Chr Evening Neurs, Harrisburg, Tuesday, Dec. 27, 1983-A5 Industry wrote the book literally on chemical standards THE CHEMICAL industry secretly drafted American foreign policy on safety requirements for chemicals sold in the Western world. This startling conspiracy is disclosed in State Department and Environmental Protection Agency documents, which were intended for official eyes only. But my associate Jock Hatfield has seen some of the suppressed evidence. The evidence has also been laid before the House science and technology subcommittee whose chairman, Rep.
James Scheuer, had planned to hold hearings last October. But he wasn't able to corral crucial State Department and industry witnesses. They are understandably reluctant to answer the embarrassing questions they know Scheuer is waiting to ask. But he'll try again to hold hearings early next year. INSIDERS tell me, meanwhile, that the chemical industry is "scared to death" that the evidence will be made public.
This is exactly what I now intend to The suppressed memos reveal the Chemical Association, an industry trade group, helped write U.S. policy for last year's talks with our Western industrial partners in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). European members of the SYNDICATED COLUMNIST JACK ANDERSON fore a new chemical could be marketed in member countries. But U.S. insistence on looser safety requirements effectively scuttled the negotiations.
The chemical industry objected to Europeans' stricter safety tests, complaining that they would be too costly. The Reagan administration supported chemical makers. A memo dated May 25, 1982 six months before the OECD meeting in Paris makes clear that the U.S. pro-industry position was no fluke. The memo was written by Jack Blanchard of the State Department's Office of Environmental Affairs to Harry Marshall, the deputy assistant secretary for environmental affairs.
It frankly acknowledges that the language of the U.S. proposal was prepared by the Chemical Manufacturers Association and "met U.S. industry concerns." The memo states that the industry-inspired position paper was forwarded through European channels OECD had hoped to win U.S. approval for strict tests of toxicity be- Credit check service liable for THE SUPREME. COURT has been asked to uphold an award of heavy financial penalties against credit reporting services that publish erroneous credit information about corporations and individuals.
But the leading credit reporting service i in the country Dun Bradstreet Inc. says it processes so many credit reports 1 that it cannot effectively if it must pay a heavy financial penalty any time it makes a mistake, especially if it promptly the error when it finds out about it. The problem of the standard of accuracy to be imposed on credit reporting services has recently raised both legal and political controversy. Congress became so upset with complaints from consumers and businesses that it passed the Fair Credit Reporting Act. This law allows people to see their credit re.port on request, and to ask that it be changed if they believe it is inaccurate.
But few consumers or companies make these requests as a routine matter, trusting that most of the time the credit reporting services will be substantially accurate. A BAD MISTAKE, of course, can cause a consumer or a company a great deal of trouble. It can cause banks to withdraw credit or refuse loans and can cause suppliers to demand advance payment or cash payments. Even if the report is corrected, the original error can have a long-term effect on a business or a consumer. Until recently, most courts have held that an honest mistake by a credit reporting service, corrected promptly, doesn't constitute grounds for the service to be sued for libel.
The theory is that a credit reporting service is somewhat like a newspaper, and that unless it can be shown that the mistake is due to recklessness or malice the reporting service should be protected from paying heavy damages. Now, however, the Vermont Supreme Court has thrown the credit industry into a tizzy by ruling that Dun Bradstreet must pay a building contractor $50,000 in actual damages and an additional $300,000 in punitive damages even though a credit reporting error was not due to recklessness or malice and was corrected promptly. The case first developed in 1976 when a Vermont builder went to a bank for a loan. The bank showed Quotes "The great bugaboo remains the federal deficit." Mark Riedy, executive vice president of the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, speaking of the home builders' market and the danger of an interest rate increase on home mortgages in "We wish to have peace in the Holy Land and to bring an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people, so that Arabs and Israelis can move from a cycle of hatred and violence and fighting to one where they can live in peaceful coexistence." Bethlehem Mayor Elias Freij, an Arab Christian, speaking as his town prepared for the influx of tourists to celebrating the birth of Christ. for eventual presentation at the Paris conference.
