Senators Propose Rewarding No-Bid Contractors at Victims'
Expense
Pending Legislation Would Create A Toxic World without Accountability
It is unconscionable for Congress to view the tragedy of Katrina
as an excuse to reward wealthy, powerful corporations with a
license to pollute, abuse their workers, and rip off Katrina
evacuees. Yet, that is exactly what the authors of legislation
proposed in the U.S. Senate (S. 1761) have done.
This bill extinguishes the rights of individuals to hold corporations
accountable for violating dozens of federal laws and regulations
and gives government contractors immunity from lawsuits when
they harm the residents of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama
already devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
Examples of Egregious Acts That Would Get Special Protection
- If a contractor violated federal clean water laws, and dumped
chemicals in the stream near your house, polluting your groundwater,
you would not be able to go to court under any of these laws
to recover your child’s medical expenses from drinking
contaminated water from a well on your property or the loss
of property value because of your contaminated well.
- If a contractor violated DOT or US Army standards in rebuilding
one of the breached levees, and the levee fails during a storm
next year because of a construction defect and floods a neighborhood,
the residents of that neighborhood cannot recover against
the contractor for the damage to their homes.
- If a contractor ignores EPA regulations for safe removal
of asbestos from an elementary school damaged by Katrina,
and next year – or ten years from now – children
are sickened by leftover asbestos, they will not be able to
recover against the contractor for medical bills.
- If a contractor didn’t check for occupants before demolishing
a building, and crushed someone to death, his or her surviving
family would not be allowed to recover from the contractor
for funeral costs, lost wages, or wrongful death.
- If a contractor used defective roof trusses in rebuilding
a school or community center and it collapsed, the families
of those killed would not be allowed to recover against the
contractor for lost wages and wrongful death.
How Are Contractors - Some of Whom Will Make Millions In
A No-Bid Process - Protected?
S. 1761 protects contractors in two ways:
- It allows contractors to pollute with impunity. First,
this bill bars any individual citizen from bringing a lawsuit
for violating any federal environmental law or regulation
administered by the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of
Transportation or the Administrator of the EPA.
If in breaking these laws—such as the Clean Air Act,
Clean Water Act, Safe Water Drinking Act, or asbestos cleanup
requirements issued by the EPA—these contractors poison
drinking water, spread toxic waste, or even injure or kill
people, citizens are barred from suing in any court to force
the contractors to clean up the mess, recover economic losses,
or recover compensation for personal injury or loss of life.
Citizens would be left without a remedy against contractors
that cause irreparable harm to their air and water.
- It protects contractors who harm Katrina victims or
their workers from ever behind held accountable in state court.
Second, the bill goes even further than eliminating rights
under federal environmental laws, and also eliminates statutory
and common law rights that exist in all fifty states.
This is because the bill radically expands the so-called "government
contractor defense" such that contractors are virtually
immune from any claims brought under existing state and federal
statutes and common law. Such a broad and unwarranted expansion
of this defense means contractors can cause grave harm to
communities trying to recover from a disaster and never be
held accountable.
October 25, 2005
|
