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Once again, the Trump administration has dismantled another protection put in place during Obama’s presidency. This time it is first responders who are likely to pay the price.
The Environmental Protection Agency weakened the standards for storing dangerous chemicals on Thursday. These standards were put in place after an explosion in West, Texas killed 15 people and injured 160 people. Twelve of those killed were first responders.
The explosion took place at a fertilizer plant in April of 2013. The company was improperly storing ammonium nitrate which exploded during a fire set by an arsonist.
The standards put in place by the Obama administration required companies to make information about the chemicals stored on-site publically accessible. They also required them to take measures to prevent accidents, invest in safer technologies, and obtain a third-party audit after any accidents.
These rules were suspended by the EPA shortly after Scott Pruitt took over as head of the agency. Refineries and chemical companies complained that the protections were too burdensome.
The current head of the EPA, Andrew Wheeler, made the change more permanent, Wheeler claims the change will “maintain important public safety measures while saving Americans roughly $88 million per year.”
Environmental and public health groups aren’t convinced. The senior director of climate and health at the Environmental Defense Fund, Elena Craft, stresses why this move is “unconscionable”:
“Given the EPA is first and foremost a public health agency, it is unconscionable that the Trump administration would gut key protections for emergency responders and people living near facilities that handle potentially dangerous chemicals. We need more-detailed emergency plans, increased transparency and safer technology. This action moves in the wrong direction when it’s clear that the cost of chemical disasters is far greater than keeping communities safe.”
Since the rules were suspended by Pruitt, there have been 73 accidents and chemical leaks.