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In the past, I have been relatively hard on the environmental lobby as a whole, attacking both eco-terrorism and environmental extremism. However, today I find myself in their corner.
Ash Grove Cement operates a cement plat in Midlothian, Texas, a town known locally as the “cement capital of the world.” This particular Ash Grove cement plant uses only wet process kilns, as opposed to dry process kilns, which produce less emissions. Since the dry process kilns produce so called, “green cement,” many environmentally conscious municipalities, including Dallas and several other North Texas cities, have initiated policies favoring, but not necessarily requiring, all municipal cement to be produced by dry process kilns, as part of wider environmentally friendly measures. With that said, Ash Grove Cement filed a law suit in U.S. District Court in Dallas last Wednesday, alleging that the measures adopted by Dallas and other North Texas cities violates fair contracting practices.
The Ash Grove case raises several questions.
First, does a city government have the right to impose guidelines for doing business with companies? Sure, every city in the United States has established guidelines on how they choose whom to do business with, be it for coffee in the city manager’s office or construction contracts.
Has the city of Dallas specifically required something of Ash Grove Cement that they haven’t from other cement companies? Based on the information in the Dallas Morning News’ article, no! Again, based on the article, the city of Dallas simply looks more favorably on a company who uses dry process kilns. Nothing in the article suggests that the city of Dallas requires the dry kiln process. Even if the city of Dallas did, this would not be unfair since it would apply to all prospective contractors and not just Ash Grove Cement.
Does anything about the city of Dallas’ policy go against the principles of free market capitalism? Again, based on the information reported in this article, no. One of the most basic elements of free market capitalism is “let the market take care of itself.” If the city of Dallas issued a mandate that all cement factories operating within the city limits of Dallas must use dry process kilns, they would border on violating this tenant and attempt to control the market themselves.
However, Dallas’ policy does not in anyway seek to control how Ash Grove Cement controls their business, nor does it attempt to control the “cement market.” Dallas simply makes a choice as any consumer would, based on certain pre-determined criteria. It’s really no different than you or I deciding not do with business with a company whose practices or associations we may disagree with or oppose.
In fact, Ash Grove Cement’s stance represents a far greater blow to free market capitalism than anything else contained in the article. Ash Grove seeks to control the market by requiring the consumer (Dallas) to consider their product, even if the product they manufacture doesn’t meet the consumer’s standards. Perhaps if Ash Grove Cement devoted the time and effort to make a better, cleaner product, Dallas and other North Texas cities would desire their product. Until then, Ash Grove and their corporate reps. should stop their bitching and live with the fact that they make an inferior product.
1 comment
Brown Bess
December 3, 2008 at 5:14 am (UTC -6)
Wow. Thank you very much. A well-thought out conservative response to this lawsuit.
I belong to the group that originated this green cement strategy and helped lobby the cities to adopt it. The beauty of it is that it uses market forces, in this circumstance, the emerging markets for “green” or environmentally friendly services/products.
Ash Grove’s lawsuit is actually an attempt to get a court to rescue it from those market forces because their customers are rejecting their business model.
The company claims they can’t compete, but in fact:
1) A week before the suit was filed they told Tarrant County Commissioners they could deliver dry kiln cement after the first of the year at no extra cost from an out-of-state kiln.
2) Ash Grove has owned 2000 acres of land in Grayson County for over a decade with the purpose of building a new dry kiln. But unlike its two regional competitors who did build new plants during that time, Ash Grove never invested in a new dry kiln.
3) However, this same company is spending $200 million right now to build a new dry kiln in rural Arkansas on the Texas border. The area is not in any EPA air pollution “non-attainement” area – unlike DFW, which is in its 17th straight year of being in violation of the Clean Air Act. They chose to put rural Arkansas ahead of urban Texas and are now paying the price.
4) Three are advanced controls, called SCR, being used in cement plants right now in Europe, that Ash Grove could install and get better results than any dry kiln in Texas.
However, the lawsuit was not filed to win on its merits. It was filed to intimidate the next three cities with votes already scheduled – Denton, Mansfield and Burleson – hardly bastions of Democrats, much less tree-hugging radicals.
This lawsuit has only accelerated the push to get a state green cement provision for work done by TXDOT etc in the DFW area (we’re the only urban area with so many cement plants upwind of usn- the largest concentration in the US.).
Leading this effort are local Republicans.
Thanks again for the comments and for confirming the effectiveness of the strategy. It’s taken almost two years, but I think this lawsuit signals the End Game taking shape.