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Broader point stands, but I want to split some hairs around love canal because there’s an important part of that story that’s normally swept under the rug.
The offending company tried to keep the land from development. They knew the land wasn’t safe, said as much, and when eminent domain was threatened sold it for $1, discharging their responsibility. But again they tried not to sell it all.
Now, the dumping was pretty crappy, but that was also the practice at the time. I’m not saying companies shouldn’t carry liabilities to clean up their messes, intended and/or following best practices or not, they absolutely should. It’s important, though, I think, to remember the company knew and communicated the risks, and tried to keep the land from being transferred. Ironically, part of what moved the domain threat along was that they intentionally stopped using the dump as housing developments expanded out closer to it.
When it became clear it was leaving their hands one way or the other, they sought to limit their liability, and to a certain extent that has to be understood: We said you don’t want this land, you’re taking it anyway, it’s not on us.
My point in all this isn’t to stump for Hooker Chemical, it’s to point out most of these disasters have layers of problems to them. I’m all for strong regulation, there are things which just cannot be fixed after the damage has occurred, so it has to be avoided. But it’s important to remember the regulations are only as good as we make them and their enforcement.
Ironically, there are very cherrypicked examples of voluntary regulation working well. A good example of that is Underwriters Lab certification for electronics. It’s not required by law, but is required by a lot of insurance companies. I not using that as an example against governmental regulation, I just think it’s an example where interests align pro-, rather than retro-actively: If you don’t abide by the regulations, you are not selling any product. Same with how a bank won’t issue a mortgage unless the home passes inspection: they’re protecting themselves, you’re just a happy side benefit.
Bit of a first coffee rant, but especially as all this stuff is getting gutted, the nuance needs to be appreciated. Trump would be a disaster for the little mechanisms we’ve managed to get put in place over the years to protect ourselves, but a Biden administration is going to have a tough road. I’m optimistic they’ll have some wins, but they’re going to lose ground in some areas as well as they’re forced to make compromises and allocate focus and political capital. The net result is we’re all going to need to become a lot smarter and more active.
The local government at love canal had all of the information they needed, and proceeded anyway. They were decided by local elections. It could have been stopped.
I wanted to add an addendum here: We are also increasingly dealing with the fact we made tons of chemicals that the medical science and stats are now catching up on. I was at a town hall meeting of a tiny tiny town that had big issues with PFOAS before it “popped”. At that point it time, it was something the EPA was researching, but hadn’t officially come out against. I have some biochemistry background, and while that kind of thing is outside my field, I could read that the EPA positions was “look… we don’t have the data to say this definitively, but for the love of god don’t put this in your body”.
So this town, with a mayor that isn’t even a full time appointment is being asked to read into data that has a TON of nuance and subtext to take actions that will absolutely destroy their budget for decades… or if they don’t, destroy their citizens instead… and oh yeah, all of this involves shutting down the reason you can afford to fix the school roof…
I don’t have a solution to any of this, but it’s going to be an increasing problem. There are some cases where it’s cut and dry, you could arm the city of East Palestine Ohio to disallow rail traffic based on inspection failures, for instance. However, PFOAS will not be the last compound we get new data in for that makes us go “ohhhhhh thats not good”. I don’t know what you do to help a town handle that proactively where the town is usually focused on paving contracts and new park benches.
Self regulation might work if the penalties when things went wrong were harsh and criminal.
And the penalties should apply BOTH to the company as well as the persons responsible
This does happen in some cases. A water operator in my state just went to jail for fabricating report numbers.
Here’s an idea: Let’s keep the for-profit prison lobby happy by having them push jail time for white collar crime?
Yeah malicious actors within companies usually get their penalties, but I’m talking about C-level executives getting jailed for illegal business practices instead of some slap on the wrist fine for the corporation
While the jailtime for C-level would be cathartic, it’s really just upping the fines and/or something that goes well beyond a defined amount of money. For instance: If you’re under investigation, there is an immediate stoppage on any stock transfer. Whoever holds the shares holds the shares, and they may be about to drop considerably. Traders would evaluate a purchase based on the risk they get stuck with an asset they can’t unload. Board members/large shareholders would be unable to unload either. Stock trading is the lifeblood of large corporations, a board would not allow a CEO that put that at risk.
I just don’t think there’s a fine big enough, and I don’t think jailing the c-suite would get it done (although I’d certainly give it a shot!). Part of what keeps people in compliance with water regs is if you violate permit, the state agency can and will pull your permit. If you proceed anyway, armed enforcement officers get involved and start seizing the property. Now thats not perfect, and through a lack of staffing and/or political favors, stuff slips through depending on the state, but my broader point stands. Crappy c-suites are the symptom not the disease. I find it awful, but they’re “just doing their job” in these situations. You have to threaten the business itself to make compliance a paramount “part of their job”. So yeah, I mean we can jail them, but the worlds got no shortage of people willing to take a fall for the right price.
This would end up with some random technician or engineer getting the buck passed.
Congrats, that’s regulation. If you want to pretend that you were being sarcastic I’ll pretend I didn’t see that.
What conservatives think those penalities are are things like “don’t buy from that company anymore” and I really don’t have to explain why that does not work except for the most inane luxury goods and even then it’s a coin toss if people actually do anything. That’s by design, of course, to make it sound like it works when it really just doesn’t.
Self regulation works with regulation, heh
I see your point. I suppose this is more of a watered down version of regulation, sort of like having a boss that minds their own business but if you mess up because you were cutting corners you get your ass kicked. The government sets the rules and the industry watches and monitors themselves rather than have a costly government body do it. Just make sure there’s lots off ass kicking to go around for the company and its leaders as well
Don’t worry! The plane in this picture is going to bounce with a funny sound like a gummi ball. After all it’s a ‘Boing’.
I find the door myself, thank you.
Yeahno I’m getting real sick of regulatory capture in the international business world.
There are some people that call State regulations “fascist” or “communist” ideas
Bhopal.
I can make the same meme about government controlled industries and companies. What’s the point?
I thought for sure the billionaires ice coffin would’ve made that list.
