If you try to make me clean up my pollution, I’m going move my business out of your state – maybe even out of the country. And I’ll take all my jobs with me. So back off!
It’s a threat (usually vacant) that industries have made repeatedly over the decades to try to scare government officials away from imposing common-sense rules to protect our environment.
And now we’re hearing a similar tune from big poultry business interests and other representatives of industrial-style agriculture. The Salisbury, Maryland, based Perdue Farms Inc., the third largest poultry company in the U.S., is fighting hard against the most important legislation in a generation for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay.
The Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act would create legally-binding pollution reduction targets for the Bay area states, increase federal oversight, and threaten federal penalties if states fail to keep their cleanup promises.
Continue reading "A Game of Chinese Chicken With Perdue. Will The Bay Lose?" »