Corporate Responsibility – time to name names

Ever heard of “The “Pharmaceutical Environmental Committee”?
Sounds like a bunch of good deed doers, right? WRONG.

BMS used that cover and joined the chemical and oil industries to attack drinking water protections proposed by DEP.

How about the “Site Remediation Industry Network”? Harmless, right?

Well that’s just not the case. They are front groups that some of NJ’s largest corporations hide behind to attack environmental and public health protections.

Yet these same corporations – many leaders in the health care industry – carefully cultivate a “green” corporate image. To protect their “brand”, they distance themselves from the dirty deeds of anti-environmental corporate lobbying and trench warfare.

Let me offer the most recent egregious example of this hypocrisy and irresponsibility.

Last week, DEP caved to industry pressure and withdrew proposed soil standards designed to protect groundwater drinking water supplies from toxic contamination at hazardous waste sites. (see: DEP caves to industry – abandons groundwater protection standards
http://blog.nj.com/njv_bill_wolfe/2008/05/dep_caves_to_industry_abandons.html

Environmentalists say state standards fail to protect water
DEP shelves uniform regulations for cleanup
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-10/12106533547840.xml&coll=1

The proposed groundwater standards were vehemently opposed by “The Pharmaceutical Environmental Committee” and the “Site Remediation Industry Network”. Both groups filed extensive written comments attacking the proposal, largely to protect their own corporate profits from the costs these groundwater protections would impose on these industries.

These corporations are legally responsible to pay billions of dollars for cleanup, Natural Resource Damage injuries, and liability for poisoning people and water supplies at hundreds of toxics waste sites across New Jersey.

The people of NJ deserve to know who these corporations are and what interests they serve – so, next time you’re shopping, consider just who is looking out for your health (and I trust that their SEC filings accurately represent the full scope of their NJ cleanup liability):
1. Abbott Laboratories
2. Baxter Healthcare Corporation
3. Bristol -Meyers Squibb
4. Cardinal Health
5. DSM Nutrition Products (Roche)
6. GlaxoSmithKline
7. Hoffman-LaRoche
8. Johnson & Johnson
9. Johnson Mathey, Inc.
10. Merck & Co.
11. Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp
12. Pfizer, Inc.
13. Sanoff-Aventis Pharmaceuticals
14. Schering Corporation
15. Wyeth
And here are the tradtiional major polluters that the “Pharmaceutical Environmental Committee” joined up with to attack DEP’s proposed drinking water protections:
16. ExxonMobile Corporation
17. Conoco Phillips Company
18. Hercules Inc.
19. Stepan [Chemical] Company
20. Tierra Solutions, Inc.
21. Sunoco, Inc.
22. Fuel Merchants Association
23. Weeks Marine Inc.
24. United States Department of Defense
25. Standard Coating Corporation and Union Ink Company
26. Chevron Environmental Management Company
27. National Slag Association [Note: my favorite!]
28. New Jersey Petroleum Council
29. PSEG
30. New Jersey Gasoline, C-Store, and Automotive Association
31. Valero Refining Company
32. Chemistry Council of New Jersey
33. Gerdau Ameristeel Sayreville, Inc.
34. Jersey Central Power & Light
35. Styrene Information and Research Center, Inc.

DSM (formerly Roche) – Belvidere, NJ