New way to restrict guns...

[jeepster09]

I saw on news today that epa is shutting down the last USA lead smeltting plant in Mo.....tell me this won't make ammo cost more and be harder to get. :mad:

[jocko]

PRE PROGRAMMED GUN CONTROL. If ovomit can't get our guns he will go after the ammo...

[garyb]

I saw this and mentioned it to my son-in-law today. He stated that he was not concerned because they have plants in Mexico and we would still get cheap lead in the USA. His claim is that we farm out products to other countries that can make it cheaper. I hope he is right...But....

Please understand that I still do not support the decision. The US farms out too much to other countries and then we become reliant upon them. Unfortunately, our country is losing the pride of "Made in the USA". There is no good reason why our watch dogs like the EPA, should not be encouraging corrective actions to preserve business here in this country. Instead, the leadership enforces by shutting things down, creating job loss and losing industry and production here. It is almost like the leadership wants the USA to be weaker. What do you think?

[garyb]

The Doe Run lead smelter in Herculaneum, Missouri, established in 1892, will close in December due to EPA regulations on air quality.
According to AmmoLand (http://www.ammoland.com/2013/10/last-u-s-lead-smelter-to-close-ammunition-manufacturing-to-feel-effects/), “The Herculaneum smelter is currently the only smelter in the United States which can produce lead bullion from raw lead ore that is mined nearby in Missouri’s extensive lead deposits, giving the smelter its ‘primary’ designation. The lead bullion produced in Herculaneum is then sold to lead product producers, including ammunition manufactures for use in conventional ammunition components such as projectiles, projectile cores, and primers. Several ‘secondary’ smelters, where lead is recycled from products such as lead acid batteries or spent ammunition components, still operate in the United States.”
What this means, though, is that ammunition manufacturers will have to get primary lead bullion from overseas sources such as China.
“In 2008 the federal Environmental Protection Agency issued new National Ambient Air Quality Standards for lead that were 10 times tighter than the previous standard. Given the new lead air quality standard, Doe Run made the decision to close the Herculaneum smelter.” This seems to be an end-run in the gun control controversy.
The Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) opines (http://sppiblog.org/news/epa-destroying-more-jobs-and-rights) that “The all-out attack on Americans’ gun rights is now being taken to the next level.” “[M]assive stockpiling effort by the Department of Homeland Security has forced ammunition prices to nearly triple, while also dwindling supplies of many popular calibers.”
The new EPA regulations would require an estimated $100 million to convert [to non-smelter manufacturing], so Doe Run decided to close the smelter. This will also destroy American jobs.
SPPI also notes “And after we can no longer manufacture ammunition domestically we have the UN Arms Trade Treaty to stop the importation of ammunition.”
Better stock up on bullets now.
EPA air quality regulations are affecting not just lead smelters. There are now only three copper smelters in the US, two in Arizona, one in Utah. The lack of smelting capacity is the reason the proposed Rosemont mine may have to send its copper concentrates overseas. Will we soon have to send all copper ore overseas? EPA is also endangering our electricity production with its war on coal-fired generating plants such as the Navajo plant in Arizona which provides the electricity to run the Central Arizona Project canal that provides water to Tucson.
I wonder if this will have implications for military readiness.
See also:
Obama’s Climate Action Plan is Clueless and Dangerous (http://arizonadailyindependent.com/2013/07/01/obamas-climate-action-plan-is-clueless-and-dangerous/)

[garyb]

Closing smelters is no solution to pollution.

With nearly 250 million passenger vehicles on U.S. roads, imagine all the batteries they consume in a 10- to 15-year average lifetime. Anywhere from 500 million to 750 million batteries will expire and be discarded, leaving someone to grapple with their toxic contents of lead and acid.

