Protecting our communities from chemical disasters

Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey and Administrator of the EPA under George W. Bush recently wrote the EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson urging her to use the Clean Air Act to prevent chemical disasters.

Such bipartisanship is nearly unheard of these days; especially when people such as Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and others calling for the abolishment of the the EPA in its entirety! This type of common sense approach to our problems is what we need more of in this country, instead of having one party vowing to block the other party 100% as Mitch McConnel has been engaged in for the last four years.

And Whitman can speak with some authority on this subject-- she was behind the 2002 proposal which hinged on using the Bhopal Amendment of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments. Commonly refered to as the General Duty Clause this section of the Clean Air Act requires chemical facilities which handle hazardous chemicals to actually prevent chemical disasters.

Now the only thing I would want added to her call would be to require the petroleum industry to prevent acts like BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster ans Exxon Mobil's current disaster in Louisiana. In my honest opinion the petroleum industry should require tougher restrictions on what they do. The days of outright polluting our environment with petroleum products must come to an end!

Technology can play an important part in cleaning up both the air and disasters such as I have listed. We already have the technology to clean up our air and oil rigs and pipelines. Although it would require substantial investment on the part of the industries involved in such dangerous plants and pipelines. I for one would have to say to the Obama Administration should not approve any pipeline to be constructed until we have fail-safe methods deployed on both the Keystone XL and Bakken pipelines as well as all currently existing pipelines.

The article which I was reading on the, subject says that one in three people in the United States live within the potential disaster zone of one of the 480+ highest risk chemical facilities. Of course it was concentrated on our biggest cities such as New York, Chicago, etal but I am willing to bet that Massac County IL where I reside is withing such an area.

But unfortunately since the congress is in a continual state of gridlock it is forcing the Obama Administration to do this in a unilateral way-- such as making the EPA crack down on such facilities.