But Blanchard's memo was later pencil-edited to suggest that the chemical association's draft was actually the work of an EPA official. Scheuer views this revision as "a transparent and flagrant attempt by the individuals in the administration to conceal the fact that the chemical industry itself was drafting this country's international chemical policy." Blanchard now says he was confused when he wrote the memo and insists that the U.S. position at the Paris conference did not originate with the chemical industry. But another memo, written to EPA's then international activities director, Richard Funkhouser, admits that the government's position was rewritten the industry's "suggested language," while "taking account of the above CMA suggestions." Don King, director of the State Department's office of environmental affairs, has corroborated the two embarrassing memos. In fact, he said that the chemical industry not only drafted the policy proposals, but had veto power over the final text.
He said industry representatives reviewed the State Department's final draft at a luncheon' meeting and later gave it their seal' of approval, "but if they had said no, it would have been no." Footnote: A CMA spokesman said his group's contribution to the official U.S. position amounted to "wordsmithing" and not dictation of foreign policy. NO RED ALERT: The FBI has cleared the American peace movement of charges that it is communist-dominated. In a recent update on the situation, the FBI confirmed its congressional testimony of a year ago. The update was sent to Sen.
Jeremiah Denton, R-Ala. "The FBI has documented overt and covert Soviet active measures to influence the U.S. peace movement," the report, states. But, it adds, "there is no evidence that the Soviets or the organizations they control have a dominant role in the U.S. peace movement." There are some Soviet-controlled groups, the FBI said, but they "constitute only a few of the literally hundreds of organizations that comprise the contemporary U.S.
peace movement." The Kremlin realizes this, the update points out. "The Soviets recognize that their U.S.-based front groups have credibility problems and do not have the strength or support to control or dominate the movement," the report states. It's not for lack of trying, apparently. All the top brass of the U.S. Communist Party are actively involved in the peace movement, the FBI warns.
HUNTING THE HUNTERS: National Rifle Association President Howard Pollock is among several under investigation for using a field that may have been baited with food. The group was hunting waterfowl in Delaware. A spokesman for the NRA said is possible that the hunters had no idea that the field was baited" which is no excuse in the eyes of the law. The investigation is being conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, whose boss, G.
Ray Arnett, is himself an enthusiastic hunter and a friend of Pollock. In fact, I'm told he was invited to go on the hunting trip that's being investigated. "It's a good thing he wasn't on the trip," said an Interior Department spokesman. America, America, we dump our wastes on thee; From cyanide to nuclear, and also PCBs. COMMENTARY RY 113 Black colleges financially strapped Fisk up by bootstraps PRESIDENT James E.
Cheek, president of Howard University, the nation's pre-eminent black institution, isn't entirely sure how he wound up heading a drive to save a "rival" school the financially strapped Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn. It may have been partly a remembrance of things past due (at tiny Shaw University where he presided before coming to Howard a decade ago), partly a sense of butfor-the-grace-of-God, and partly a WILLIAM RASPBERRY matter of dominoes, "though I used SYNDICATED COLUMNIST to say I didn't believe in the domino theory." In any case, Cheek, whose own Church groups protest Vatican tie STEVEN PRESSMAN ALTHOUGH Congress has quietly removed a 116-year-old bar to formal diplomatic ties between the United States and the Vatican, an exchange of ambassadors may not come for a while. Numerous American religious organizations have mounted a lobbying campaign aimed at dissuading President Reagan from naming an ambassador to the Vatican. The administration has not fully committed itself to such a step. But it has indicated an interest in formalizing U.S.- Vatican relations since Congress in November repealed an 1867 law that prohibited the use of federal funds to maintain a diplomatic mission to the papacy.
