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Rhetoric
its only
rhetoric

5 By RICHARD LANE
The foul gases belch forth night and
day, rot the clothes, the teeth, the bodies of
the workers and have killed every tree and
cvery blade of grass for miles around ...””

That is a contemporary description of
factory pollution in Britain in the 1860s.

© emanations described were hydro-
chloric acid, a by-product of making
as hydroxide, an industrial chemi-

This pollution produced the first anti-
pollution legislation, The Alkali Act,
passed in 1863, which required 95 per
cent control of the emanations. The act
Was passed because of a strong represen-
tation from a relatively small pressure
group of wealthy landowners whose
TOPS Were being ruined by the acid rain!

The sodium hydroxide producers later
found that hydrogen chloride also has
many valuable industrial uses and could
be sold. The only losers, as usual, were
the workers who still had to work in the
health- and safety-endangering plants.

_Has the capitalist world advanced
since then? Have we a modern Acid Rain
Act, 120 years after the first? No!

Reagan Refuses

Although the U.S. and Canadian
governments signed a memorandum of
intent to reduce acid rain in 1980, more
than three years later, President Reagan
has still refused to enact an acid rain
conttol program.

Why does Reagan oppose any acid
rain Control program?

The acid rain battle 120 years ago was
won by the big landowners over the
young, developing chemical industry of
the day.

Today, the major North American pol-
luters are based in an area around the
Great Lakes. They are represented by
coal, utility, iron, transport and manu-
facturing Companies owned and con-

A major part of Canada’s acid rain problem is made in
USA. Here, Richard Lane tells how the corporate polluters
found their defender in Ronald Reagan. Third of a series.

trolled by multi-national corporate
giants. They are part of the power elite
that owns and runs the USA.
40 of the 50 Top Polluters

This industrial power complex,
termed the U.S. heartland, is based in
nine states which include, Ohio (11), In-
diana (4), Pennsylvania (6), Illinois (4),
Kentucky (2), Missouri (4), West Vir-
ginia (6), Tennessee (2), and Michigan
(1). The order of listing is the ranking of
the state according to sulphur dioxide
emissions from electricity generating
plants which use soft sulphur-rich, bitu-
minous coal. The number in brackets is
the number of ‘‘top 50” generating plants
in eastern North America (e.g. Ohio is
the top polluter with 11 giant coal-fired

generating plants). Thus 40 out of the top —
_ 50 polluting plants are in these nine

states.

The heartland contains more than 85
per cent of U.S. bituminous coal produc-
tion and reserves. The Appalachia and
Indiana coal belts supply the large elec-
trical power generating complexes that in
turn are needed by the huge manufactur-
ing cities in the heartland. These cities
produce 40 per cent of U.S. manufac-
tured goods. This core area outproduces
New York, New Jersey, California and
the new sun belt in the south.

Most of the USA’s basic iron and steel
production comes from cities in the
heartland (Pittsburg, Youngstown, Cle-
veland, Toledo, Detroit and Chicago).
More than 30 major iron and steel com-
plexes are found in the area. The iron ore
comes from Minnesota, Wisconsin and
Canada. Coal, vital to the steel and iron
making process naturally comes from the

. Administration.

heartland. Again this process adds sul-
phur and hitrogen emissions to the at-
mosphere as pollution.

The nine states, although not as de-
nsely populated ‘as the Boston-New
York-Washington strip megalopolis,
have a larger population, over 60 million
(close to 30 per cent of the U.S. popu-
lation) spread over a larger area.

The economic slump, the rising cost of
energy (petroleum), the economic chal-
lenge from the southern sun belt, had
forced an examination of heartland
America’s strategy. A hero was pro-
duced, Ronald Reagan, who espoused a
perfect “‘new”’ strategy, which they
could, along with the rest of the USA’s
power elite, totally support. After all it
was made for them. Reagan called fora
“war on big government’’, in other
words the ‘‘deregulation of the USA’’.
Reagan became their candidate, Reagan
won.

Planned Ruin

He immediately went to work. His
staffin the regulatory government bodies
attempted to reduce regulation. If they
could not, they were told not to enforce
the regulations. If they would not obey
they were fired. If that was not possible,
Reagan reduced their budgets so that
enforcement was hindered. This hap-
pened in the Environmental Protection
Agency, Occupational Safety and Health
Agency, Agricultural Department, In-
terior Department, Food and Drug

In the meanwhile Reagan cut the wel-
fare, aid to the poor programs, as well as
old age security, medicare, medicaid,

¥

food stamps. He also cut taxes on high
incomes and corporations. The ‘“‘evil”’ in
the world was pointed out by Reagan and
his staff — the Soviet Union and the
other socialist states. Reagan deliber-
ately heated up the cold war. The heart-
land and all arms contractors cheered as
Reagan pushed the armaments budget to
new record highs each year of his reign.

