On the recordFebruary 17, 2011
The U.S. cement industry is among the most regulated in the world and has long served not only as a responsible steward of the environment, but as a provider of high-wage family jobs in communities throughout this country. It competes against imported Asian cement, which has the advantage of low wages and nonexistent environmental regulations. Yet the EPA has plans to drop a bomb of job-killing, ineffective regulations on this industry which, by the EPA's own admission, could result in an increase in global mercury pollution as production moves to those countries with no air quality standards. Specifically, in September of 2010, EPA finalized the Portland Cement National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants, NESHAP, a rule based on questionable science. The U.S. cement industry provides more than 15,000 high-wage jobs with an average compensation of $75,000 per year, and, along with allied industries, accounts for nearly $27.5 billion of the gross domestic product. Due to the recession, the cement industry has already lost over 4,000 jobs. This bad rule threatens to close another 18 of the 97 cement plants nationwide and throw another 1,800 Americans out of good-paying private sector jobs.
