We think the message here is that legislation that is punitive toward business and heedless of the impact on the economy of this City adds to the flight of business investment. The results of this are greater economic stagnation, fewer jobs, and deterioration in the public health and welfare.
We do not believe that merely furnishing a list of the ingredients of our products to the general public will enable the general public will enable the general public to intelligently decide which, if any, are liable to endanger the environment. What such a list can and will do, is enable our competitors to learn something about the nature of our products. With competition in the market place as it is today, we certainly do not need the City Council to help our out-of-town competitors.
This bill is the greatest piece of idiocy to come down the pike in quite a while. You know, people wonder why we’ve lost 145,000 jobs from Philadelphia in the last 20 years. If people would spend as much time trying to help develop industry in this city as they have trying to fight it, we’d be a lot better off.
It is a bad bill based on undemonstrated premises. It will accomplish nothing constructive in Public Health value, but rather will do a great deal of harm to the City’s business and commerce, and most importantly, its economy.
Finally, you should be appraised of the need for security and secrecy to research and develop products. In many, many instances, such security would be unattainable under Bill 270. The lack of privacy and security would strike the hardest at our great and large corporations which research and develop most of the new products which enhance our health and quality of living.
I feel that the sponsors and endorsers of Bill 270 have been "taken in" by the spurious and irresponsible claims of its drafters. I very much fear that those drafters are motivated by a "zero-risk" philosophy which is impossible to achieve….Not only is it unnecessary, but attempting to achieve "zero-risk" can destroy business and commerce.
[I]t is conceivable that this trade secret data would be considered so valuable that a company would elect not to do business in Philadelphia rather than disclose it and so I have detailed our concerns on the issue of confidentiality.
Not only is disclosure of this confidential trade secret data unnecessary to safety and health protections but raises serious questions regarding the taking of private property without compensation and due process in violation of Constitutional rights.
The imposition of large cost burdens on the private sector [rests] ultimately on the U.S. economy. [Additionally there are] many less visible secondary effects that cause substantial incremental costs…to society generally. [These include] losses in productivity of labor, equipment, and capital, delays in construction of new plants and equipment, misallocation of resources and lost opportunities.
On Friday, June 23, the world ended for some U.S. textile firms.
