ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 22, 1996 TAG: 9603220043
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JULIE HOLT
FOR THE past year, lobbyists for manufacturers, drug companies and other corporations have been pressuring Congress to pass bills which scale back health and safety regulations. These regulatory "reform" efforts would dismantle laws and regulatory agencies that protect consumers from hazards in the workplace and ensure that consumers have safe products and prescription drugs at home. So far, however, the public outcry over these "regulatory reform" bills has kept Congress from doing the work of their special interest allies.
But, these big lobbies understand that there is more than one way to skin a cat--or do favors for your friends. At the same time they are aggressively pushing regulatory reform, these same corporations are lobbying Congress to reduce the enforcement capability of regulatory agencies and to pass a bill that would limit their responsibility when they make or sell a product that injures or kills consumers.
Take, for example, the assault on the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) ability to regulate drugs and devices. The drug industry has asked Congress to force FDA to speed up the time period necessary to review applications for new drugs at the same time the agency's budget is being cut. This will mean that fewer regulators will carefully inspect the drugs which doctors prescribe. But that's only one side of the attack on consumer health and safety. If injured by a drug whose effects the drug company did not carefully investigate, consumers would be unable to hold the corporation fully accountable. The product liability bill would make it harder to send a message to corporations which act recklessly by limiting punitive damages, the damages levied in rare instances to get corporations to put concern for human health and safety ahead concern for their bottom line.
Another target is the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the agency responsible for making sure that consumers are safe when they use any one of more than 15,000 household and recreational products. CPSC's executive director has stated that the budget does not provide enough money to carry out enforcement activities that reduce injuries from defective products. Many of the products CSPC monitors affect the health and safety of our children. After exposing children to more dangerous products, the product liability bill makes it more difficult for parents to hold reckless corporations fully accountable for their actions.
Congress has also voted to slash funding for all Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) operations by fifteen percent. The budget cuts have forced the agency to reduce safety inspections designed to prevent workplace accidents. OSHA administrators fear that their budget will leave the agency capable only of responding to accidents, rather than preventing them. Joseph Dear, the head of OSHA said the agency is "limping along." Workplace products such as storage tanks and machine tools are especially dangerous. After exposing workers to more defective products by making it impossible for OSHA to perform inspections, the product liability bill would place obstacles in the path of workers seeking to exercise their legal rights.
While business lobbyists say they only want more fairness in the system, the product liability legislation they are pushing illustrates the true unfairness of their real objectives. On the one hand, businesses want to limit consumers' rights to hold them accountable for the injuries they cause. On the other, they want to keep their own unlimited access to the courts. Under the Senate product liability bill, a worker injured by a more than twenty year old defective machine, such as a gas storage tank, would be barred from recovering damages from the manufacturer. But if the same defective machine burned down the employer's property, the employer would still be permitted to recover lost profits from the manufacturer of the machine.
Commentators have recently pointed out how corporations are downsizing to increase their profits. Americans should view this legislation as an effort to "downsize" consumers' rights." Congress should not allow powerful corporations to take away the regulations which protect the health and safety of workers and consumers. Nor should Congress take away consumers' ultimate safety net--the ability of injured Americans to hold these corporations accountable in court.
The American civil justice system has saved thousands of lives and prevented hundreds of thousands of injuries. Senators Robb and Warner have a chance to uphold the important principles and protections embodied in our civil justice system. They should vote against both the obviously dangerous regulatory "reform" bill and the "sucker punch" product liability bill. They would both be knockout blows to American consumers.
Julie Holt is state director of the Virginia Citizen Action in Richmond.
LENGTH: Medium: 85 linesby CNB