We are going to fix the infrastructure and put people to work getting that done. Who can disagree with that? Environmentalists, that’s who.
Last year the highway budget did not get spent due to a shortage of asphalt. Asphalt comes from a refinery running heavy crude oil, Venezuelan, Canadian, or Mexican crude. Many refiners have invested in cokers that take these bottoms and make gasoline or diesel from them. When the spread or price differential between heavy and light crude gets close, the refiners unload the cokers and make asphalt. Heavy crude is high in sulphur. More processing equipment to meet environmental specs on sulphur. Basically, if more asphalt is to be made to meet a big demand jump by doubling the highway budget, it would require huge increases in heavy crude imports or asphalt imports. It isn’t going to happen. No problem, we will use concrete.
Cemex, a Mexican cement producer plans to invest $400 million in a cement plant in Seligman, Arizona. The population of Seligman is less than 1,000. New badly needed jobs, new tax revenue for a poor town, and cement to supply the grandiose plans of a president who wants to rebuild the roads and bridges in America. Perfect. Right? Wrong.
One part time resident is an attorney. One Nicholas Kokoris. He practices in Naperville, Ill and owns some land near the proposed faciltiy. This man and the Sierra Club are fighting the project. Kokoris has contacted Erin Brockovich to get her ideas on how to stop the project. Estimated date to produce cement, best case, 2013. Obama will be out of office by then.
I’m sorry, Mr. President, but I fear your rebuilding the infrastructure is much like your closing of Gitmo. Sounds good, but in practice you don’t have the raw materials and you aren’t likely to get them soon, compliments of Mr. Kokoris, Ms. Brockovich, and all the Sierra Club folks who voted for you. If it’s not the raw materials they will stop, it’s the permits. They will find some obscure reason not to let the permit be approved for most projects. You just can’t get it done if you don’t put something in place to stop the good people who oppose progress of any kind.
Right now they are all on your team. Or, they have the same colored jerseys, but it’s tough when you get tackled by someone with the team jersey. You are about to find out how that works.
Your statement that I am trying to stop Cemex from getting its permit from ADEQ is a deliberate distortion intended to rile up all the "true American," knee jerk conservatives. Maybe you should get a job as a speech writer for Sarah Palin.
What I told the AZ Republic Newspaper is that the Cemex permitting process, cement plant building and cement manufacturing process must be better regulated, not precluded. We need to take the air testing process into our own hands. It’s our air, we’re the ones who breathe it. Why can’t we be the ones who test its quality and levy large enough fines against serial contaminators like Cemex so that it will have enough of an incentive to utilize state of the art emissions control? I was told today from a former Cement insider that cement business among the top five makers enjoy huge profit margins- upwards to 70%- only oil and Microsoft has done historically as well. So the fines would have to be commensurate. Larger fines, more money for Arizona and the Feds. More money for the public schools and safety. I like money, don’t you?
While you at it, we should better regulate Wall Street too- unless you think we should outlaw MBA’s altogether- but the true American portion of my brain, the God fearing closet conservative that I am believe we should only regulate MBA’s. We should requiring those lug heads to study poetry and law as well as addition and subtraction. I wonder what Sarah Palin would say about this?
Another poor attorney misquoted in the news. Why pick on MBA’s since I would rather play the piano in a brothel than practice law. You are just another beaver who dams up the streams of progress.
I would be proud to be a speechwriter for Sarah Palin. She’s a real person with a grip on reality.
Guys like you who sell words for a living should stay busy enough that you don’t hsve time to stop every project in Amrerica for some inane reason.
Go chase an ambulance, Nick.
Bill Robertson
We need to stop fighting companies that want to build factories and help them. Fines won’t help anything. Let’s help them get by all the BS the enviorments want to put in business way. About 20 years ago they wanted to build a refinery in South Maracoba county by Wastemangement dump but the do gooder got that stopped. The same thing will happen with the cement plant.
I have a great respect for MBA’s. JFK once said that if more politicians knew poetry and more poets knew politics, the world would be a better place. Cemex needs to be carefully watched at the Seligman Crossing Site. Toward that end, I would welcome the assistance of both MBA’s. lawyers and anyone else who wants to help protect the quality of water in the Colorado River, the drinking source for millions of people. I meant no disrespect toward MBA’s. Simiilarly one shouldn’t categorically criticize plaintiff’s lawyers, without them, private industry the world over would only have their power checked by governmental regulatory bodies. Our country needs decent, repsonsible plaintiff’s lawyers- just as it needs entrepreneurs with MBA’s , both are fruits of our democracy. The last words of a part time poet and part time politician, which we all are.