"good neighbour
agreement"
Is British Petroleum's "Openness"
For Real?
Delivered to BP America Forum
Environmental justice would mean that
decision-makers at polluting facilities would live near their
facilities. What if all of us in
this room,
including the decision-makers at BP, lived in the shadow of the
giant chemical facility in Lima, or were members of
Rev. Manley's
church located near the BP plant?
The ancient
Romans had an interesting practice. The reason many of their
arches are still standing today is because they
required the
chief engineer of the project to be standing under the arch when
the supports were removed. If the arch fell, he
was the first to
know.
* * *
The discussion of
"open-ness" strikes me as hollow for several reasons.
For one, BP was one of the leading advocates for the
passage of the
most devious attack on the right to know, the audit privilege
law, in Ohio in 1996. A company that is open does
not need to hide
evidence from the community, the courts, and the regulators.
In addition, over
the past year, since the last BP forum in November 1997, BP has
broken its commitment to deal in good faith
with the Allen
County Citizens for the Environment and their proposed "good
neighbor agreement."
At the 1997
forum, BP promised to get back quickly to ACCE with its comments
on the good neighbor agreement, and once
again promised
open communications. Six months passed. Finally, ACCE received a
letter from Gary Greve saying that he
wanted a
"time out" in the relationship -- I think this is what
you tell two year olds -- and proposing a facilitator be brought
in.
But ACCE has seen
no need for a facilitator, since a constructive process for
exchanging information was already supposed to
be underway.
Instead, what has
happened is that BP and ACCE have come to the table as a result
of ACCE's challenge to the butanediol, or
BDO, permit. The
comments made by ACCE's consultant, after a thorough review of
the permit, have led BP to consider
changes which
would cut expected emissions by more than half. However, the
issue of confidentiality, where the company is
claiming it can't
provide information to the community, is a major sticking point
in the negotiations. If the company had agreed
to a Good
Neighbor process, and had been willing to openly exchange
information about the permit in the first place, the BDO
permit would have
undoubtedly been speeded up and a satisfactory resolution
achieved.
In closing, I
would like to suggest several concrete steps that BP could take
which would go a long way toward demonstrating
that you really
are committed to open-ness. I ask that you take these requests,
which we will be making public, directly to Sir
John Browne and
ask for a response by January 15, 1999.
First, at the
state level, we request that BP become the first company in Ohio
to pledge publicly that you will not hide
information about
your environmental performance behind the shield of the audit
privilege law and that you will support of a
repeal of this
law in Ohio, Texas and other states where you do business. BP's
policy commitment to health, safety and the
environment
states, "Wherever we have control or influence we will
openly report our performance, good and bad." You can
show that you
mean it by abandoning your support for audit privilege laws.
Second, at the
local level, BP should commit in earnest to a good neighbor
process in Lima. One problem with discussions to
date has been the
frequent changes of BP personnel involved. BP should identify a
key leader who will sit down immediately
with ACCE and
other interested citizens to craft a document that demonstrates
what being a good neighbor really means.
There's no better
way to find out what the true meaning of environmental justice is
than to negotiate in good faith with your
neighbors.
Thank you.
Read the full speech online at http://www.ohiocitizen.org/campaigns/prevention/bpspeech.html
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