[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12577]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY

  (Ms. SOLIS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Speaker, corporate responsibility. Well, my 
colleagues, Enron got away with robbing thousands of pension holders 
from their life savings, and millions of Americans are watching us, 
waiting to see why there is a double standard. Why is it that someone 
who walks into the local grocery store, who picks up maybe a box of 
Cracker Jacks gets thrown into jail and the CEOs that rob thousands and 
millions of people, pensioners and retirees, of their life savings do 
not have anything going against them. No record, no nothing. They are 
let off with hardly a scandal.
  The other thing I want to bring up is, why are we allowing for 
corporate America to get away with not paying for the pollution that 
they create in our waters, in particular Superfund sites? I have two 
Superfund sites in my own district now, and I ask why is it that we are 
giving them a break to get off the hook? It is not fair for our 
communities.
  Why should the consumers and the taxpayers that I represent have to 
pay for corporate America's mistakes and mishaps? We ought to use a big 
stick, not a pillow, and we ought to talk big and make punishment real 
for those people that break the law.

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