An expert on air-quality issues for the metalcasting industry, and manufacturing in general, made a presentation earlier this week about the state of play in the arena of environmental regulations. Jim Schifo of Keramida Environmental Inc. spoke to the Casting Industry Suppliers Assn. about the latest amendments to the Iron and Steel MACT standards, the EPA’s final area-source rule for iron and steel casting, and more generally about the federal government’s haste to cut carbon emissions — with or without a compelling reason.

That was the point, as Schifo described it. The EPA, the Congress, and the executive branch are won over, or fed up, or confused, or just plain bored with all the competing claims that man-made global warming is a threat to the earth and atmosphere. They want to do something. So, the most likely proposal is the Climate Security Act of 2008, aka the Lieberman-Warner Act, which would impose a mandatory cap-and-trade program for carbon emissions from coal-burning plants and other operations identified as the source of 80% of the U.S.’s greenhouse gases. It aims to cut 70% of the 2005 level of CO2 emissions by 2050.

The unfounded anxiety of the environmental do-gooders doesn’t surprise me; earlier this week one of their promotional outfits sent me a release decrying a 2.9% increase in CO₂ emissions from U.S. power plants — completely missing the correlation between industrial output and economic growth. Nor, am I surprised by legislative over-reach (Just 70%? Why not go for it all!).

I was surprised at Schifo’s resignation to the fact that something is going to happen, and that it’s not going to be good, or easy, for metalcasting. He seemed to me to be a bit fed up with his own side, the manufacturing industries and their allies in and out of government, who he described as too weary to fight this battle much longer.

I shouldn’t be surprised. In a period when protectionists are gaining electoral ground and soft-currency advocates dominating monetary policy, self-defeat must be in the air.