Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered an environmental inspection of a plant owned by Cemex after residents complained about pollution.  
 
The president appointed a commission to study the effect of the plant on farmers in the eastern Venezuelan state of Anzoategui and to come up with a plan of action within eight days, according to a statement from the Information Ministry.  
 
"The ecological impact needs to be evaluated, because this is truly grave," Chavez said Sunday during a regularly scheduled weekly television address.  
 
Chavez has threatened to expropriate cement companies that don’t cooperate with price controls and has said he won’t allow producers to trigger local shortages by boosting exports. The government this month expropriated a plant owned by Cementos Argos, Colombia’s biggest cement maker.  
 
A spokesman for  Cemex declined to comment.