Tag Archives: PCBs

Wasted Efforts

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The next time we start to complain about government or EPA rules being overly strict, remember this scene:

 

That’s the former site of CGA in Sanford, Maine, where “hundreds of thousands of abandoned circuit boards” having been strewn across three acres for the past 20 years. It will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to clean it up. Every state has a similar story, and it’s a big reason why legislators and bankers are wary of helping the PCB industry. They can’t help but look at the past and worry that it will be repeated.

Twice the Fun

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The SIA has submitted a report to the US Department of Commerce outlining actions required to meet the goal of doubling semiconductor exports by 2014.

To to so, here’s what the trade group recommends:

  • Putting funding for basic research at national laboratories and U.S. universities on path to double by 2016.
  • Enacting tax policies that will retain and attract investment in R&D and manufacturing facilities in America.
  • Reforming U.S. export controls and streamlining the licensing process.
  • Providing incentives to promote energy efficiency and development of renewable energy sources.
  • Avoiding climate change policies that add costs, limit flexibility, and otherwise make US companies less competitive.
  • Enhancing the U.S. workforce through education reform, expanding research programs at US universities, and immigration reform to make it easier for foreign students graduating from US universities with master’s and Ph.D. degrees to obtain green cards.

Interesting stuff. It’s not too far off the occasional calls that various bare board trade groups have made. Of course, the latter never really went anywhere. I’m guessing the monies the semiconductor makers spend on lobbying Washington will have a different result.