corporate social responsibility

BP's Gulf of Mexico PR, One Year Later

Submitted by Anne Landman on October 17, 2011 - 7:49pm

BP logo wiltingFinger-pointing over the Deepwater Horizon disaster resumed recently after the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Coast Guard issued a joint report (pdf) which concluded all three corporate participants in the calamity -- BP, Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton -- were at fault. The report concluded all three companies violated federal laws and safety regulations by "failing to take necessary precautions to keep the Macondo well under control at all times." The report also found all three companies were "jointly and severally liable for the failure to comply with all applicable regulations." That means all three companies are mutually responsible for the accident, and each can be held singly responsible for the entire debacle. The report parsed blame among the companies for sloppy materials and workmanship, inadequate training, failure to properly assess risk and conduct proper testing, failure to abide by stop-work work policies after multiple anomalies were discovered, and so on.

Wisconsin Becomes Part of Gas Industry's Land Grab

Submitted by Sara Jerving on October 7, 2011 - 6:50am

The methane gas industry is snapping up land across the United States, and it's not only regions with gas reserves its after. Part of the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," which has become big business in the nation, requires a fine silica sand. The sand is most easily accessible in the state of Wisconsin, which means the industry is looking to scrape the Midwestern state of it's rolling hills by extracting its sand. This new scramble for sand mining has local residents concerned about the health and environmental impacts on their communities.

The industry of sand mining is booming along with the national increase in "natural" gas drilling. The industry is touting methane gas as a "bridge fuel" to wean the nation of its petroleum addiction, but the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing has citizens up in arms because the process leaks harmful toxins into the nation's water supplies -- and the overall process of methane gas drilling is just as dirty, if not dirtier, than using petroleum.

Through the Toxic Mirror: Vietnamese and Americans Continue to Suffer Effects of Agent Orange

Submitted by Rebekah Wilce on September 12, 2011 - 6:00am

courtesy of Seven Stories PressVietnam is the toxic mirror into which avaricious corporations do not want ordinary people throughout the world to look. Inside of this mirror, we see polluted rivers and streams, dying lakes, poisoned oceans, and contaminated food and water.

- Fred Wilcox, Scorched Earth: Legacies of Chemical Warfare in Vietnam, due out September 13, 2011

courtesy of Seven Stories PressFred Wilcox is a writing professor at Ithaca College and a long-time peace activist. In 1983, his book Waiting for an Army to Die: The Tragedy of Agent Orange broke the story of the suffering of American veterans of the Vietnam War due to poisoning by Agent Orange used as a defoliant. On September 13, Seven Stories Press will release his latest book, Scorched Earth: Legacies of Chemical Warfare in Vietnam, which chronicles the effects of chemical warfare on the Vietnamese people. On the same day, Seven Stories will also release a new edition of Waiting for an Army to Die.

In an interview with the Center for Media and Democracy, Wilcox said he hopes that both books will "open a conversation about war, about what we should never do in war, about our environment, about cancer, and about how we as a nation can commit these crimes and then claim we're not responsible."

Koch's "Response" Agrees with Parts of Greenpeace Toxic Koch Report

Submitted by PR Watcher on August 31, 2011 - 7:16am

By John Deans of Greenpeace, August 26, 2011.

On August 25, 2011, Koch Industries issued a response to the Greenpeace report that CMD cross-posted last week, via KochFacts.com. Below is Greenpeace's August 26, 2011, counter-response to Koch. The original can be found here.

Toxic Koch: Keeping Americans at Risk of a Poison Gas Disaster

Submitted by PR Watcher on August 25, 2011 - 9:38am

By Will Vickery

The Center for Media and Democracy is re-posting this article from Will Vickery at Greenpeace as part of ongoing examinations of Koch Industries as well as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) via our ALECexposed.org project and our work to expose corporate spin. The original can be found here. For more, see the Greenpeace Toxics Campaign.

Since 9/11, Koch Industries Has Fought Against Tougher Government Rules on Chemical Plants

Submitted by PR Watcher on August 25, 2011 - 9:36am

By John Aloysius Farrell, Ben Wieder and Evan Bush

The Center for Media and Democracy is re-posting this article from John Aloysius Farrell, Ben Wieder, and Evan Bush at iWatch News, a project of the Center for Public Integrity, as part of our effort to track Koch Industries and ALEC via our ALECexposed.org project and to expose corporate spin. The original can be found here. For more, see Farrell's April 2011 article "Koch's web of influence" and Cole Goins' August 2011 article "What's it like living near a chemical plant?," both also on iWatch. To find out about chemical plants near you, download the spreadsheet of data gathered from the risk management plans that Koch files with the EPA.

