Chapters focus on legislative issues.

Following an election in which the Democrats took a majority in both houses of Congress, the metalcasting industry appears wary of the potential for increasingly restrictive environmental and worker safety legislation. In recent months, many AFS chapters spent their meetings discussing some of the hot legislative issues facing the metalcasting industry.

Craig Schmeisser, RMT Inc., and Kurt Braun, Ford Motor Co., spoke at the Central Ohio and Toledo meetings regarding the latest EPA developments on Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT), Generally Achievable Control Technology (GACT) and clean air standards, focusing specifically on melting operations. Braun further discussed the history of environmental standards, how MACT standards are determined and the various sources of pollutants. James Simonelli, California Cast Metals Assn., and Bill Lievense, Foundry Assn. of Michigan, spoke in Southern California and Western Michigan, respectively, on the latest local and federal legislations and their effects on the metalcasting industry.