ThePopTort

HuffPo Repost: Congress Intends to Destroy Your Rights and Hopes You Won’t Notice

If you’re wondering why Republicans in Congress seem disturbingly complacent about the unhinged President and the exploding Watergate-level (or worse) constitutional crises starting to brew, check out the February 15 Full Frontal show on TBS. As host Samantha Bee explains, while people focus their outrage on big ticket offenses like Russian interference with our elections, Congress is, as we speak, quietly destroying multiple Obama-era public protections. It’s a Koch-organized effort that has Republicans in Congress, as she puts it, going “hog wild” passing new laws to harm the public’s health, safety and economic security. For example, one new law allows “coal companies to dump debris into nearby streams. Who the f*%# asked for that?”

No one. Nor did we send politicians to Washington to rig the civil courts against everyday Americans, or strip away legal rights guaranteed by state and local governments. Yet just a couple hours before Full Frontal aired, the House Judiciary Committee finished-up a day-long session, which it began and ended by voting out two bills that would do just that - demolish our legal rights.

Keep reading.

Some Raw Deals for Kids Today

You don’t have to be a severely allergic child whose parents – and school nurses – have been shamefully price-gouged by EpiPen-maker Mylan, to feel unjustly treated these days.

For example, if your parents put you in Kiddie Kollege daycare in Franklin Township, NJ before it was shut down in 2006, you probably have mercury poisoning. That’s because, unknown to your parents, Kiddie Kollege was located in a former thermometer factory. According to a class action lawsuit filed against the township and state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), permits were issued for Kiddie Kollege “even though officials were aware of the previous issues with contamination at the thermometer plant.”

But don’t expect those officials to take much responsibility. This week, the state Supreme Court “found the township and DEP were protected from liability in the case because they are government agencies.” That means “Franklin Township and the state Department of Environmental Protection do not have to contribute to a medical monitoring fund for kids” even though over “100 children were exposed to mercury contamination at Kiddie Kollege” and "[m]any had high levels of mercury in their system when tested.” So sad.

But sad doesn’t even begin to describe the plight of “youth with developmental or intellectual disabilities and serious behavior challenges” condemned to live in facilities run by AdvoServ, “owned by a private equity firm,” which has a “long record of problematic treatment.” In other words, horrible abuse.

Most recently, reported Pro Publica, a teenage girl died at an AdvoServ group home in Delaware. “Attorney Chris Gowen, who has a lawsuit against AdvoServ concerning a different teen, said he has learned workers were manually restraining the girl when she became unresponsive. …”  AdvoServ cares “for roughly 700 children and adults in that state, Florida, and New Jersey, and was expanding into Virginia.” Gowen has also sued “on behalf of a young resident who says he was left unsupervised and raped repeatedly by other clients at AdvoServ homes during more than four years there. His neck was also injured during a restraint performed by workers.”

Over in Arizona, if as a child you were exposed to lethal asbestos when your dad came home from work with it all over his clothes, the state Court of Appeals just ruled that Arizona asbestos companies have no duty to help you.

In the first ruling of its kind in Arizona, the judges rejected the contention of survivors of Ernest Quiroz that his father’s employer, Reynolds Metal Co., should be held legally responsible for the son’s mesothelioma, a form of cancer frequently associated with asbestos exposure, and eventual death.

Appellate Judge Jon Thompson, writing for the unanimous court, acknowledged that some states have allowed lawsuits based on “take-home exposure.” But Thompson said that’s not the way Arizona laws are written.…

Boy, if that’s not an invitation to rewrite Arizona’s laws, I don’t know what is.

Asbestos, Unraveled

If you’re a detested industry that’s gotten away with murder (or some other kind of grievous harm), the results can be a bit of a PR “challenge.” Sometimes you change your name to try to recover your “brand”. (Philip Morris to Altria; MetEd to GPU Nuclear following the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster.) Sometimes you just sell off the company and disappear. (Union Carbide to Dow Chemical and others following the Bhopal disaster.) Sometimes you offer victims some money (as long as they don’t - or can’t - sue you, of course.) And then sometimes, you go on the attack against victims and their attorneys who actually are suing you. That last thing? It generally doesn’t work.

