[Removing lead from gasoline] threatens the jobs of the 14 million Americans directly dependent and the 29 million Americans indirectly dependent on the petrochemical industry for employment.
[Brown lung is] an allergy. If you are exposed to cotton dust and develop any kind of respiratory problem, it can be corrected providing you have not been exposed for a very very long period.
On Friday, June 23, the world ended for some U.S. textile firms.
Our production could be increased but we are severely hampered by overzealous Federal inspectors and voluminous and continually multiplying Federal laws and regulations.
But, I must say, that training and education in themselves are no panacea for the industry’s accident problem. What, in addition must be done is to find a way to motivate people to think and work safely. All miners must want to observe safety laws, rules, and regulations, and perform their daily task without endangering themselves and their fellow workers.
The coal industry accepts its responsibilities for the safe operation of its mines and where regulation achieves greater safety, we have no quarrel. But, where it does not enhance safety, we believe that Federal regulation is misplaced and counterproductive. Rigid, inflexible, thoughtless regulation, no matter how well intended, can have a plainly detrimental effect on achieving a safe, efficient, and productive coal industry. It’s the overregulation and enforcement of the Act as an end in itself that has caused the coal industry most of its problems…
[Only one percent of cotton workers] have a reaction to cotton dust. The problem is grossly exaggerated. There has not been a known death from byssinosis. There are no autopsy findings that prove the existence of byssinosis in an individual. There are subjective symptoms which the patients express that sometimes result from bronchitis, emphysema or excessive smoking.
At its worst, the Clean Air Act speaks of the potential wholesale shutdown of industrial facilities should a state not be able to attain the standards by set dates -- 1982 and 1987. At its best, the act will require the imposition of new and expensive technology and will severely limit the location of new industry in major metropolitan areas.
I would hope we would never get into a position that we’d have to tell our customers they can’t buy certain cars because of the mileage requirements.
With the Environmental Protection Agency laws, we’d either have to shut down or break the law, and we aren’t going to break the law.
