A Plea to Congress

Posted: 01/25/12 at 10:04 PM

By Lawrence D. Sloan, SOCMA President & CEO -

Last night, we heard President Obama wax eloquently about the greatness of America. It was a rather inspirational speech, though it lacked on specifics. I was heartened, however, to hear that the President “appears” bullish on U.S. manufacturing. He referenced “an America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs,” and “an economy built to last.” That all sounds great on paper, but how Congress will accomplish anything meaningful in what is notoriously a lame duck year for our legislative branch is the big question.

Our political machine is stuck in low gear. Both sides of the aisle are locked in partisan bickering which has resulted in their lowest ratings in decades. Does Congress have the fortitude to take action and begin to heal the American psyche? I’m not so sure at this point.

Obama references that American manufacturers are hiring workers again and creating new jobs for the first time in more than a decade. Technically that is true, but the pace is too slow to make a significant dent in our unemployment rate, still stuck at...

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Tonight’s State of the Union (or Campaign) Address

Posted: 01/24/12 at 12:18 PM

By Bill Allmond, SOCMA Vice President of Government and Public Relations -

Realizing that most of his domestic priorities have no chance of being approved this year, President Obama’s third State of the Union Address tonight should sound more like a campaign speech than a Congressional work order. His theme will be “a blueprint for an economy that is built to last.” What does this mean for specialty, batch, and custom chemical manufacturers? Republicans expect the president to propose much of the same—more regulations and higher taxes—which they say have made our economy worse, not better.

President Obama will focus some of his address on improving manufacturing, such as tax breaks for companies that create jobs here at home. At first blush, this seems ironic given his January 18 decision to nix construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which many analysts say would have created tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs.
I will be listening for what the president says (or doesn’t say) about the following issues of importance to specialty, batch, and custom chemical manufacturing:

• Taxes.  The presi...
  
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DHS Assessment Faults CFATS Implementation, Not Standards

Posted: 01/19/12 at 1:41 PM

By Alexis Rudakewych, SOCMA Government Relations Manager -

Note: SOCMA’s policy experts frequently blog for member companies and other publications outside of SOCMA to share their insights on issues that affect the specialty chemical industry. Recently, Alexis Rudakewych wrote the following blog for SOCMA member ADT.

On December 21, Fox News obtained a copy of an internal memo by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) evaluating the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program. While copies of the memo have not been circulated beyond Fox News, it reportedly identifies significant shortfalls in DHS’s progress of reaching compliance and a number of human resource problems slowing its implementation.

The process of approving site security plans has been taking longer than anyone involved -- including DHS, Congress and industry -- would have liked. In the year that I have been managing security issues for SOCMA, I have worked with no less than four Directors or...

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