American manufacturing

Why would business's invest in American manufacturing when our government supports a policy of economic globalization that favors the importation of cheap foreign made goods for big box stores, that are our largest employment sector. As this administration institutes new tax's on small business to provide health care, a Senator from Arkansas is currently purposing new legislation in the Senate s3332, allowing foreign ships bring foreign goods into our country up to two decades to comply with only cheap technology to achieve a weak standard controlling the amount of bacteria and virus (that make people sick) being dumped in our waters. This is being done so a foreign industry can save money and keep the price of foreign made goods low. Manufacturing jobs are created where cost are lower. If international shipping was held accountable for water pollution and the carbon footprint caused bringing foreign goods into our country their cost would rise. The following is from a report prepared for congress in dec 2009 “Although estimates of the costs of ballast treatment may be imprecise and vary from vessel to
vessel, there is some general agreement on average costs.14 For example, it may cost an estimated
$400,000 per vessel for modification of container/bulk vessels to use onshore ballast water
treatment facilities at California ports. More generally, the cost of retrofitting vessels to treat
ballast water has been estimated at between $200,000 and $310,000 per vessel for mechanical
treatment and around $300,000 for chemical treatment.15 Most of this expense will be borne by
foreign shipping companies, as the U.S. flag fleet is a small percentage of the global fleet,16 and
likely passed along to consumers of products imported on these ships.” In 2008 while Senators Obama, Clinton , and Biden were running for president strong legislation for Ballast water was passed in the House 395-7 under the Bush administration only to be killed in the Senate by Senator Boxer because it was not strong enough for her states rights, and oddly, now the new Senate legislation s3222 is much weaker taking away states rights in favor of following an international organization comprised of a foreign shipping industry economic interest. Sadly the establishment considers it bad decorum to wonder why we can not achieve strong laws protecting our waters from foreign shipping when we have a secretary of state that used to work for the largest global big box store in the world.