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Yesterday, Viktor Anderson, director of engineering at Muskegon based manufacturer Structural Concepts, testified before the House Small Business Committee about the impact of duplicative, contradictory, and overall volume of regulation pouring out of Washington and its impact on manufacturers in Muskegon County and across the nation. Congressman Huizenga introduced Viktor to the committee and asked Mr. Anderson as well as the other job creators testifying before the committee to detail what the real world impact of Washington’s arcane regulatory system is on their businesses.

Structural Concepts’ Chief Engineer Viktor Anderson: Inconsistent Rules & Regulations Threaten Manufacturing Jobs in Muskegon County and across the nation

We are not a large corporation with a plethora of resources to redirect towards the review, testing, and compliance of new rules. We are a small innovative manufacturer that makes refrigerated display cases, hardly the nexus point of our nation’s energy and environmental policy battles. Our company and thousands of companies like ours across the nation make a big difference in the stability of the economic recovery which has only just begun to take hold. Again, we are not anti-regulation. We are simply asking federal agencies to consider the cumulative impact of regulations on businesses like ours …

My point is this - if DoE and the EPA do not coordinate their efforts, we could potentially be redesigning our product every two to three years for 12 years in a row at great expense. Combined, the compliance burdens associated with these two rules could devastate our industry. My purpose today is to draw the committee’s attention to the regulatory burdens faced by small businesses everywhere.

The regulations I just described, both specifically designed to address the commercial refrigeration industry, will not only increase our costs, but will force Structural Concepts to reduce the number of products manufactured, throw uncertainty into the current and future products offered, and reduce employment.

Congressman Huizenga:

We are well beyond the discussion of safety for employees when we are talking about the EPA and the Department of Energy not getting on the same sheet of music. … The people that come from states that build things understand what it means to have a supply chain. So often these regulations don’t reflect that reality and I am sure all of you have dealt with that. I know by going to Structural Concepts, this has been expressed explicitly. It’s not just good enough to have a product to use. You need to have people to manufacture it. You need to have people supplying it; you need to have critical mass on it. You then have to reengineer all of your equipment.

Viktor Anderson:

For 2017 we will have to go through and look at every single refrigeration component in each of our 600 models. That is no small chore. Machine size compartments can change, the physical cabinets inside can change dimensions, so we may have to potentially change the whole product structure. It is not an easy task to accomplish this.


Other Testimony Highlights:

Janis Herschkowitz of PRL, Inc. in Cornwall, Pennsylvania, whose foundry makes parts for nuclear submarines, had a similar message. “The fact is there are very few foundries remaining in the U.S. who are able to meet the high specifications standards required by our nation’s military.” Herschkowitz went on to tell the Committee that “the bulk of the regulations would hit our small foundry the hardest, and to put it bluntly as a small business owner we would need to determine if it is even worth the cost of compliance. This is tragic.”

In response to Congressman Huizenga, Ms. Herschkowitz said, “we never would have won World War II if we had half these regulations in place.”

Cynthia Reichard of Arylessence, a fragrance manufacturer in Marietta, Georgia, told the Committee about the ways regulations are impacting her company’s growth plans, adding, “U.S. manufacturers simply need an environment conducive to growing and creating jobs. We need economic stability, certainty, predictability, and common-sense regulations that don’t unfairly disadvantage small firms.”


Background: Founded in 1972, Structural Concepts is an award-winning innovator that has set a new standard for refrigeration engineering. Structural Concepts has pioneered the development of energy efficient temperature-controlled display cases used by supermarkets, convenience stores, coffee shops, and florists across the nation. More information about Structural Concepts can be found here.