The Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility this week got the report it commissioned on Arkansas Power and Light's White Bluff power plant, but couldn't figure out what to do with it.
So the ACSR did what most committees that can't decide what to do would: It postponed taking a stand on the controversial plant.
Between now and January, the ACSR will ask Harvard environmental experts to read over the Investor Responsibility Research Center's report on the AP&L plant and evaluate the plant's environmental impact.
The IRRC report offers a compendium of information on the plant and on federal and state licensing procedures, but doesn't draw any conclusions or recommend any course of action for Harvard. In consulting the experts, the ACSR seems to be looking for someone to tell it who is right about the plant, AP&L or the Arkansas community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN), the group fighting the plant.
When it makes its decision on the plant, the ACSR will be officially responding to a list of requests ACORN submitted to it in October. ACORN wants Harvard to put pressure on AP&L to install "scrubbers" on the coal-burning plant's smokestacks in order to cut down on sulfur dioxide emissions, and to pressure AP&L to promise to pay nearby farmers for any damage the plant might cause to the farmer's crops.
The ACSR has to decide, then, exactly how much the plant will pollute, and whether it wants to get involved in its first non-proxy issue.
It is clearly being very cautious about both decisions. In addition to having professors to over the IRRC report, several ACSR members and Stephen B. Farber '63, special assistant to President Bok, have mentioned the possibility of commissioning the IRRC to do yet another, more detailed study, which would cost, one ACSR member said this week, between $25,000 and $50,000.
This kind of procedure would be a lot more expensive and difficult to carry out than simply voting on proxy resolutions, and the ACSR will also undoubtedly be worried about setting a precedent for getting involved in other non-proxy cases.
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