Environmental Audit Bill is a crime in the making
BY REP. JOE NEAL
There is a bill pending in the state legislature that poses a grave
danger to the entire state. This bill is so mean-spirited and wrong-minded
that its serious consideration has caused me to wonder if I want to
continue serving as a state legislator.
The only purpose of the Environmental Audit Bill is to allow
polluters in South Carolina to get away with polluting, to allow them to
do their polluting in secret, and without fear of penalty and public
scrutiny.
Identical bills have been introduced into state legislatures across
the country by anti-environmental, ultraconservative interests
the kind of
interests that believe it is acceptable business and moral practice to
damage people's health and our common environment as long as a profit is
being made.
To date, all of these bills have been defeated. Only South Carolina
the most
environmentally damaged state in the nation
now appears
to be seriously considering passing an Environmental Audit Bill, and, in
the process, continuing our long, sad record of self-inflicted
environmental harm.
The reason why Environmental Audit Bills have been defeated across the
country is because they are frightening. Sensible citizens by the millions
have found their self-serving contents very difficult to believe, and to
stomach.
Consider that these bills actively shield polluters from prosecution
for what otherwise would be considered environmental crimes.
Consider that in the future environmental infractions could be kept
secret from the public, shielded from public disclosure
and from fine
or penalty
because a
company would be policing and "auditing" itself.
Consider that the bill actually tries to persuade the public that
eliminating normally imposed fines for toxic discharges would be
beneficial because it would supposedly encourage polluting companies to
police themselves.
Consider that the bill also tries to tell the public that shielding
companies from public disclosure of environmental crimes and infractions
would mean polluting companies
somehow
would monitor
themselves more thoroughly and effectively.
All of these considerations, added together, paint a picture of
legislation which is legitimately frightening. It is legislation whose
provisions of secrecy threaten the health of every person in South
Carolina. It particularly threatens the health of our black population,
which shoulders a disproportionate share of the pollution now in South
Carolina.
South Carolina needs the exact opposite of what is in the
Environmental Audit Bill. It needs light, truth and public scrutiny let
into every part of the South Carolina environment, and into every
industrial activity which is potentially damaging to our people or to our
environment, and into every business practice which deals with toxic
discharge, toxic waste and industrial spills.
These terribly dangerous activities put the health of all our citizens
at risk, and no company or industrial practice should be exempt from
scrutiny.
In this last month of our General Assembly a few rational legislators
will introduce amendments which will:
1. Strengthen DHEC so that it will have the backbone to act in the
public's behalf and not avoid its responsibilities to public health and
environmental well-being, as it does now.
2. Create a "state cause of action" which will allow individual
citizens to sue for state penalties whenever DHEC fails to act in the face
of environmental infractions, or does not act with due diligence. This
Audit Bill surrenders the people of South Carolina to polluters.
We must create a way whereby the citizens who actually have to live
with pollution will be able to sue polluters on their own and the state's
behalf.
3. Direct that all fines for environmental infractions
whether
collected by DHEC or by citizen action
be placed
into an Environmental Enforcement Fund to further empower individuals to
sue, and to stop polluters by court action when DHEC fails to act.
It is significant that the federal Environmental Protection Agency and
the U.S. Attorney oppose the Environmental Audit Bill because they:
Oppose the South Carolina bill's "creation of new environmental and
evidentiary privileges."
Charge that the bill's immunity provisions "do not require a
violator to take any steps to prevent reoccurrence of a violation."
Charge that the bill will allow an environmental violator to "gain
a competitive advantage over other businesses which invest in resources to
meet environmental requirements."
States that language in the South Carolina bill is so "vague that
in the future it could well become very difficult to determine if
environmentally regulated businesses in the state are out of compliance
with our environmental laws and regulations."
My constituents, my friends and my conscience have compelled me to
remain in the legislature. Turning the air we breathe, the water we drink
and the land we walk over to the corporations that benefit from our
state's lax environmental regulations is a breech of trust I cannot
commit.
Joe Neal is the state representative for District 70 in Richland
County and is a board member of South Carolina Environmental Watch, a
group that works to protect low-income and minority communities from
polluting industries.
In the future, environmental infractions could be kept secret from the public and shielded from fine or penalty because a company would be policing and "auditing" itself.
