Dow-Jones does a reaction story on the election of Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, including a comment from the National Association of Manufacturers’ Jay Timmons. From “Brown Win Will Force Democrats To Reach Across Aisle, Say Analysts“:

Jay Timmons, executive vice president at the National Association of Manufacturers, said Brown’s victory would give moderate Democrats pause about supporting the cap-and-trade bill that passed the House, as well as other initiatives viewed as building up the public sector at the expense of the private sector.

“It’s an extraordinarily clear message from the people of Massachusetts,” Timmons said. “If you couple that with the victories for Republicans from Virginia and New Jersey you’re starting to see a pattern: a none-too-subtle message to the administration to slow down.”

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) participated in a conference call on energy and national defense issues today, and a strong case was made for policies that encourage U.S. energy security and economic growth. Reuters spots this news:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan said on Tuesday he did not think the Senate would pass climate change legislation this year, but instead would focus on separate energy legislation that would require more electricity supplies to be generated from renewable sources and expand offshore drilling into the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

This is newsy because Sen. Dorgan is making a prediction AND he’s a member of the Senate Democratic leadership. More coverage …

• The Hill (blog), “Dorgan calls climate bill unlikely in 2010, pushes for energy measure“
• New York Times, “Senate Not Seen Passing Climate Bill In 2010“

The impetus for today’s call was a new report issued by the group, Securing America’s Future Energy, “Eastern Gulf of Mexico Oil and Gas Exploration and Military Readiness.” The summary states:

The paper, produced in collaboration with Commonwealth Consulting Corporation, led by Col. Martin Sullivan, USMC (Ret.), concludes that there is no credible evidence that expanded oil and natural gas exploration and development in the Eastern Gulf would adversely affect military missions in that area.

Specifically, the report examines earlier claims of potential impacts (which were made prior to the Defense Department putting into place systems to evaluate such claims), assesses rates of usage by the United States military in the affected areas, explains current methods of controlling airspace and surface actions in the Gulf, and analyzes encroachment factors. It concludes that the Pentagon until very recently had no systematic tools for measuring the effect outside factors had on training and testing, and now that those tools are being put into place, they are clearly showing that oil and natural gas production will not encroach on the military missions in the Gulf.

The full report is here. Coverage:

• Tampabay.com, “Military brass: Gulf drilling won’t harm training“
• The Jacksonville Observer, “Dorgan, Military Officials to Release Pro-Drilling“

Nice piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by columnist Len Boselovic on how the reformist zeal of the Obama Administration creates uncertainty and anxiety in the business community. From “Business: Rules of the game have changed“:

[There] is no doubt a host of new laws and regulations are coming that businesses will have to respond to. Uncertainty over what the new rules will look like is fueled in part by the biblical proportions of some of the proposals, including the 2,000-page plus health care reform measure.

“Who knows what’s in that law when it passes because it’s like 30 pounds and inches thick,” said Don A. Linzer of Schneider Downs, a Downtown firm that counsels clients on accounting, tax and other issues.

National Association of Manufacturers President John Engler has read enough to know he doesn’t like it.

“This bill raises costs for manufacturers at a time they can’t afford it,” the former Michigan governor said of the Senate proposal.

Pat Kiely, president of the Indiana Manufacturers Association, makes the case in The Indianapolis Star that manufacturing helps define what it means to be a Hoosier, and that definition is put at risk by ill-considered, far-reaching climate legislation.

From “Vulnerable to high cost of restrictions“:

Developing countries such as China and India are unwilling to curb emissions of greenhouse gases. If increased energy costs drive manufacturing from Indiana to developing nations that do not restrict greenhouse gas emissions, then there is no reduction in emissions and we have done nothing to achieve the purported goal of fighting climate change. While it does appear noble that the United States would demonstrate leadership to the world in regulating itself, the downside has lasting economic hardship to the nation’s economy and to states like Indiana.

The Indiana Manufacturers Association’s membership understands the importance of environmental stewardship. That said, the method of control is critical. States have different needs based on their overall production of greenhouse gasses — be it from production of energy, agriculture, manufactured goods or transportation-related factors. It seems the federal government should work first to resolve our domestic imbalances before offering to give foreign competitors billions of dollars that we don’t have to take American jobs.

