Attention Boeing Execs: This is not a compelling legal argumentAs any competent public relations expert will tell you, accepting $15.9 million in federal stimulus money for “environmental monitoring” at a site you’ve spent years polluting, and then suing to loosen the mandated standards for cleanup at the very same site, is not the best way to boost goodwill for your company.Indeed, environmental activists down in California’s Simi Valley are nonplussed that Boeing, who in July received a no-bid award to clean up a former nuclear testing site, is now fighting the state over the strictness of the imposed cleanup standards. Previous owners had used the place to test rocket engines and nuclear power equipment. By the time Boeing took co-ownership of the on-site lab in 1996, the place was already contaminated with toxins, nuclear and otherwise, that had leeched into the soil. According to an investigative report by California Watch, Boeing hasn’t exactly been a better friend to the environment than the previous stewards. In 2007, the company was fined $471,000 for 79 water quality violations. But despite the outcry from the locals, Boeing has the full confidence of the Department of Energy who told California Watch that changing contractors for the cleanup would only cost taxpayers more money. And for it’s part, Boeing tells CW that it is “fully committed to cleaning up the site in a manner that fully protects public health and the environment.”It’s just that it knows how to better protect public health than the actual citizens of the state of California is all.