Battery recycling is a huge business. The good news is that nearly 100 percent of U.S. lead-acid batteries are recycled instead of being dumped in landfills. Despite that exemplary record, Americans’ tolerance is diminishing for the smelters that reprocess battery lead, such as the one that Exide Technologies is closing in Frisco.
No one wants exposure to smelter pollution. Around the country, cities like Frisco are dealing with the problem by forcing urban smelters to close. But is that really a solution?
A study released in November by the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Commission for Environmental Cooperation says that the closure of U.S. recycling plants has prompted a boom in exports of spent lead-acid batteries, known as SLABs. The vast majority are going to Mexico.
Rather than fixing our battery-recycling problem, we’re just shifting it to a place where someone else has to deal with it. For Mexicans, the consequences could be severe. According to the CEC study, some Mexican smelters emit 30 times the lead particulates of modern U.S. plants.
According to the commission, Mexico doesn’t have national regulations on emissions from smelter stacks. It doesn’t monitor storm-water discharge. It doesn’t have standard requirements for construction, management and closure of recycling smelters. And it doesn’t monitor lead levels in the blood of smelter workers or nearby residents. In 2008, the ambient air standard for lead in Mexico was 10 times less stringent than in the United States.
Today, only eight major recyclers remain in the United States to operate the country’s 16 secondary lead smelters. The biggest recycler, Johnson Controls, devoted almost all of its processing to U.S.-based plants as recently as 2003. Today, the company accounts for 85 percent of the increase in U.S. exports of batteries, primarily to Mexico.
Mexican plants are improving their environmental record, but they’re still far behind. Companies that choose to stay in the U.S. and not export to Mexico, such as Exide, cannot compete with Mexico’s low wages and far less stringent environmental requirements.
U.S. environmental groups, who claim a proud record of success in forcing urban smelters to shut down, should question what they are accomplishing. Yes, they should keep pressuring U.S. smelters to get out of urban areas and bring their emissions levels down. But it’s no victory to force the closure of U.S. smelters if the effect is simply to shift the environmental burden across the border.
That’s not success. It’s problem avoidance.

[garyb]

Does this make anyone else wonder what Americans will start doing with old auto batteries and other lead products...possibly creating a new black market for lead???

OR do you think that the foreign market will open to American business that use lead?

Or do you think the US government will attempt to control lead imports for use in the US?

[AIRret]

This WILL affect our military readiness (not just our own personal readiness to protect ourselves)!! Foreign countries will have the ability to deny us the lead necessary to supply
bullets and bombs etc. for our military.
Lots of wars have occurred over scarce resources, I just wonder if we will be ready and able to fight one!

[downtownv]

The EPA being granted IRS type of enforcement powers has been on my radar for the past 5 years.
This a hole is trying to break the back of America and unchecked as he has been is likely to succeed!

[mr surveyor]

Does this make anyone else wonder what Americans will start doing with old auto batteries and other lead products...possibly creating a new black market for lead???

OR do you think that the foreign market will open to American business that use lead?

Or do you think the US government will attempt to control lead imports for use in the US?


If I'm not mistaken, recycled batteries and similar sources are where the vast majority of the lead already used by ammunition manufacturers is obtained. The virgin lead is mostly used by the battery makers and others that require a more pure, virgin lead. I've read that the majority of that is already imported from Canada and Mexico.

I'm in no way supporting closing the smelting operation, no more than I am for the dismantling of our coal industry or the stifling of our petroleum industry. Closing any of those industries directly affects every single American, not just isolated "special interest" groups (like "us")

JD

[garyb]

This WILL affect our military readiness (not just our own personal readiness to protect ourselves)!! Foreign countries will have the ability to deny us the lead necessary to supply
bullets and bombs etc. for our military.
Lots of wars have occurred over scarce resources, I just wonder if we will be ready and able to fight one!

I initially thought about that too, but decided...probably not. They have stock piled what is needed for the military AND can quickly ramp up production again. The resources are here in the country. In fact, we don't know if the military has taken contingent action to develop their own needs. This would not be an oversight of the military. They will have ammo. We will not.

What seems to be an oversight, is that pollution will be worse in the world if we do not control our own resources and thereby allow other countries to make the product for us. We do this in so many industries. Shutting down our own pollutants and allowing them to shift to another country, is not the solution the EPA is seeking. The pollution gets worse in the world and then we/USA uses this as a pawn to negotiate something else. It becomes politics at it's worst. It gets to a point that a business here in the USA, no longer finds it profitable to meet regulations and must shut down. I have seen this in the medical field, where it is necessary to invest so much in equipment, supplies, personnel, buildings, etc...and the reimbursement from the government for that service is so small, or the regulations are so impossible to comply with, that it no longer makes sense to offer that medical service. The same thing is happening with the lead smelting closure....with an ulterior motive to shut down ammo supplies to the public. The government will say, "they closed on their own because they did not wish to spend the money to be safe...we did not close them."

