corrente

Elizabeth Shogren of the LA Times writes:

Cormetech Inc.'s state-of-the-art manufacturing plant makes big pollution-control devices that clean millions of tons of smog-producing nitrogen oxides from the smoke that billows out of power plants.

But on Friday, like all Fridays these days, most of the factory's machines were still. Since June, the Durham-based company has cut its workforce and production by more than half and shrunk its workweek from seven days to three or four.

Business is very slow for companies like Cormetech. And it is about to get even slower, industry experts say.

The companies that belong to the trade group, which account for a third of the industry, booked about $1 billion in sales in 2001. In 2002, sales fell to $800 million, and in the first half of this year revenues plunged to $75 million.

"Orders for the future are almost nonexistent," Foerter said. "It's like falling off a cliff."

Of course, power plant poison blows from the Red States to the Blue States, so of course Blotchy can't be expected to care about it ...

Meanwhile, let's hope the Pubicans don't trash the pollution control industry (and the jobs that go with it) so badly it can't be started up again when under an elected President.