Warning – Incoming Screed About Tiresome Liberal Bromides

Reading Huffpo is a guilty pleasure and I really need to discipline myself to stop it. Then, I’ll have additional time to do more useful stuff, such as reading Fark. And, I won’t have to read blog editorials titled, “Will Congress Derail Attempts to Reduce the Terrorist Threat from Toxic Trains,” from Charlie Cray, director for the earnest-sounding Center for Corporate Policy.

The ride started out a little bumpy for me:

By virtue of the fact that it is unwilling to phase out the production of chlorine -- a gas that was eliminated from use in warfare after WW I -- the chemical industry and its major customers that use and transport the deadly green-yellow substance have condemned towns across the country to be perpetual potential targets for terrorist attacks.

The industry's claim is that they don't need to make safer substitutes so long as their plants are guarded by the 4 G's -- guards, guns, gates and gadgets.

Ok, let’s hold up here for a moment. In all of that, was there even a flash of realization that WE ultimately are the major customers of the chemical industry? If we didn’t have a fondness for safe drinking water and PVC, there wouldn’t be a lot of chlorine moving around by rail.

Some in Congress understand the threat and have attempted to taken action. Rep. Markey (D-MA) led the way in the House with an amendment to the Rail and Public Transportation Security Act of 2007 (H.R. 1401) that would dramatically enhance rail security and safety by re-routing ultra-hazardous cargo, such as chlorine gas, around high threat urban areas.

The bill was adopted in the House by a bi-partisan vote (299 to 124) on March 27th. Nevertheless, there is still plenty of resistance to the re-routing language in the Senate, where it would likely need approval from both the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.

Congress can reduce the threat to tens of millions of people immediately with this rerouting requirement. . .

Can anyone see Congress doing anything that’s going to reduce any threat “immediately”? H.R. 1401 was referred to the Senate on March 28, 2007. The status of the bill according to THOMAS is, “Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.” It’s not even on the Senate committee hearing schedule right now. Since Congress has punched out for the summer, this probably won’t get any traction until fall, unless it gets lost in the 2008 budget shuffle. Until the time when the Senate leisurely takes up this matter, or the next chlorine tank car derails (which will speed things up a bit). Until then, you can do some reading up on this issue, courtesy of the CRS.

The top-down approach of time-consuming arguing and horse-trading in Congress, followed by time-consuming rule-making in a regulatory agency, followed by time-consuming implementation by the chemical and rail industries, is no way to get something done “immediately” (does anyone else fail to understand the process of how you get from legislation to something tangible being implemented). How about a grassroots approach? For example, what about providing funding for communities, particularly the small communities such as Minot, ND and Graniteville, SC which are in the rail corridor hazard footprints, along with funding for some nonprofit organizations such as EWG, to work on this issue? It would be kind of like a secular version of faith-based initiatives. They could use that money for litigation, social marketing or public relations campaigns to create financial pain and adverse corporate image which might persuade transportation companies into providing safer routing.

. . . but ultimately, to eliminate the threat we need to phase chlorine out of industrial use, just as we've for the most part eliminated it as a tool of war. The way to do so has been described many times, including by Joe Thornton in his book, Pandora's Poison (MIT).

This is blindingly obvious to the point of absurd. There’s a lot of stuff like this we have to get done, like we have to stop driving our cars and trucks so much, to keep oil imports from becoming critical national security and economic problems; and we should eat our (minimum) five servings a day of fruits and vegetables and exercise an hour a day to stave off chronic diseases that mushroom health care expenses to 16 percent of our total economic output; and we should adopt energy conservation measures to stave off disastrous climate change. We’re not moving too fast on any of them. For myself, I’m skeptical that Congress is going to be more than marginally effective in addressing any of these problems, including hazmat transport safety. The argument of “let Congress do it” smacks of serious inside-the-Beltway-out-of-touch-with-reality thinking. The kind of thinking almost enough to persuade one to believe that Matt Taibbi’s obnoxious article about liberals makes a good point.

Maybe now I will have to read Pandora’s Poison to see what the magic formula is for phasing out chlorine. I’m ok with adding to the list I’ve started finding alternative disinfectants for drinking water. Here’s where you can start doing your reading on the subject, if you want to convince your local politicians and water treatment operators to make the change. Kicking the PVC habit could be tougher, but if you’re interested in looking into that, you can start here. Right now, I’d be happy with a baby step, such as phasing out PCE for dry cleaning.

Oh, and I’m not that sure that phasing out chlorine as a war gas is a good analogy for phasing it out as an industrial chemical. I think chlorine was replaced in World War I because we found better toxic gases to poison soldiers with.