Can General Electric save America's treasures? Bill and Hillary Clinton seem to think so. But Environmental Protection Agency chief Carol Browner is not so sure. On July 14, GE Chair and Chief Executive Officer John Welch basked in the glow of media flashbulbs and television camera lights as he joined First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in announcing a $5 million contribution by his company to help preserve and restore Thomas A. Edison's "invention factory" in West Orange, New Jersey. The donation was made as part of Hillary Clinton's "Save America's Treasures" tour, intended to highlight and raise money to address the disrepair into which many U.S. historic sites, buildings and objects have fallen. Though it did not manage to achieve the media bounce of Ralph Lauren's $10 million contribution to repair the "Star Spangled Banner," the flag which flew over Fort McHenry and inspired Frances Scott Key to pen the words that became the U.S. national anthem, GE did garner substantial publicity for its contribution. Notably, GE's network, NBC, did a segment on the "Today Show" on the Save America's Treasure tour and GE's generous participation. Just days before Welch joined Hillary Clinton for their joint photo-op, EPA Administrator Carol Browner was on a more solemn mission in Albany, New York. In an unprecedented move during her tenure at the EPA, Browner appeared before a state legislative committee. Testifying before the Environmental Conservation Committee of the New York Assembly, she condemned a GE advertising campaign which she said is endangering the public health. A million tons of GE-dumped PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) now line the bottom of a 200-mile stretch of Hudson River, making it the largest Superfund site in the United States. GE is aggressively campaigning against a potential government-ordered cleanup of the area, which could cost the corporation hundreds of millions of dollars. "GE would have the people of the Hudson River believe, and I quote, 'Living in a PCB-laden area is not dangerous,'" Browner testified. "The science tells us the opposite is true." The federal government banned PCBs in 1977 because they are believed to cause cancer and contribute to a range of other health problems. Browner worried that the GE PR offensive would undermine health official efforts to deter people from eating fish from the river. PCB contamination has rendered the fish hazardous. Surely no company doing so much to destroy the natural environment deserves the smiley-face association with a First Lady-led crusade to "Save America's Treasures." The stark contrast between preserving Edison's "invention factory" and the science-out-of-control PCB trashing of the Hudson River highlights more than GE's duplicity. It sheds light on the dangers of corporate philanthropy, especially in private-public partnerships. Commenting on Ralph Lauren's star-spangled donation, I. Michael Heyman, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, told the New York Times, "We've been assured that this is a philanthropic gift and not a marketing gift." That sentiment is comical. Virtually all corporate philanthropy -- and Ralph Lauren the man is effectively indistinguishable from Ralph Lauren the company -- is a marketing tool, even if it is sometimes also motivated by nobler purposes. Typically, the public relations payback on the corporate gift far outdistances the actual amount spent on the corporate contribution. Too often, the positive PR happy-talk drowns out voices raising concerns about serious corporate misdeeds. The dynamic is most troubling when the company gains credit for contributing relatively small dollar amounts to quintessentially public functions -- like restoring historic sites or funding schools -- that simultaneously help justify systemic government underfunding in those areas. Let the federal government restore Thomas Edison's invention factory and other historic sites. Let General Electric clean up the Hudson River. Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor. (c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman Focus on the Corporation is a weekly column written by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman. Please feel free to forward the column to friends or repost the column on other lists. If you would like to post the column on a web site or publish it in print format, we ask that you first contact us ([EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]). 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