The Impact of Environmental Regulations on Business

Steve Adubato is joined by Anthony Russo, President, Commerce & Industry Association of New Jersey and CEO & Publisher, COMMERCE Magazine, to discuss the impact of environmental regulations on industry and business, as well as and transportation issues in New Jersey.

12/14/2019 #125

Excerpt:

"Anthony Russo is President, Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey, CEO and Publisher of Commerce Magazine. Good to see you. Thank you for having me. I am honored to contribute to Commerce Magazine. I should make it clear. At no pay. I'm not negotiating. It's a good partnership though. It's... [laughter] it's a great partnership! Works better that way. Yes. I got a chance talking about leadership there. But let's talk about leadership here. Can we talk about... I want to get into transportation issues, the Gateway Tunnel, et cetera, et cetera. American Dream. But right now. We had an interview with David Robinson, Doctor Robinson, the state's climatologist. It's not about debating whether climate change exists, but it is questioning what the policies should be? Right. The impact of climate change on small business, a, and b, what business is doing about it? Yeah. The threshold question really isn't whether or not there's climate change. There is? It's what should we do about it? Go ahead. Right? So our belief and our position is, let the markets drive, you know, what happens. Because, both through innovation... so as far as co2 emissions, right? Carbon dioxide. That's the biggest greenhouse gas emission... Yes. ...that everybody's concerned about. You know, a lot of companies now are capturing that carbon, sequestering it, meaning that it's not being emitted. And I think that technology will continue to evolve. So I think a lot of companies are gonna take care of the problem through technology. But also a lot of investors. And these large companies are sophisticated. They want to see that environmental sustainability, reduce that carbon footprint. You know, it's good for their investments, it's good for social responsibility. So instead of having the government... Excuse me. I'm sorry for interrupting. Why can't government push the regulations harder? Because they say that... devil's advocate... Right. "We can't be sure that every business is gonna do that. Now Mr. Russo, we have to make sure that the DEP, and other agencies, and the EPA, on the federal level, that we mandate it." You say? And I say that the state's... this isn't really a state issue. It's more... Federal? ...regional. Global. That's right. And we've all seen weather maps, right? The weather comes in from the West. So if we do something in New Jersey that really impacts our businesses here, are we really accomplishing that, you know, solving the climate change issue, right? We want to make sure that it's a regional approach, a global approach, a national approach. And so the caution there is, you know, government has this need to jump in. Are you worried about overregulation? All the time. I mean I think it's one of..."