone about coming up with these limits: They've looked at the best performing, cleanest cement plants in the country on a pollutant by pollutant basis and set the limit based on that… They've passed limits that not a single cement plant in the U.S. can comply with all of the emissions standards simultaneously."
One cement kiln might be able to meet sulfur dioxide limits but not the nitrogen oxide limits, while another might be able to meet the particulate matter limits but not the mercury limits, Schell said.
But neither the EPA nor the Obama administration would possibly institute choking regulations – on an industry that literally creates the building blocks and foundation of our infrastructure no less – that would devastate companies and cost outrageous sums of money, right?
The EPA itself estimates the Cement Maximum Achievable Control Technology Rule alone will cost $2.2 billion to implement.
$2.2 billion? To forcibly upgrade cement kilns?
But Obama could never be behind this job-killing anti-industry initiative, could he? He’s always on my television saying he’s a free-market-loving job creator.
The Obama administration strongly opposes HR 2681…
Just more proof that not only is the Obama administration killing jobs – right here in the state of Missouri, no less – but that the EPA is running roughshod with their regulation factory of an agency and has completely lost touch with the American people.
The EPA should be dissolved or defunded, but until that miraculous day comes to pass (if ever) bills like HR 2681 are the only hope to keep American companies in business and productivity on life support.
Otherwise leftist environmentalists and liberal bureaucrats will put our whole country on the streets, factory by factory, one industry at a time.
Who is John Galt?
- B.H.
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