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BizVoice/Indiana Chamber – May/June 2016
VIDEO BONUS:
VINCE GRIFFIN
DISCUSSES STATEWIDE
RELATIONSHIPS
EDITOR’S NOTE: Vince Griffin has retired after more than 18 years with the
Indiana Chamber of Commerce and as a statewide authority on environmental, energy
and water issues. He looks back on some of the major topics, as well as his experiences
working on behalf of Chamber members and the state’s business community.
BizVoice
®
:
Indiana Vision 2025
, the Chamber’s long-range economic development
action plan, has a goal of attaining a top five ranking for Indiana’s regulatory environment.
How is the state doing in this area?
Griffin:
Tom, we’re doing great. Our air, land and water haven’t been this clean since arguably
before the Industrial Revolution. All 92 counties in the state of Indiana meet every one of the air quality
standards. That’s exciting because we routinely get hammered because we are the number one
manufacturing state in the nation and we do have emissions. So sometimes, comparably, we don’t look
as good as other states.
BV:
Those annual reports that come out criticizing Indiana’s air quality. Why do
some of those not quite tell the whole story?
Griffin:
That’s a good observation. What a lot of these different reports do is misrepresent some
of the facts. Keith Baugues, the assistant commissioner for air, has for the last three or four years gone
into (data for) every county in the United States and done a deep-down analysis. Compared to some of
these reports, Indiana looks very good as a result of the studies he has done, which are credible. Some of
the other studies, I say, it’s like shooting the arrow and then painting the target. They are very accurate
because they’ve cherry-picked the data and not presented it in a fair, scientific way.
BV:
Talk about the shift – from punitive to partner – that has been seen in the Indiana
Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) during your time at the Chamber.
Griffin:
Back in the 1960s when the environmental regulations were first coming out, industry
was in a kind of, “Heck no, we won’t go” attitude. Then in the ’70s, they were in a compliance mode.
In the ’80s and ’90s, there were even books written – focusing on beyond compliance – as industry got
into this. From 2000 on, most businesses and industries have been in a stewardship mode – how can we
do a better job. IDEM has also followed that. Governor Daniels, when he came into office, said, ”Let’s
work with industry first, instead of just punishing them, and we can be even better than we already are.”
BV:
What are a couple of the biggest issues that stand out during your time at the Chamber?
Griffin:
I would say that key topics have been the “no more stringent than”, which is a statement that
we won’t be any more restrictive than the federal standards, which are already very restrictive. We, the Indiana
Chamber, have long stood up and said, “We don’t need to have that law. We have adequate amounts of
regulations and the process we work with right now with the Environmental Rules Board.” And there’s
statute that says if we go beyond the federal standards, here’s all the hurdles we have to cross first.
MAKING A
DIFFERENCE
By Tom Schuman
GRIFFIN REFLECTS ON
CHAMBER CAREER
Indiana Vision 2025
: Attractive Business Climate