BP tried it once, attacking its own negotiated settlement claiming its victims were taking advantage of it. Like they're supposed to. So that didn’t work.

Here's another example: the asbestos case brought against Garlock Sealing Technologies, one of the world’s largest asbestos-containing gasket and packing manufacturers, by more than 4,000 Navy service members and other victims with lethal mesothelioma. In 2014, a North Carolina judge – in his first and only asbestos case  – decided to reduce by 90 percent the amount Garlock owed its victims. To strip them of compensation, which would have allowed Garlock to keep almost all of it, the judge had to misstate the actual trial testimony of a nuclear trained machinist who repaired and maintained nuclear propulsion plant equipment while serving in the Navy, including Garlock gaskets. The judge essentially had to believe that Navy vets knowingly participated in misleading the courts.

Yet that’s not all. Garlock’s lawyers apparently convinced this one judge that victims’ lawyers withheld certain information from Garlock - an absurd claim because the supposedly “withheld” information was already in the company’s possession. Based on that, however, Garlock filed a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) suit for treble (triple) damages against law firms representing these victims, as if they were part of some kind of organized criminal enterprise.

The asbestos industry was delirious with excitement. I’m sure they could hardly believe their luck after killing thousands of people every year. Suddenly, deadly asbestos companies weren’t the criminals. Victims’ lawyers were! “Asbestos litigation fraud has reached new heights,” wrote the Wall Street Journal. “A symbol of the corrupt practices of the plaintiffs bar” as they called on Congress to wipe out victims’ legal rights. 

Well, I hope they didn’t run out and spend that little pot of gold. Soon thereafter, evidence surfaced that Garlock was the party that “violated [the judges’] discovery orders, hid evidence from the bankruptcy court and presented false testimony .... ‘Garlock has committed a fraud upon the court,’ the read the first sentence in the memo to the judge.” You can find all that here.

Indeed, it now appears that Garlock’s entire case against the victims has crashed and burned, and that whatever paltry amount the judge awarded victims couldn’t be justified by actual facts and evidence.

Reports have now surfaced that Garlock and its parent, EnPro, will settle this case by paying victims almost four times as much as the judge had ordered. (That would be $480 million instead of $125 million). And in addition to coughing up this money, Garlock has apparently agreed to drop its bogus RICO lawsuits altogether. Poof! Gone!  Guess they didn't have the case they claimed they had.

Let’s hope we all learn a little from this debacle. To repeat: if you kill people, attacking victims and their attorneys generally doesn’t work. Best to just change your name.

This Week in Unnerving Asbestos News

There are three new reports from major investigative news outlets about asbestos and asbestos-like minerals this week. Something’s in the air (no pun intended).

The Center for Public Integrity has published a 4,000 word report by Jim Morris, telling the shocking story of how Ford responded to “lawsuits filed by former auto mechanics alleging asbestos in brakes had given them mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer virtually always tied to asbestos exposure.” As you can imagine, it wasn’t by removing the asbestos. It was, instead, by spending “$40 million funding journal articles and expert testimony concluding there is no evidence brake mechanics are at increased risk of developing mesothelioma.” This is contrary to the views of just about the entire scientific world, by the way:

Over the past decade 109 physicians, scientists and academics from 17 countries have signed legal briefs affirming that asbestos in brakes can cause mesothelioma. The World Health Organization and other research and regulatory bodies maintain that there is no safe exposure level for asbestos and that all forms of the mineral — including the most common one, chrysotile, found in brakes — can produce mesothelioma.

Did Ford know it was lying? Seems like it.

Worries about brakes as a source of disease go back decades. A 1971 Ford memo shows that while the company didn’t believe brake dust unleashed by mechanics contained significant amounts of asbestos, it already was exploring alternatives to asbestos brake linings. One of them, made of metal and carbon, performed well, the memo says, “but the cost penalty is severe ($1.25/car just for front-end brakes).”

