Concerns about Nestlé Waters, a large multi-national corporation, creating a plastic water bottling plant in Centre County along Spring Creek are heating up.

From my reading of the Forum, there appeared to be general concerns of corporatocracy and regulatory capture. Corporatocracy is defined as  “a society or system that is governed or controlled by corporations.”

Regulatory capture is more complicated.  According to Emory Law, regulatory capture is not illegal acts, corruption or control over governments. Instead,

Regulatory capture is characterized by the regulator’s attitude, not the regulated entity’s actions. A regulator is “captured” when he is in a constant state of “being persuaded”: persuaded based on a persuader’s identity rather than an argument’s merits. Regulatory capture is reflected in a surplus of passivity and reactivity, and a deficit of curiosity and creativity. It is evidenced by a body of commission decisions or non-decisions—about resources, procedures, priorities, and policies, where what the regulated entity wants has more influence than what the public interest requires….

If regulatory capture is a state of being, assisted and sustained by the captive, what roles are played by others? Regulatory capture is enabled by those who ignore it, tolerate it, accept it or encourage it: … feed[ing] a forest where private interest trees grow tall, while the public’s needs stay small.

 

Issues of lack of governmental transparency, water extraction, costs, and many other concerns have been raised at the “No to Nestlé” forum on March 14, 2018, in letters to the editor, on Facebook, and at the public forum held by Nestle on March 12, 2018.

This speech by Peter Buckland was given at a community “No to Nestlé” forum on March 14, 2018. It presents his concerns about lack of governmental transparency that may have resulted from actions related to what could be considered as regulatory capture by a large multi-national corporation.