"Darling" of Big Tobacco Promotes Kid-Friendly Tobacco Products

Submitted by Eric Carlson on July 1, 2011 - 11:43am

Snus Display Right Next To Candy CounterAt the end of May, as the Wisconsin Joint Finance Committee (JFC) worked day after day and late into the night voting on changes and amendments to the state budget bill, Joint Finance Co-Chair Alberta Darling (R-River Falls) quietly slipped a small provision into the massive budget bill that has received little attention.

Her motion would change the way moist snuff and other smokeless tobacco products are taxed from a valuation based on volume to one based on weight. The measure not only provides a big tax break for companies like Altria/Phillip Morris USA and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, it aids Big Tobacco in their latest outreach effort to kids.

Taxpayers Demand Chase Bank Pay its Fair Share

Submitted by Rebekah Wilce on April 18, 2011 - 9:58pm

tax dodger bannerAt a rally held in front of Chase Bank on Capitol Square in Madison, Wisconsin today, a few dozen people gathered to air their grievances against Chase and other U.S. corporations who will pay no taxes for 2010. Jeff Kravat of MoveOn hosted the rally along with Gene Lundergan, who gathered a group of four or five people to present a tax bill of almost $2 billion to the branch bank manager. This bill, for $1.988 billion, was drawn up using Chase's 2010 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and a December 2008 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report (pdf). When Lundergan, Steve Hughes of Young Progressives and several others approached the front entrance of the bank, they were refused admission by the security guard, so they left the bill propped in the front window.

Big Soda Uses Philanthropy to Silence Opposition, Neutralize Soda Taxes

Submitted by Anne Landman on April 18, 2011 - 3:55pm

Pepsi productsAs evidence mounts linking sugar consumption to increasing rates of heart disease, cancer and diabetes, the soda industry is fighting back, in part by ramping up philanthropy and developing partnerships. After the Philadelphia City Council introduced a measure to add a two-cent tax on soda, the soda industry's lobbying group, the American Beverage Association created the "Foundation for a Healthy America," a new front group that donated $10 million to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia -- to expand its obesity program. The soda tax would have raised about $20 million for obesity prevention programs plus even more money for the city's general fund. Despite this, the soda tax proposal fizzled and Philadelphia's City Council declined to revisit the issue. In a similar move, Coca Cola funded a North Carolina School of Public Health campaign against childhood obesity. The slogan? "Everything in moderation." Even the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation issued a report titled (pdf) "F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future," which contains an odd "personal perspective" written by Pepsi CEO, Indra Nooyi, that reads like a press release. Nooyi boasts about Pepsi's partnership with the YMCA, promotes the company's "responsible advertising" and a self-regulatory project in which the company apparently monitors its own advertising to children under 12.

Main Source: 
The Atlantic.com, Marion Nestle, March 24, 2011

The (Menthol) Elephant in FDA's Room

Submitted by Anne Landman on March 25, 2011 - 2:54pm

FDA Panel finds menthol may enhance nicotine addictionA U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scientific advisory panel handed FDA the information it needs to add menthol to the list of flavorings banned in cigarettes. After a year of studying the cigarette additive menthol, the FDA's Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee on March 19, 2011 released a long-awaited report (pdf) that concludes menthol is more than just a flavoring agent; it has chemical effects that increase the probability of addiction. The panel wrote, "Menthol cannot be considered merely a flavoring additive to tobacco. Its pharmacological actions reduce the harshness of smoke and the irritation from nicotine, and may increase the likelihood of nicotine addiction in adolescents and young adults who experiment with smoking." The panel specifically cited menthol's effects on youth, saying "the distinct sensory characteristics of menthol may enhance the addictiveness of menthol cigarettes, which appears to be the case among youth." The report concludes that "Removal of menthol cigarettes from the marketplace would benefit public health in the United States." Despite this conclusion, the panel failed to recommend FDA take steps to remove menthol from cigarettes. Tobacco companies brushed off the report, since their political and legal might makes them a bulwark against any government effort to ban menthol. The report was so inconsequential to the industry, in fact, that  tobacco company stock prices actually jumped after the report was released.

Main Source: 
University of California San Francisco Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, March 19, 2011
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