Waking to a new power configuration in Washington on Wednesday, business leaders began to revise their wish lists for action on contentious issues like taxes, health care costs, personal-injury lawsuits and the ability of government employees to strike.
"This historic election sets the stage for aggressive action" on a pro-business agenda, said Jerry Jasinowski, president of the National Association of Manufacturers. He listed the association's top goals as expanded tax cuts, a new law governing terrorism insurance, a prescription drug policy for the elderly and a resolution of asbestos-related lawsuits, which have hurt the stock prices of manufacturers and prompted numerous companies to seek protection in bankruptcy court.
Other business leaders and executives, when asked what they most hoped the new Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate would be able to accomplish for American business, cited the swift passage of terrorism insurance rules; a lessening of environmental regulations; and a bankruptcy law that will make it more difficult for people to escape their debts.
PHOTO: NY TIMES
Many also foresaw a more receptive climate for new limits on medical malpractice lawsuits and punitive damages awards. Lester Brickman, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School, recalled that President Bush gained popularity in Texas as "a direct outcome of the largely successful tort reform efforts," and would be emboldened by the Republican victories.
"I expect he will now elevate tort reform to a more forward position in his domestic political agenda," Brickman said.
Perhaps so as not to jinx things, or perhaps so as not to appear to be gloating at the successes of the party that has traditionally represented business interests, most of the executives and business leaders interviewed stressed that the Republicans' majorities are slender. Even now, they said, they were not sure American business would achieve its most important goals.
"We're still going to have a very divided government," said John W. Snow, chief executive of the CSX Corp and former chairman of the Business Roundtable, an elite group of the chief executives of large companies. Recalling that Senate voting rules require 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, he said, "Sixty votes is hard to get if it's a highly partisan issue."
Business leaders and their opponents in Washington agreed that if the Republicans overreach in their zeal to advance a pro-business agenda, they risk a strong protest. Public sentiment is still running high for shareholders and low for executives, they pointed out.
That made some think there would not be any effort to rein in shareholder lawsuits, even though many corporate executives complain about them.
Nor are there widespread expectations of a rollback in recent legislation to hold corporate executives and directors more accountable.
"I think that some people in business would like to weaken the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, but that is not going to happen," said Damon Silver, associate general counsel at the AFL-CIO, referring to one such corporate-accountability law. "Attempts to roll it back would hit a wall."
But despite their reservations, business leaders saw an advantage in having Republicans controlling congressional committees, and therefore the legislative agenda.
R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the US Chamber of Commerce, said that with a Republican replacing Senator Edward M. Kennedy, as chairman of the Senate health committee, business managers might now hope for new wage-and-hour laws, legislation promoting the use of arbitration instead of lawsuits, and an end to new rules governing retirement benefits.
Rule blockers
"I think they'll still be introduced, but now we'll be better positioned to block them," he said.
Snow said he thought the greatest boon to business would be the Bush administration's ability to name federal judges and regulatory officials without an extended fight in the Senate.
"I'm a Republican," he said. "I'm glad the Senate is in the hands of the Republicans. I feel more comfortable with that.
"But the country's still divided on health care, on education, on policies for the elderly," he added.
"There are still major fights, and the underlying political divisions in the country are still not resolved."
With a Republican-dominated Congress and administration, the energy industry has its best opportunity in more than a decade to push through big initiatives, including opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to drilling and reducing other environmental regulations, industry analysts said.
"This doesn't mean they will get what they want," said Lawrence J. Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, "but the odds have improved dramatically."
Before the election, the comprehensive energy legislation was stalled in talks between the House and the Senate. Now, Republican lawmakers could revive it and add provisions that the Democratic-led Senate had removed.
Energy drilling in Alaska
The industry, for example, is seeking more generous subsidies and tax breaks for building a pipeline that would transport natural gas from the North Slope of Alaska to the lower 48 states.
Utilities and energy traders and marketers have been calling for the repeal of a Depression-era law limiting the consolidation of the electricity industry; their chances of success have increased markedly with the Republican victory, industry representatives said. Shares of energy traders and marketers, most notably Calpine, rose sharply Wednesday on speculation that the industry would benefit now that Republicans control both houses of Congress.
But analysts cautioned that it is too soon to tell how much the energy industry will win. Some issues, like drilling for natural gas off the coast of Florida, or the repeal of sanctions against Libya and Iran, will probably make no progress, given their broad unpopularity. Electricity companies would also like to win the right of eminent domain, giving them the power to force property owners to sell their land for the construction of transmission lines, but that issue has long been resisted by environmentalists and conservative local politicians.
How much of the energy industry's agenda succeeds will depend in great part on who eventually leads crucial Senate committees like energy and environment, and the issues they choose to address. Roger Diwan, a managing director at the Petroleum Finance Co, a consulting group in Washington, also pointed out that the passage of certain energy measures would depend on the loyalty of liberal Republicans in the Northeast, who have historically voted against measures like oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge.
Several business groups said their biggest concern is getting tax cuts that stimulate economic growth, while holding down government spending to avoid structural budget deficits that will persist even after the economy recovers.
"We are most interested in a stimulus package," said R. Bruce Josten of the US Chamber of Commerce.
He called for increasing the amount that businesses can write off immediately for investments in capital equipment, to US$50,000 from the current US$22,500.
The White House has already said it will seek to make permanent the tax cuts that Congress adopted last year; they are now scheduled to end in 2011.
A revision of the estate tax, more breaks for retirement savings plans, greater deductibility for investment losses and other tax issues also are on the president's agenda, and they will receive a warmer reception in a Senate controlled by the Republicans.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six