June 23, 1970
Page 20946
SENATOR MUSKIE'S REMARKS ON CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. EAGLETON. Mr. President, yesterday the junior Senator from Maine (Mr. MUSKIE) spoke to the Advanced Management Institute in New York City. His speech dealt with corporate responsibility for the environment.
In the speech, Senator MUSKIE described the legislation that the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution is drafting to amend the Clean Air Act. It is expected that this legislation will provide strict standards and deadlines for all areas of the country set on the basis of the strongest possible protection of the public health.
However, as Senator MUSKIE said in his speech, the leadership in the fight to restore the environment must come not alone from the Government, but "it must also be the business of corporations to become involved in the environmental effort and to eliminate the barriers of distrust which exist" between corporations and many Americans.
Senator MUSKIE offered the corporate community some good, prudent, and constructive advice on this score. I ask unanimous consent that the text of his speech be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the speech was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
The environmental honeymoon is over. The days of rhetoric are fading, the surge of multi-page advertising supplements is ebbing and the glow of togetherness and cooperation may be on the wane.
We saw an early and welcome spurt of enthusiasm – by students, corporations and public officials. That enthusiasm created great expectations.
Students thought they had at last found an issue that could embrace all Americans in an effort to reclaim and restore the society.
Corporations thought that their expressions of concern and announcements of plans for action could remake images tarnished by years of neglect.
Public officials thought that the time had finally come when the public would support expensive programs to restore the environment – and, not incidentally, support them for their efforts.
Now students have gone back to the war, industries are turning to other advertising themes and public officials are filling fewer pages of the Congressional Record with environmental statements.
And our air, and water and land? They are still waiting for the kind of attention they deserve.
The visibility of the environmental movement may have declined, but the public will not forget the promises that were made during that honeymoon.
So what is in store for those promises? The Congress has been responding and will continue to respond with new laws. The Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and the Water Quality Improvement Act of 1969 have been passed and signed into law. Congress voted four times more money for water pollution control in the last fiscal year than the President requested. And major legislation in three areas – air pollution, water pollution and solid wastes – is under active consideration in the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution.
As this legislation takes shape, it is clear that "business as usual" will no longer be good enough – for any of us.
For example, the committee is considering the establishment of national ambient air quality standards.
These standards, under a proposal initiated by Senator Eagleton of Missouri, would require that by a fixed date – three, four or five years in the future – the level of specific pollutants in the ambient air must be reduced below that level which produces adverse effects on health. A second standard would be set – with a longer but still specific deadline – that would require the reduction in the lever of those pollutants to virtual background levels.
To achieve this would require the maximum use of available technology on existing and new industrial plants, power plants, municipal and institutional incinerators;
It would require public control over the siting of new plants;
It could require the control of emissions from used as well as new cars;
It could require restrictions on the use of motor vehicles in urban areas and on the kinds of fuels burned by homes and industries.
These are the kinds of restrictions on our activities as individuals, as businesses and as communities which we must consider if pollution is to be brought under control.
These are the kinds of policies which we are considering to impose those restrictions. They are the price which must be paid if we are to avoid the environmental consequences of unrestrained technological and economic growth.
Congress is responding, but is industry? In recent years, our rhetoric – your advertising and our speeches – no matter how well-intentioned, has too often exceeded the effectiveness of our efforts to deal with our problems.
To a great extent, the leadership in moving to reclaim our environment must come from Government. It is the business of Government to regulate industries and to inform the public of health hazards – no matter which companies may be hurt.
But it must also be the business of corporations to become involved in the environmental effort and to eliminate the barriers of distrust which exist between your corporations and so many Americans.
And after the honeymoon – what is happening?
Are DDT manufacturers diverting production to less dangerous, non-persistent insecticides?
Is the automobile industry really exerting itself as it should to develop a clean, non-polluting engine?
Are soft-drink manufacturers discontinuing the use of non-returnable and non-degradable bottles
To the best of my knowledge, the answers are no.
As long as the answers are no, we can all look forward to spending future tax dollars to develop an artificial environment for our survival and the survival of our children – complete with climate control, air control, gas masks and breathing filters.
As long as the answers are no, American corporations can look forward to more and more movements like campaign GM.
Most supporters of campaign GM – and I supported that effort – did not see it as a blind assault on corporate practices, but rather as a direct appeal to corporate consciences. A corporate response of increased advertising and public relations efforts is not an adequate answer to that appeal.
Students and other concerned Americans can tell the difference between an advertising budget and a research budget.
The corporate response must change. But all of us know that corporations – like the government – are institutions, and institutions do not talk or think or respond by themselves. They must be made to respond – by people in and out of the corporate structure.
Campaign GM was an illustration of how people outside the corporation can apply pressure for change. I supported that effort because I felt that the pressure was appropriately applied. General motors and the automotive industry had not met their responsibility to control automotive emissions.
But campaign GM found it difficult to challenge the management of General Motors on behalf of the stockholders. The securities and exchange commission has said that proxies were not the place for social questions. General Motors admitted to a social responsibility, but it felt that social questions were out of place on the stockholders' ballots.
This must change. If the owners of a corporation cannot control the activities of the company, no one can. The credibility of private enterprise will vanish.
Therefore, tomorrow I shall introduce a bill in the Senate to expand the opportunities for shareholders to have a say in the policies of the corporations which they own. The Corporate Participation Act will amend the securities exchange act to allow shareholders to place on the company ballot any proposal which promotes economic, or social causes related to the business of the corporation.
Shareholder democracy will help bring the social and environmental concerns of the public home to the corporation. Pollution – as well as profits – should be an object of corporate concern.
The pressures for more open corporate structures should also come from inside the corporations.
The movement for corporate environmental responsibility can and should come from management.
As managers you do not live your whole lives in the corporate structure. Each of you, as an individual, faces problems that all of us share.
You and your families breathe dirty air, you vacation beside dying lakes, and you travel on crowded roads. You feel the effects of uncontrolled technology, you experience the discomforts of contemporary life, and you know that we cannot go on forever in this direction.
And you are not alone. The members of your unions are confronting the same problems, and many of the unions will be coming to the bargaining table with new demands in mind.
A corporation can be no healthier and no happier than the people who work in it. The time has come to put an end to the notion that our corporations live lives of their own, surviving on profits made at the expense of our human and natural environments.
For those of you who may dissent from the present practices of your corporation, for those of you who insist that corporations must do more to protect and enhance the environment, the road will not be easy. The pressure to conform will be great.
I hope that you will remember what E. B. White wrote some years ago:
"People are beginning to suspect that the greatest freedom is not achieved by sheer irresponsibility. The earth is common ground and we are its overlords, whether we hold title or not. Gradually the idea is taking form that the land must be held in safekeeping, that one generation is to some extent responsible for the next; and that it is contrary to the public good to allow an individual to destroy almost beyond repair any part of the soil or the water or even the view."
We are beginning to appreciate that philosophy. It is a philosophy that tells us that survival will not take care of itself. That we owe a future of our children. And that all of us must be guardians of that future.
The time must pass when we relax in the notion that some of us – corporations in particular – can evade that responsibility.