Now is not the time to saddle business with overly restrictive air regulations

West Michigan is poised to weather the predicted national economic decline this year, unless the government gets in the way.

Our manufacturing sector drives an enormous amount of our economy. We are home to companies that lead the world in creating furniture, medical devices, biopharmaceuticals, metals and more. These businesses strive to be good neighbors. They invest in the latest technologies for their manufacturing processes; they also invest in technologies and equipment to ensure that their operations produce as little pollution as possible.

But that is not good enough for regulators in Washington, D.C. Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a proposal to ratchet up the regulations on a pollutant called PM2.5, regulated under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). Many parts of the country are still trying to come into compliance with the last revision of these standards and to make changes now would put these areas, and the industries that are mandated to reduce emissions further, into a precarious financial position, threatening their long-term viability.

If an area is unable to reach the EPA’s lofty PM2.5 standards, it is designated as a “nonattainment area” leading to burden- some permitting requirements and expensive facility retrofits.

West Michigan is also dealing with certain counties being bumped up to “moderate nonattainment designation” for transport ozone that isn’t being produced in Michigan. Much of this pollution is travelling from areas outside of the state, such as Chicago, Gary and Milwaukee, but these potential new regulations from the EPA will be targeted on counties that have no say in pollution reduction, having little to no impact on the nonattainment zone.

Noncompliance in both of these nonattainment zones could plunge Michigan communities into a regulatory quagmire, and that is something we cannot afford.

To add insult to injury, these new rules are unnecessary. The EPA’s own data shows that the United States has reduced six common pollutants regulated under NAAQS — including PM2.5 — by 78 percent between 1970 and 2020. We certainly want to continue making improvements to our air quality, but we need to strike a commonsense balance so that regulations don’t put the brakes on our economic growth.

These rules are also coming at a time when Michigan’s state legislature would like to go beyond federal regulations with no “clear and convincing” reasoning. This not only sends the message that Michigan is not open for business, but that regulators do not need to provide sound, scientific and thoughtful reasoning behind pollution reduction. Instead, they should focus on moving quickly with arbitrary, unattainable and expensive rules.

These impacts don’t happen in a vacuum. The regulatory environment directly impacts a business’s ability to succeed.

Businesses are facing uncertainty and the increasing amount of burdensome rules and legislation will negatively impact their operations, increasing costs that will pass down to the consumer and reducing the wages that could go directly to employees.

Every day, we look at economic trends: how is inflation affecting consumer, industry and manufacturing spending? Our members and their customers are finally starting to emerge from the financial hole wrought by the pandemic. But the EPA’s misguided insistence on revising the PM2.5 rule and increasing ozone nonattainment areas are stifling the efforts we are making to help our region flourish. We instead need to create certainty for businesses when it comes to setting regulatory policy that can often have a big impact on communities, investment and industry.

We’re urging the EPA and our government not to threaten the success of businesses along with our area’s world-class manufacturing industry. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in infrastructure upgrades and jump start new business opportunities, but more stringent and arbitrary rules will be a major roadblock to all that work. Our air is cleaner than it has been in decades, and our manufacturers have helped get us there through innovations that make their processes cleaner and more sustainable. Now is not the time for bureaucrats to levy punitive and unnecessary new rules on Michigan entrepreneurs.