I thought you might be interested in this article from Wednesday's Republic.
Phoenix-based Honeywell Aerospace will pay the largest air-quality settlement ever levied in Maricopa County, a $3 million-plus penalty for alleged violations at five of its Valley facilities.
The article is important because of the size of the fine, but there's an important little tidbit buried inside.
...most of the problems occurred near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, where the Honeywell Engines, Systems and Services facility is located.
Many were self-reported by the company after an internal environmental audit.
That's right. "self-reported by the company after an internal environmental audit." That's likely to be the last "internal audit" that Honeywell conducts.
When he was in the Senate, Rusty worked on a bill that would make these audits immune from discovery. The media and the environmental community dubbed the bill "The Polluter Protection Act." The argued that the bill would allow companies to hide their violations.
But the bill would have had the opposite effect. After all, it's pretty clear that once these companies are burned by their own audits, they will stop conducting additional audits. That's a worse result for everyone.
