I had the opportunity to be with President Obama today at an event at the Northern Virginia Community College where he announced a new initiative and key steps toward building an educated and skilled workforce in manufacturing.  The President particularly highlighted The Manufacturing Institute’s NAM-endorsed Skills Certification System as a national solution.  There were several NAM board members in attendance with me and it was a great event.

I did take the opportunity to talk briefly with the President and I not only thanked him for the event but also told him we needed to work together on the regulatory review process.  I expressed my concerns over many of the regulations coming out of EPA and their impact on manufacturing. The President noted that the administration wants to ensure that benefits outweigh the cost of regulations.  Our hope at the NAM is that we will see concrete action to curtail the over regulation from many agencies, especially the EPA.  It truly was a great day for manufacturing and I very much appreciate the President’s priority to this issue.  Here is some of the news coverage of the day.

Industry Week
The Hill (blog)
Bloomberg
UPI