Chlorine Carted Out of Canada

  • A Canadian chemical manufacturer shipped rail cars of toxic chlorine away from Vancouver and is storing them in rural Washington State. (Photo source: Wikimedia Commons)

Environmental groups suspect tight
security at the Vancouver Olympics
has shifted an environmental risk
from Canada to the US. Shawn Allee reports:

Transcript

Environmental groups suspect tight
security at the Vancouver Olympics
has shifted an environmental risk
from Canada to the US. Shawn Allee reports:

A Canadian chemical manufacturer shipped rail cars of toxic chlorine away from Vancouver and is storing them in rural Washington State.

The company says it’s part of a long-planned renovation of the chemical plant. Environmental groups suspect the rail shipments were timed to move tanks away from the Olympics.

Fred Millar is watching this development for Friends of the Earth. Millar says terrorists have shown interest in rail cars filled with chlorine gas.

“And that’s what people are mostly worried about because just one chlorine tank car could put out a cloud over any city at a lethal level that’s 15 miles long by 4 miles wide.”

US rail companies make 100,000 shipments of chlorine and similar toxic chemicals per year. Their safety record has largely been good, but accidents have released deadly chlorine gas.

One derailment in South Carolina killed nine people.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

T. Boone Pickens Weighs in on Energy

  • Michigan Gonvenor Jennifer Granholm and T. Boone Pickens, founder and chairman, BP Capital Management, shaire their alternative energy solutions at the Detroit Regional Chamber 2009 Mackinac Policy Conference (Photo courtesy of the Mackinac Policy Conference)

A Texas oil tycoon is trying to get America off of foreign oil. T. Boone Pickens has spent the last year and nearly 60-million dollars promoting his plan to use only US sources of energy. Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

A Texas oil tycoon is trying to get America off of foreign oil. T. Boone Pickens has spent the last year and nearly 60-million dollars promoting his plan to use only US sources of energy. Rebecca Williams reports:

T. Boone Pickens says he’s all for domestic oil drilling, solar, nuclear, coal – especially wind and natural gas. But anything, as long as it comes from the USA.

“I’m for anything that’s American. Anything that’s American. (applause) But we have to get off oil from the enemy.”

And he said he used to be an outspoken critic of ethanol. But not anymore.

“It is American. Is it a good fuel? It’s an ugly baby is what it is. But it’s our ugly baby.” (laughter)

He says Members of Congress tell him, whether it’s a good fuel or not, farm states want it.

He readily admits his plan would help him make some money. But he says he also wants the U.S. to get away from foreign imports for the sake of national security and the health of the economy.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Id Chips for All Livestock

  • These ear tags are becoming a thing of the past as states try out high-tech identification chips. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

The federal government is phasing in a national identification tracking system for livestock to help trace and curb threats, such as Mad Cow disease and even bio-terrorism. One state is even advancing what it calls micro-chip, injectable social security numbers for livestock. But many farmers worry that Big Brother may be moving into the barn. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak reports:

Transcript

The federal government is phasing in a national identification tracking system for livestock to help trace and curb threats, such as Mad Cow disease and even bio-terrorism. One state is even advancing, what it calls micro-chip, injectable social security numbers for livestock. But many farmers worry that Big Brother may be moving into the barn. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak reports:


The Gingerich Farm isn’t hard to find. Its fields are speckled with hundreds of black and white Holsteins. Dairy farmer Earl Gingerich Jr. takes us inside one of the barns for a closer look at some of his babies.


“These are a little noisy over here since we just moved ’em. Some of them tend to bellow…”


Gingerich is rather fond of the five hundred cows on his Western New York farm, and he doesn’t mind the hard work that goes along with them. Seven days a week, in good weather and bad. For him, Gingerich says it’s all about the cows.


“When you get up and you see the animals that are in the background and they’re waiting for you to take care of them and they need you, it’s like having a pet around, and taking that animal and yougrow her up to be a full-size, adult animal, you know why you’re doing it.”


So, Gingerich says anything he can do to protect his herd is a good idea. He takes part in the state’s voluntary vaccination program. Bright orange tags, each bearing a bold black number, are evidence of that. They dangle from the cows’ ears as they flick away barn flies while chewing the newest cut of hay.


(Sound of mooing)


But these tags will soon be obsolete. By 2009, the Department of Agriculture’s national animal identification program will require a standardized tracking system for every livestock animal in the United States.


Bruce Akey is an Assistant Veterinarian for New York state. He says the system will be able to trace the movements of animals backwards and forwards.


