The aggregate industry braces for regulatory change (Part 1)

By |  September 10, 2021
(Photo: PamElla Lee Photography)

Michael Johnson, president and CEO of the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association, was among those who attended the 2021 Pit & Quarry Roundtable & Conference. Photo: PamElla Lee Photography

MICHAEL JOHNSON (NATIONAL STONE, SAND & GRAVEL ASSOCIATION): This is a great example of elections having consequences. The country has never been more divided than it is today. We’ve been in these big pendulum swings from the Obama administration, which was the most regulatory active administration in the history of our country, to the Trump administration, which was the most deregulatory administration in the history of our country.

We’re on this wild-swinging pattern, and the pendulum tends to react equally – equal and opposite. What we need is to get back to elections that are less polar opposite and to where you’re changing presidents without changing complete and total ideologies like we have for the last two.

KAREN HUBACZ-KILEY (BOND CONSTRUCTION CORP.): As far as MSHA inspectors, you can have four different ones come in and each is going to find different things. I don’t think that’s ever going to change. They all have project things they want to see fixed or done.

With MSHA, a lot is about your reaction to the inspectors when they show up. I look at it similarly to how I give tours of my operation. I guess I’m going to clear off my schedule and welcome [them] to Bond. I’ll ask: ‘What would you like to do first? What would you like to see?’


Comments are closed