$1.25 per car to save its workers from a horrible, excruciating death (as we've noted before). Instead, Ford spent its money buying a legal defense, which has been “repeated countless times in courtrooms and law offices over the past 15 years, is an attempt at scientific misdirection aimed at extricating Ford from lawsuits.”

Judges have noted the infusion of controversy into a subject that for many years was not controversial in the least. … A veteran asbestos judge in Wayne County, Michigan, wrote in an opinion that he’d never encountered the argument that “the science was not there” on mesothelioma and brakes until he heard a case involving an Exponent witness.

Oh well, I guess this judge hasn’t been to Russia lately. Because Ford’s anti-science “bought and paid for” theory would find great company there. Just watch this incredible new segment from VICE Reports, where,

[C]orrespondent Milène Larsson traveled to the world's largest asbestos mine in the eponymous town of Asbest, Russia, to meet workers whose livelihoods revolve entirely around the dangerous mineral. Surprisingly, the risks associated with asbestos mining didn't seem to worry the inhabitants; in fact, asbestos is the city's pride, celebrated with monuments, songs, and even its own museum.

Larsson then visits Libby, Montana, another mining town almost on the other side of the globe, where the effects of asbestos exposure are undeniable: 400 townspeople have died from asbestos-related diseases, and many more are slowly choking to death. Why is the deadly industry of mining and selling asbestos still alive and well?

Good question. Expert Nick Ashford explains to VICE that the asbestos industry is basically a criminal industry, which has gotten away with murder – and continues to do so. Libby is now a Superfund site and the residents there clearly blame W.R. Grace, which ran the mine, for killing them. But in Russia, sadly, the (likely dying) residents are scared out of their minds to say anything.

And now, there’s a new lethal fiber to worry about, called erionite. The journalists over at Fair Warning report that this "asbestos-like mineral, blamed for staggering rates of a deadly cancer in Turkey" is "also is found in the rocks and soil of 13 Western states.”

The U.S. Geological Survey has identified 95 sites where the mineral, erionite, exists. And a recent hazard assessment at one of the sites, in the Custer National Forest, found that some Forest Service workers are being exposed to erionite particles in airborne dust as they carry out routine maintenance chores.

And here’s where is gets really scary:

Health authorities have noted key physical similarities between some of the unregulated minerals, including erionite, and asbestos. Minerals that, when disturbed, can release microscopic particles that are longer than they are wide, and that don’t easily dissolve in the lung, “should be assumed [to be] capable of causing asbestos-related diseases,” said Christopher P. Weis, a toxicologist and senior advisor at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. “It really doesn’t matter what they’re called.”…

[L]ast May, a study in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology suggested a link between naturally occurring fibrous minerals and what it described as an unusual pattern of mesothelioma cases in southern Nevada. …

The study said that while mesothelioma normally strikes older men with workplace exposure to asbestos, in southern Nevada there were more victims than expected among women and people under 55. This, the study said, “suggests that environmental exposure to mineral fibers in southern Nevada may be contributing to some of these mesotheliomas.”

So far, U.S. officials seem relatively unconcerned. Maybe they have been to Russia lately.

Congress Today: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

This is one busy congressional hump day! Actually, some stuff happened yesterday but aside from that minor technicality… Let’s start with the good:

U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) have sent a letter to President Obama urging a much broader recall of Takata airbags. They are asking POTUS “to recall every vehicle with airbags using ammonium nitrate as their propellant, and to use ‘every tool at his disposal’ to accelerate the repair of all vehicles with potentially-lethal Takata airbags.” This follows yet another airbag death in December.

Now this is kinda bad. The U.S. House Oversight Committee is holding a hearing on the Flint water crisis today, but Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) won’t be testifying, “an omission that some are calling inexcusable” because the whole thing was his fault. The Ranking Member of the key subcommittee, Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.), put out a statement saying,

Gov. Rick Snyder was at the top of my list of witnesses due to the central role that he has played in this manmade crisis; from the decision to shift from Flint’s original water source for cost-savings to the appalling delay in response to months of complaints by lead-poisoned residents and their children… I am deeply disappointed at the Majority’s lack of commitment to a thorough and meaningful hearing. A sincere search for truth and justice requires a full review by the entire Committee of the decisions and policies of all those involved."

