The Long Arm of the Federal Government Reaches S.D. Firm

One of the hottest topics around is whether government is strangling business with picayune rules.

Here is a local case. Make of it what you will.

Autosplice Inc. in Sorrento Valley, which makes electronic components, is being sued by the Environmental Protection Agency for a $34,000 penalty.

The company’s sin is that it didn’t file a Form 9350-1 (known as Form R) for years 1988 and 1989 as required by the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act passed by Congress in 1986.

The company uses a lot of brass (which is 90% copper). Copper is on a list of toxic substances.

Peter E. Zahn, Autosplice co-owner and vice president, says he didn’t think the firm needed to file a Form R because none of the brass is released into the environment. All scrap is sold to a recycler.

Zahn says that Autosplice is being badly hurt by the recession. He says the company has had two rounds of layoffs and been unprofitable for two years.

He says the $34,000 penalty won’t sink the company but might keep it from rehiring two production workers who man the punch presses that make the components.

“We are not some big corporate polluter,” Zahn says. “This is the kind of regulatory abuse that makes companies take jobs offshore or to Mexico.”

EPA officials say the 1986 Act has the noblest of aims: to prevent a domestic Bhopal tragedy. Copper can cause rashes, respiratory problems and “metal fume fever” in humans and be downright deadly to fish.

Ann Lyons, an assistant regional counsel for EPA who has met with Zahn, says that Autosplice and other companies had sufficient notice of the law.

Does she have remorse about adding to the burden of a company struggling to keep its 160-person work force?

“Remorse is not our role,” she said. “Until Congress decides the economic community is so bad that there shouldn’t be any environmental regulation, we will continue to enforce the laws.”

Sometimes EPA sues companies after receiving tips about wrongdoing. In Autosplice’s case, the Form R issue came up during a routine “neutral” inspection.

“They were just unlucky, basically,” said EPA official Kathy Goforth.

Peter Zahn would not disagree.

Satire, Russian Style

Passing parade.

* Fred Lewis is the host for movies on Channel 69 (along with teaching at Grossmont College, doing a public-affairs interview show for Cox Cable, and being ring announcer for fights at the Sports Arena).

So naturally when he and wife, Jenny, went to the former Soviet Union recently, he was interested in the state of Russian films.

He found 33 of 36 movie theaters in Moscow showing American movies. Yes, but he also met Russian film director-writer Sergei Livnev, who hopes to restore the once-proud Russian movie industry.

Livnev’s working on a (fictional) script about a Soviet woman in the 1930s who decides to have a sex change operation and captures the interest of Stalin who thinks sex change operations would be a great way to create more men for the army.

It’s a fantasy-political satire, as you probably guessed.

* Mayor Maureen O’Connor, a Jerry Brown delegate to the Democratic Convention, has yet to hear anything, direct or indirect, from Bill Clinton.

But a top aide to H. Ross Perot called O’Connor to invite her to a reception for James Stockdale, the retired Navy admiral (and Coronado resident) who is Perot’s stand-in vice presidential candidate.

Somewhat surprisingly, the aide called the mayor on her unlisted home phone number.

Then again, if recent news accounts are accurate, the Perot camp has a knack for digging up non-public information about public people.

* Among those guarding President Bush and Vice President Quayle on their Southern California visits this week: Los Angeles-based Secret Service agent Greg Auer, son of San Diego political consultant Ann Shanahan-Walsh.

* Proof that junkets aren’t what they used to be.

The Vista City Council has announced it is taking an official “tour” of Vista.

Duke on the Receiving End

Humorist Mark Russell, in San Diego on Saturday, worried that Rep. Randy Cunningham (R-Chula Vista) had only one bad check:

“And he calls himself a congressman?”