Molly Ivins: Bending over backwards for corporations

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Wed, 1 Mar 2006 04:24:29 -0600

Molly Ivins: Bending over backwards for corporations

 

 

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=20419

 

Bending over backwards for corporations, by Molly Ivins,

of Creators Syndicate

 

AUSTIN, Texas -- With the Bush administration, it's important to have

in mind the old carnival con game: Keep your eye on the shell with the

pea under it.

 

Among the many curious aspects of the administration's approval of the

Dubai Ports World takeover of operations at six major ports (and as

many as 21) is this exemption from normally routine restrictions: The

agreement does not require DP World to keep copies of its business

records on U.S. soil, which would place them within the jurisdiction

of American courts. Nor does it require the company to designate an

American citizen to accommodate requests by the government. So what's

that about?

 

It makes DP World harder to sue and less subject to American

regulation. The lovely thing about the ports deal causing such a

commotion is that it allows us to bring attention to this fairly

obscure provision, which is, in fact, part of a wave of similar

special exemptions that's starting to turn into a flood.

 

Here's a lovely example of how it works: Just before Christmas last

year, in a spectacular example of a straight power play, Senate

Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert pulled off

a backroom legislative deal to protect pharmaceutical companies from

lawsuits. The language was slipped into a Defense Department

appropriations bill at the last minute without the approval of members

of the House-Senate conference committee meeting on the bill.

 

Lots of players were outraged at the short-circuiting of the

legislative process. " It is a travesty, " said Thomas Mann of The

Brookings Institution. Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., who had specifically

checked to make sure the language was not included, was enraged,

calling Frist and Hastert " a couple of musclemen in Congress who think

they have the right to tell everybody else that they have to do their

bidding. " Rep. Dan Burton said succinctly, " It sucks. "

 

The way this was done was outrageous, but so is what it did. Frist has

received over $270,000 in contributions from the drug industry and has

long advocated liability protection for vaccine makers. As the Gannett

News Service reports, the provision allows the secretary of health and

human services to issue a declaration of a public health emergency, or

threat of an emergency, or declaration of " credible risk " of an

emergency in the future, thereby protecting the industry against

lawsuits involving the manufacture, testing, development,

distribution, administration or use of vaccines or other drugs.

 

In order to prove injury from a drug, a person would have to prove

" willful misconduct, " not just actual harm.

 

But this putrid performance is part of a much larger pattern to

protect corporations from the consequences of the damage they cause.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

 

-- " The highway safety agency ... is backing auto industry efforts to

stop California and other states from regulating tailpipe emissions. "

 

-- " The Justice Department helped industry groups overturn a

pollution-control rule in Southern California that would have required

cleaner-running buses, garbage trucks and other fleet vehicles. "

 

-- " The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has repeatedly

sided with national banks to fend off enforcement of consumer

protection laws passed by California, New York and other states. "

 

-- " The Food and Drug Administration (claims) FDA-approved labels

should give pharmaceutical firms broad immunity from most types of

lawsuits. "

 

Because of repeated problems with roof- crush incidents that have

crippled drivers in rollover accidents, the National Highway Traffic

Safety Administration at last proposed a beefed-up safety standard for

car roofs -- but the proposal also provides legal protection for the

manufacturers from future roof-crush lawsuits. So your car roof may be

less liable to crush during a rollover, but if it does and leaves you

paraplegic, but you won't be able to sue.

 

Sometimes I'm not sure what planet these people live on -- they must

think the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal represents reality.

 

Gee, would a fine, upstanding American corporation actually make a

product that would hurt someone? Knowingly? Would they ever lie to

cover it up after they find out about the problem and continue

manufacturing whatever it is until finally forced to stop? Well, would

they do that if it was really, really profitable? Could that happen in

our great nation?

 

The trouble with the people who write The Wall Street Journal's

editorial page is that they never read their own newspaper, which

still does the best job of business reporting anywhere. Business

interests have done a splendid job of vilifying trial lawyers and

pretending the only people hurt by limiting the right to sue are trial

lawyers.

 

Look, the trial lawyer is not the one in a wheelchair after a

roof-crush rollover leaves someone paraplegic. Do you drive a car?

 

 

 

 

Read more in the Molly Ivins archive.

http://www.workingforchange.com/column_lst.cfm?AuthrId=8

 

Molly Ivins is the former editor of the liberal monthly The Texas

Observer. She is the bestselling author of several books including Who

Let the Dogs In?

 

Source: Working for Change.