Now the ugly. The House Judiciary Committee is marking up a bill today that deals with a real “in the weeds” concept called diversity jurisdiction. But it would have a truly disturbing impact.  According to over 20 national and state organizations, this bill would “upend long established law in the area of federal court jurisdiction, place unreasonable burdens on the federal judiciary, and make it more difficult for Americans to enforce their rights in state courts. 

And more ugly. Over on the Senate side, the Judiciary Committee is trying to justify a terrible asbestos bill that, as we’ve noted, would allow any defendant in any asbestos lawsuit the right to demand any information about any asbestos victim from any asbestos trust at any time for any reason whether or not this information is relevant in a lawsuit. And it would do so while invading the privacy of people dying from asbestos disease, forcing information about them and their families on a public website making them vulnerable to crooks and identity thieves.

Why this hearing? Well, maybe proponents are trying to jump start an bill that arrived at the Senate pretty much DOA, following a relatively disappointing (for them not us) House vote, a statement from Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) promising he would “try to block the bill” calling it an “offensive invasion of the privacy” and a veto threat from the White House.

Just your typical congressional hump day.

Class Actions, Asbestos, and a Congress That Doesn’t Know Best

Lot’s of folks are expressing all kinds of nutty anger at the federal government this week. But don’t necessarily put the U.S. House of Representatives in that camp, at least when it comes to, well,  themselves! Sure, the House voted to repeal the federal Affordable Care Act again, for the 62nd time. But that failed effort qualifies more as an annoyance than actual rage at this point. When it’s politically inconvenient, however, the U.S. House is right there, sticking its hypocritical federal nose in places where it clearly doesn’t belong.

On Friday, the House is expected to vote on a bill that would directly preempt, or override, state legal systems in asbestos cases, and interfere directly with the third (judicial) branch of government in an unprecedented manner. Yes, the bill, H.R. 1927, would also give sweeping new liability protections to industries that make and market unsafe products, commit fraud and otherwise break rules and harm the public. (More than 70 organizations who oppose this bill explain how.) But these bills would do more than that.

One section of the bill would allow any defendant in any asbestos lawsuit the right to demand any information about any asbestos victim from any asbestos trust at any time for any reason whether or not this information is relevant in a lawsuit. Since relevant information is already available to defendants through the discovery process, this provision has no real purpose other than to delay the payment of claims to dying victims. And by allowing defendants to do an end-run around state discovery rules that place limits on information-gathering by parties, this bill directly interferes with state legal systems.

Another section of the bill would essentially wipe out the court rule that governs class action lawsuits, known as Rule 23. The Rules Enabling Act directs the U.S. Supreme Court – not Congress – to prescribe general rules of practice and procedure for the federal courts. Indeed, the Judicial Conference of the United States is currently in the midst of studying changes to Rule 23 right now! Let them do their job? Not this House! They’d prefer to interfere, pressured by lobby groups whose goal is to eliminate legal accountability for corporations that engage in illegal behavior.

You can learn more about this terrible bill by reading opposition letters, yesterday’s statement of opposition from the White House, and news articles like here, here and here.  

And then if you like, tell your Member of Congress how you feel.

Leaked Asbestos Memo from ATRA!

Hey, take a look at the “confidential memo” just leaked to us! 

CONFIDENTIAL MEMO

To: American Tort Reform Association Members

From: PR Department

Date: July 20, 2015

Re: Please don’t fire us

--------------------------------------------------

We know, sometimes we go a little overboard trying to deflect attention from the wrongdoing of our members, or from like-minded lowlifes and miscreants. Like when we commented on Michigan legislation to immunize the wrongdoing of a Michigan doctor who was such a monster that People Magazine wrote about it in one of those “medical nightmare” features.  We replied, “People are launching multimillion-dollar lawsuits because their alcoholic, chain-smoking, fat relative died in an emergency room.” OK maybe not the most skillful attempt to deflect. But sometimes foul, offensive words just pour out of our mouths. We can't help it.

