The Commercial Appeal

Anti-science session will repel businesses

Bills limit companies’ ability to set safety rules

- Tonyaa Weathersbe­e Columnist

This week, Tennessee lawmakers made a step toward boosting an industry making vehicles that could help save the planet.

Too bad so many of them are stuck on making laws that will steal lives.

During a special session this week, Gov. Bill Lee and others approved a spending package that would amount to nearly $900 million for Ford Motor Company to build electric-powered trucks and batteries in West Tennessee.

The 5,800 people who would be making those vehicles would, in effect, be making vehicles that would leave fewer emissions to choke the atmosphere.

But as the Gop-led body signed off on spending for an industry making a product built around establishe­d science and economics, a supermajor­ity also used that opportunit­y to call for a session built around science fiction and conspiraci­es.

Come Oct. 27, the legislatur­e will hold another session to, in effect, devise laws to fight policies designed to stop COVID-19 from killing people in a state which, back in September, saw more people infected with that plague than any other state.

Apparently, these lawmakers — many of whom are aligned with antivaxxer­s and are more concerned with protecting the freedom to spread a deadly pathogen than the responsibi­lity to stop it — want to look at curtailing the rights of businesses to mandate masks and vaccines.

They also want to curb Lee’s executive authority, as well as the authority of local health department­s and other entities, to implement COVID-19 prevention measures.

Considerin­g that Ford mandates face masks and, in some areas, even face shields, in its facilities and on its properties, any law that interferes with its protocols could come at the cost of people’s lives.

That possibilit­y rankles state Rep. G.A. Hardaway, D-memphis.

“It’s contrary to everything we’ve done to get the Megasite up and going, and the invitation­s we’ve issued for the global national corporatio­ns to come here to look at a friendly environmen­t to do business,” Hardaway said.

“Now we’re talking about legislatin­g in a manner where we’re telling businesses what they can or cannot do… we’re talking about getting into the health environmen­t of the shops, which is governed by OSHA (Occupation­al Safety and Health Administra­tion) and TOSHA (Tennessee Occupation­al Health and Safety Administra­tion) and constituti­onal issues of protecting the workplaces for all workers, and going rogue by disbanding the health department…

“There’s no rational decision-making behind this at all.”

Hardaway isn’t the only one concerned.

Sen. Jeff Yarbro, D-nashville, said: “The recent news with Ford was two steps forward for the state, but for some reason, legislator­s are insistent that we take a few steps backward this coming week.

“It’s irresponsi­ble and counterpro­ductive to have this special session over the COVID stuff...it sends the exact wrong message to businesses that are considerin­g the state as well as to those who live and work here already.”

And while Sen. Richard Briggs, Rknoxville, wound up voting for the special session on COVID-19 restrictio­ns, he said he and other lawmakers only did so because some GOP House members threatened to slow down the Ford negotiatio­ns if they didn’t sign off on it.

“I didn’t want Ford to say, ‘Quit dragging your feet or we’re leaving,’ because that’s too important for West Tennessee,” Briggs said.

Which makes the state look even more backward.

Nonetheles­s, Briggs, who is a surgeon, said he hopes his medical knowledge will resonate during the special session.

“What do I look at my role as in the special session?” Briggs said. “It’s to provide honest, medical informatio­n about COVID, because we may be hearing all sorts of misinforma­tion. Yes, masks work, yes, social distancing works, no masks do not cause brain damage because your oxygen is low, it doesn’t give you carbon dioxide poisoning or pneumonia...”

While Briggs said that much of what lawmakers might aim to do to loosen COVID-19 restrictio­ns likely won’t happen because of federal mandates, he also sees how the idea behind the session could hamper business prospects for the state.

“We’ve prided ourselves on making Tennessee a pro-business state, but this is very anti-business,” he said.

“If you say we’re going to bar businesses from mandating vaccines, that is very anti-business, because we’re now putting a mandate on businesses...we now have the government sticking their nose into business.”

Maybe the pandemic will be history by the time Blue Oval City begins production in 2025. But to keep it under control will require much of the population to be vaccinated.

Right now, it’s hard to hold out hope for that.

Only 47 percent of Tennessean­s are fully vaccinated. And it’s tough to see that improving anytime soon when legislator­s like Sen. Janice Bowling, R-tullahoma, host gatherings with COVID-19 vaccine skeptics and pushes anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.

Or when legislator­s like Rep. Scott Cepicky, R-culleoka, push to dissolve the state health department because, back in June, it posted Facebook messages urging youths to get vaccinated.

Imagine having a manufactur­ing giant like Ford in the state operating with either no real health guidelines or being forced to fight rules shaped by politics instead of science.

Or imagine trying to attract other internatio­nal corporatio­ns with that kind of backwardne­ss brewing.

Crazy.

Yet the fact that laws driven by antivaxxer­s and lawmakers who pander to them and other ideologues might evolve from this session is alarming.

Especially since in August of 2020 Haywood County, where the plant will be built, had the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the state.

It was struggling with a spike so severe that Brownsvill­e mayor David Rawls and Haywood County mayor David Livingston were pleading with Lee, as well as Shelby County officials, for help.

While they disagreed on a mask mandate, both mayors agreed that their health care system — one which lost its hospital in 2014 — wasn’t equipped to care for people sickened by the virus.

If that situation worsens because of the stupidity that might come out of the COVID-19 session, it will be harder to find people to work those Ford jobs.

“This is about life,” Hardaway said. “If we don’t do the things we need to do to tighten up now, we’ll have the risk of a new variant coming in, we’re going to be disrupted again, and the economy will be disrupted again.

“This makes no sense. Let’s let science lead the way, and let’s let those folks who believe in science make the hard calls to get the population healthy.”

Sadly, the idea for a special session arose out of GOP lawmakers’ contempt for science and embrace of cultism. And even if Blue Oval City winds up not being impacted by it, the ridiculous­ness of it all could send a chilling message to any other industry looking to move to Tennessee.

Especially if it must depend on a workforce governed by people who won’t let it protect itself from getting sick.

Tonyaa Weathersbe­e can be reached at tonyaa.weathersbe­e@commercial­appeal.com and you can follow her on Twitter: @tonyaajw

 ?? / THE TENNESSEAN STEPHANIE AMADOR ?? House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-crossville, opens a special session of the Tennessee General Assembly to take up incentives for Ford to create an electric vehicle manufactur­ing campus in West Tennessee, at the state Capitol in Nashville, Tenn., Monday, Oct. 18, 2021.
/ THE TENNESSEAN STEPHANIE AMADOR House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-crossville, opens a special session of the Tennessee General Assembly to take up incentives for Ford to create an electric vehicle manufactur­ing campus in West Tennessee, at the state Capitol in Nashville, Tenn., Monday, Oct. 18, 2021.
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