Political Weather Report

Sunshine Week

Last week marked UNESCO’s second annual Women Make the News week; I’m still trying to find out how and if it was honored. This week (March 12-18) also marks the return of an important journalistic initiative, Sunshine Week. The goal is to promote free access of the press (and the public) to government information, something the secretive Bush Administration has jealously guarded.


Led by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Sunshine Week urges members of the news media to cover the growing threats to open government by publishing news stories, opinion pieces, cartoons, blogs and other content about secrecy, the Freedom of Information Act, and the like.

Sunshine Week is an indirect result of the climate of fear surrounding 9/11. When Florida lawmakers moved to severely limit access to public information in 2002, the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors declared Sunshine Sunday.

In 2006, the media are answering the call. The San Jose Mercury News, for example, has published an entire package of stories and opinion pieces on open government, and even drafted model legislation for the city. (Thanks to Amy Gahran of Poynter Institute’s eMedia Tidbits for the heads up.)

Gale Blows Out

It’s no secret Interior Secretary Gale Norton resigned last Friday, but not before doing plenty of damage to the nation’s public lands. This not-so-lovely lady is a graduate of the James Watt Wise Use School of Ecological Plundering (OK, I made that up), and for the most part ran her agency to exploit rather than protect national forests and other natural areas.

Since she’s become so connected in the public mind with Bush, I should point out one of her dubious distinctions, which was essentially to allow polluting industries legally to … keep secrets.

Back in 1994, when she was attorney general of Colorado, Norton’s support helped pass something called an environmental audit privilege law in her state. Billed as a carrot to replace the stick of “command and control” environmental regulations and sanctions, such laws allow companies to voluntarily monitor their own compliance with environmental laws. The firms enjoy limited immunity from fines and prosecution if, for example, they investigate and correct the violations they find.

This type of legislation was spearheaded in the 1990s by lobbyists for heavily polluting industries with poor environmental records -- i.e., those most at risk of sanctions for noncompliance. Even if you believe companies can be trusted to police themselves, consider that Colorado’s law specified that anyone who disclosed privileged information could be fined $10,000 or jailed for a year, even if they didn’t know the information was “privileged.”

On its face, this provision compromised community "right to know" and effectively gagged whistle-blowers, journalists, and residents. Other states with audit privilege and/or immunity laws allowed corporations to keep information on environmental self-audits permanently secret from the state and the public, and findings were inadmissable in court.

Activists (and others) balked, and the Environmental Protection Agency wrote new policies, such as the 1995 Incentives for Self-Policing: Discovery, Disclosure, Correction and Prevention of Violations, to ensure that self-audit laws didn't let states opt out of federal rules. States have modified their own audit-privilege laws, but most are still on the books today.

Interestingly, the EPA's own website points out that self-audit laws "can impede government authorities from pursuing environment crimes and violations and may impede the public's access to information about environmental harm.” But with its "partner with business" philosophy, the agency is unlikely to crack down too hard.

Do you reside in one of the states with an environmental self-audit/immunity law? It's something to be aware of, especially if you live near an industrial area. You might not find out what businesses are hiding, but it helps to know that they may be hiding it.

Let the sunshine in!