Canada discovered itself to be on the
receiving end of a massive acid shower.
The tourist industry, the lumber and pulp
industry, agriculture, and maybe even
the health of Canadians was threatened.
As early as December 1980 the Canadian
Government helped set up the Canadian
Coalition on Acid Rain, which has lob-
bied in Washington since the spring of
1981. Canada proposed a 50 per cent cut
in emissions by both countries. Reagan
has dragged his heels for more than three
years on this demand.

The heartland went to Reagan’s aid.
Strong lobbies which greatly outnumber
and out-power the Canadian anti-acid
rain lobby have been at work in Washing-
ton since Reagan arrived. Big Coal, Big
Steel, Big Utilities are pressuring Con-
gress. The acid rain issue, they say, was
created by no-growth, environmental
extremists, and Canadians who want to
sell the U.S. more electricity and natural
gas. As far as the polluters are concerned
there is no acid rain-issue. In any case
who cares about Canadian fish?

Reagan’s position on acid rain has not
changed since he came to power in 1980.
The rhetoric — ‘‘we will-work to control
the air pollution fiowing between our two
countries (Canada and USA) ... we are
not going to export pollution’’ — is only
rhetoric. The Reagan administration’s
real position is still to do nothing about
acid rain. After all, the polluters are his
friends.

Richard Lane is the pseudonym of a
working scientist.

Reagan jumps on Japan’s ‘free ride’

The Reagan administration has launched a vigorous
Campaign to pressure Japan into a large-scale rear-
mament program. The U.S. is demanding that the
Japanese develop an offensive military capability to con-
trol the seas within a 1,000 mile radius of Japan, and to
patrol as far west as the Persian Gulf.

Ina propaganda ploy similar to that used a few years
480 to force Canada into higher military spending, the
U.S. Defense Dept. has released a “‘study’’ whichclaims

Japan has been getting a ‘‘free ride’’ in defense
matters, and that it ‘‘ranks last or close to last on all the
Tatlo measures surveyed and, thus, quite clearly appears
to be contributing far less than its fair share’’.

In fact, although Japan spends less than one per cent
on GNP on defense, this represents a huge military ef-
fort. Japan ranks eighth worldwide in arms expen-
ditures. The Japanese Self-Defense Forces have the fifth

This is a country whose Constitution (written, ironi-
cally, by General Douglas MacArthur) forbids it from
Ving any offensive military force whatsoever.

Article IX of Japan’s Constitution says: ‘the Japanese
j people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of a
nation ... In order to accomplish (this) land, sea and air

forces, as well as other war potential will never be main-
tained’,

Constitutional niceties seem irrelevant to the Reagan
administration in its drive to isolate and intimidate the
USSR. The Western Pacific is to be turned into a new

est navy and the fifteenth largest airforce in the
* world. ‘ :

$

Backgrounders

Fred Weir |

Zone of anti-Soviet confrontation, with Japan footing the
bill. if
Japan is being urged to develop an offensive military

machine, one capable of participating in the larger U.S. .

strategy for global war. Specifically, Japan’s role will be
to blockade the Soviet Far Eastern Fleet in its home port
of Vladivostock, by effectively sealing the Soya, Tsug-
aru, and Tsushima Straits, the Soviet navy’s only access
to the open sea. ie

The demand for Japanese rearmament has almost as
much to do with the U.S. strategy for dealing with too-
prosperous allies, as it does with the anti-Soviet crusade.
Low Japanese defense expenditures in the post-war
period have left relatively more capital available for
developing the civilian economy, and have helped to
turn Japan into a formidable economic competitor of the
U.S. Not surprisingly, the U.S. is now insisting that
Japan recycle a larger share of its industrial profits into
American-made military hardware.

Higher military spending might well turn Japan into a
Pacific superpower, and serve the short-term goals-of the

Reagan administration. It is also likely to transform the

Western Pacific from a region of relative peace into a
hotbed of tensions.

None of Japan’s neighbors have forgotten World War
Two, and Japanese imperialism’s ‘‘Greater East Asia
Co-Prosperity Sphere’’. They are understandably ner-
vous of any resurgent Japanese military power.

Japan herself has little to gain in the long-run from
agreeing to U.S. demands. Asa U.S. Senate subcommit-
tee reported in 1980, ‘“Given Japan’s geographic location
and economic vulnerability, rearmament is not a viable
security option. Rather, the argument can be made that
rearmament would only serve to destabilize the Asian-
Pacific region and that, in such an environment, Japan
would be correspondingly less secure’’.

As a recent study by the Center for Defense Infor-
mation points out, even the Reagan administration
would do well to think twice about its drive to rearm
Japan: :

“U.S. officials have become so obsessed with what
they view as a military imbalance in this region, they
seem blind to how much worse the situation could be. By
pushing Japan to expand its military,.the U.S. threatens
to create a military force that may not be responsive to
U.S. influence, nor always support U.S. interests.

“The current shapers of U.S. military policy would do
well to reflect on the prescient words of Imperial Fleet
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto the day Japan attacked the
United States at Pearl Harbor: ‘I fear all we have done is
to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible

999

resolve ;

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 25, 1984 07

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