Many thought that the BP Oil Spill would lead to new environmental legislation, as happened after past environmental disasters. That didn’t happen. But something else did happen: BP paid $24 billion in civil and criminal penalties. In an era where any effort at government regulation is immediately denounced as a dire threat to liberty, there was nary a peep out of Republican politicians about these massive penalties. Nor do I hear Trump, Cruz, or Rubio defending Volkswagen from penalties. The moral is that the public is much more united behind punishment for corporate wrongdoers than it is about new regulation.
This makes sense if you think about the arguments that are made against regulation. Opponents of regulation have successfully spun their position as protecting consumers from higher prices and workers from lost jobs. Corporate shareholders, and corporations as entities, don’t get such a respectful hearing. Indeed, “corporate welfarism” is reviled by the Tea Party, and big business remains low in public esteem. Punishing corporate wrongdoers also fits well with the populist anger at both ends of the political spectrum — it’s something Trump supporters and Sanders supporters can both support. Indeed, on both the Right and Left, few things have caused as much anger as the government’s bailout of banks rather than punishing the financial institutions responsible for the financial crash.
The main benefit of punishing corporate wrongdoers is deterrence, which is partly due to the punishment itself but also due to the public stigma that comes along with penalties. After the Exxon Valdez spill, the company became a paragon of safety offshore. But there is another benefit, because it reinforces the idea that environmental law is stopping companies from doing something morally wrong.
It would be wrong to oversell the potential role of punitive actions. There are other incentives for compliance that often make more sense, and corporate officials are by no means all enemies of the environment. But in a time when new regulations are so fiercely resisted, coming down hard on corporate violators of existing regulations may be a sound strategy.
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Daniel Farber | March 10, 2016
Many thought that the BP Oil Spill would lead to new environmental legislation, as happened after past environmental disasters. That didn’t happen. But something else did happen: BP paid $24 billion in civil and criminal penalties. In an era where any effort at government regulation is immediately denounced as a dire threat to liberty, there was nary […]
Mary Jane Angelo | March 9, 2016
Recently I had the opportunity to spend an entire day at the University of Florida Department of Entomology — the same department where I obtained my M.S. more than 30 years ago. I gave a talk on the law and ecology of pesticides and pest management and met with graduate students and faculty. It was […]
Dave Owen | March 7, 2016
Since Justice Scalia’s passing, the blogosphere has been abuzz with speculation about how the changed composition of the Court will affect environmental law. This post adds a little more to that speculation. My focus is not the Clean Power Plan litigation, which has (justifiably) gathered much of the attention, but instead the litigation over the […]
Daniel Farber | March 3, 2016
Chief Justice Roberts turned down a request this morning to stay EPA’s mercury rule. Until the past month, this would have been completely un-noteworthy, because such a stay would have been unprecedented. But the Court’s startling recent stay of the EPA Clean Power Plan suggested that the door might have been wide open. Fortunately, that doesn’t seem […]
James Goodwin | March 3, 2016
CPR Vice President Sid Shapiro is among the many distinguished panelists participating this monring in a forum called “Regulatory Capture in the 21st Century.” The forum is hosted by the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), an independent federal agency that works to provide Congress with advice on improving the administrative system. The event will feature remarks […]
Evan Isaacson | March 2, 2016
The mysterious deaths of 13 bald eagles on Maryland's Eastern Shore last month captured headlines around the country. While a tragic story, it was also a reminder of just how far bald eagle populations and those of other birds of prey have recovered over the last several decades. From a population of fewer than 1,000 […]
James Goodwin | March 2, 2016
Yesterday, the Republican members of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee (HSGAC)—the Senate committee with primary oversight jurisdiction over the regulatory system—published a report detailing their shock and dismay over a Wall Street Journal story alleging that the White House “may have inappropriately influenced” the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) so-called “net neutrality” rule. […]
Rena Steinzor | February 29, 2016
The Supreme Court today denied certiorari in a case challenging the watershed-wide effort led by the EPA to reduce pollution flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. The Court’s action leaves standing a lower court ruling upholding the effort. CPR Member Scholar Rena Steinzor, Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, issued […]
Daniel Farber | February 25, 2016
There’s already been a lot written about how Justice Scalia’s untimely death will affect pending cases, not to mention speculation about the possible nominees to replace him. Less attention has been given to the effect on the lower courts. Yet Justice Scalia’s departure gives liberal judges in lower courts more freedom than they’ve had in […]