[Dialogue] Bush's Corporate Contortionist Act

Wed Mar 1 20:04:01 EST 2006

AlterNet

Bush's Corporate Contortionist Act

By Molly Ivins, AlterNet
Posted on March 1, 2006, Printed on March 1, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/32914/

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? 

Molly Ivins writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre happenings. 

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