A Report On The Environmental Protection Agency

Volkswagen is one of the largest automakers in the world and it has a global reputation as a high-quality German auto brand. Social responsibility is included in VW’s corporate culture and it seems that Volkswagen made some advances in Corporate Social Responsibility because the corporation was ranked 11th 2015 in the Global CSR Rep Track 100, which listed companies by reputation (Reputation Institute, 2015).However, the company has been threatened by an emission scandal which broke in September 2015, when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) disclosed that Volkswagen had installed defeat devices on diesel cars which were sold in the US. These devices equipped on VW cars cheated regulators in such a way that it could detect

Kantian ethics and rule utilitarianism disagree on the morality of creating a “defeat device.” This device determined when its engine was undergoing emissions testing then switched from its normal operating mode into a lower emission mode. The normal emission mode was 40 times the limit dictated by the Clean Air Act [1]. By creating a dirty engine, Liang contributed towards the destruction of the atmosphere. This will negatively impact the quality of life for many future generations of people. Because damaging the environment negatively impacts millions of people, rule utilitarianism declares it to be morally wrong. The prosecution of six executives of Volkswagen, including the head of engine development, indicate that Liang’s superiors were involved in this conspiracy from the beginning [2]. The most applicable maxim to this situation is “I shall fulfill

The world of 2015 is centralized on industrialization, and advancements that improve the manner in which a product can be produced to turn the greatest profit. While many of these improvements in speed and quantity benefits society, we cannot turn a blind eye to some of the heavy costs that are associated with this type of mass production. To address some of the issues, like pollution, governments create laws to regulate the amount of negative externalities to its citizens. In the United States, there are multiple federal agencies charged with creating the specific standards and regulations that states and large companies must adhere to. One agency in particular, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), implements and enforces some of these standards “to protect human health and the environment”(US Environmental, 2015).

Due to its scientific evidence and less bias author, I believe the article ‘EPA Pamphlet’ to be the more truthful and accurate of the two. The author states many pieces of scientific evidence to support his view on the state of pollution in Lake Erie. The authors of the article ‘So Long, Lake Erie’ have no scientific background and cannot use as many solid facts about the pollution, where it comes from, and how dangerous it is. Also, none of them work for the government, so probably have less of an idea about all the things that are being done to help save Lake Erie. The author of the EPA Pamphlet does in fact work for the government, and chose to focus on not only how the pollution to the lake is extremely harmful, but also how the public

Chapter four of our textbook reveals the importance of ethics and goes into detail about what ethics is. The textbook directly states that “We define ethics as society’s accepted standard of moral behavior, that is, behavior accepted by society as right rather than wrong.” The article states that although ford made defective vehicles that there were no reported injuries because of them. However, because of ethics ford is recalling the vehicles before anyone gets hurt. This proves that Ford has good

While the Environmental Protection agency has extensive authority over the United States environmental health, the EPA has no more say than any other agency. While the EPA is the only federal agency which has authority over matter that deal with the environment, they can only deal with matter that threaten the environment's or citizens

Saving the environment wasn’t always the goal of the government, but in the last couple of years the government has implicated some rules to make the environment better, but some don’t believe that the environment is deteriorating. Even though cleaning the environment was a major initiative in the 1970’a recently the government hasn’t done much to improve the environment. In the article “How the U.S. Protects the Environment, From Nixon to Trump” by Robinson Myers, the author talks about what President Nixon has done for the environment and the laws he has enforced to make the environment more efficient. Also, the article discusses how the EPA plays a role in helping the environment and if the laws have helped the environment. Richard Nixon

Companies betrayed their employees, consumers, supplies, shareholders, and the government by using unethical techniques and being dishonest to keep their company on top. For example, Volkswagen Company is now in a business ethical dilemma, because the company wanted their latest cars to pose as a diesel friendly. In 2015, “the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that many Volkswagen cars being sold in America had a defeat device or software in diesel engines that could detect when they were being tested, changing the performance accordingly to improve results. The German car giant has since admitted cheating emissions tests in the U.S. VW has had a major push to sell diesel cars in the U.S, backed by a huge marketing campaign trumpeting its cars’ emission. The EPA’s finding cover 482,000 cars in the US only, including the VW-manufactured Audi A3, and the VW models Jetta, Beetle, Golf and Passat. But VW had admitted that about 11 million cars worldwide, including eight in Europe, are fitted with the so-called “defeat device” (Russell Hotten).” “Volkswagen had been intentionally and scandalously cheating on their nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions for

The United States Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the U.S. federal government which was created for the purpose of protecting human health and the environment by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress. The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate. The agency is led by its Administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by Congress. The current administrator is Gina McCarthy. The EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank.

This report through the United Church of Christ and Justice & Witness Ministries was very important in the progress of environmental justice because the report presented that race is the most “potent variable” of where “commercial hazardous waste facilities were located in the U.S.” Throughout this report, the constant theme was about toxic and solid waste, but another underlining theme was the economy versus environment.

Since the formation of the U.S.A in the 1776, environmental policies have changed from anthropocentric to more biocentric and heading to ecocentric in the future. In the past, American were utilitarian and focused on expanding to the west and they did not realize the importance of ecological values. They misunderstood the values of aesthetic and thought that human was the center in the environment relationship. Americans had an anthropocentric worldview and wanted to protect anything could bring up the economic benefits so they mined and create settlements for their own benefits and ignored the impact to the environment. With the wealthy natural resources in the west, the U.S government passed many different

The assumption that ‘it’s easy to be ethical’ assumes that individuals automatically know that they are facing an ethical dilemma and that they should simply choose to do the right thing. But decision makers may not always recognize that they are facing a moral issue. Rarely do decisions come with waving red flags. Dennis Gioia was recall coordinator at Ford Motor

In today’s society we often come to many debates on several issues that go on in our world today. Recently there was an ethical debate on whether or not it is ethical to release vehicles with software that defeats emission testing by the EPA. Volkswagen is being accused of using illegal software designed to hide emissions during testing by installing cars with a software. The EPA accused Volkswagen of using the device in nearly over a half a million cars (Davenport). The cars are reportedly to have been installed with a software that had the ability to turn off the emissions controls when driving normally and turns them on when the vehicle is undergoing an emissions test. With all of these assumptions of Volkswagen cheating the emissions testing does that question their ethical corporate responsibility?

It is not hard to see that the scandal would cause a horrid blow to VW’s image. Until the incident, VW had, like many other German companies, the reputation of “German engineering” (Robertson, 2013). However, instead of using that innovation to develop diesel-fueled cars compliant with U.S. standards, it decided to try to scam its way in the market. Not only did the company admit to having 11 million cars with software intended to cheat tests (Gates, Ewing, Russell & Watkins, 2017), it also plead guilty to “destroying evidence in an elaborate cover-up” (VW Admits Emissions Cheating and Cover-up, 2017); building further distrust among its consumers.

All employees (including the company executives) should be guided by moral principles and ethical values when making decisions (Balc & Simionescu, 2012). The ability of executives to make ethical decisions can be influenced by their cognitive bias (Zeni, Buckley, Mumford & Griffith, 2015). Utilitarianism is one of the frameworks that can be used to address ethical dilemmas. Utilitarianism holds that decision makers should take alternatives that maximize the happiness of the majority of the stakeholders (Choe & Min, 2011 and Marques, 2015). This presentation will discuss how the 8-step ethical decision making process can be applied when addressing a dilemma using the utilitarianism framework. The presentation will also guide the executives of Toyota on how to address the negative publicity associated with the production of cars with faulty acceleration system.