"We feel it is inappropriate for the U.S. government to appoint ani ambassador to the (Roman Catholic) Church, to any church," said the Rev. Dean M. Kelly, director for religious and civil liberty at the National Council of Churches. THE COUNCIL, an umbrella group of Protestant denominations, has been joined by other religious faiths in opposing U.S.
diplomatic ties to the Vatican. All of them claim that such a move would run afoul of the constitutional doctrine of separation between church and state. Among those upset over possible U.S. diplomatic recognition of the Vatican are the National Association of Evangelicals, the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, the American Jewish Congress and the Rev. Jerry Falwell, head of the Moral Majority.
"We don't in principle like to oppose something that the (Roman Catholic) Church would welcome. We are not at war with the church," said Henry Siegman, executive director of the American Jewish Congress. But Siegman said the U.S. government should not "relate to any particular religious body in any preferential way." him a recent Dun Bradstreet credit report which said that the builder had filed for bankruptcy. The developer then asked Dunn Bradstreet for the names of everyone who had received the report, which the developer said was absolutely wrong.
Dun Bradstreet checked its reporter and discovered that one of the developer's former employees had filed for bankruptcy and had, by mistake, listed the developer's name on the petition. Dun Bradstreet then sent a correction to five companies in Vermont to which it earlier had sent the mistaken credit reference. NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE' JACK C. LANDAU contending that a credit reporting service doesn't perform a public service in the same sense that a newspaper does, because its reports are supposed to be considered by its clients and SO there is very little public benefit from its reporting services. The Vermont Supreme Court agreed, ruling that the developer could collect both compensation and punishment damages merely by showing that the credit reporting service had made a mistake regardless of malice.
In asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case, Dunn Bradstreet said that it is arbitrary for courts to say the news media always play a more important constitutional role in society than a credit reporting service. Therefore, the credit service should not be denied the same protection against libel suits. Many non-journalistic publishing organizations and individuals, Dun Bradstreet said, might provide a more important service for their subscribers than a newspaper does. Furthermore, what is excluded from the news media? Free-lance writers? The occasional book author? The one-time pamphleteer? Every organization that does not regularly publish or broadcast news? Dun Bradstreet contends that the courts should not be in the position of deciding the relative importance of all disseminators of information, and that therefore all should have the same protection against heavy judgments in libel cases.
THE DEVELOPER sued Dun Bradstreet in Vermont for libel, Roman Catholic officials in the United States say they are neutral on the sensitive issue. The U.S. Catholic Conference "just doesn't care to get involved with the question. It's just something between the U.S. government and the Vatican," said spokesman Russell B.
Shaw. The conference represents Catholic bishops on secular and civil issues. Reagan, like several other presidents stretching back to Franklin D. Roosevelt, has designated a personal representative to the Vatican. But that post does not enjoy diplomatic status.
Reagan's part-time envoy is William A. Wilson, a California rancher and land developer. Members of Congress who support formal U.S.-Vatican relations say the move is justified because Pope John Paul II is a political as well as a religious leader. SEN. Richard G.
Lugar, a Methodist who is a leading advocate of diplomatic ties, said John Paul has transformed the Vatican into a "significant political force for decency in the world." Lugar argues the United States would not be recognizing the pope as head 1 -of the Roman Catholic Church but rather as the leader of a sovereign state that is playing an increasingly important role in world affairs. The Vatican currently maintains diplomatic relations with 107 nations, including Great Britain, which resumed ties in 1980 after a 448-year lapse. The Vatican also is represented in all major United Nations organizations. Although it has no formal diplomatic presence in Washington, the Vatican does send an apostolic delegate to the American church. The current delegate, Archbishop Pio Laghi, also serves in an unofficial diplomatic capacity through occasional meetings with government officials.
The United States maintained SCOOPS by Doug Sneyd GRENADA IS NOW IN WATCHING THE A STATE OF AMERICAN LEATHERNECKS LEAVE AND THE AMERICAN GREENBACKS ARRIVE. consular relations with the Vatican from 1797 to 1848, after which it entered into full diplomatic relations for 20 years. But in 1867, Congress put an end to those relations in response to a move in Italy to reunite the independent Papal States with the rest of the country. Since 1870, Vatican City has consisted only of the 108 acres that serve as the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church. The city-state has a population under 1,000 and collects no taxes.
