Toxics Quotes

The [vinyl chloride standard would be the] tip of an enormous regulatory iceberg….If government allows workers to be exposed to the gas, some of them may die. If it eliminates all exposure a valuable industry may disappear.

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Paul H. Weaver, Fortune Magazine.

It is the firm opinion of technical experts in our engineering and production departments that we could not continue to operate our plants and contemporaneously meet the proposed OSHA standard of ‘no detectable level’ of vinyl chloride.

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Hooker Chemical and Plastics Corporation representative, Raymond J. Abramowitz.

[M]uch of the scientific data obtained by researchers to date is inconclusive….misplaced reliance on mere suspicions rather than proven data, or precipitous and emotional reaction to such incomplete information…could lead to major economic consequences.

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Jerome Heckman, general counsel of the Society of the Plastics Industry.

[N]one [of our members] could operate if the NIOSH [vinyl chloride] Work Standard were imposed upon the industry.

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The Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI).

[Anything beneath the level of 50 parts per million parts per million (ppm) is] uneconomic and all but impossible to meet...[it would be] simply a requirement for liquidation of a major industry.

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The Manufacturing Chemists’ Association (MCA).

Rulemaking should not be based on conditions that existed in the past, but should be based on conditions as they exist now...we believe a temporary emergency standard would result in polarization rather than constructive definition of areas of concern and constructive problem solving.

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Dow Chemical’s representative at the initial fact-finding hearing.

I am sure that there is no one here who would wish to increase the margin of safety in our dust standards so far beyond the point at which employee health is adequately protected that, as a consequence, we deprive of their means of livelihood the very persons whom we are trying to benefit. This would be an action foolish as it is absurd.

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Guy Gabrielson, Jr. President of Nicolet Industries, Incorporated
409603/16/1972 | Full Details | Law(s): OSHA's Asbestos Standard

In summary, then, the proposed regulation could have a very serious adverse impact on my company, an impact which cannot be justified by any demonstrable benefit to our employees, to the employees of our customers, or to the general public.

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Guy Gabrielson, Jr. President of Nicolet Industries, Incorporated
409903/16/1972 | Full Details | Law(s): OSHA's Asbestos Standard

Achieving a standard of [5 fibers] will cost millions of dollars and cause a significant number of American jobs to be shifted to foreign workers. Requiring a more stringent standard and requiring unnecessarily frightening labels can have a catastrophic effects on the very people OSHA’s and the industry are attempting to protect, without really solving the human problem.

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J.B. Jobe, Executive vice president of Johns-Manville Corporation, the largest asbestos mining company in the world.
408903/16/1972 | Full Details | Law(s): OSHA's Asbestos Standard

With no scientifically credible evidence to prove the need for such a low standard of 2 fibers per cc, it would be nothing less than complete social irresponsibility [to issue this standard].

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Henry B. Moreno, Senior Operating Vice president for John-Manville, the largest asbestos mining company in the world.
409203/16/1972 | Full Details | Law(s): OSHA's Asbestos Standard

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