WEST TEXAS BLAST:TRAGIC REMINDER OF EVILS OF NO REGULATION POLICY
The terrible ammonium-nitrate fueled blast on April 17, 2013, at a fertilizer plant just outside of West, Texas registered a 2.1 magnitude on the earthquake scale and blew out windows in Abbott, Texas 7 miles away. The massive blast and fireball killed fourteen, wounded 200, flattened a good part of the surrounding city and left a 90-foot-diameter smoldering crater. The event, in a town where “fire regulations” are cuss words, is a tragic example of the results of a State’s laissais faire, so-called “business friendly” policy taken to absurd lengths. The events in West make it apparent that living in a “business friendly” zone may marginally increase profits, more money will flow into the hands of the owners, but it can be dangerous (or fatal) to one’s health and well being. Similar policies emanating from the Ayn Randian myths and fuzzy thinking of Republican politicians which resulted in the elimination of long-standing federal banking regulations by the US Senate and House of Representatives (i.e. Glass Steagal Act) clearly fueled the devastating financial disaster of 2008--the Great Recession---which had tragic ECONOMIC consequences for the nation as a whole, circumstances which we all continue to struggle with, now five years later. The tragic blast in West Texas is a sad and tragic reminder of just how dangerous, stupid, and counter-productive the anti-government, anti-regulation, free-for-all, 19th-century-style capitalism is to our nation’s health and economic well-being.
Learning about the blast, one was first saddened at the widespread death and destruction, which some estimate at more than $100 million dollars, but later shocked by the revelation that the dangerous fertilizer plant (producing and storing some 270 tons of the same explosive--ammonium nitrate--that Timothy Mc Viegh used--two tons of the stuff--in 1995 in the Oklahoma City bombing to blow the side off the Murrah building and kill 168 people) was, unguarded, subject to thefts and vandalism, poorly regulated, without outside independent inspections (last inspected in 1988), and all it's safety and maintenance policies left strictly to the whim of the West Fertilizer Company executives who had a financial motive to limit them. Recent information also indicate that the plant executives unwisely permitted the storage of agricultural grains and seeds in bins in proximity to storage areas for flammable ammonium nitrate. The company was originally known as the Adair Seed Company, so seeds and grains were originally stored on site. Federal regulations warn farmers about storing agricultural grains, seeds and hay. If they are inadvertently dampened, biological decay (fermentation) can generate enough heat to cause spontaneous combustion. It is known that the initial fire at the site may have involved the seed bins. Furthermore,the State of Texas which, in its pursuit of business opportunity has few or no zoning laws and thus saw fit to ignore the fact that the plant was situated near residential areas, homes, next to the West Middle School, an apartment building and other occupied buildings. The town of West and the County of McClennon in which the plant is located, proudly boast that they have no fire regulations (an apparent come-on for businesses) and the State officially prohibits towns from enacting such legislation in the State's unwise pursuit of anti-government-intervention purity.
The N Y Times in a May 10 2013, print edition article entitled: “After Plant Explosion, Texas Remains Wary of Regulation” states: "Texas has always prided itself on its free-market posture. It is the only state that does not require companies to contribute to workers’ compensation coverage. It boasts the largest city in the country, Houston, with no zoning laws. It does not have a state fire code, and it prohibits smaller counties from having such codes. Some Texas counties even cite the lack of local fire codes as a reason for companies to move there.
But Texas has also had the nation’s highest number of workplace fatalities — more than 400 annually — for much of the past decade. Fires and explosions at Texas’ more than 1,300 chemical and industrial plants have cost as much in property damage as those in all the other states combined for the five years ending in May 2012. Compared with Illinois, which has the nation’s second-largest number of high-risk sites, more than 950, but tighter fire and safety rules, Texas had more than three times the number of accidents, four times the number of injuries and deaths, and 300 times the property damage costs.” From:NY Times, May 10, 2013, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: After Plant Explosion,Texas Remains Wary of Regulation.
The “no-regulation” culture and raw capitalism of these modern times has led to the tragic loss of life and property in West Texas and the economic tragedy of the Great Recession, but unfortunately both events have brought no soul searching or revision of thought or revised policies. The State of Texas has 44 other fertilizer plants scattered over its counties, many of them literal time bombs located right in the center of some unsuspecting community. Yet the disproved policies of “no regulation” remain unaltered in the minds of the populace and their less-than-astute policy-maker class. In the larger realm, the Federal officials know well and fully that lax banking laws and toothless financial regulations are an open invitation to another banking or stock bubble which can again devastate the financial sector and perhaps cost the taxpayer more trillions in bailout money. But all of our leaders look the other way, ignoring the piles of explosive ammonium nitrate and the economic Mount Soma upon which we all sit, mumbling their outdated, disproved shibboleths of “pure capitalism” over and over to reassure themselves, of their free market purity and unwilling to admit that Soma is a Vesuvius waiting to erupt.
Get the picture?
rjk
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