The White House has issued its official Statement of Administration Policy on H.R. 800, the Employee Free Choice Act. The first paragraph:

The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 800, the “Employee Free Choice Act.” H.R. 800 would strip workers of the fundamental democratic right to a supervised private ballot election, interfere with the ability of workers and employers to bargain freely and come to agreement over working terms and conditions, and impose penalties for unfair labor practices only on employers — and not on union organizers — who intimidate workers. If H.R. 800 were presented to the President, he would veto the bill.

The full statement is available here in .pdf format.

Our post on the potential tax consequence of carbon offset gift certificates in Oscar gift bags has drawn a bit of attention in the blogosphere, with the TaxProf and Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit taking note.

Adam Stein, a co-founder of TerraPass, provided a gracious response in the comments section, and in the interest of fairness, we’ll elevate his points here.

First of all, let me say that I’m impressed with the digging you’ve done into the numbers. Most people pay little attention to the underlying economics of carbon reductions, and we at TerraPass always appreciate a good, numbers-based analysis.

The Academy was very well aware of the $600 gift limit. The total cost of the sculpture and carbon came to $575 per recipient.

As you note, the sculpture retails for $650. You’d have to raise the price to about $785 if you also wanted the full 100,000 lbs of CO2 reductions. This figure is close to what the Academy paid, but is obviously a bit higher. Why the discrepancy?

The answer is probably pretty obvious, but you always get a better deal on something when you buy wholesale in bulk. If you’re in the market for 100 glass sculptures and 10 million lbs of CO2, please give us a call. I’m sure we can work something out.

It is quite an attractive sculpture, to be sure.

In a follow-up e-mail, Adam says he doesn’t know the answer to the question as to how the IRS is handling the taxable value of the carbon certificates: “I mean, it’s not like you can actually transfer ownership of the carbon credits to someone else, because you never take possession of them yourself. TerraPass buys them and retires them on your behalf. It’s an interesting question, but you’d need to consult a tax lawyer to get a definitive answer.” Fair enough. Adam adds that the Academy wasn’t going to take any chances, so they kept the purchase size below the allowed limit.

Interestingly, the commercial purveyors of carbon credits place substantialy different pricetags on the same amount of carbon purportedly being offset. Ecobusinesslinks conducted a price survey (available here), which shows a metric ton of carbon dioxide going for anywhere from $3.56 to $39.48. Well, now, that’s quite a range.

Do carbon offsets really make a difference? Conservation, tree-planting and clean-energy projects like methane farms are laudable ventures, but feel-goodism aside, is there a real impact on energy supply or the environment? It’s a much-debated topic. We’ll leave it to The Economist’s bloggers to handle the discussion today.

CNBC’s Power Lunch program featured a mini-debate yesterday on the card-check legislation between Beth Shulman, a Washington attorney representing organized labor, and the NAM’s own director of human resources policy, Jason Straczewski, representing truth, justice and the American way. (Video here.)

Now, all credit to CNBC for covering the issue, but a 3-minute segment is by its nature limiting. Spin, misstatements and flat-out falsehoods fly by so quickly, rebuttal becomes nigh unto impossible.

So we thought we’d take Shulman’s claims and give Jason the space to refute them point-by-point. Labor’s assertions are outstandingly misleading, by that’s hardly a surprise, given the egregious assault that H.R. 800, the Employee Free Choice Act, represents against employee free choice. An accurate portrayal of the bill would mean its quick death.

For Jason Straczewski’s full rebuttal, please check out the extended entry below.

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The largest law-enforcement labor organization in the country has expressed its strong opposition to the card-check legislation the House is scheduled to vote on Thursday. In a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, FOP National President Chuck Canterbury urged Congress to protect the rights of the American worker by rejecting H.R. 800, the Employee Free Choice Act:

This ill-named legislation attacks the very meaning of free choice. Without Federally supervised private ballot elections, our democratic process would be extremely susceptible to corruption, and the very foundation of our Republic could be undermined. This bill would do the same thing to our nation’s workers by robbing them of their privacy, power and voice in deciding who should represent and defend their rights as employees. The scheme proposed by the legislation would replace the current democratic process of secret ballots with a “card check” system that invites coercion and abuse. Under this process, the identity of workers who signed or refused to sign union organizing cards would be made public to the union organizers as well as to the worker’s employer and co-workers, leaving these individuals vulnerable to threats and intimidation from union leaders, management, or both.

