Environmentalists and concerned citizens are angry that nearly a dozen former government environmental regulators have gone to work for General Electric to help the company avoid paying for the PCB pollution it spewed over many decades into the Hudson River in New York and the Housatonic River in Massachusetts. For example, shortly after Stephen Ramsey left a job as head of environmental enforcement at the Justice Department under the Reagan administration, he joined a law firm representing GE and helped write a 10-page guide on how to stymie government efforts to hold companies responsible for pollution. Ramsey’s advice, based on his years working for the government, was so worrisome to David Buente Jr., his successor at the Justice Department, that Buente sent a memo to colleagues warning them about it. Then Buente too left government service to join the GE team.
