Finally, the holidays are over and the shows and meetings that for me occupy a good deal of time during December and January are done. Now I can get back to a normal regimen for my blog. In reviewing my earlier blog from January I went out on a very thin limb by making various predictions for 2012. Under the “Sports” section, I guessed LSU over Alabama and Green Bay to win it all. As all of you know from reading my blogs, these were obviously typos.
I just returned from the annual ABMA meeting in Palm Springs, California. For those of you living in a cold climate, I will not tell you how wonderful the weather was out there; stay away in the summer though! At the conference was an economist who forecast a decent 2012 and 2013 so plan accordingly. After a few sidesteps in 2014, we can expect growth during the period 2015-2017 with some slowing in 2018 and another steep recession in 2019. I’ll leave each of you to mull over the merits of these ideas and plan accordingly. I will say that the economist has a good record on these matters.
As I have discussed in previous newsletters and blogs, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s March 2011 ICI-BMACT rules continue to evolve and gel. In the end of December these rules were published in the Federal Register. Sorting out all the meandering paths taken by this legislation, the obstructions in Congress along with court challenges and rulings takes someone much more attuned to these nuanced efforts than a simple, non-political guy like me. Suffice it to say that it appears things are moving forward. There are two measures going through our dysfunctional government: HR 2250 (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr2250rh/pdf/BILLS-112hr2250rh.pdf), a house bill designed to allow more time for review of the EPA proposal (it’s been going on for 10 years now so the extra time being requested fails the smell test here);
and S1392 (http://eenews.net/bills/111/Senate/180811105617.pdf, the Senate equivalent of the same odious bill.
The ABMA position on this is clear and forceful: it strongly opposes both of these bills and urges all the stakeholders in the process to get moving on getting the final rules codified and the relevant EPA rules moving forward.
More on this as it develops.
Finally, after my “brilliance” in showing my prognosticating skills, here’s my quote for the day.
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