Army Overseer Tells of Ouster Over Kbr Stir. New York Times, Article Review Example

Risen, J. (2008, June 08). Army overseer tells of ouster over kbr stir. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/washington/17contractor.html?pagewanted=all

This article is about the ordeals of an Army official who got himself fired from his job after refusing to approve payment of more than $1 billion to KBR after “The auditing done by the army officers revealed that KBR lacked credible data that is worth more than $1 billion” (Risen, 2008). The article talks about power abuse, fiscal impropriety, and incompetence of the Bush administration.

The role played by the government in this case, is to promote unethical business practices such as lack of accountability in awarding and implementing tenders. According to the article, Army auditors had confirmed that KBR did not have credible records or data that could account spending of more than one million. Despite all these claims, the government still awarded KBR a 10-year contract worth$150 billion in Iraq. This is an indication that the Pentagon was at the forefront of derailing accountability. KBR, which has come out as the most dominant contractor in Iraq, has enjoyed political connections with the Bush administration that has enabled it to circumvent best practice ethics (Girard & Bernreuter, 2006). The government has terribly failed in this case due to its inability to promote accountability and transparency in its operations. Even though the government awards the contracts, it has failed to monitor if the and ensure that the money it is awarding to contractors does not reach the troops.

The governance structure needs some amendment to enable workers fully execute their duties without facing discriminatory actions. Even though Mr. Smith had identified discrepancies in costs and refused to sign off payments, another official who could enable the scandal to continue soon replaced him. This shows the level of poor governance that exists within the United States Army.

The evidence for wrongdoing in this case is the report made by the Army audit that discovered the lack of credible records to justify the spending of KBR. In addition, MR Smith was reportedly removed from his position after speculations regarding the irregular operations of KBR. This aimed at paving the way for allocation of funds according to their budget. After replacement of MR. Smith, the army hired another contractor to review the costs of KBR without consulting the previous Army auditors’ report. The beneficiaries from this deal are the government officials and business owner of KBR.

Broder, J. (2011, October 11). Groups sue after e.p.a. fails to shift ozone rules. New York Times. Retrieved from www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/science/earth/12epa.html

This article is about health and environmental groups that challenged the Obama administration’s rejection of stricter air quality standards, arguing that the move endangered public health. The core issue in this group interest politics setting of ozone standards. The five health and environmental groups are planning to sue EAP for failing to implement the EAP ozone rule. It is interesting enough that the business community and the republicans supported these standards during the Bush era. Conversely, the same health and environmental groups are suing the new administration in corporate law chambers governed by prosecutors. This is because of their culpability to be paid by other bodies, or the administration (Broder, 2011).

It is not clear which groups are pro limits since even the health and environmental bodies does not have clear aims. The stricter standards proposed by EAP is 70 parts per billion which sounds rather arbitrary compared to the permissible exposure set by Bush administration. The business community and the republicans supported stricter ozone standards during the Bush administration but were later suppressed after being told not to sue to force new standards. From the look of things, each group has its own interest to serve since everything here revolves around politics.

The groups that are lobbying against stricter ozone standards include the business community, and the administration. The Obama administration believes that allowing such standards would through many countries out of compliance and businesses might incur high costs in meeting such standards. The Obama administration argued that the compliance would too costly and leads to high regulatory uncertainty to industry.

From the look of things, the health and environmental bodies are public interest groups since their main purpose is to represent the interest of the citizens. While EAP is supposed to protect the public from environmental degradation from depletion of the ozone layer due to industry emissions, they at times act in favor of the industry. The people working for the agency usually have knowledge about the industry regulated. Regulating the manufacturing industry requires people who have knowledge in manufacturing. The question that emanates from this, is who the regulators really serve. It will be hard to ascertain whose interest the regulators are serving- the public or the industry. If regulators who see themselves as future industry employers or employees control the agencies, then the industry has captured the regulatory agency (Goldsmith, Ch. 4, p. 147).

Friedman, T. L. (2009, April 11). (no) drill, baby, drill. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/opinion/12friedman.html

The role played by the government in this case is to protect the public interest. The government is at the forefront at ensuring that economic growth and environmental protection go hand in hand. The environment ministry is empowered by integrating all the areas that have significant environmental impacts. They do this by ensuring that energy and environment ministry is put in one place. The government of Costa Rica, has ensured that externalities that may result into market failure due failure of the price mechanism, should take into account the full social benefits, costs of production, and consumption. An externality is a consequence of an economic activity that third parties experiences and which are either negative or positive (Cornes & Sandler, 1996).

The vice president for Conservation International was at the forefront in pioneering an idea that a country such as Costa Rica depends on both tourism and agriculture. These two sectors depend on the services provided ecosystem and as such need to be paid. In order to account for such “externalities,” landowners who keep their forests intact and rivers clean were to get pay (Friedman, 2009). This led to imposing a tax on carbon emission channeled to the indigenous communities protecting surrounding forest through national forest fund. Major water users also pay water taxes given to villagers staying upstream.

The government is leading the market by imposing taxes that used to support poor families and rejuvenate the depleting natural resources in the country. The government is leading change by implementing strategies that are able to ensure sustainable economic development. The major beneficiaries from the government programs are the local communities living around these natural resources. The business community on the other hand has to pay additional tax in order to make the local communities live comfortably. With such programs, there is no loser in the long term. However, in the short term, the business community might see that they are sustaining the local communities for no apparent reason.

References

Cornes, R., & Sandler, T. (1996). The theory of externalities, public goods, and club goods. (2 ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Risen, J. (2008, June 08). Army overseer tells of ouster over kbr stir . New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/washington/17contractor.html?pagewanted=all

Friedman, T. L. (2009, April 11). (no) drill, baby, drill . New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/opinion/12friedman

Broder, J. (2011, October 11). Groups sue after e.p.a. fails to shift ozone rules. New York Times. Retrieved from www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/science/earth/12epa.html

Girard, N., & Bernreuter, M. (2006). Management issues. W.B. Saunders.