Pat also notes the NAM and ACCF’s study on the economic effects of the Waxman-Markey bill, which shows for Indiana the potential:

• Loss of up to 59,260 jobs.
• Residential electricity price increases of up to 60 percent.
• Gasoline price increases per gallon of up to 26 percent.

Indeed, industrial states like Indiana would suffer disproportionate damage from Waxman-Markey and whatever climate-control scheme the Senate develops.

From an Indianapolis Star interview with Gov. Mitch Daniels earlier in the month:

Q: What’s Indiana’s next big thing in business?

A: I’ll just give some candidates; the market is going to tell us. The electric car could be one. We’re a perfect place for it. . . . Wind energy is another.

We must never walk away from the manufacturing base that’s made us strong.

Daniels says he cannot fault the President and Congress’ efforts to stimulate the economy, although he wishes the stimulus bill had included more infrastructure and fewer pet projects. As for the rest of the Administration’s economic agenda:

I think the health-care bill is not only a terrible distraction from jobs and what really matters right now, but it would be a crushing blow to small business, just very ill-advised. I really hope Congress will step back from it.

Cap and trade (to cut carbon emissions) is just simply a disaster. It’s senseless. Even if — we don’t know this, we don’t — but even if manmade activity may someday in decades raise the world’s temperature, this bill won’t affect that. It will impose enormous costs. It’ll double utility rates in this state.

(Hat tip: Yuval Levin.)

CNN ran a very good report on Thursday’s “CNN TONIGHT” on the EPA’s proposed endangerment finding and the economic impact of government programs to restrict carbon dioxide. Included in the report was a video segment with NAM’s Keith McCoy and Jason Speer of Quality Float Works of Schaumburg, Ill. From the transcript:

LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Quality float works has been around since 1915. Making metal float balls used on flagpoles, weather vanes, plumbing and industrial devices. Over the years, company executives have been working hard to reduce their carbon footprint, recycling used oil, reducing their EQs (ph) and buying more fuel efficient equipment.

Still the company’s Vice President, Jason Speer is worried about new environmental regulations that could be in the making. This week the Environmental Protection Agency declared greenhouse gases a danger to public health, paving the way to regulating carbon dioxide emissions. Issuing its finding, the EPA said, quote, “Science overwhelmingly shows greenhouse gas concentrations at unprecedented levels due to human activity.” But Speer says if the EPA imposes new regulations, it could cripple his company.

JASON SPEER, QUALITY FLOAT WORKS: Manufacturing is an energy intensive business, and you know, every little penny counts right now and this environment, you know, we are trying to compete internationally. With some of these regulations, it hinders our ability to compete globally.

SYLVESTER: Many in the business community lead by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers oppose agency regulation under the Clean Air Act.

KEITH MCCOY, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS: The Clean Air Act is not designed for this type of action so you’re really taking a square peg and hammering it into a round hole. If they’ll do it, it will be done probably with great pain to manufacturing.

SYLVESTER: McCoy says with unemployment already at 10 percent. Added regulation could slow the country’s economic recovery, but Tufts University Professor, Gilbert Metcalf disagrees saying outside of the gas and oil industry, job losses shouldn’t be too severe.

PROF. GILBERT METCALF, TUFTS UNIVERSITY: I think the job loss is very much overblown. If we start with a kind of modest policies that are embodied in either the House or the Senate.

That’s not really a very comforting assurance from the Tufts academic, even if he’s right: Outside of the industry that creates 9 million jobs and accounts for 7.5 percent of the U.S. GDP, it’s no big deal.

The report followed with a discussion on the economic consequences with Margo Thorning of the American Council of Capital Formation and Fred Krupp of the Environmental Defense Fund.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, “China, U.S. Square Off on Climate Proposals“:

The world’s top two greenhouse-gas-producing countries for the first time offered specific targets for controlling their emissions, but their broad promises ahead of a United Nations climate summit merely set the terms for a high-stakes struggle over money and future economic growth.

The NAM is cited:

The National Association of Manufacturers said Thursday in a statement that it wants additional details on the Obama administration’s pledge: “As we evaluate this proposal, we will do so with an eye toward its impact on American jobs, our economic recovery and long-term growth.”

From The Washington Times today, “Health, climate bills seen to stifle hiring“:

While President Obama and congressional leaders say they would like to do more to spur job creation, economists and business executives warn that their plans to impose new health care and climate-change costs on corporations would have the opposite effect.