Donald Trump knows exactly what we mean. We’re just passionate people. However, we realize now that attacking veterans and members of the military is probably not the smartest maneuver. So please accept our apology about last week’s “rare midyear adjustment” to our demented  PR stunt of a study, “Judicial Hellholes.” We released this "adjustment" for the sole purpose of “elevating” military town, Newport News VA, to full “judicial hellhole” status because of asbestos cases. We can hear you scratching your heads. Let us try to explain.  

We don’t know exactly how many hard-working Navy shipyard workers have lived and worked at Newport News Shipbuilding through the years, cutting and removing pipes and gaskets that are full of asbestos. But I am sure many of them are probably now dying of asbestos disease – and a bunch have filed claims and lawsuits to get compensation for their families before they die. We had to do something!  Besides, our asbestos industry members expected us to act (and Koch Industries kinda scares us.) 

Like Mr. Trump, we realized we could get a lot of mileage out of discrediting vets. Actually, we thought that was already “mission accomplished.” In 2014, a North Carolina judge – in his first and only asbestos case  – decided to reduce by 90 percent the amount Garlock Sealing Technologies, one of the world’s largest asbestos-containing gasket and packing manufacturers, owes the more than 4,000 Navy service members and other victims who have or will die from mesothelioma. As noted by the Court, mesothelioma “is always fatal, causing death essentially by suffocation within about eighteen months of diagnosis” and involves “a horrific death.” To strip them of compensation allowing Garlock to keep almost all of it, the judge had to misstate the actual trial testimony of a nuclear trained machinist who repaired and maintained nuclear propulsion plant equipment while serving in the Navy, including Garlock gaskets. The judge essentially had to believe that Navy vets knowingly participated in misleading the courts. How we got a judge to rule that way, we’ll never know. But clearly we had to do more.

We will say one thing, though: Between Garlock, our “rare midyear adjustment,” and Pro Publica’s brand new investigation about how sailors exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War can’t get disability and healthcare benefits, sick Navy vets can’t catch a break lately! (Let’s make sure Congress doesn’t give them those benefits, by the way.) 

But maybe the timing of our release wasn’t quite right.  Unfortunately, we’re finding out now that once you insult veterans and the military, it’s hard to backtrack even if you wanted to. 

Please don’t fire us. 

ALEC’s Invisible New Clothes

Hans Christian Andersen wrote the fairy tale about “two weavers who promise an Emperor a new suit of clothes” but the clothes happen to be invisible to those “unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent” – like the Emperor, apparently. When he paraded around in his invisible clothes, everyone was afraid to say anything “until a child cried out, ‘But he isn't wearing anything at all!’” Woops!

Here's an idea for an updated, adult version of this story:  the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) plays the part of the Emperor, and the real star of this story - investigative reporter Brendan Keefe from Atlanta's WXIA 11 Alive (NBC) - as the child who calls them out publicly on a delusion that is obvious to everyone else.

Last night, Brendan went back on TV for an update of a story we covered a couple weeks ago, about ALEC, "the secretive so-called 'charity' run and funded by big corporations that subsidize the involvement of conservative state lawmakers, who then push for enactment of model bills written by the corporations who pay them."  As we wrote,

In deciding ALEC’s agenda, corporate lobbyists and their state lawmakers meet behind closed doors and vote. However, this kind of secrecy does not sit well with reporters like Brendan Keefe. He tried to attend ALEC’s spring meeting at a resort hotel in Savannah, Georgia. Not only was he kicked out of the meeting, but also - to make sure he stayed out - ALEC “called over a sheriff's deputy, one of six off-duty police officers … taking their orders directly from ALEC staff members. He called three of his fellow deputies as back-up.”

When this story first appeared, it received some decent attention. But then Media Matters got ahold of it and the news story went about as viral as any we’ve ever seen. Suddenly, millions of people nationwide were watching and learning about this dirty group. New clothes (so-to-speak) might have helped an honest organization respond to this negative exposure but not when it comes to ALEC – especially when there’s videotape! Here's a bit of last night's story:

As reported last night, “ALEC responded on its website, saying the 11Alive report ‘exhibited a fundamental misunderstanding of ALEC… ALEC is a forum for the exchange of ideas and free-market policies by a diverse array of members including legislators, business and thought leaders, think-tank scholars and individuals.’”

