"After spending almost 34 years now in the nation's capital, I have a feeling things will start to look better for our industry," said Mr. Webber. He sees a major shift in how policy is created. "You're not going to have command and control for the most part coming from the White House," he noted. "You're going to have strong delegation of power and responsibilities, and coalitions forming on an issue by issue basis rather than in a partisan fashion."

High on the agenda list is the issue of corporate taxes. With President Bush's commitment to overall tax cuts, a key question is: How much will go to the business community?

"We want the administration to focus on business tax cuts," says Mr. Webber. He refers back to Kennedy's tax cut in 1961 and Reagan's tax cut in 1981 where a third of the benefits went to the business community. "We had true business tax cuts which accelerated the economic recovery, and we would like to see the same thing now."

Among the tax issues are the elimination of double taxation of foreign operations, faster capital cost recovery for manufacturing assets, and tax credits for R&D expenses.

"The way the current R&D tax structure is today provides too little tax benefit to the chemical industry," Mr. Webber pointed out. "Our industry holds one out of every seven patents. If the business of chemistry gets only marginal benefit from a tax provision designed to encourage R&D, then something is wrong and that has to be addressed."

Rail competition is another critical issue. "We're getting clobbered on a regular basis because of high costs and sub-standard service," he said. "We want the regulatory system to work better, to be fairer, to be sensible, and we think the time is ripe for reform."

Within the area of environment, the ACC will work with the new administration towards ensuring the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) compliance with the government's Performance and Results Act, the proper use by the agency of benefit/cost analyses for major regulations, and an updated and well-maintained integrated risk information system.

"With Governor Whitman in office and a whole new team over at EPA, and with this whole change in mindset, I think we can accomplish some, if not all, of these things," Mr. Webber said.

As the voice of the US chemical industry, the American Chemistry Council represents the industry on public policy issues, coordinates the industry's research and testing programs, and administers the industry's environmental, health, and safety performance improvement initiative known as Responsible Care.

According to the ACC, the US chemical industry is America's number one exporting industry with a record $80 billion plus in exports in 2000 and the largest non-defense funder of research and development. 

SOURCE: Société de Chimie Industrielle - American Section

WEB SITE: http://www.societe.org/