American Smelting and Refining Company (Asarco) has operated numerous mines smelters, and related operations in the US for over 100 years. Asarco has at least $500 million in outstanding environmental liabilities. A Chapter 11 Bankruptcy filing has apparently absolved this Corporation from it's responsibilities in meeting these liabilities. Well, that means you and I get to pay for what they should be. There are numerous people around the country who have been adversely affected by the spewing of arsenic, lead, and many other toxic agents this company has been belching for over a century, and now refuses to clean up.
Asarco has operated in this country for over a 100 years, and has been avoiding paying the costs associated with cleaning up their messes for nearly as long. They have 19 sites on the Superfund list, and federal money to fund that project is running out. Sites not on the Superfund list are the responsibility of individual states to clean up. Either way, Corporations walk away virtually free, and we're left "holding the bag".
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Apparently, Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) is working on legislation to make this impossible. At this point, I haven't been able to find a reference to said legislation. I will post an update if I find details so that we may push to have laws enacted to prevent the kind of actions Asarco has been engaging in. It is another sad example of how our government places corporate profits ahead of the health and well-being of citizens.
Marilyn Berlin Snell has an excellent piece about Asarco, and their malfeasance Here, over at the Sierra Club. Here's a snippet of what she talks about:
In the United States--a country that has based its keystone environmental laws on the principle that polluters, not taxpayers, should pay to clean up the poisons they spew--Asarco is just one example of how corporations use Chapter 11 to slough off massive environmental liabilities, reorganize, and then emerge leaner and meaner to operate another day.
While Congress can pass laws making it tougher for consumers to escape debt, they don't appear able to hold corporations responsible for not only debt, but the devastation they leave behind. Can you say "transfer of wealth"? I have left a message inquiring Senator Cantwell, and Congressman Baird (D-WA) of the previously mentioned legislation. I hope to hear something positive, but we all know what happens to any legislation put forward by Democrats. (It's hard imagining Rethugs promoting legislation reigning in the corporate free ride.) Another reason we NEED a Democratic majority ASAP!
UPDATE
Further investigation at the Sierra Club Site revealed this:
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200605/goingforbroke/cantwell.asp
It does not provide a legislation number, but some details are provided.