Public Comment

According to a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) air pollution causes about 200,000 premature deaths each year in the United States. The researchers calculated that those who died lost on the average ten years of their lives. Emissions from road transportation are the most significant factor. Particularly problematic is the emission of the poisonous gas, nitrogen oxide, which causes smog, acid rain, and ground level ozone, all of which jeopardize our health. 

As a result of this revelation the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued regulations to the automobile industry to appreciably reduce nitrogen oxide emissions. But the new standard increases the cost for the manufacturers, which the executives of Volkswagen decided to avoid. It installed in the United States about 590,000 devices in the engines which yielded a false reading that complied with the new legal emission limits. Moreover, the company acknowledged that it also installed these gadgets worldwide in 11 million cars. Without these emission cheat devices, the actual reading on the road was forty times greater! Moreover, the Volkswagen executives and staff even calculated the costs of fines if the ruse was discovered. According to their financial calculations, the company would still be ahead. 

Particularly troublesome has been the role of the federal government. To check whether the automobile companies were meeting various legal requirements, the EPA performed stationary tests rather than tests on the road. Stationary tests yield a much lower reading of pollution levels than on the road tests. Also, the stationary readings can be easily manipulated. In fact, one of the agency's staff members developed an on the road testing device, which was initially used by the EPA. But in 2001 the agency stopped using it. According to former engineers for the EPA the ruse would have detected Volkswagen's cheating many years earlier than it did. 

Moreover, the EPA closed its Virginia Testing Laboratory, where the testing device was fully developed. Volkswagen had cheated on the tests for eight years. Those who were disappointed thought that the agency was too passive. On the contrary, the EPA was active in attempting to avoid an investigation of Volkswagen's cheating. The testing in Virginia would have detected the cheating immediately. 

President Obama was accused on the US Senate floor by a Democrat of ignoring the issue, and failing to press the regulatory agencies to take action. The senator claimed that he was doing too little and too late. President Bush, who succeeded Obama, was just as remiss. 

The scheme was eventually discovered, but not by the establishment. Rather it was by a little lab connected to West Virginia University. A nonprofit independent science organization, The International Council on Clean Transportation, gave the researchers $70,000 to do a standard emission tests on diesel cars in the U.S. The researchers confirmed that the actual pollution was appreciably higher than what the manipulated engines showed. Once the word got around, the establishment could not ignore the findings. Soon after, Volkswagen's CEO resigned. 

Clearly, the executives involved in the cover-up were guilty of a criminal act. Two lower ranking executives who were in the United States received prison sentences.-- one of them for a bit more than three years and the other for seven. According to the prosecutor, the seven year sentence could have been instead for 169 years. But the prosecutor and the judge claimed that since the defendant pleaded guilty, seven years was the maximum sentence he could receive. What nonsense! The evidence was irrefutable that he participated in the illegal scheme. His confession added nothing that was not already known and proven. 

Since the Volkswagen executives are based in Germany, they could only be tried in the United States if they were extradited. Despite the extradition treaty between the United States and Germany, no high level public official requested extradition. And Germany had no intentions of extraditing the executives. Nor did the German courts sentence any Volkswagen executives to prison. Clearly, both governments failed to take appropriate action for Volkswagen's crimes. 

The Volkswagen scandal is one illustration of the soft treatment that corporate executives who engage in illegal activities enjoy. It is not only that the complicity of government is highly immoral. That complicity communicates a message to big business executives that they have nothing to worry about. Instead, the corporations are required to pay fines. As corporate executives know, a fine is the euphemistic term for the cost of doing business as usual. 

Justice has certainly taken a back seat. When we consider how badly the Volkswagen corporation could have suffered, the company has performed well despite the damage to its reputation. Initially, sales dropped both in Germany and the United States, and sales were sluggish in Western Europe. But the aggregate sales last year increased by over 4 percent thanks to sales in South America, Central and Eastern Europe, including Russia. Also, last year China purchased more than 3 million Volkswagen cars, which was a 6 percent increase over the previous year. Just why did so many countries purchase Volkswagen automobiles despite the global publicity of its illegal and dangerous conduct is an in interesting question. Apparently, the fact that the problem was resolved outweighed the concerns of Volkswagen's cheating. 

The good news is that Volkswagen and other automobile manufacturers are unlikely to engage again in a similar crime. The risks are too high. Also, had Volkswagen been forced to cut back its production, lots of workers would have lost their jobs. Volkswagen employs about 625,000 workers worldwide, which feeds well over a million people. The corporation is among the largest on earth. With regard to its workforce, Volkswagen was concerned about the risk of having caused a serious morale problem. So the company has been consulting with its employees on a regular basis. The result has been an improvement in employer-employee relations.  

About the future, many Volkswagen customers and some members of the public as well will keep their eyes and ears open to assure that Volkswagen will never, never again engage in such scandalous behavior.