THE CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY COALITION 2013 REPORT CARD THE CAC The Corporate Accountability Coalition is an alliance of organizations whose work includes a focus on issues of corporate accountability and transparency, abuse of power by corporations, responsible business practices, and the rights of people. The Center for Corporate Policy (CCP) Corporate Accountability International (CAI) CorpWatch EarthRights International (ERI) The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) The International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR) Cover Photo: Remains of the 1984 Bhopal Disaster, a devastating example of corporate irresponsibility and lack of accountability. Coming upon the 30th anniversary of the disaster, the area is still polluted, and the corporations responsible have yet to provide adequate remedies to the victims. © Jack Laurenson, 2010 Please send any feedback, comments, and concerns to: [email protected] TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction About this Scorecard ..................................................................................... 2. The State of Corporate Accountability .......................................................... 3. Scoring Methodology .................................................................................... 8 Why are the Scores So Low? ......................................................................... 9 2.013. Results The Senate .....................................................................................................10 Summary of Scored Actions: Senate .............................................................17 The House .....................................................................................................19 Summary of Scored Actions: House ............................................................3.5 Unscored Measures ............................................................................................3.9 Data Visualization Perfect Sores ................................................................................................ 43. 2.013. At-A-Glance ....................................................................................... 44 Highest-Scoring State Delegations ...............................................................45 Lowest-Scoring State Delegations ............................................................... 46 Score Breakdown ..........................................................................................47 Corporate Accountability Coalition 2013 Report Card • 1 ABOUT THIS SCORECARD This is the second edition of the Corporate Accountability Coalition’s Congressional Report Card. The CAC Report Card represents an effort to measure Congress’s commitment to keep the power of large corporations in check, to promote transparency and responsible business practices, and to hold corporations accountable for their actions. Corporations are an important part of modern life and the modern economy, but their interests do not always represent the interests of living, breathing, human beings. This Report Card attempts to serve as an objective measure of Congressional efforts to ensure that protecting people, not corporations, is the primary focus of our laws and policy. Corporate Accountability Coalition 2013 Report Card • 2 THE STATE OF CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY 2.10 3. did not see any great improvement toward corporate accountability and reining in corporate influence over our public institutions. Instead, incidents of egregious corporate misconduct continue, and our legislators, courts and regulators have failed to restore the balance. In April of 2.013., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Royal Dutch/Shell, the world’s largest corporation, could not be sued in New York by Nigerians who claimed that Shell was complicit in a brutal crackdown on anti-oil protestors in the Niger Delta. The Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. decision reduces the already limited options to obtain accountability for corporate participation in the worst abuses, such as genocide and slavery. To In 2013, a Pew Research poll date, there has been no legislative response to the showed that 86% of middle class Kiobel decision. adults believed banks were at The United Nations’ Working Group on least partially responsible for Business and Human Rights visited the United States the difficulties facing the middle for ten days in 2.013.; in its time here, the group looked class, and 80% at least partially at a wide array of corporate responsibility issues. In blamed large corporations. its concluding statement, the Working Group found that there was “little appreciation of human rights being material to the conduct of business in the U.S.” As the United States falls behind international efforts on corporate accountability, it is incumbent on Congress to act. Despite Congress’ failure, the American public understands the problem. Surveys have consistently shown grave concerns with unchecked corporate influence. In 2.013., a Pew Research poll showed that 86% of middle class adults believed banks were at least partially responsible for the difficulties facing the middle class, and 80% at least partially blamed large corporations. Earlier surveys have also confirmed that overwhelming majorities of Americans believe that corporations have too much power in Washington and that there is too much corporate money in politics. Corporate Accountability Coalition 2013 Report Card • 3 Increasing corporate power and rights, decreasing corporate accountability A single corporate lobbying group, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, spent nearly $75 million on lobbying Congress in 2.013.. Just ten individual corporations spent over $157 million on lobbying, and thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2.010 Citizens United decision, corporate influence on Washington is no longer limited to lobbying— these entities that have no right to vote can now spend unlimited sums of money to influence elections. As its influence grows, the corporate lobby pushes to reduce accountability. These efforts increasingly limit the ability of ordinary citizens and other victims of corporate abuse to access the courts. Binding arbitration clauses now prevent many workers and consumers from accessing the courts when their rights are violated. In 2.013., corporate lawyers—supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—argued to the Supreme Court that multinational corporations doing business in the United States cannot be sued here—that despite the fact that a corporation may profit from its business here, it can only be sued where it has its headquarters or where it has chosen to incorporate. In fact, the Supreme Court has become increasingly receptive to the Chamber’s arguments; under Chief Justice Roberts, the Court has agreed with the Chamber’s position 72.% of the time, up from only 56% under former Chief Justice Rehnquist. In its 2.012.-2.013. term, the Supreme Court sided with the Chamber 82.% of the time. The financial industry nearly destroyed the global economy in 2.008, yet despite abundant evidence of criminal wrongdoing, not a single high-level corporate executive has been prosecuted. In 2.013., JP Morgan Chase, one of the banks involved in the 2.008 crisis, paid $13. billion in fines as a result of an agreement after an investigation by the Department of Justice. JP Morgan Chase also paid $92.0 million to settle charges by the SEC, the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority, the Federal Reserve, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for its involvement in the “London Whale” trade scandal in 2.012.-2.013.. In both situations, no one faced jail time, and JP Morgan Chase actually received tax breaks on the fines that they paid. Corporate Accountability Coalition 2013 Report Card • 4 The continuing need for transparency and accountability The human cost of this lack of accountability continued to be felt in 2.013.. On April 2.4, 2.013., the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed. The factory supplied garments to a number of U.S. retail companies that benefited from the cheap labor and lax enforcement of labor laws, such as factory inspections and protections for organizing unions. The day before the collapse, a local inspector ordered the building evacuated—yet the very next day, employees were forced to return under threat of losing their jobs. The collapse killed over 1,100 workers. The victims and their families still have not been adequately compensated, and the majority of those U.S. companies have continued to refuse signing the legally binding Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety, instead creating their own voluntary, non- binding agreement. By contrast, a The U.S. Chamber of Commerce number of European companies have signed the spent nearly $75 million lobbying Accord. Congress in 2013. In1 2.0 3., Chevron pleaded no contest to criminal charges of violating labor and health codes surrounding the 2.012. refinery fire in Richmond, California, which forced thousands to evacuate their homes and caused more than 15,000 people to seek medical attention for respiratory problems. Chevron was asked to pay $2. million. While the Contra Costa County District Attorney applauded “Chevron’s commitment to do more than what is required by law in order to help ensure nothing like this ever happens again,” that same year, Chevron was responsible for another refinery fire in Mississippi, which resulted in the death of a Chevron employee. In Arkansas, Exxon Mobil’s Pegasus pipeline burst, spilling over 2.00,000 gallons of crude oil. The notice from Pipeline and Hazardous