We asked an ALEC state chair from New England if we could join.

"Is it an organization that Joe Public can join? Or do you have to be a lobbyist or legislator?" Keefe asked.

"Yeah," the representative said. "The only way would join is to be a…"

"I see," Keefe said. "Now, I've gotta run for office!"

"Well, or be a lobbyist," the rep said.

The ALEC spokesperson in the video said we caught him off guard, and then referred to his media policy, which allows the organization to hand-pick which reporters are allowed in. It requires written permission to rebroadcast legislative meetings like the one we walked into.

He also touted the organization's transparency efforts.

So we asked ALEC for permission to show you the video from inside that committee room.

We are still waiting for an answer to that request.

A transparent forum for the exchange of ideas?  “How beautiful the Emperors new clothes are! Fit to perfection!”

Investigative Journalist Exposes ALEC's Asbestos Bill

When a corporate lobby group becomes so publicly detested that even dolphin-killing BP can’t take it anymore, you know you’re in trouble. BP is a corporation that recently ended its association with the American Legislative Exchange Council, joining over 100 others, some equally toxic companies.  ALEC has been gasping for air since the public learned that it was behind the spread of Stand Your Ground gun laws. With a little more news reporting from great investigative journalists like Brendan Keefe from Atlanta's WXIA 11 Alive (NBC), a full collapse could be just around the corner. 

First, to refresh, ALEC is the secretive so-called “charity” run and funded by big corporations that subsidize the involvement of conservative state lawmakers, who then push for enactment of model bills written by the corporations who pay them. Many of these bills are written by and approved by ALEC’s “Civil Justice Task Force,” which is co-chaired by Victor Schwartz, General Counsel for the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA), a corporate group seeking to limit the liability of its corporate members. Limiting the rights of sick and dying asbestos victims, for example, is a high priority for these people.

In deciding ALEC’s agenda, corporate lobbyists and their state lawmakers meet behind closed doors and vote. However, this kind of secrecy does not sit well with reporters like Brendan Keefe. He tried to attend ALEC’s spring meeting at a resort hotel in Savannah, Georgia. Not only was he kicked out of the meeting, but also - to make sure he stayed out - ALEC “called over a sheriff's deputy, one of six off-duty police officers … taking their orders directly from ALEC staff members. He called three of his fellow deputies as back-up.”

Below is his extraordinary news report but first, let me give you some highlights:

• There really are back rooms where corporate lobbyists have direct access to lawmakers completely out of sight, with no transparency or public filings. They're also wined and dined after hours at these events with nothing recorded on ethics reports. We know because we saw one of these back rooms with our own eyes, and were kicked out with the aid of off-duty police officers on orders from ALEC staff.
  
  
• Months before the conference, my family booked a hotel room at the same resort as ALEC. At the hotel bar, I struck up a conversation with a state representative from New England. We later verified his identity as an ALEC state chairman. Sitting next to him at various times were three different self-identified lobbyists who also didn't mince words about why they were there and who was really paying for the event. "We pay more to be here, so it helps support them," one lobbyist explained to me, not knowing I was an investigative reporter. She was referring to the state legislator between us, responding to his request for donations.
  
  
• ALEC Task Force Summits, like the one in Savannah, produce 'model legislation' that is later approved at the annual meeting. These are ready-made bills with actual blanks where legislators can fill in their state's name and existing code. Several laws currently on the books, under which Georgians are governed, were born in back rooms at resort hotels.
  
  
• Georgia's Asbestos Claims Priorities Act severely limits who can file asbestos claims against corporations in the state. It was passed in 2007, the same year its sponsors received thousands to attend ALEC conferences. The co-chair of the ALEC task force that year was a top corporate defense lawyer. The 11Alive Investigators tracked the asbestos bill all the way to the place if its birth: The Venetian Hotel and Casino. The Georgia law began as ALEC model legislation first approved in a hotel meeting room in Las Vegas. You can compare the two documents for yourself to see how several clauses match word for word.
  