But.it issues its.own license plates and postage stamps. Its premier citizen, the pontiff, exercises complete executive, legislative and judicial authority over Vatican affairs. In the 1950s, President Harry Truman considered naming an ambassador to the Vatican, but backed down after various religious groups vigorously protested the move. IN ADDITION to Roosevelt and Reagan, Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R.
Ford and Jimmy Carter sent personal representatives to the Vatican. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson did not.
Kennedy, the nation's first Catholic president, may have been reluctant to name a Vatican envoy because of anti-Catholic sentiments that surfaced during his 1960 campaign, when some critics charged that his election would inject the Roman Catholic Church into U.S. policy-making decisions. Although the Reagan administration is interested in exploring diplomatic ties with. the Vatican, it has so far stopped short of embracing full-scale relations. White House spokesman Larry said Dec.
8 that the administration is "moving in that direction" but "would not go as far" as to name a full-fledged ambassador to the papal state. Such an appointment would require Senate confirmation, thereby giving groups opposed to U.S. Vatican ties the opportunity to voice their objections to Congress, which did not hold any hearings on the issue before repealing the 1867 bar to formal relations. Steven Pressman writes for Congressional Quarterly of Washington, D.C. Mike Royko, columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times whose work appears on the Commentary page of The Patriot- News, has taken 8 leave of absence.
His column will resume upon his return. 1 institution faces no immediate fis- 4 cal crisis, found himself talking about Fisk's plight at an annual party for his Alpha Phi Alpha fra-. ternity, later with a Reagan administration aid, and still later with a Howard dean. Fisk, whose enroll- ment and income both are down, recently had to raise some $170,000 just to catch up its utility bills and get the heat turned back on in the dormitories. Another $2.8 in bills remains past due, and the survival of the 117-year-old institution is far from assured.
SAID CHEEK: "We all seemed to be coming independently to the same conclusion: that Fisk's difficulties did not bode well for the rest of the historically black insti- tutions, that there was no evidence of anyone seriously rallying to the cause, and that somebody had better start to do something." Almost without ever deciding to, Cheek became that somebody. He called on the Howard University faculty and staff (who had just been asked to accept a pay freeze): to make a generous contribution to Fisk. In five days, 223 staffers had contributed nearly $15,000, with promises of much more to come. "But I didn't want to limit the appeal just to our own faculty and staff, so I sent telegrams to a group, of some 70 leaders across the coun-. try, asking them to come to a (Dec.
the meeting burden at was on Howard. us to told save this 11) I them institution." Those who attended that meeting wound up forming themselves into the National Committee for the Preservation of Fisk University and assigning themselves the task of raising at least $5 million in 1984. Howard students have joined the effort, agreeing to canvass their counterparts across the country in a national fund drive. Cheek is also enlisting the black clergy, asking: them to make the first Sunday. in February (Black History special Fisk fund-raiser.
IT STILL isn't totally clear what combination of rising declining enrollment and bad ment landed Fisk in its present. trouble, though it seems fairly clear that one of its major mistakes was'. to use the principal of its endowments for current expenses. That decision, comparable to a farmer' using his seed corn to feed his ly, reduced the school's endowment from nearly $15 million 1967 to just over $3 million now. A major part of the Cheek-led effort is to replenish the endowment.
"The money is there," Cheek' believes, "and it will be forthcomIng. Just as one example of how willing people are to give, Zion, Baptist Church raised $5,000 In minutes at one Sunday service, with no prior announcement and after three collections had already. been taken. Black people, and white people familiar with the struggle of black people, understand the importance of Fisk and 'the implications if it is allowed to fall." It is of course important that Fisk be saved. But nearly as important is that it be saved not by white philanthropists but through the ef-.
forts and contributions of blacks themselves. You might call it growing up. 4.
