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Show You wouldn't believe the mail we get. The Environmental Environ-mental News, press release of the EPA, arrives regularly. regu-larly. In fact, we get two or three a day some days. -0- One we got last weeknoti-fies weeknoti-fies us that EPA plans to review its current sulfur dioxide (S02) standard for new and modified coal-fired power plants. This review may result in an EPA proposal pro-posal to tighten the present standard. The release goes on in detail de-tail for two typewritten (single -spaced) pages. A public hearing in North Carolina Car-olina is scheduled May 25 and 26. -0- Now EPA controls are already al-ready so stringent that it requires anywhere from five to ten years just to cut the red tape for a new coal-f coal-f ired power plant. And they want to toughen the stand-dards? stand-dards? -0- In another release they tell us they've published a list of 30,000 chemicals thatmay be subject to the reporting requirements of the new toxic substances control act. All chemical manufacturers will have to notify EPA if they m anufacture a chemical that appears on the list. Now get this. The report says, "In addition, they (the m anufacturer) will have to tell EPA if they manufacture a chemical that does not appear ap-pear on the list." Tons of paperwork! Miles of red tape! One person in ten hired by private industry is hired to fill out bureaucratic forms. Forms in duplicate, triplicate, quadruplicate. And who pays for all this paperwork? You, the consumer. con-sumer. Every expense to private pri-vate industry must be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices. If they dont pass it on, they dont stay in business. -0- Weve all read lots about EE's (Environmental Impact Statements), but have you ever thought about what they cost? Well, put this under your pillow. Earth Sciences was required to supply ctrtain information for BLM to write the Alunite EE. To do this the y produced the two-volume, two-volume, 'ISocio -Economic Study" by Lewis and Associates. Asso-ciates. This was followed by a two -volume "Environ -m ental Impact Assessment." Next, Beaver County formed the Alunite Council and produced pro-duced a two -volume edition of "Planning for Growth In Beaver County". The first two were at company expense; ex-pense; the latter at taxpayer expense. -0-, Next came the "Alunite Draft", written by BLM, mostly repeating information supplied in the previous mentioned men-tioned studies. But who got the bill for writing this new statement? Alumet, of course, and the tab was over $300,000.00., Now the final statement is being prepared and printed. The tab for that is reportedly $700,000.00. Who gets it? Alumet, of course. -0- Alumet filed suit on the draft statement to recover all costs of the draft state -m ent not directly related to mining and processing alunite. alu-nite. This would include all socio-economic studies and environmental require -m ents. Now we expect another hassle over the $700,000.00, though the judge ordered BLM to proceed with the draft statement after the Alumet put the cash in escrow. es-crow. -0- Now if our figures are correct, cor-rect, the EE will cost Alumet Alu-met over $1,000,000.00 (one million) dollars. This alone could be the breaking point on many projects. -0- Maybe another dollar on a $460-500 dollar itemdoesnt amount to much. Somehow, while the percentages maybe the same when you're talking m illions instead of hundreds we dont believe even National Steel can shake off . a miUion dollars lightly. (Continued on Page 2) i HERE'S MORE ABOUT Just Between Now the actual printing costs of all these books is only a few thousand dollars. The restofthecostthenmust be government charges to private enterprise for writing writ-ing the EES by BLM employees, employ-ees, paid with tax monies. The company not only has to pay somebody to do the research re-search and write the original information, but they are charged again when BLM rewrites re-writes the same information in the draft statement, and then again in the final draft. -0- Why should private industry indus-try pay government employees employ-ees for duplication of effort? In this case, a quadrupled effort! Who benefits from this EE? Certainly it's not the company! It's not the taxpayer! tax-payer! It's not the consumer! It seems the governmental bureaucracies and the bureaucrats bu-reaucrats are the only beneficiaries bene-ficiaries of these elaborate statements. Why, then, not pay the tab out of the agencies budget? After all, if they weren't writing an EE they probably wouldn't be doing anything. In truth what have they really done, but spend a million mil-lion dollars? |