Today, the most common method for determining whether or not employees want a union to represent them is a private ballot election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB provides detailed procedures that ensure a fair election, free of fraud, where employees may cast their vote confidentially without pressure or coercion from unions, employers, or fellow employees. Indeed, law enforcement officers are uniquely susceptible to such pressure. The FOP is an organization run by law enforcement officers for law enforcement officers and without the anonymity of the secret ballot, the FOP would probably not exist today. We would be forced into competition with much larger, much richer unions, but ones without any professional law enforcement background.

Canterbury’s letter is available on-line here, and the FOP’s news release is here.

UPDATE (11:05 a.m.): The National Review’s editors weigh in with this editorial, “Big Labor’s Payday.” UPDATE II (2:25 p.m.): The National Association of Retailers issues a news release opposing card check, highlighting the speed and lack of consideration with which the bill is being rushed through the House.

Being a major trade association, we at the National Association of Manufacturers interact with reporters from all sorts of media outlets — the major dailies, financial newspapers, radio, broadcast and cable TV networks, and the trade press. Like any business, each medium has its strengths, weakness, reporting stars and lesser lights, but it’s safe to say that the reporters — at least the veterans — from the trade press tend to have a deeper understanding of the particulars of any issue. You cover a single industry or sector of the economy every single day, you get to know your subject matter.

All this just to point to a nice piece on the subject Tuesday in the new political newspaper, “The Politico,” “Washington’s Trade Press: An Army at the Back of the Media Gaggle.”

They make up 40 percent of all domestic print journalists on Capitol Hill, working for about 150 publications as diverse (and obscure) as American Drycleaner, Overhaul & Maintenance and Funeral Service Insider. And their readers — the CEOs of business and industry — count on them to track every proposed bill or amendment that just might affect their bottom lines.

“Any industry you can think of probably has a trade press,” said Matt DoBias, a reporter with Modern Healthcare, a slick full-color magazine for the hospital industry.

Right you are. The NAM talks to the trade press on every issue we work on: taxes, the legal climate, trade, transportation, energy, labor, education and, of course, manufacturing in all its permutations. (No doubt we’ve overlooked something.)

Anyway, The Politico’s Ryan Grim put together a good primer on the subject, including a list of trade press organizations credentialed to cover Congress. Worth taking a look at.

P.S. The Politico, which debuted Jan. 23, has drawn a lot of attention in media and political circles, and not just within the Beltway. Owned by Allbritton Communications, it launched with some high-profile reporters, such as the Washington Post’s Mike Allen, and claims to be more web-oriented than other publications. Like lots of folks, we wonder if the market for political, D.C.-insider news is large enough to sustain another publication next to The Hill and Roll Call, but from where we sit, so far, so good. There’s always something of value to read in it, a story or scoop you don’t see elsewhere.

More stories about The Politico are available at the Poynter Media Institute’s website here. One interesting bit of speculation about the paper comes from radio talkshow host Hugh Hewitt, who suggests that The Politico may sell its services as a D.C. bureau for budget-minded regional newspapers. Seems awfully focused on politics to serve that purpose, though.

As the expected vote on the anti-democracy card check bill draws near, we sent up to the Hill two things of late:

The first is a letter from the NAM Chairman, Chuck Bunch — President and CEO of PPG Industries, Inc.– urging Members of Congress to vote against the bill. Among the powerful points in Bunch’s letter:

Pretty persuasive points, all. Let’s hope it sways the votes that aren’t already bought and paid for.

We also sent up our “Key Vote Card” yesterday, urging all Members to vote against the bill, and letting them know that this would be a “Key Manufacturing Vote” on which they would be rated at session’s end.

And if you’ve not already done so, please click here to drop a note to your Member of Congress to urge them to support democracy and oppose this bill.

In noting Toyota’s big announcement, below, we allude to the fact that Governors looking to lure investment need to create a climate that’s not hostile to business. While Mississippi had lots to celebrate yesterday, that wasn’t always the case.

