Hacker News Reader

Comment by ashdksnndck | Hacker News Reader

I assume you use semiconductors yourself, since you are posting here. But you want their manufacture to be banned in your state.

So the right thing is to outsource the dirty jobs to countries that can’t afford to be picky?

Wouldn’t it be better for the world if we used our wealth to develop methods of safe semiconductor manufacturing with low environmental impact, and proudly built those facilities in California?

View on HN

Well that's the whole problem isn't it?

It's not like the laws are simply "you can't make semiconductors here". The laws ban the harmful externalities of the process. The companies that want to make semiconductors don't want to find a way to make the processes less harmful: it's cheaper and easier to just go somewhere where they can pollute instead.

In many cases, California’s environmental regulations don’t make an earnest attempt to permit safe ways to do things.

And in all cases, those industries make no earnest attempt to develop safe ways to do things instead of simply doing it where it doesn't matter.

[Citation needed]

A sibling comment a few levels up provided it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47160514

Got anything from the last 50 years?

There's a large middle ground between "Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone" and letting blatant polluters turn your neighborhood into a Superfund site. California solved the latter problem by going too far in the other direction.

You're asking for an example of an environmental disaster of the type the regulation is intended to prevent that happened since the regulation came into effect, with the implication that there aren't any is evidence that the regulation is bad? I'd argue there's no way to differentiate between perfectly calibrated regulation and regulation that's too onerous by the metric you're giving, so your conclusion isn't supported without more evidence.

When an industry leaves this many superfund sites in an area, that industry can expect some regulatory blowback from that area.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites_in_Cal...

https://www.epa.gov/superfund/search-superfund-sites-where-y...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com