Re: Support the Anti-Scofflaw Regulation (?)

[Alan Muller <amuller@dca.net>]

At 01:12 PM 10/5/99 -0400, william sanjour wrote:

>Let me give you a different script, one closer to real experience.
>Activists campaign on a certain company to gather evidence of its
>repeated and serious violation of environmental or other laws, and
>demand contracting officers refuse to contract with the company. The
>President's men use this demand as leverage to extract contributions and
>political support from the company, and if they get it they sign a
>consent agreement where the company promises to sin no more.  End of
>story.

This, and Mr. Sanjour's previous post (below) rings true to me.  At least,
I have felt for several years that this sort of mechanism must be common.
Such a hypothesis fits what I have seen better than more face-value
interpretations.  In Delaware--where I have a little experience of how the
political system works--I have suspected that officeholders like a moderate
amount of token environmental activism as giving them convenient
opportunities to get a bit more out of DuPont, Shell, Texaco, ICI, and etc.
 If we are going to think along these lines, the great mass of
corporate-stooge "environmental groups" should be allocated their (large)
share of the blame.



Alan

>>  I am very skeptical about this proposed anti-scofflaw regulation. First 
> > because it would be administered by the same administration that awards 
> > contracts to the scofflaws in the first place; the same administration 
> > that fails to take enforcement actions against known environmental 
> > lawbreakers; and the same administration that breaks the law itself a 
> > dozen times a day. Secondly it gives discretionary authority to the 
> > administration to choose which companies get punished and which do not. 
> > Knowing how corrupt and money grubbing the White house can be, this 
> > proposed law gives the President a powerful tool to blackmail scofflaws 
> > into making big contributions to avoid losing government contracts. 


> >

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in
our air and water that are doing it."

former Vice-president Dan Quayle