“Whether they’re sold to someone else on an individual basis, or they go to livestock markets, or go to slaughter plants, or anything like that, those movements can be recorded at those points at which they pass into commerce, and those movements can also be recorded in a national database.”


It’s the integrity of that database that is one major concern for many farmers and their advocates. They say animal rights extremists or terrorists could also get access to the information on the database about farms.


Farmers worry they could learn about chemicals and medicines used at the farm, and use it against them. Dairy farmer Earl Gingerich knows first-hand what can happen. Someone used a batch of antibiotics to contaminate ten thousand pounds of milk on his farm.


“We did have on a recording, which we couldn’t trace, and it said something to the effect of, ‘This should teach you a lesson now.'”


One microchip ID method being advanced in New York and other states is heightening bio-security concerns. The radio frequency chips can are embedded in ear tags or injected under the animals’ skin.


The stored data is read by large panel scanners at auction barns or hand held models, available to anyone. The cost is also still a big question. Maybe a few dollars for each chip and about five thousand dollars for large readers.


Peter Gregg is spokesman for the state’s Farm Bureau. He says they support a national tracking system, but Gregg says the government will have to make it secure – and pay for it.


“You know, we are operating on too slim of margins as it is to be able to pick up the tab for a program like this, and the other aspect is that we would have to make sure that there is protection of private rights.”


State veteranarian Bruce Akey says the government is listening to those concerns. He says they’re working to make the program cost-neutral or at least share costs with farmers. And Akey says Congress is hearing arguments that a private entity, such as a cooperative, should be allowed to manage the database. Advocates say they prefer that to the government being in charge of private information. But Akey says either way, there has to be a dependable way to track animals.


“It may seem a little like 1984, but it’s the state of technology, it’s the state of the marketplace – on both a national and an international scope,” said Akey. “That along with the fact that we now have diseases like Mad Cow disease and other food safety issues that more and more consumers are demanding that we be able to trace these animals and address the source of the problem.”


For now, states are rushing to comply with the first phase of the national ID program. By March of next year, every livestock and poultry farm in the country must be located and assigned a premises identification number. Then, each and every farm creature – be it cow or horse, elk or fish – will get its very own animal social security number.


For the GLRC, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

Related Links

David Orr Speaks Out About Oil Consumption

Many Americans don’t see a connection between the war in Iraq and the price of gas at the pump, but a leading environmentalist says they should. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

Many Americans don’t see a connection between the war in Iraq and the price of gas at the pump, but a leading environmentalist says they should. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:

Soon after George W. Bush took office, David Orr was asked to join a presidential committee aimed at improving environmental policies. They wanted the Oberlin environmental studies professor because he was considered a quote “sane environmentalist.” The group’s recommendations were supposed to be presented to Administration officials in September 2001, but after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, committee members felt their report was shelved.

“And the essential message of it was that this really is one world and what goes around comes around. And things are connected in pretty strange, ironic, and paradoxical ways and the long-term future isn’t that far off. So you really cannot make separations of things that you take to be climate, from economy, ecology, fairness, equity, justice, and ultimately security.”

But Orr says the Bush Administration and much of the nation weren’t ready for that message. People felt the need to retaliate against Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Many political analysts also agreed with President Bush, that the United States had an important role to play in ousting Saddam Hussein in Iraq. But Orr believes the U.S. invasion of Iraq was less about terrorism than it was about America’s need for Middle East oil.

“If you remove the fact that Iraq has 10-percent of the oil reserves in the world and Saudi Arabia has about 25-percent, that’s about a third of the recoverable oil resource on the planet, take the oil out, would we be there? And that’s a major issue. We’re there, in large part, because we have not pursued energy efficiency.”

Orr says reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil would make the nation more secure than spending billions of dollars in military costs to fight for those oil reserves.

Some lawmakers say reducing dependence on Middle East oil is one reason to drill for oil at home, in places such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But Orr says political leaders and citizens should instead find ways to use less oil and reduce the need for it. He says the federal energy bill should force automakers to build cars that get better gas mileage.

“If we bumped our energy efficiency up from 22 miles per gallon to 35 or 40, which is easily achievable, that’s not difficult. The technology already exists to do that. We wouldn’t have to fight wars for oil, we wouldn’t be tied to the politics of an unstable region.”

“But the car makers aren’t being forced to…”

“No – the CAFEs? no. If we had a decent energy policy, it would be a strategy not of fighting oil wars, but using in America what is our long suit: our ability with technology to begin to move us toward fuel efficiency, and that process is actually well under way. It just doesn’t get the support of the federal government.”

Instead of trying to encourage fuel efficiency, Orr says Congress is thinking about short-term answers. With the price of gas at the pump more than two dollars a gallon, the Senate recently approved a tax break package to encourage further domestic oil and gas production.

