Polluters, Not Victims, Should Pay for Damage

I am sure I am not the only outraged witness to pollution by commercial enterprises who is shocked by some environmentalists’ proposed solution to the financial mess this despoliation causes (“Spill Cleanups: Who Pays,” July 27).

The corporations that wreak havoc upon the environment doubtless are pleased to learn that their erstwhile critics now want the general public to pay for these corporate-caused disasters.

This plan provides for funds raised through taxes and increased costs for products to pay for catastrophes such as the Lake Shasta toxic spill. No longer would the individual corporations that cause such ruinations be held financially liable for them.

It is impossible to imagine a more illogical proposition. Once corporations are assured that they will not be held negligent for these calamities, they doubtless will occur with increasing frequency. When has it ever happened that the reduced personal responsibility for one’s destructive acts made one more careful not to commit them?

The argument that corporations simply will go bankrupt rather than pay for their defilement of the ecology is unpersuasive. Exxon and others suffer hardly at all for their sins. The answer, therefore, is for judges to allow truly large settlements against such polluters, with no tax writeoffs allowed. When the shareholder feels the force of such claims on corporations, we will see the contamination of the environment come to a halt.

PATRICK GROFF

San Diego