Rep. George Miller Statement on Obama Executive Order to Improve Chemical Facility Safety and Security
WASHINGTON – Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the senior Democratic member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, issued the following statement after President Obama signed an executive order today asking federal agencies to develop a plan to improve safety oversight, and coordination and informational sharing with other agencies at chemical plants and other facilities that store dangerous chemicals.
“President Obama’s executive order is a positive step to better protect the safety of workers employed in these facilities and those who live in the surrounding communities. The West, Texas, explosion and other recent tragedies show us that there are regulatory gaps that need to be overcome to ensure that these facilities are operating in a safe manner.
“The lethal explosion of thermally reactive ammonium nitrate that took 14 lives and injured some 200 more in West, Texas, illustrates the high cost of regulatory inaction. But this is not an isolated case, as there have been scores of these catastrophic accidents that might have been prevented if loopholes had been closed in OSHA's safety protections covering reactive hazards. This includes incidents like the December 2007 runaway reaction at the T-2 Laboratories gasoline additives plant in Jacksonville, Florida, that killed four workers, injured 32, and severely damaged another four nearby businesses.”
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