The initiatives, according to this analysis, are likely to overwhelm any positive impact on jobs from stimulus measures by giving businesses a reason to keep laying people off.

Seems painfully obvious. Or prospectively painful, obviously.

The NAM’s John Engler is quoted on taxes included in the health care legislation:

While President Obama and congres — sional leaders say they would like to do more to spur job creation, economists and business executives warn that their plans to impose new health care and climate-change costs on corporations would have the opposite effect.

The initiatives, according to this analysis, are likely to overwhelm any positive impact on jobs from stimulus measures by giving businesses a reason to keep laying people off.

Kim Strassel’s “Potomac Watch” column in today’s Wall Street Journal is based on an interview with Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, reacting to the climate science e-mail controversy. It’s Inhofe who gives Strassel’s column its title, “‘Cap and Trade Is Dead’,” arguing that politics and the now the scientific scandal from East Anglia makes climate-control legislation impossible. That’s Congress, but …

There’s still the EPA, which is preparing an “endangerment finding” that would allow it to regulate carbon on the grounds it is a danger to public health. It is here the emails might have the most direct effect. The agency has said repeatedly that it based its finding on the U.N. science—which is now at issue. The scandal puts new pressure on the EPA to accede to growing demands to make public the scientific basis of its actions.

Mr. Inhofe goes so far as to suggest that the agency might not now issue the finding. “The president knows how punitive this will be; he’s never wanted to do it through [the EPA] because that’s all on him.” The EPA was already out on a legal limb with its finding, and Mr. Inhofe argues that if it does go ahead, the CRU disclosure guarantees court limbo. “The way the far left used to stop us is to file lawsuits and stall and stall. We’ll do the same thing.”

An EPA endangerment finding and implementation of CO2 emission limits through a “tailoring rule” is legally suspect, to be sure, as an attempt by the Executive Branch to rewrite the Clean Air Act. Still, all the statements from the EPA and Administrator Lisa Jackson have pointed in that direction.
More…

• Related commentary in The Telegraph, United Kingdom, by Gerald Warner, “Climategate e-mails sweep America, may scuttle Barack Obama’s Cap and Trade laws.“
• The Wall Street Journal Europe editorializes in “How to Forge a Consensus,” contending in the sub-headline, “The impression left by the Climategate emails is that the global warming game has been rigged from the start.”
• The New York Times reports on Nov. 25, “Businesses in U.S. Brace for New Rules on Emissions.” The story covers President Obama’s announcement of emission reduction targets, made in anticipation of his trip to the Copenhagen climate meeting. It’s OK, although the failure to mention Climategate and the possibility of an EPA endangerment finding seems like pretty big holes.

Otis Rawl, president and CEO of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, chats with Jay Timmons, executive vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers, in his CEO Corner video interviews.

Health care is the topic of the first video. Timmons:

All across the country, and I’m sure in South Carolina it’s exactly the same: Health care costs are skyrocketing. It’s a problem for business, it’s a problem for employers. Ninety-seven perfect of the members of the National Association of Manufacturers provide good quality health-care benefits for the employees, and we don’t want to risk that, we don’t want to lose that, and we don’t want to see our manufacturers who are providing those benefits have to pay more in taxes. That doesn’t make sense. 

Cap-and-trade is the subject of the second video.

South Carolina received big manufacturing-related news late last month when Boeing announced it had chosen its North Charleston, S.C., facility for a second final assembly site for the 787 Dreamliner program. (Boeing news release.) Interesting to see Rawl’s reaction in this column in The Item newspaper on the implications for the state: Business is concerned about education and training.

Otis Rawl, head of the state Chamber of Commerce, said a big-picture view had to focus on Boeing’s suppliers, many of whom likely would move to the state to be able to be near to the plant.

Those jobs generally will locate within a 100-mile radius of the North Charleston plant, which means some job help for rural areas, he said. “This announcement sends the message that South Carolina has gotten back in the game of economic development,” Rawl said. “It gives us all a little sense of things getting better.” Perhaps one thing that the Boeing announcement will force, Rawl added, is a refocused political debate on how to reshape a huge driver of all economic development – how the state educates its residents.

“We’re going to have to take a look at some type of statewide funding for public education,” he said.