Orr wants consumers to push for energy alternatives, rather than finding more places to drill, but Americans like their big SUVs, and Orr says few politicians would risk asking them to forgo the comfort, luxury, and perceived safety of big trucks as a way to preserve energy for future generations.

“Everybody knows gas prices have to go up, everybody knows that. The question is whether we have somebody who is say a combination of Ross Perot and Franklin Roosevelt who would sit down and level with the American public. We have got to pay more.”

Orr says even if you don’t mind paying the price at the gas station, there are higher costs we’re paying for oil consumption.

“You pay for energy whatever form you get it, but you pay for efficiency whether you get it or not. You pay by fighting oil wars. You pay with dirty air and you pay at the doctor’s office or the hospital or the morgue, but you’re gonna pay one way or the other, and the lie is that somehow you don’t have to pay. And sometimes you don’t have to if you’re willing to offload the costs on your grandchildren or on other people’s lives, but somebody is gonna pay.”

And Orr says that payment is going to be either in blood, money, or public health. He outlines his thoughts on the motivations for the war in Iraq in his new book “The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror.”


For the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Not Quite Ready for Bioterrorist Attack

  • Mock evidence of radiological material to make a dirty bomb gives trainees an idea of the kind of materials they might find in a terrorist operation. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Since 9/11, emergency responders have been practicing for new kinds of emergencies. In addition to fires and hazardous materials spills, emergency personnel have been training to deal with terrorist attacks. Recently, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham was allowed behind the scenes in a terrorism attack training exercise:

Transcript

Since 9/11, emergency responders have been practicing for new kinds of emergencies. In
addition to fires and hazardous materials spills, emergency personnel have been training
to deal with terrorist attacks. Recently, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham was allowed behind the scenes in a terrorism attack training exercise:


(coughing)


These two men are the victims of some kind of biological toxin. They were investigating
an abandoned rental truck and now they’re writhing on the ground after a package
spewed some kind of liquid.


(chatter between mock victims) “You alright, man?” “What was that?” “I don’t know
what that was. It hurts.”


These guys are acting. They’re part of a huge training exercise put on by the
Environmental Protection Agency. Dozens of firefighters, emergency medical personnel,
EPA investigators, the FBI and people in t-shirts identifying themselves with acronyms
for agencies most of us have never heard of. They’re all working through a couple of
scenarios. So far today, they’ve discovered radioactive material to make dirty bombs and
some kind of lab set up to make a chemical like sarin nerve gas… and then there’s the
rental truck which is loaded with nasty chemicals.


Mark Durno is the U.S. EPA’s On-Scene Coordinator…


“We have some very distinct objectives with this exercise. One is to practice responding
to unusual situations that might involve weapons of mass destruction. In this particular
exercise, we’re practicing chemical agent and radiological agent response.”


There are lots of new things to learn. Coordination between agencies… and new
techniques. In this exercise, Detroit city departments are learning to work with federal
agencies. Melvin Green is with the Fire Department’s Emergency Medical Services. He
says this exercise is good. He’d rather see his medical technicians make mistakes here
than during a real emergency… where his worst fears might be realized.


“I would have to say that, you know, them become casualties, that’s probably my biggest
fear. This is why we want to educate them on—and this is why the exercise is so
important. We want to educate them on the possibilities. Keeping our people safe
reduces casualties.”


That’s because if the emergency medical personnel are hurt… fewer people will be
treated.


The idea of a terrorist attack with radiological or biological agents is the kind of
nightmarish scenario that no one really wants to think about… but it’s something
emergency responders HAVE to think about.


During this day-long exercise… these trainees are upbeat, they’re confident in their
response. They feel they’ve come a long way in the nearly three years since 9/11.


But other emergency service experts are not quite as upbeat. Just 40 miles from this
training exercise… at the University of Michigan Hospital’s Department of Emergency
Medicine, Administrator Peter Forster says there are weaknesses in preparedness for
terrorist attacks.


“We’ve made a lot of progress from where we were, but we’ve got a long ways to go.”


Forster says when victims start showing up at the hospital emergency rooms…. there will
be bottle-necks…


“Most emergency preparedness activities have been geared toward local events with
relatively small numbers of victims. When we start talking about hundreds of people or
thousands of people injured or hurt, or exposed to some toxic or contagious substance,
then I think the health system would have a significantly difficult time expanding to meet
that requirement, regardless of how much, uh, how well we’re trained or how prepared
we are. We don’t really have the capacity on the health care side to manage a significant
influx of patients.”


