This morning a flooded chemical plant in Crosby, Texas, 20 miles from Houston, continues to burn, after explosions there overnight sent plumes of smoke into the air. The plant, which has lost electric power, is owned by France’s Arkema Group, one of the world’s biggest chemical companies. An Arkema spokeswoman told the Associated Press that the fire “will
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  This piece was written by Lieutenant General Russel L. Honoré, US Army (Ret), the former commander of Joint Task Force Katrina, and founder of the GreenARMY; Major General Randy Manner, US Army (Ret), a former acting director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency; and David Halperin, a lawyer and former staff member of the National
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Republican congressman Mike Pompeo of Kansas, who represents Wichita, seems to be doing the bidding of the Koch Brothers once again: He has introduced legislation to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from issuing or enforcing a rule to improve the safety of America’s most dangerous chemical plants. Wichita is the home of Koch Industries, which has
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Tomorrow I’m scheduled to speak at an EPA public hearing addressing a new rule that the agency has proposed regarding dangers from America’s chemical plants. I will draw my remarks from a formal comment submitted today by: retired Army Lieutenant General Russel Honoré, former commander of Joint Task Force Katrina; retired Army Major General Randy Manner, former acting
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Late last week, hundreds of organizations and people sent a letter to President Obama warning that his administration is running of time to act on an issue long-identified by the President as essential to our national security and public safety: protecting our people from the dangers of accidents or deliberate attacks at U.S. chemical plants.
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Thirty years ago this month, a gas leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, created a toxic cloud that eventually killed perhaps 20,000 people and injured 500,000 more. No chemical accident since then has approached the scale of the Bhopal disaster, but chemical plant tragedies continue every year, including in the United States — most
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