It would be interesting to speak with some bullet manufacturers to find out what they are going to do now. They must have supplies and means to order raw materials to make product. They seem to be taking orders.

[LorenzoB]

Production can be ramped up again, but the key word is "ramped". I am a manufacturer and I also used to work at a large machine shop that, during WWII, stopped their own production to produce artillery barrels (because they had large lathes). If they didn't have large operational lathes, they wouldn't have been able to jump into the war effort. I always tell people that outsourcing manufacturing IS a matter of national security and readiness. Domestic manufacturing creates good jobs and is the "strength" of our nation. If we are only a nation of intellectuals and innovators and manufacture nothing, then we are dead-in-the-water.

[LorenzoB]

Here is a thought. We have been dependent on foreign oil... mainly due to cars. We all know this to be a concern to national security. Now, we are finally seeing the emergence of the electric vehicle (which will use many batteries)... and the EPA is pushing this "energy source" out of America. In a few decades, we just may end up in the same boat. Maybe worse.

[garyb]

And Ovomit lies again by saying he supported alternate clean energy. He is such a liar.

[muggsy]

Here is a thought. We have been dependent on foreign oil... mainly due to cars. We all know this to be a concern to national security. Now, we are finally seeing the emergence of the electric vehicle (which will use many batteries)... and the EPA is pushing this "energy source" out of America. In a few decades, we just may end up in the same boat. Maybe worse.

Electric cars don't use lead acid batteries.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/vehicles/whats-different-about-electric-car-batteries.htm

[jocko]

Production can be ramped up again, but the key word is "ramped". I am a manufacturer and I also used to work at a large machine shop that, during WWII, stopped their own production to produce artillery barrels (because they had large lathes). If they didn't have large operational lathes, they wouldn't have been able to jump into the war effort. I always tell people that outsourcing manufacturing IS a matter of national security and readiness. Domestic manufacturing creates good jobs and is the "strength" of our nation. If we are only a nation of intellectuals and innovators and manufacture nothing, then we are dead-in-the-water.

town here back during the war a small plant was built about 1`00 yards from a rail line and the name on the building was Sands tool and Level. they supposably6 made aluminum levels, as I have one in my homeeven with their name and address modeld in the lever. BUT there was no way that plant just made levels back during the wary. Many think they made barrels for military weaponns, but it was a very private fenced in building. So would u do that just tomake levels. to this day though no one realy knows. The plant closed after the war. I guess we didn't need levels anymore. Just sayin.

I do feel though we have not outsourced our production capabilities to make the big machinery stuff to make alot of this armament, Go into any big plant and very little American made machines are in there. that to me is where I think we have let our guards down...:Amflag2:

[RRP]

I don't know if the closing of Doe Run will impact price and availability of lead ammo. But, if people believe it will, whether true or not, they are likely to start hording again, and then this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Ammo supply is just beginning to show signs of improvement. I hope we don't unintentionally perpetuate the drought.

[LorenzoB]

Electric cars don't use lead acid batteries.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/vehicles/whats-different-about-electric-car-batteries.htm

Very cool! Thanks for pointing that out. Back when I was in school, the electric cars were using lead acid batteries. I heard recently that even denser batteries are being developed using carbon nanotubes. BUT, I'm sure no matter the battery technology, the EPA will figure out a reason not to make it here!

[jocko]

well all utter auto and big trucks and off the road mining equipment uses lead batteries and they recycle all of them. so someone is gonna melt um down.

[johnh]

Local news has said that Doe Run will be recycling for many years, and possibly upgrade equipment in that time frame. I am not sure this will impact ammunition availability, but given this administration's sneaky nature, that could be the real reason behind the EPA's actions. I would not put it past them at all.

[Longitude Zero]

Once mining and/or manufacturing capacity is lost or reduced it virtually NEVER returns. EVER!!! As I have always said the 2nd Amendment covers the weapons NOT the ammunition. Others may disagree but history proves them outta touch.