Houston: A Shining Example Of Conservative Deregulation

[OKTexas]

I bet you have explosives in your house.


.

Let me check, combustible
flammable
inflammable
Nope, I don't see any explosives.

Do you have natural gas supplied to your home? Do you have gas in your car or lawn mower in the garage?


.

 

[idb]

The French company that says its Houston-area chemical plant is spewing "noxious" smoke and may explode successfully pressed federal regulators to delay new regulations designed to improve safety procedures at chemical plants, according to federal records reviewed by International Business Times. The rules, which were set to go into effect this year, were halted by the Trump administration after a furious lobbying campaign by plant owner Arkema and its affiliated trade association, the American Chemistry Council, which represents a chemical industry that has poured tens of millions of dollars into federal elections.

Texas Republicans Helped Chemical Plant That Exploded Lobby Against Safety Rules

 

[whitehall]

The mayor of Chicago once coined a phrase when he was a democrat insider during the Clinton administration "never let a crisis go to waste". Today shameless left wingers don't give a damn about the disaster in Texas except to use it as a political tool. Shame.

 

[radical right]

If nuclear reactors were so safe, why don't they put them on cruise ships?

Cruise lines can't afford them.
.

The Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas ship cost to build is US $1,4 billion, closely followed by its sister the Allure ship - US $1,2 billion.

This 2010 article says $100 million (sub reactor) to $200 million (carrier reactor) for US Navy.

 

[radical right]

Do you have natural gas supplied to your home? Do you have gas in your car or lawn mower in the garage?
.

Electric stove, oil heat and the lawn mower is kept outdoors.

 

[skews13]

I bet you have explosives in your house.


.

Let me check, combustible
flammable
inflammable
Nope, I don't see any explosives.

Do you have natural gas supplied to your home? Do you have gas in your car or lawn mower in the garage?

I didn't think TX had zoning laws... shit, in N. Houston up around Tomball, you'll see a trailer, then a nice home, then a mechanic's shop, then an apartment complex... it's bizarre.

You can also find plants with explosives, next to a school.

with a law passed by the Texas legislature sponsored by then AG Abbot that the citizens have no right to know it's there.

 

[Mustang]

The Perils Of Deregulation

So, conservative ideas have triumphed in Texas. A business-friendly environment has been created, based on free-market principles, deregulation, and a return to 10th amendment freedoms just as the Founders designed them, because the best government is the one that is closest to the people.

Basic chemistry doesn't care, via NBC News:

A flooded chemical plant near Houston exploded twice early Thursday, sending a plume of smoke into the air and triggering a fire that the firm plans to let "burn itself out." Arkema Group, which is one of the world's largest chemical companies, had warned Wednesday that the plant would catch fire and explode at some point — adding there was nothing that could be done about it.


Awfully blithe for a company whose massive chemical plant just exploded because the company was unprepared for a completely predictable meteorological catastrophe, I'd say.

Of course, over the past two days, the Arkema people have given us a master class in Not Giving A Damn.

Anyone who saw the essential Matt Dempsey of the Houston Chronicle on the electric teevee machine with Kindly Doc Maddow on Wednesday nightknows exactly what I'm talking about. (And, if you're not following him on the electric Twitter machine—@mizzousundevil—you should be.)

They played a tape of a conference call on which Dempsey pressed the CEO of Arkema, Rich Rowe, about what substances were in the company's plant that would be released if the plant blew, as it apparently did Thursday morning.

Rowe refused to answer, which was his perfect right within Texas' business-friendly environment. They could be hoarding nerve gas in that place, and be perfectly within the law not to tell anybody about it.

AP
In fact, and this is the delectable part of the entire farce, there apparently is a law in Texas that specifically forbids many cities and towns from designing their own fire codes. Hell, the state even passed a law forbidding cities and towns from requiring fire sprinklers in new construction.

Freedom!

Two years ago, Dempsey and his team put together a staggering eight-part series about the lack of rudimentary safety precautions that exists in what has become the petrochemical capital of the country. The series took a chunk out of both the recklessness of the Texas state government and out of the spavined state of the EPA and OSHA even under President Obama, the latter problems having gotten worse under the current administration.

You should read the whole thing, but Part Six of the series is particularly relevant. It describes how the city government of Houston, and its responsible officials, are flying completely blind as to what is being manufactured and stored in the hundreds of plants in and around the city. From the Chronicle:

A black plume big enough to show up on weather radar touched the sky that Thursday morning in May. Explosions echoed through Spring Branch. Students fled a nearby school. A substance like tar coated cars in the neighborhood. Blood-red fluids spilled into a creek, choking fish and turtles. More than 400 firefighters responded over two days, and when they were done, piles of torched barrels and melted plastic tanks lay in a snow-white blanket of fire-fighting foam. Days later, they still didn't know what they'd been fighting. No city inspector had been inside the place for years, and the owner's records burned up in the blaze. The firefighters didn't even know there was a chemical facility in the neighborhood, one surrounded by houses and apartments, a nursing home and a gun shop full of ammunition…The fire department in the nation's fourth-largest city has no idea where most hazardous chemicals are, forgetting lessons learned in a near-disaster 21 years ago, a Houston Chronicle investigation has found.

This is no accident. This is a political philosophy put into action, and a triumphant one at that.

Basic chemistry doesn't give a damn.

Matt Dempsey, data reporter on the investigative team at the Houston Chronicle, talks with Rachel Maddow about the immediate peril from the damaged Arkema chemical plant northeast of Houston and the lack of regulations in Texas complicating the problem.The segment that aired last night explains how this happened.

There's a special place in hell for Texas Republicans and their POS governor.

Harvey-damaged Arkema chemical plant explosion expected

Here's some food for thought. As an aside, I first heard what I'm going to talk about a few years ago. At first, I didn't believe it. It just seemed SO unwise for a major American city. But it's true.

It's this: Believe it or not, Houston has no zoning laws. It was and is a recipe for disaster in all kinds of ways. That means that pretty much anything goes. The least of Houston's problems is that the city is a nightmare of poorly considered roads as opposed to good city planning. But the longer term problem was building on flood plains and paving over prairie and former wetlands which could have absorbed a LOT of rain. As a result, floods are a common occurrence in Houston. Obviously, HH was a catastrophic event. But where and how Houston was built virtually guarantees future major floods. And the citizens of Houston better rethink their views on climate change, as well. But I don't think that will happen. Those free enterprise folks who are always talking about free market solutions will have their hands (both of them) out to ask the American taxpayers to fund their folly of doing more of the same.

 

[radical right]

with a law passed by the Texas legislature sponsored by then AG Abbot that the citizens have no right to know it's there.

Everything in texas is bigger.

Including their balls to let explosives factories keep their inventory secret, even in the middle of the plant blowing up.

 

[OKTexas]

Do you have natural gas supplied to your home? Do you have gas in your car or lawn mower in the garage?
.

Electric stove, oil heat and the lawn mower is kept outdoors.

Propane in your gas grill or cigarette lighter?


.

 

[radical right]

Propane in your gas grill or cigarette lighter?


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Charcoal, don't smoke. But I do have an antique cap gun. But most of the caps are duds by now.

 

[OKTexas]

Propane in your gas grill or cigarette lighter?


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Charcoal, don't smoke. But I do have an antique cap gun. But most of the caps are duds by now.

I think you get my point, things are safe until something unusual happens, then they aren't.


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[Manonthestreet]

How many can you count?