THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 3, 1995 TAG: 9502030008
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
A Governor Allen-backed environmental bill working its way through the legislature takes a novel and almost religious approach to crime.
It grants forgiveness to any business or industry that pollutes - but confesses. Specifically, the confessed polluter is accorded ``immunity against administrative or criminal penalty.''
Although criminal defendants commonly confess in exchange for reduced penalties, the proposed bill is far more forgiving, letting polluters off scot-free.
Actually, there are a couple of catches.
1. To receive immunity from prosecution, a business or industry, after conducting its own inspection, must step forward and confess to environmental violations - before being caught by outsiders.
2. The polluter must correct the crime ``in a diligent manner.'' After spilling oil into the Bay, for example, simply saying, ``Whoops!'' will not suffice.
As environmental reporter Scott Harper wrote, ``Department of Environmental Quality officials say the bill offers an incentive for business and industry to conduct detailed inspections that may uncover serious, previously unknown problems.''
As things stand, said Kevin Finto, an attorney representing the Virginia Manufacturers Association, ``A lot of companies are afraid to do these assessments for fear of hanging themselves with what they find.''
In fact, the proposed bill lets companies remain mum about their environmental findings - even to judges - unless there's a ``clear, imminent and substantial danger to public health or the environment.'' In most cases, then, a polluting company's choices would be (1) to confess and be forgiven or (2) to remain mum and take a chance on getting caught and prosecuted.
The bill would work if every business and industry were totally honest and fully intent on protecting the environment. But a business is people in suits. Most people are honest - but not everyone. A company might deliberately dump toxic materials, then ``confess'' to an accident.
Alarmed environmentalists are calling the environmental bill the ``Polluters Relief Act,'' and for good reason.
To forgive polluters while denying other law-breakers parole is to say the environment doesn't matter. It does.
Environmental laws should never be clubs for beating businesses into insolvency. The laws should be reasonable. And they should be enforced. by CNB