It's Time to "Out"
the Real Outsourcers
by Bonner Cohen
Outsourcing. The mere mention of the word is enough
to send shivers down the spines of millions of Americans, fearful
of losing their jobs to workers in China, India, or some other
country where labor is cheap.
While economists,
business leaders, and others debate whether outsourcing poses
a serious threat to the U.S. workforce, and what -- if anything
-- can be done about it, politicians have been quick in finding
villains to blame for the putative loss of American jobs.
Massachusetts Senator
John Kerry has shaken his finger at "Benedict Arnold CEOs"
for shifting American jobs to foreign workers. On Capitol Hill,
lawmakers from both parties have introduced bills designed to
punish those who would betray American workers for their own
selfish reasons.
In truth, the country
is awash with Benedict-Arnold outsourcers -- ready, willing and
able to send American jobs overseas. But the culprits aren't
the people Mr. Kerry and his colleagues have in mind.
The real outsourcers
are to be found among regulators, trial lawyers, and environmental
groups whose cumulative actions have devastated once-flourishing
industries and the communities in which they were located. Their
deeds have consigned hundreds of thousands of Americans to the
ranks of the unemployed. Meanwhile, the jobs these people once
had have been gleefully picked up by foreign workers.
Though much attention
has focused on outsourcing in manufacturing and information technology
(IT), by far the biggest damage has been wrought in the timber
and mineral-extraction industries. These industries provide some
of the most essential products of modern life. Paper, furniture,
and much-coveted hardwood floors are just the most visible fruits
of the timber industry. Similarly, the precious metals taken
from mines find their way into cars, bridges, computers, cell
phones, cooking utensils, and dozens of other creations of human
ingenuity.
In the last decade alone, over 900 mills, pulp and paper plants,
and other forest products facilities have closed in the U.S.,
with a loss of over 130,000 jobs.1
Hardest hit is the rural Pacific Northwest, where environmentalists
and the Clinton administration successfully -- and wrongfully
-- blamed logging for what was said to be the declining population
of the Northern spotted owl. Despite mounting scientific evidence
that the owl was not endangered, severe restrictions were slapped
on logging and other activities in the region's national forests,
shutting down 187 sawmills in Washington, Oregon, and California.2
The Southwest was next. This time it was the Mexican spotted
owl that environmentalists claimed was endangered by logging.
As a result of a lawsuit brought by the Southwest Center for
Biological Diversity (now, Center for Biological Diversity),
logging in 11 Southwestern national forests was banned indefinitely.3 Absent regular timber harvests, growth
in the region's drought-ridden, insect-infested forests is such
that now 80 percent are at risk of catastrophic wildfire.4 Enactment of a Bush administration
plan allowing thinning of trees in overgrown forests will provide
some relief. However, with only two sawmills still in operation
in New Mexico, the state lacks the infrastructure to deal effectively
with this summer's approaching fire season.5
Meanwhile, thousands
of jobs the timber industry once provided to communities throughout
the West have been outsourced to Canada and other countries.
The mineral-extraction
industry also has been assaulted by domestic outsourcers. After
spending 12 years and $75 million in a fruitless effort to obtain
some 70 permits from a slew of federal, state, and county agencies
to mine gold in Washington's Buckhorn Mountain, Crown Resources
Corp. finally threw in the towel. Forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy
proceedings three years ago, the company no longer pursues exploration
in the U.S. It but has joined other American mining companies
seeking opportunities in, and moving jobs to, South America.6
"Our decision
to abandon exploration in the United States for foreign shores
is not to avoid the costs of sound environmental practices,"
Chris Herold, the company's CEO, recently told a House Resources
Committee panel, "but to escape the uncertainty of regulatory
policy and its chaotic and often arbitrary implementation."7
Even though 60 percent
of the zinc, and 40 percent of the copper, used in the U.S. are
imported, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the 1990s
throttled an effort by Nicolet Minerals Co. to create an underground
zinc mining operation in northern Wisconsin. Designed to comply
with all environmental requirements, the project would have employed
400 people at an hourly wage of $22 in the second-poorest county
in the state. But after spending nine years and $75 million battling
EPA, the company abandoned the project.8
These are real job
losses, courtesy of real outsourcers.
# # #
Bonner R. Cohen is a senior fellow of The National Center for
Public Policy Research. Comments may be sent to [email protected].
Footnotes:
1. "Forest
Subcommittee Examines Job Losses in Forest Industry," press
release, U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Forests
and Forest Health, 109th Congress, Feb. 3, 2004.
2. Ron Arnold, Undue Influence: Wealthy Foundations, Grant-Driven
Environmental Groups and Zealous Bureaucrats That Control Your
Future (Bellevue, Wash.: The Free Enterprise Press, 1999) 16.
3. Arnold, Undue Influence 17.
4. Rep. Steven Pearce, "Issues Affecting Jobs in the Forest
Industry," opening statement before the U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, 109th Congress, Feb.
3, 2004.
5. Pearce, "Forest Industry."
6. Christopher E. Herald, "The Role of Science in Public
Policy," testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, 109th Congress,
Feb. 4, 2004.
7. Herald, "The Role of Science."
8. Dale L. Alberts, "Energy and Minerals Outsourcing American
Jobs Overseas," testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, 109th Congress,
March 3, 2004.
