Say Anything Blog

In a vote yesterday that, not surprisingly, didn’t get reported by the fawning North Dakota media Rep. Pomeroy helped pass a jobs-killing bill foisting new regulations on the chemical industry.  These regulations have dire implications for agriculture jobs, with the Farm Bureau saying it “could have a devastating impact on American agriculture.”

And with national unemployment at 10.2%, this is hardly the time for burdensome new regulations with questionable motivations.

Nov. 6 (Bloomberg)—The U.S. House passed legislation today opposed by DuPont Co. and other firms that would give the government the authority to force companies to replace chemicals that terrorists could use in attacks with safer alternatives.

The measure, approved 230-193, would make permanent the homeland security secretary’s power to oversee security practices at chemical plants. The legislation also proposes that Congress approve $900 million from 2011 to 2013 to fund chemical-plant security.

Congress in 2006 passed a law giving this oversight to the homeland security secretary in response to post-Sept. 11 fears that terrorists could steal dangerous chemicals or target the plants themselves. Lawmakers made the secretary’s power temporary because they couldn’t reach a compromise on permanent standards.

Chemical-industry lobbyists say that letting the secretary mandate substitutions in chemicals and manufacturing processes, as the House measure would do, could cause shortages of some products.

“A particular chemical could be singled out because it’s viewed as bad in one application” although it’s safe when used in other ways, said Marty Durbin, vice president of federal affairs for the American Chemistry Council.

The “chemical industry” sounds nasty, but keep in mind that what we’re talking about here are the companies that make the fertilizers and chemicals that allow our crops to be more substantial, and less prone to being wiped out by disease or insects.  We’re talking about the chemicals that control the spread of diseases like West Nile through insects.  We’re talking about products and services that make our lives easier and simpler.

After 9/11, we did a lot of silly things in a panic (I would say that the creation of the almost entirely redundant Department of Homeland Security was one of them) and I think these regulations are one of the silly things we did.  We all want the country to be safe from terrorism, but not at the expense of giving the government an unrestrained mandate to dictate to us the sort of products we can produce and buy.

Rep. Charlie Dent, ranking Republican member of the House Homeland Security Committe, said in opposition to this bill that “Mandating implementation would result in increased costs, higher consumer prices, and lower crop yields.”  And that nowhere in the bill is the government “required to consider the impact on the local economy and on the local workforce before imposing these unnecessary requirements.”

So ask yourselves: Why is Rep. Pomeroy voting for bills that saddle American industry, particularly the agricultural industry of his home state, with unnecessary requirements?

Because Rep. Pomeroy represents Nancy Pelosi’s interests more than North Dakota’s.