All In | April 25, 2013
The untold story of deregulating chemical plants under the Bush administration Chris Hayes tells how the Bush administration helped move chemical plant oversight from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Department of Homeland Security.
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>>> we may not all live here in texas but we're neighbors, too. we're americans, too, and we stand with you and we do not forget and we'll be there even after the cameras leave.
>> that was president obama in his second texas speaking engagement of the day. first, he was in dallas to muster some nice words about the legacy of president bush at the opening of the bush library and traveled to waco at the memorial of the victims at the west fertilizer company. these two speaking engagements are not just geographically related, a thread that runs through until now untold story of the bush administration how it went about defeating the kind of regulation that would have strengthened federal oversight for the plant that blew up. we pieced together this story. here's what happened. in the wake of 9/11 there was tremendous concern about the vulnerability of chemical plants that stores fertilizer. the epa knew it posed risks for the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and it made headlines across the country. 2.4 million people could be killed or injured in a chemical attack against a u.s. chemical plant in a densely populated areas and a recorder could easily enter more than 60 plants sto storing catastrophic amounts of chemicals and it represents the third highest risk of fatalities from possible terrorist attacks. to bush administration officials, christine todd whitman head of the environmental protection agency and tom ridge head of homeland security came up with a plan to deal with the vulnerability. whitman believed the epa was already empowered to expand it under a section of the clean air act and she and ridge worked out a deal to do know. that is until the son-in-law of former vice president dick cheney walked into the room, a guy by the name of phillip perry at the time the general couple of white house budget and office and he made it clear the bush administration would not support granting regulatory authority over chemical authority to the epa . perry claimed the proposal was tantamount to overreach and they would need congress to specifically authorize it. kristin whitman and tom ridge rebuffed figured out the thing to do was go to congress and ask for the authority necessary. whitman writes in their book, it's my party, too, the battle for the gop of america, although tom and i agreed such legislation was necessary, strong congressional opposition led by some republicans on the senate environment and public works committee and house energy committee to giving epa even the modest statutory authority made it difficult to secure administration support for a meaningful bill. basically, the bush administration from above pulled support for that bill because the chemical industry does not want to be regulated by the erkepa. fast forward to 2007 , and perry , dick cheney 's son-in-law is at the department of homeland security as council. what he managed to do in an appropriations rider is slip in industry friendly language into the bill that moves the task of regulating chemical plants from the environmental protection agency to the department of homeland security . dhs is given none of the tools it would need to do that. the washington monthly wrote a great piece on this in 2007 , perry reworked the language to get it added to a spending bill in a confidence committee where the dhs would have nominal authority to regulate the chemical industry but also have its hands tied where required. let's recap. the bush administration 's own cabinet secretaries come up with plan to regulate these chemical plants. it is stymied by perry once. the bush administration sides with the administration when brought before the congress and in a back room maneuver, perry does the chemical agency's maneuvering by moving it to dsh the chemical industry thinks they can more easily manipulate. now, go ahead to six years. the west fertilizer company is storing more than 1300 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by dhs. it does appear now not only did dhs literally have no idea the west fertilizer company was storing ammonium nitrate , according to congresswoman betty thompson , democrat from mississippi, they did not know it existed until it blew up. here's what makes this incredible. in 2006 , when a bill was introduced in this senate to make chemical plants safer, a bill blocked by republicans, the young senator who introduced that bill was this man.
>> that chemical plant security is another, where the chemical industry has been resistant to mandates when it comes to hardening their sights. there has been resistance from the chemical industry . it is again an ideological y predisposition that says regulation is always bad. stay out of the marketplace. i am a strong believer in the free market. i am a strong believer in capitalism. i am also a strong believer there are certain common goods, our air, our water, making sure that people are safe, that require us to have some regulation.
>> so given that the bush-backed legislation that moved oversight of big places storing fertilizer from epa to dhs, given that's the law of the land and given republicans in congress are not going to change it, the administration has been considering just recently granting the epa the original authority christine todd whitman wanted way back in the first place. of course, the chemical industry lobby hates this. look at this. in february, 10 republicans and one democrat teamed up with a bunch of chemical industry groups to fight this proposal tooth and nail . here's a letter from the group to members of the congress reads in part we have concerned of the epa 's arbitrary application of the general duty clause as well as the potential for future expansion of the general duty clause to regulate the security of chemical facilities. here's the best part. check out the signatories on the bottom. we highlighted two of them for you. the fertilizer institute and international institute of ammonia refrigeration. we'll be right back with the person who inherited the mess that was the bush epa , lisa jackson joins me next. car that
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