Public Citizen to host discussion of CPR Member Scholar Rena Steinzor’s new book, “Why Not Jail? Industrial Catastrophes, Corporate Malfeasance, and Government Inaction.”
On Monday, July 20, 2015 Public Citizen, the Center for Progressive Reform and the Bauman Foundation will lead a discussion focused on CPR’s immediate past president and University of Maryland Law School professor Rena Steinzor’s book, “Why Not Jail? Industrial Catastrophes, Corporate Malfeasance, and Government Inaction.”
Watch and listen to a recording of this discussion.
Date: Monday, July 20
Time: 4:00-5:30 pm
Place: Offices of Public Citizen 1600 20th Street, NW (northwest corner of 20th and Q, NW) Washington, DC 20009
Presenters Include:
Rena Steinzor - Professor, University of Maryland Carey School of Law and immediate past president, Center for Progressive Reform
Robert Weissman - President, Public Citizen (Moderator)
Russell Mokhiber - Editor of Corporate Crime Reporter and the co-author (with Rob Weissman) of “Corporate Predators: The Hunt for Mega-Profits and the Attack on Democracy and Corporate Crime and Violence, Big Business Power and the Abuse of the Public Trust.”
RSVP: RSVP here
In what has the makings of a trend, or at least a boomlet, U.S. Attorneys in five states have obtained indictments against individual corporate executives in six cases where corporate malfeasance killed and injured workers, consumers, or the environment. The cases involve drinking water contaminated by a rusted chemical tank leak in West Virginia; tainted steroid injections shipped nationwide by a small compounding pharmacy in Massachusetts; a massive explosion in an underground mine owned and operated by now-defunct Massey Energy, again in West Virginia; cantaloupe infected with bacteria at a farm in Colorado; peanut paste laced with salmonella and shipped from Georgia despite positive tests for the bacteria; and the infamous Macondo well blowout that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and spilled 205 million gallons ofcrude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
What explains the decisions to prosecute these cases? Why has it taken so long to overcome federal lethargy about pursuing white collar crime in the health and safety, not to mention the financial, sectors? How does the selection of deferred prosecution agreements to settle such cases undermine deterrence? What can be done to encourage expansion of such efforts?
Join Steinzor, Weissman and Mokiber for the answers to these pressing questions and an examination of what can be done to hold bad corporate actors accountable for crimes of negligence that endanger the public health, safety and the environment.
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Matt Shudtz | July 14, 2015
Public Citizen to host discussion of CPR Member Scholar Rena Steinzor’s new book, “Why Not Jail? Industrial Catastrophes, Corporate Malfeasance, and Government Inaction.” On Monday, July 20, 2015 Public Citizen, the Center for Progressive Reform and the Bauman Foundation will lead a discussion focused on CPR’s immediate past president and University of Maryland Law School […]
Amy Sinden | July 13, 2015
In Michigan v. EPA, handed down two weeks ago, the Supreme Court waded into the decades-long debate over the use of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) in agency rulemaking. The decision struck down EPA’s limits on mercury emissions from power plants for the agency’s failure to consider costs, and so appears, superficially at least, like a win […]
Erin Kesler | July 9, 2015
House GOP’s “Negative Earmarks” in Appropriations Bill Would Undercut Key Protections and Cost Thousands of Lives Today, the Center for Progressive Reform released a new Issue Alert, “Earmarking Away the Public Interest: How Congressional Republicans Use Antiregulatory Appropriations Riders to Benefit Powerful Polluting Industries.” The report, by CPR Member Scholars Thomas O. McGarity of the […]
Katie Tracy | July 7, 2015
The Supreme Court’s decision on June 26 recognizing same-sex couples’ fundamental right to marry is a significant, albeit long overdue, civil rights victory for the LGBT community and for our nation. You don’t have to look any further than the long list of benefits available only to married couples to see how denying same-sex couples […]
Dave Owen | July 7, 2015
In a blog post yesterday, Todd Aagaard provided a quick summary of yesterday’s Third Circuit decision rejecting the Farm Bureau Federation’s challenge to the Chesapeake Bay TMDL. This is an interesting and important case, and it will take a while to digest. But just based on a preliminary read, a few issues seem particularly interesting […]
Rena Steinzor | July 6, 2015
The Third Circuit’s decision today is a tremendous victory for the elusive goal of restoring the Chesapeake Bay to the point that it is ecologically healthy. As the Third Circuit made clear, the Farm Bureau’s relentless and self-serving opposition to EPA’s leadership in this area misreads the law. Strong federal pollution controls are the last […]
Robert L. Glicksman | July 6, 2015
The following post is based on an article by Professor Glicksman on the George Washington Law Review website.1 In Michigan v. Environmental Protection Agency,2 Justice Scalia, for a 5-4 majority, held that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s failure to consider cost at the initial stage of deciding whether to regulate emissions of hazardous air pollutants […]
Robert Verchick | July 2, 2015
Today’s BP settlement is great news for the Gulf Coast economy, which still suffers mightily from the damage BP and its contractors caused. The President and his Department of Justice deserve credit for hammering out this deal, and keeping their focus on the victims of what the President rightly calls the “worst environmental disaster America has […]
Evan Isaacson | July 1, 2015
Editors’ Note: This is the sixth in a series of posts on measuring progress toward the 2017 interim goal of the Bay TMDL. The first five posts cover the region as a whole, and then Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia, Future posts will explore the progress of the two remaining jurisdictions. Like New York, […]