The U.S. government will no longer consider a business’s environmental track record when awarding federal contracts, following the Bush administration’s decision to rescind 11th-hour Clinton-era “blacklisting” regulations. The regulations required a business to have a satisfactory record on ethical, environmental, tax, labor, antitrust, and consumer protection laws to win government contracts worth more than $100,000. Repeal of the regulations was a significant triumph for the private sector but a blow to environmental and labor organizations, which argue that the regulations are necessary to prevent the administration from doing business with companies that violate the government’s own laws.