Mississippi, as you may know, was long the home of some of the worst “Judicial Hellholes” in the country. There were outrageous verdicts down there that would even make the most shameless trial lawyers blush. And, they had a few high-profile trial lawyers in state government who helped foster the poisonous climate.

When Haley Barbour was elected, he aggressively set out to attract new business investment in his state. In 2004, he pursued a Toyota assembly plant. Toyota ultimately decided to locate the plant in San Antonio, Texas, a plant that is now fully operational and has predictably been a huge shot in the arm to the local and regional economy.

Barbour, understandably disappointed, contacted Toyota to ask why they hadn’t chosen Mississippi. In a letter, then-Senior Vice President Dennis Cuneo told Barbour that while Mississippi had many attractive features, Toyota decided against the Magnolia State as a location because, “the litigation climate in Mississippi is unfavorable, and negatively impacts the state’s business climate.”

This was all Barbour needed to push through the first wave of serious legal reforms. The state’s powerful trial bar was just plain run over by the public sentiment which galvanized against them in light of the now-famous letter.

That’s why yesterday’s announcement was so sweet for Gov. Barbour. He tackled an issue where few gave him any chance of success. But thanks to his “dogged determination,” as Trent Lott said yesterday, he was able to improve the economic climate of the state. For his troubles, he just landed a $1.3 billion investment that will make lives and livelihoods for hundreds of thousands of Mississippians for many decades to come.

And that’s more than the job-killing trial lawyers can claim.

At a simultaneous press conference yesterday in Tupelo and here in Washington at the National Press Club, Toyota announced its plans to build a $1.3 billion, 2,000-employee assembly plant in Northern Mississippi, an enormous project that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour rightly called, “the jewel in the crown of economic development.” It will be Toyota’s eight North American assembly plant. Barbour also noted that some 2,000 construction jobs will be needed to build this massive plant. It will be completed by 2010, after which time Toyota expects 150,000 Highlanders to be rolling off the line annually.

Yesterday’s event had the understandable feel of a great celebration. All the local politicos and economic development were present at the local (Tupelo) High School auditorium. This included Gov. Barbour, the Lieutenant Governor, Sen. Trent Lott and Rep. Roger Wicker. In Washington was Sen. Thad Cochran, Commerce Undersecretary Frank Lavin, Assistant Secretary of Labor Emily De Rocco and our own fearless leader, NAM President John Engler. Said Lavin, “Haley (Barbour) deserves the Nobel Prize for job creation.” Gov. Engler noted that the announcement proved that there is still a bright future for manufacturing, and noting that this sent a signal that the USA is “open for business” in the form of investment from other states and other countries as well.

As the National Governors Association annual winter meeting concluded here in Washington yesterday, Engler quipped, “Haley, there are 49 Governors here for the NGA meeting, and every one would kill to be where you are today.” He’s right about that, as this announcement came after years of jockeying by scores of states for this enormous investment.

Those who saw Scott County, Kentucky (as we did) before the Toyota plant started there in the 80′s — and who has seen it since — can attest to the enormous positive impact of manufacturing on a community and a state. We’ve noted in this space the impact of some 800 jobs outside Washington DC at Micron Technology. It is yet another illustration of the great economic power and prosperity that manufacturing brings.

Haley Barbour, as we noted in our press release, deserves a lot of credit for creating a climate that will attract business (more on that later). Every other Governor should be watching closely and doing what they can to attract manufacturing jobs to their states. They do that by creating a good tax and legal climate and by making sure they have schools that can provide a ready workforce and an infrastructure that can deliver the goods. Sounds easy, but it’s not. All too often, states heavily tax and regulate business while welcoming the trial bar. Those states can only look on as states like Mississippi welcome new investment.

So yes, score one more for globalization and the prosperity it brings. This is yet another reminder that globalization is a two-way street.

Here’s a link to our press release applauding the news and here’s a link to Gov. Barbour’s release as well.

There is indeed a bright future for manufacturing in America. That future began yesterday in Blue Springs, Mississippi.

