Dear Texass, This Is What You Get For Not Regulating Corporations

[brewer]

What regulations?

https://www.texastribune.org/2017/09/01/...informati/

Crosby plant explosion highlights state efforts to block access to chemical information

That's because in recent years, state leaders have made it increasingly difficult for communities to learn what, exactly, sits inside the chemical plants in their neighborhoods — and just how dangerous it might be. The implications of such efforts came into focus this week, after Hurricane Harvey battered, drowned and endangered such facilities along the Texas coast.

What does this have to do with the accident in the story.

BTW, I agree that the plants should have to disclose the amount and types of chemicals they have onsite. Especially to first responders.

[Minimalist]

Probably everything.  This is far from the first time this has happened.

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/arc...ed/360863/

A year ago today, a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, caught on fire. As volunteer firefighters rushed to the scene, the 30 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in wooden bins exploded. What have we learned from this disaster? Nothing.

Fifteen people died (most of them firefighters), at least 160 were injured, hundreds of homes and buildings (including a senior center and a school) were leveled or ruined and $100 million of damage was done. The explosion left a crater 93 feet wide and 10 feet deep.

There is no one state agency that actually has oversight or regulatory power. Not only that, Texas has precious little knowledge about what is occurring inside its fertilizer and chemical plants.
Since the accident, several legislative proposals have been put forward for consideration when the part-time Legislature reconvenes next year. But Texas has one of the most conservative, anti-regulatory legislatures in the nation. Republican Rep. Joe Pickett, chairman of the Texas House Committee on Homeland Security and Public Safety, says any proposal that would give the state a lot more regulatory authority just isn't going to fly.

When does political expediency cross the line into government-sanctioned criminally negligent homicide?

[Amarok]

Yup just ley industries do whatever they like that will work.

[The Grand Nudger]

You forgot the best part of the west blast, Min.  The ATF called it arson.  NBot that they had any evidence that it was arson.  They claimed negative corpus (and spent 4 million taxpayer dollars producing it, lol), which is no longer considered a valid means of determining cause on account of it having lead to the majority of overturned convictions in arson cases - and wasn't at the time either..but..details, right? 

The "arson", though, was cover for politicians and industry to claim that any additional regs would be moot..though a small revision did creep through in response..and to stall lawsuits based upon the theory that the arsonist was at fault rather than the plant.

There are still no suspects in the atf's non arson (and there never will be because there;s no indication whatsoever that anyones actually investigating the "arson"). Osha, for it's part, had already concluded that the incident was preventable and due to improper storage for which the plant had previously been cited. The first round of lawsuits against the plant were settled out of court and in private.

[Rev. Rye]

Yep this is what a free for all market looks like.

At this point, I honestly suspect there's  people  who see shit like this not as a bug of the free market system, but a feature. And those people are in power...

[Minimalist]

Yep.... but they ain't living next to the plants.

[The Grand Nudger]

OFC it's a feature.  All the filth is down there with the poors where it belongs.  If they don't want to live in it they can bootstrap themselves up.