This week’s newsletter looks at two examples of corporate greed and attempts at accountability: presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ headline-grabbing plan to address corporate price gouging and state and federal regulators’ efforts to address corporate polluters pumping the environment full of toxic forever chemicals. Across the news cycle such efforts are gaining traction (and drawing pushback from bad actors, from the corporate media to the DOD).
Harris Unveils a Plan to Tackle Price Gouging, to the Whining of Conservatives & Corporate Media Hacks
On Friday, Kamala Harris presented a set of economic policies, including tackling corporate price gouging on food and groceries. Predictably, conservatives derided it as socialist, communist and economically destructive. They were joined by ostensibly liberal commentators with corporate sympathies, who offered their own pre-emptive critiques.
Corporate media whining aside, Harris’ plan appears to be on solid ground. Speaking from North Carolina, Harris announced the “first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries” and spoke to the concerns of families covering the costs of basic necessities like food, rent, and medications. Her approach—expressing an understanding of these concrete issues, and a willingness to take corporations to task for attempting to profit at consumers’ expense—is supported by numerous polls demonstrating that voters know corporations are ripping them off, and support government efforts to make them stop.
We’ve long made this argument in our corporate crackdown work—executive branch leaders should not shy away from either protecting consumers from corporate greed or publicizing those efforts. It’s both good governance and, as polls show, good politics.
The corporate media outcry in response to Harris’ proposal only bears out another pillar of our corporate crackdown thesis: when figures like Harris publicly criticize corporate wrongdoing, choosing to be combative and name corporate villains where they exist rather than speaking about negative impacts in the abstract, they generate news cycles. Compelling conflict narratives must involve a villain—it doesn’t make sense to talk about consumers being harmed or negatively impacted without saying whose actions are causing the negative outcomes.
And being attacked by neoliberal columnists is one way to keep a policy proposal in the zeitgeist. “Harris is being attacked for blaming corporate greed for much of inflation” is… a good outcome. Continuing to take corporations and consolidated corporate power to task is a strong strategy for Harris on the campaign trail as election season unfolds. (For more on Harris’ strategic thinking, read this piece from Anand Giridharadas.)
States Take Action to Address PFAS Contamination, as the US Air Force Attempts to Dodge Accountability
We’ve written multiple times this past year about the ongoing saga of PFAS or “forever chemical” pollution and cleanup efforts, particularly the numerous setbacks in attempts to force corporations to stop polluting the air, water, and soil with these chemicals associated with significant health risks to people, animals, and ecosystems.
As my colleague Chris and I wrote in March, “…PFAS (short for per- and poly- fluoroalkyl substances), [are] “a group of chemicals used to make fluoropolymer coatings and products that resist heat, oil, stains, grease, and water.” PFAS trigger scientific concern because, as the “forever chemicals” moniker suggests, they don’t break down in the environment, but instead stick around, building up in everything from soil to drinking water to the bodies of people and animals. PFAS have repeatedly made the news already in 2024, as new studies have come out indicating the widespread presence of PFAS in everything from nearly half of the U.S. drinking water supply to packaged tea and processed meats to turf sports fields.”
Some states continue to pick fights with PFAS polluters, making critical progress on halting the unabated leach of these dangerous chemicals into our environment, while some notable villains continue to dodge accountability. Last week, Massachusetts lawmakers passed a bill banning the use of forever chemicals in firefighters’ protective gear. The legislation aims to interrupt the stream of occupationally induced illnesses (including cancer) that has led to the premature deaths of many firefighters in the state. Meanwhile, in early September, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation will review the permits that have long allowed the use of treated sewage to fertilize land, in light of the finding that it can contain toxic forever chemicals that then pollute agricultural land and products.
As states reckon with the widespread impact of PFAS, some notable bad actors are pushing back on cleanup efforts. Notably, the US Air Force has cited the Supreme Court’s Chevron ruling to attempt to dodge EPA efforts to clean up Tucson’s drinking water, which Air Force practices have polluted with PFAS. In addition to the bad-faith effort to avoid responsibility for cleaning up their mess, the Air Force’s argument is facially ridiculous. As the Guardian reports, “legal experts noted that [the Chevron ruling] does not affect EPA enforcement actions like the Tucson order – it only affects the rule-making process.” Regardless, the avoidant stance is concerning, and points to work to be done to ensure units across the executive branch are in alignment with the Commander in Chief’s stated priority to clean up toxic, cancer-causing chemicals rather than leaving communities to deal with the consequences.
Can you imagine how much more progress America would make against cancer if corporate influence on politics could be curbed?
Want more? Check out some of the pieces that we have published or contributed research or thoughts to in the last week:
We Need To Talk About Linda McMahon
NYT’s Terrible Understanding of Who Economists Are
On The Campaign Trail And In The White House, Harris Is Rightfully Villainizing Monopolies
What We Talk About When We Talk About the Revolving Door
Harris caught in fight between donors, progressives over Big Tech power
How Kamala Harris’ cozy ties with Big Tech could enable Google to wiggle out of an antitrust breakup