The issue is not exactly the hottest topic among the chamber's 170,000 members. She also said companies are prone to giving up being green because regulations create costly roadblocks. There's no question that environmental rules do cost money. Goodstein said that in the last 25 years, spending on environmental protection in the United States has grown faster than health care spending. Along with spending has come jobs related to pollution abatement and environmental protections.
Regulations also raise prices on everything from electricity to drinking water.
Goodstein also said there is no denying that companies in some natural resource-dependent industries, such as coal and timber, definitely have been affected by economic regulations. About 1,000 to 2,000 jobs a year were lost for a few years in the early 1990s, he said. Companies that take the lead in healing the Earth will prosper in a global economy, he said. Those that lag behind are likely to become outcasts. This story first appeared in the Puget Sound Business Journal, a sister publication.