This from Page 6 of the New York Post:

February 27, 2007 — HOLLYWOOD’S wealthy liberals can now avoid any guilt they might feel for consuming so much non-renewable fossil fuel in their private jets, their SUVs, and their multiple air-conditioned mansions. This year’s Oscar goodie bag contained gift certificates representing 100,000 pounds of greenhouse gas reductions from TerraPass, which describes itself as a “carbon offset retailer.” The 100,000 pounds “are enough to balance out an average year in the life of an Academy Award presenter,” a press release from TerraPass asserts. “For example, 100,000 pounds is the total amount of carbon dioxide created by 20,000 miles of driving, 40,000 miles on commercial airlines, 20 hours in a private jet and a large house in Los Angeles. The greenhouse gas reductions will be accomplished through TerraPass’ [program] of verified wind energy, cow power [collecting methane from manure] and efficiency projects.” Voila, guilt-free consumption! It reminds us of the era when rich Catholics paid the church for “dispensations” that would shorten their terms in Purgatory.

Oscar goodie bags had once reached heights of extragavance, with jewelry and fashions, diamond-encrusted gee-gaws and other promotional gifts valued as high as $100,000. But then the IRS woke up and realized these gifts had a value, concluding that any gifts exceeding $600 had to be reported as income (IRS Form 1099). The result? Fewer gift bags and instead elaborate maneuvers to provide promotional favors while still meeting — or evading, as the case may be — the reporting limits.

TerraPass touts its Oscar-friendly carbon-coupons as an alternative to the goodie bags, writing in its blog:

The Academy decided this year to get rid of the gift bags. They had outlived their usefulness as a means of expressing gratitude — nothing says thank you like a massive tax bill.

This is where TerraPass comes in. Looking for a more restrained token of appreciation in keeping with the spirit of the evening, the Academy decided to give each presenter and performer a year of carbon neutral living. The gift consists of a glass sculpture from designer Simon Pearce and 100,000 lbs of CO2 reductions from TerraPass.

OK, but are the Hollywood recipients paying tax on the value of these items? The Simon Pearce sculpture retails for $650 (although that price includes 30 metric tons of carbon dioxide reductions), and TerraPass sells 20,000 lbs. of CO2 reductions for $79.95, so 100,000 lbs. would go for $399.75. We’re not accountants, but that combination looks taxable to us.

Unless, of course, the carbon certificates represent no real value, in which case the entire exercise is feel-good PR that only amounts to sanctimony and pretty, pretty posturing.

But Hollywood wouldn’t do that, would it?

Anyway, it’s serious question to ponder: How is the IRS handling the tax consequences of these kind of carbon certificates, which supposedly represent a value in conservation or “clean energy” production?

UPDATE (4:40 p.m.): IRS Q&A sheet on gift bags is available here. Nothing on point, carbonwise.

It’s Entrepreneurship Week and both NAM and The Manufacturing Institute are partners. For more information on this important activity, click here.

A little-known dimension of entrepreneurial manufacturing is the number of women that are increasingly running manufacturing firms and employed in every conceivable way to make sure they succeed and thrive. William-Pyro in Fort Worth, for example, is in that mold, headed by Della Williams. As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog entry, she has grown her firm from 55 people a few years ago to about a hundred now. The number of women-owned firms in manufacturing has doubled in the past decade. For more on how entrepreneurial women are making major inroads in manufacturing, click here.

Anyone interested in entrepreneurial America would do well to talk to Della Williams or to Scott Volk. Scott is the vice president at MetalQuest Unlimited in Hebron, Nebraska. He’s 32 and has a degree in applied science in manufacturing from a local community college. Scott is one of today’s entrepreneurs, applying his training and skills in a high tolerance, precision component parts business. In a recent interview, Scott said

I like to think outside the box, I like to push the boundaries, and I like a challenge.

That’s certainly entrepreneurial. In the interview, Scott goes on to talk about how he has applied his entrepreneurial skills to the company, the prospects for other young people in manufacturing and the importance of a good education. To read the full interview, click here.

Scott Volk is just the kind of new talent manufacturing needs going forward. To learn more about manufacturing’s campaign to boost the skill sets used in our industry, visit the Dream It. Do It. website by clicking here.