By Diane Cardwell | The New York Times
(Disclosure: Roe Law Group represents Cooper Tire and Rubber.)
For years, tire industry executives, as well as government officials and scientists, have sought a domestic source for natural rubber to escape the price fluctuations of imports and, more recently, to avoid petroleum, which is used to make synthetic rubber.
Now, Cooper Tire and Rubber Company has reached an important milestone in that effort, and is expected to demonstrate tires this week with components made of rubber from the guayule plant, a desert shrub cultivated in the Southwest.
