Our
View: Engine company talks it up
Clean
air is on all of our minds.
After
breathing in the sickening, black smoke
from the week of the fires, even our old
dirty Southern California air seems refreshing
and clean. But our air is still some of
the worst in the country, and people's health
in Los Angeles and the Inland Empire have
been noted as suffering.
But
when California attempts strides in the
right direction, proposing limitations on
pollutants that cause a reported 20 percent
of our smog, they are smashed down by a
Missouri congressman and a Wisconsin-based
business. It just doesn't make sense.
Briggs
and Stratton, one of the largest manufacturers
of small engines, has spent $520,000 lobbying
against California's bid to decrease pollution
from devices like lawnmowers, blowers, generators
and forklifts. By requiring the manufacturers
to install better carburetors, catalysts
and leak-proof gas tanks, the new law enacted
on Sept. 25 was to cut pollution from an
easily controlled source, unlike from automobiles
and other transportation vehicles like airplanes
and boats.
Briggs
and Stratton claims that the cost of installing
these improvements will cost them so much
that they will have to start manufacturing
overseas to meet the cost. Imagine that.
They continue to argue this even after one
of their main competitors, Honda, claims
that they could easily add the improvements
for only a few dollars a unit, and that
the cost could also easily be passed on
to the consumer.
But
the company seems to be doing just fine
on Wall Street. Since March their stock
price has soared by $20 a share to $63.32.
And this track record when most of the economy
has continued to shudder slightly on the
road to this famed "recovery."
These shenanigans should be expected from
a corporation who in their mission statement
claim that "in pursuing this mission
we will provide power for people worldwide
to develop their economies and improve the
quality of their lives and in so doing,
add value to our shareholders investments."
So good air doesn't qualify as quality of
life?
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