USA

Is Wal-Mart Too Big, Powerful, Influential to Obey the Law?

Topics: 
USA, Corruption, Corporate ethics, Mexico, Foreign corrupt practices legislation
Rating: 
2

Richard Trumka – April 26, 2012

This week's reports from the New York Times about Wal-Mart's practices in Mexico are breathtaking. The Times found "credible evidence that bribery played a persistent and significant role in Wal-Mart's rapid growth in Mexico."

The Times interviewed an executive of Wal-Mart's Mexican subsidiary who "bought zoning approvals and reductions in environmental impact fees." According to the New York Times, when lawyers for Wal-Mart discovered this activity and informed senior management, then Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott ordered Wal-Mart's internal investigative protocols revised to give the targets of internal investigations more control over those same investigations.

SEC Kowtows to Fortune 500, Whistleblower Says

Topics: 
USA, White-collar crime, SEC, Regulatory oversight, Financial industry, Watchdogs
Rating: 
2

Matt Reynolds – April 27, 2012

The SEC allows the nation's richest firms and financial institutions - and only the biggest and richest firms - to handpick the lawyers investigating them for corruption, a whistleblower claims in Federal Court.

Rodolfo Michelon claims that the SEC runs an exclusive "outsourcing program" for Wall Street, neutering incentives and protections for whistleblowers under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Fukushima Reactor 4 poses massive global risk

Topics: 
USA, Nuclear industry, Regulatory oversight, Public health & safety, Japan
Rating: 
0

Andy Johnson – May 19, 2012

More than a year after a devastating earthquake and tsunami triggered a massive nuclear disaster, experts are warning that Japan isn't out of the woods yet and the worst nuclear storm the world has ever seen could be just one earthquake away from reality.

The troubled Reactor 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is at the centre of this potential catastrophe. Reactor 4 -- and to a lesser extent Reactor 3 -- still hold large quantities of cooling waters surrounding spent nuclear fuel, all bound by a fragile concrete pool located 30 metres above the ground, and exposed to the elements.

Fukushima a Ticking Time-Bomb: experts

Topics: 
USA, Nuclear industry, Regulatory oversight, Public health & safety, Japan
Rating: 
2

Experts say acknowledging the threat would call into question the safety of dozens of identically designed nuclear power plants in the U.S.

Brad Jacobson – May 4, 2012

More than a year after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, the Japanese government, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) present similar assurances of the site's current state: challenges remain but everything is under control. The worst is over.

But nuclear waste experts say the Japanese are literally playing with fire in the way nuclear spent fuel continues to be stored onsite, especially in reactor 4, which contains the most irradiated fuel -- 10 times the deadly cesium-137 released during the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. These experts also charge that the NRC is letting this threat fester because acknowledging it would call into question safety at dozens of identically designed nuclear power plants around the U.S., which contain exceedingly higher volumes of spent fuel in similar elevated pools outside of reinforced containment.

Taking air safety complaints seriously

Topics: 
Aviation safety, USA, Regulatory oversight
Rating: 
2

Editorial Board – May 14, 2012

According to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) whistleblowers, air traffic controllers in the New York area have slept on the job, left shifts early and used personal electronic gadgets while working in the control room.

Emergency service helicopters have been inadequately equipped with night-vision systems, potentially interfering with pilots’ ability to read instruments. Unauthorized aircraft have entered U.S. airspace near Puerto Rico. Inconsistent runway rules at the Detroit airport have caused planes to come too close together during takeoff and landing.

Designed to Fail: Why Regulatory Agencies Don’t Work

Topics: 
USA, Regulatory oversight
Rating: 
4

William Sanjour – May 1, 2012

Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We have been “reforming” regulatory agencies over and over again, and over and over again they have failed. Yet, as a result of the recent catastrophic failures of regulatory agencies, politicians and pundits are talking about the same old “Regulatory Reform” again. 

“Fill the regulatory agencies with honest people who won’t cave in to special interests.”  “Give them more money, more authority and more people.”  But my experience has shown that by concentrating all legislative, executive and judiciary authority in one regulatory agency just makes it easier for it to be corrupted by the industries it regulates.

EPA scientist who warned of caustic dust from Ground Zero wins job back

Topics: 
USA, Victories, Merit Systems Protection Board
Rating: 
2

Suzanne Goldenberg – May 7, 2012

A government scientist sacked for exposing the dangers to firefighters from the caustic air at Ground Zero in the days after 9/11 got her job back on Monday. A federal court ordered that Cate Jenkins, a chemist at the Environmental Protection Agency, be reinstated to her job with back pay.

Her lawyer said the decision, although based on matters of legal process, amounted to vindication for Jenkins's claims that the EPA had covered up the danger posed to first responders and others in lower Manhattan from the asbestos and highly corrosive dust that rose from the wreckage of the World Trade Center.

E.P.A. Chemist Who Warned of Ground Zero Dust Is Reinstated

Topics: 
USA, Victories, Merit Systems Protection Board
Rating: 
0

Leslie Kaufman – May 8, 2012

A senior Environmental Protection Agency chemist who argued that she was removed from her job in retaliation for accusing the agency of underestimating the toxicity of dust at ground zero has been reinstated with back pay by an administrative board.

The federal Merit Systems Protection Board ruled late last week in Washington that the agency violated the due process rights of the chemist, Cate Jenkins, when she was fired in 2010 because she was not informed of all the charges against her.

Pink Slime Producer Permanently Shuts Down Plants

Topics: 
Food safety, USA, Food industry
Rating: 
2

Sarah Damian – May 9, 2012

Beef Products Inc. (BPI) – maker of ammoniated beef trimmings, or "pink slime" – announced that it will permanently close three of its four plants on May 25, a move that reveals the consequences of secrecy and nondisclosure in the food industry.

Since late March, when BPI temporarily suspended all but one of its processing plants, the company hoped to shift consumer sentiment by attacking media coverage of pink slime and using meat-producing governors (including Ag Gag supporter Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad) as ambassadors for gross product.

Pages

Subscribe to USA