  
• The three sponsors of the bill in the Senate received more than $22,000 combined the year before, the year during, and the year after the asbestos bill was passed. Speaker Ralston was the lone sponsor in the House. Sen. Renee Unterman was the only one of the four sponsors to respond to our request for comment. She told us she left ALEC years ago because she was one of the only female members of the organization. She called ALEC a group of "angry white men" and said the organization that was once controlled by legislators is now "controlled by industry."

We were thinking that, but it's sure nice to see a state lawmaker sum things up so well.

Fair-Weather Corporate ‘Transparency’

If I didn’t know better, I’d think corporate wrongdoers have decided to come clean with the American public about all the harm they’re causing. Every time you turn around, there’s some new “transparency” bill coming out of their lobby shops. 

Take translucence-sounding bills like the “Private Attorney Retention Sunshine Act,” peddled to states by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or one called “Transparency in Private Attorney Contracting” (TIPAC). Groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce support these bills (e.g., see them praise enactment of one in Arkansas this week), while at the same time working to limit state Attorney General consumer protection authority and oust pro-consumer AG’s. These so-called “sunshine” bills would accomplish the same general goals by, among other things, making it harder for states to find competent counsel in costly and complex cases against corporate lawbreakers, while allowing these same lawbreakers to spend an unlimited amount of resources on their own attorneys.  (See more here.) Does anyone really think transparency is the goal here? 

Or take the asbestos industry’s FACT Act, aka the "Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency (FACT) Act of 2015," which we last covered here. As we noted before, the asbestos industry engaged in one of the worst corporate cover-ups in history just so they wouldn’t have to pay compensation to their victims, and they still insist on confidentially when settling cases. So now, they want Congress to pass a bill requiring asbestos trusts to disclose on a public web site private, confidential information about every asbestos claimant and their families, including their names, addresses, where they work, how much they make, some medical information, how much they received in compensation and the last four digits of their social security numbers. At the same time, as noted by an earlier New York Times editorial, the legislation does not ask the companies to do one thing to help the victims, or to disclose any information that could help a claimant with his or her case. The bill would also slow down or stop the process by which the asbestos trusts review and pay claims, so that many victims would die before receiving compensation. Does anyone really think transparency is the goal here?

When it comes to corporate cover-ups, not much has changed. Check out these stories, for example.

Yesterday, the huge government contractor KBR agreed to pay $130,000 to settle with the Securities and Exchange Commission for using employment agreements to muzzle whistleblowers, specifically requiring “witnesses in certain internal investigations interviews to sign confidentiality statements that could have kept them from reporting possible securities-law violations to authorities.”  And the problem is not limited to KBR.  The Wall Street Journal reported in February,

In recent weeks the agency has sent letters to a number of companies asking for years of nondisclosure agreements, employment contracts and other documents, according to people familiar with the matter and an agency letter viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The inquiries come as SEC officials have expressed concern about a possible corporate backlash against whistleblowers.

Some of these types of documents sometimes include clauses that impede employees from telling the government about wrongdoing at the company or other potential securities-law violations, according to lawyers who handle whistleblower cases and some members of Congress. In some cases, the firms require employees to agree to forgo any benefits from government probes, effectively removing the financial incentive for participating in the SEC program.

Or check out this story. 

Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Asia’s largest drugmaker, has offered to pay more than $2.2 billion to settle claims that it hid the cancer risks associated with its Actos diabetes medicine.…

The sum could close out more than 8,000 lawsuits in federal and state courts that have been launched against Takeda and have lingered for three years. The deal would amount to about $275,000 for each case.

Takeda is accused of covering up signs that Actos can lead to bladder cancer.

Or how about the herbal supplement industry, which has been covering up the fact that its supplements contain lead, mercury, and arsenic instead of actual herbs.  Now 14 state AG’s want Congress to investigate. 

Corporate lawbreakers and their support systems might want to change their talking points. "Transparency - as long as we've already been caught by law enforcement."