Letters to the Editor, 7/12/2025
Prioritizing Made in America will spur a manufacturing boom
Made in America is not just a slogan, it’s a winning formula to bolster economic investment, employee wages and accelerated growth for decades to come.
Pennsylvania’s workers manufacture more than $46 billion in products that are shipped to customers at home and across the globe. Yet, we’re only beginning to tap into our full potential.
A crucial driver of our success is the robust plastics manufacturing industry. Our plastics manufacturers create materials essential to almost every part of our daily lives, such as food packaging, medical equipment, clothing, electronics, electric vehicles and materials that improve access to energy and clean drinking water.
While President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill has the potential to help unleash American manufacturing, there is even more that our legislative and regulatory leaders can do to secure sustainable, long-term growth:
Developing a regulatory framework that empowers innovation
Overly stringent or outdated regulations at the EPA, FTC, and GSA slow innovation. A thorough regulatory review can remove barriers and unleash the creative potential of U.S. manufacturers.
Promoting an investment-focused legislative agenda
Driven by growing consumer and internal sustainability targets and external competition, the plastics industry is rapidly advancing new technologies and innovative solutions. A legislative agenda that prioritizes these emerging technologies can significantly boost sustainable domestic plastics manufacturing and the remanufacturing of plastic waste streams.
Reforming the permitting process to incentivize growth
Onerous permitting rules have pushed many plastic manufacturers overseas, where production lacks America’s quality standards. Bringing fairness and predictability for permitting will reduce imported plastics, protecting consumers and the environment while unleashing domestic manufacturing.
With these common sense reforms, we can ignite a new era of American manufacturing—one defined by innovation, self-reliance, and prosperity for workers right here at home.
Michael Butler, Executive Director, Consumer Energy Alliance Mid-Atlantic
Against stop-arm cameras
Stop-arm cameras are an unnecessary enforcement-for-profit racket that has nothing to do with student safety. Engaging for-profit companies in traffic enforcement guarantees that the emphasis will be on profits, not safety. If stop-arm cameras are adopted, it’s for the money, not student safety.
Stop-arm cameras don’t and can’t stop people from passing school buses. Cameras can only take pictures.
There is no more telling evidence that school bus stop-arm cameras are only for the money than the change to Pennsylvania law regarding violations.
The penalties for violating Pennsylvania’s School Bus Stopping Laws are as follows:
Criminal Penalties — Penalties listed below apply for citations issued by law enforcement for passing a school bus with red lights flashing and stop arm activated.
• 60-Day Driver’s License Suspension, Five (5) points on your driving record, and a $250 Fine.
Civil Penalties — Penalty listed below applies when you are issued a violation for passing a school bus equipped with an automated side stop signal arm enforcement system.
• $300 fine, No effect to your driving record (no suspension and no points).
Changing the camera ticket to a civil penalty opened the door to the unnecessary enforcement-for-profit racket that are stop-arm cameras. The no-points change was made to stifle public opposition. Why was a serious offense (60-Day Driver’s License Suspension, Five (5) points) changed? For the money, not for safety.
I found a school bus device that prevents cars from passing a bus. A picture of it is here.
The bar comes out and prevents cars from passing the bus. It stops 95 percent of illegal bus passing. This provides real student safety, unlike cameras which do not and cannot stop cars from passing buses. Cameras can only take pictures.
Schools won’t use these stop-bars. They cost money, and don’t bring in the millions of dollars that stop-arm cameras do. Schools will choose the money every time.
The National Motorists Association has conducted extensive research into the causes and relative dangers of school bus passing violations. Their detailed findings can be found in Their Policy Brief, “Assessing the Necessity and Implications of Automated School Bus Stop Arm Ticketing Cameras.” They found that while violations of school bus passing laws may be common, collisions and fatalities due to these violations are, thankfully, exceedingly rare. According to data provided directly from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA):
• Throughout the entire US, during the past ten years, there were a total of four fatalities to school-aged children involving a driver charged with illegally passing a stopped school bus when the red lights were flashing.
• This represents an annual average of only 0.4 fatal collisions of these types and just 0.001 percent (one-1000th of one percent) of all US roadway fatalities.
• The chance that a school child will be killed by a vehicle illegally passing the school bus is one in 22.75 billion.
Stop-arm cameras exist to raise money, period. Stop-arm cameras should be banned.
Tom McCarey
Berwyn, Pa.
