“Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to our eyes. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last some crisis shows what we have become.”
This quote is as relevant today as when it was first spoken more than a century ago by Brook Foss Westcott, a famous British bishop, biblical scholar, and theologian. It’s one that the staff of the Environmental “Protection” Agency and all senior leaders of companies regulated by it should repeat like a daily mantra.
Eventually, the coronavirus will reach a point where it doesn’t pose as life-threatening of a health and safety risk as it does right now, and on such a global scale. The same cannot be said about the long-term impact caused by such extreme scaling back of environmental rules and regulations that has become common practice for this administration.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the EPA said it “does not expect to seek penalties for violations of routine compliance monitoring, integrity testing, sampling, laboratory analysis, training, and reporting or certification obligations in situations where the EPA agrees that COVID-19 was the cause of the noncompliance.” It went on to state that disruptions to facility operations or labs and staff shortages may hinder the ability “to meet enforceable limitations on air emissions and water discharges, requirements for the management of hazardous waste, or requirements to ensure and provide safe drinking water [emphasis added].”
As stated in a recent letter to the EPA by the Environmental Integrity Project, to relax compliance obligations on a case-by-case basis during this pandemic would be one thing. To issue a blanket policy that essentially gives the chemical, oil and gas, agribusiness, auto, and other high-pollutant industries a free pass to police themselves is an abdication of its responsibilities, pure and simple.
Make no mistake: The coronavirus has nothing to do with this EPA policy, other than the pandemic serving as the agency’s symbolic scapegoat.
In December 2019, The New York Times published a comprehensive analysis on 95 environmental rules and regulations that the Trump Administration has rolled back, or was in the process of rolling back. In totality, these rollbacks drastically cut back on disclosure obligations by oil and gas companies to report methane emissions; reduce emissions standards; put wildlife refuges and national parks at great risk; and open protected marine areas to commercial overfishing, to list just a few of the agency’s efforts.
Eventually, the coronavirus will reach a point where it doesn’t pose as life-threatening of a health and safety risk as it does right now, and on such a global scale. The same cannot be said about the long-term impact caused by such extreme scaling back of environmental rules and regulations that has become common practice for this administration.
Pandemic or not, great leaders lead with ethics and integrity always. In times of crisis, there is no clearer and obvious test of one’s character.
How leaders respond in times of crisis is when leadership matters most. It is what people remember most. As compliance and ethics pioneer Hui Chen put it in a tweet in response to the EPA’s announcement, “Now we are really testing companies’ #ethics: Do you comply when the regulator is not watching? We (and the world) are watching.”
"Citing virus, EPA has stopped enforcing environmental laws."
— Hui Chen (@HuiChenEthics) March 31, 2020
Now we are really testing companies' #ethics: do you comply when the regulator is not watching?
We (and the earth) are watching.#compliancehttps://t.co/uMJCOaiDHu
To all corporate leaders of the world, I ask the same: Are you a hero or a coward? When this nightmare of a pandemic eventually ends, what will this time of crisis unveil to the world about you?
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