The Biden administration is in the process of putting in place a rule one manufacturing leader says could kill off a million manufacturing jobs.
Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, made his prediction in an advance copy of his annual state of manufacturing address, according to Fox Business.
The remarks said that while Biden claims to support manufacturers, “what he won’t tell you is that his federal agencies are, at this very moment, working to undermine his manufacturing legacy — those agencies are undermining your success.
“In fact, just two weeks ago, they announced one big regulation that could wipe out up to 1 million jobs. It’s referred to as National Ambient Air Quality Standards or PM2.5,” he said.
“It’s not the name that matters. It’s the consequences. It’s stricter than rules they have even in Europe,” he wrote.
“And in vast portions of the country, we will barely be able to build new manufacturing facilities as a result,” Timmons said.
The rule imposes a stricter air quality standard on what’s known as fine particle pollution.
“Michigan would be one of the states hit hardest. And if new manufacturing investments dry up, that spills over to the rest of the state economy,” Timmons said.
“It affects the family trying to sell their home, the teacher hoping for new investments in schools, the students looking for job opportunities here in the state,” Timmons said
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Timmons said that forcing manufacturers to move to other nations defeats the goal of clean air rules.
“And to what end? You cannot solve the world’s environmental challenges by driving manufacturing investment away from the United States to countries with lower standards,” he said.
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, one proposed Energy Department rule about what kind of electric distribution transformers are allowed to be made could impact Pennsylvania-based Butler Works, owned by Cleveland-Cliffs.
“I want the Butler County community to know this: we will fight like hell to protect the 1,300 jobs at the Butler Works plant,” Republican Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania said.
In an Op-Ed in the Detroit News, Fay Beydoun, CEO of Michigan-based Global Link International, said there’s a contradiction between what Biden says he wants from the manufacturing sector and what his agencies are doing to it.
“The costs of federal regulations fall heaviest on the smallest manufacturers, which shoulder an average of $50,000 per employee in regulatory burden. For a manufacturer with 20 employees, that is $1 million in compliance costs before the business even turns on its lights,” he wrote.
“Today, Michigan manufacturers are tracking almost 100 rules across the federal bureaucracy that would impact their bottom lines,” he wrote.
“At the same time the president and Congress are encouraging manufacturers to invest and grow, the total cost of these rules creates tremendous uncertainty.”
