This was from the MBA GMAT Prep test:

Editorial:

Regulations recently imposed by the government of Risemia call for an unprecedented reductions in the amounts of pollutants manufacturers are allowed to discharge into the environment. It will take costly new pollution control equipment requiring expensive maintenance to comply with these regulations. Resultant price increases for Risemian manufactured goods will lead to the loss of some export markets. Clearly therefore, annual exports of Risemian manufactured goods will in the future occur at diminished levels.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument in the editorial?

a) the need to comply with the new regulations will stimulate the development within Risemia of new pollution control equipment for which a strong worldwide demand is likely to emerge.
b) the proposed regulations include a schedule of fines for noncompliance that escalate steeply in cases of repeated noncompliance.
c) Savings from utilizing the chemicals captured by the pollution control equipment will remain far below the cost of maintaining the equipment.
d) by international standards, the levels of pollutants currently emitted by some of Risemia's manufacturing plants are not considered excessive.
e) The stockholders of most of Risemia's manufacturing corporations exert substantial pressure on the corporations to comply with environmental laws.

OE is A. I chose D,thinking that it would prevent the cost of the new pollution control equip. I really don't understand this one at all. Any thoughts???

Premise-1:-Regulations recently imposed by the government of Risemia call for an unprecedented reductions in the amounts of pollutants manufacturers are allowed to discharge into the environment.
Premise-2:-It will take costly new pollution control equipment requiring expensive maintenance to comply with these regulations.
Premise-3:-Resultant price increases for Risemian manufactured goods will lead to the loss of some export markets.
Conclusion:-Clearly therefore, annual exports of Risemian manufactured goods will in the future occur at diminished levels.

Assumption is that the cost of manufactured goods will make products less competitive in the internationalmarket leading to reduced manufactured Risemian goods.

In order to weaken we need to say that manufacturing of new pollution control equipment will lead to strong exports due to strong worlwide demand. This will weaken authors assumption. Also you can try to negate this and see what happens to the assumption.

Choice "D" says according to international standards... but argiment is saying that these regulation is imposed by the government of Risemia call for an unprecedented reductions...." and it has nothing to do with intenational standards. This is out of scope.

to keep it brief:

the passage goes from
'the loss of some export markets'
to
'annual exports of ... goods will ... diminish'

that's a logical leap. in particular, the hidden assumption is that no other export markets will step up to take the place of the ones that will be lost. if we can find an answer choice that contradicts this assumption, we can weaken the argument.

choice a does just that: it says that the new pollution-control equipment will create a new market, which will then offset the loss of the old markets. (the words 'strong worldwide demand' create a reasonable deduction that the offset will be significant enough to help make up the losses.)

do you have ?s about any of the other choices?