As I was sitting at Starbucks ($2.25 iced tea) I read an article where Dow Chemical is going to build a $20 billion chemical complex in Saudi Arabia in partnership with Saudi Arabian Oil.
From the Kansas City Star:
The companies said Monday that work on the long-awaited Sadara Chemical Company venture will begin immediately. It should start operations by 2015.
The complex, located in Saudi Arabia's Jubail Industrial City, will include 26 manufacturing units producing chemical products and plastics for use in the energy, transportation, infrastructure and consumer products industries.
Dow and Saudi Aramco say it will be one of the world's largest integrated chemical facilities. It will cost $20 billion, including funding from export credit agencies and financial institutions.
Now, I wonder what our local Laredo frac-a-sterics would think about something like that being built here in Texas. I would bet that they would be up in arms wanting to stop such an obvious Mother Earth mutilating enterprise. Of course such a plant was probably never considered for construction anywhere in the United States because of the permitting and political process in building such a venture. The $20 billion cost there would probably equate to $40 billion here due to our extra fees, lawsuits and other business stopping courses of action.
These types of stories, and personal experiences in corporate America, lead me to my long standing belief that US companies fled the United States in the late 70’ s through today, not just because of wages, but because of environmental actions and the endless array of litigation that U.S. based companies must endure.
Here is a question for anyone. Would the United State be where it is today if there were the same government agencies in place the day the United States Constitution was ratified (1791)? Would we have embarked on westward expansion? Would the industrial age in the United States have been allowed to happen? Or, would the U.S. have taken a back seat to Europe or China?
I read this article this morning while doing some quick search on the current life expectancy of United States citizens. It was an article written in 1993 titled, The Environment Since the Industrial Revolution, written by Harry Lee Smith[i]. It is relevant to the above story in that our environmental regulations are a big part of the flight of manufacturing plants and development firms from this country. If you are hooked on a misanthropist desire to return to expensive power sources like windmills and the sun, then you should read this article and try to tell me how industrialization, advances in chemicals, and the free American spirit and economy have harmed us so badly we must attempt to ban or over regulate those things that allow us to enjoy our current lifestyles.
This final paragraph says it all for me.
The extraordinary and unprecedented improvement in our quality of life during the past 200 years can be attributed to individual freedom, technology, industry, and economic growth. Let us not sacrifice the system that has given us longer life and better health to unwarranted fear of the very processes of that system.
[i] Mr. Smith is a free-lance writer in Atlanta. This is an edited version of a piece that originally appeared in the March-April 1991 issue of the Cato Policy Report, published by the Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001.
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