Forster says plans to set up emergency medical facilities in auditoriums, school gyms,
and maybe even hotel rooms need to be completed… arrangements made… and supplies
stockpiled.


(sound up of training exercise, generators, etc.)


Meanwhile, back in Detroit… investigators are putting on bulky chemical protection
suits—the ones that look like big space suits…blue, yellow, olive, with teal-colored
gloves and orange boots… you’d think of circus colors if the subject matter weren’t so
serious. After examining the mock lab, spending about an hour in the sweltering suits,
they come out for decontamination before their air tanks run out. The local agencies help
with decontamination… spraying and scrubbing the suits down.


(sound: beeping, scrubbing)


The training site has all the sights and sounds of a real emergency. Lots of emergency
vehicles… the noise of generators and the smell of diesel. But it’s fairly relaxed. There’s
none of the tension, none of the urgency of a real emergency.


The U.S. EPA’s On-Scene Coordinator, Mark Durno, says there are some things you
can’t bring to a drill…


“You can never simulate the adrenaline and the potential panic that’s associated with a
real event, especially when you hear the words ‘chemical’ and ‘radiological’ agent.
However, we can practice those little tools that we’re going to need to be absolutely
proficient at to ensure that when the panic hits, we’re ready to roll without any
hesitation.”


The days’ training has turned up a few glitches. Communication between agencies is
still a problem. Emergency radio frequencies need to be sorted out and coordinated. And
there are still some major gaps in preparedness that are not part of this training… such as
the emergency room capacity problem. But one of the bigger issues is money. Federal
money has been promised to local governments… but it’s been very slow in coming.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Study Finds Website Info Not a Threat

Federal officials began taking information off government websites after the September 11th attacks. They feared terrorists would use the information to plan future attacks. Now, a new study says much of that information wouldn’t be useful to terrorists. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush explains:

Transcript

Federal officials began taking information off government websites after the
September 11th attacks. They feared terrorists would use the information to
plan future attacks. Now a new study says much of that information wouldn’t
be useful to terrorists. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has
explains:


Researchers at the Rand Corporation spent a year analyzing 629 federal
websites. They looked at sites that had information about things such as
bridges, power plants, transit systems, and chemical factories. They found
that less than one percent of the websites they analyzed had information that
would be useful for a terrorist to mount an attack.


Beth Lachman co-authored the study. She says agencies need to develop
better methods before pulling information off of their websites:


“Stuff that we think may be very sensitive may not be quite as sensitive as
you thought. Just because you have to really analyze, ‘Well how useful is
this? How unique is it? Is it out there in a lot of different sources? What
are the cost and benefits associated with putting it out there and
potentially restricting it from being out there.'”


Lachman and the other researchers say if the information isn’t useful to a
terrorist, it should be made available to the public. They say people have
the right to know about information such as what chemicals are stored
in their neighborhoods.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Pilot Program to Help Protect Food Supply?

States around the region are taking measures to protect against terrorism against agriculture. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Maria Hickey reports on a pilot program that will begin tracking the food supply:

Transcript

States around the region are taking measures to protect against terrorism against agriculture. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Maria Hickey reports on a pilot program that will begin tracking the food supply:


States record the number of livestock and the amount of grain grown in each county. But it’s not clear which farms are raising the meat and produce. As a food security measure some states want to keep track of animal and produce movement. In Illinois, Department of Agriculture Director Chuck Hartke says a satellite tracking system will allow the state to pinpoint food producers, grain elevators, food processing facilities and distributors as well.


“Right now we don’t know exactly where things are going, and how much, so this tracking
system is a first step in identifying our resources in a given county and then we can do it
statewide.”


A computer program will allow the state to develop disaster plans. That will help the state deal with terrorism, diseases such as mad cow and natural disasters. If the one-county pilot program works, the project will be extended statewide in Illinois. Other Great Lakes states are looking at similar programs and trading notes on what works.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium I’m Maria Hickey.

Related Links

New Federal Rules to Tighten Port Security

Final regulations requiring all ports to be secure against terrorist attacks will be released next month by the federal government. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports that port officials are hoping the new rules come with some new money:

Transcript

Final regulations requiring all ports to be secure against terrorist attacks
will be released next month by the federal government. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports that port officials are hoping the new
rules come with some new money:


With 50 nations using the St. Lawrence Seaway,
sending
hundreds of ships, dropping off and picking up
goods, Great Lakes ports have a lot
to make secure.
The Marine Transportation
Security Act makes sure all ports big and small assess risks and come up
with a plan to make things safe from terrorism.


Duluth-Superior Port Security Official Captain Ray Skelton has been working
with Washington on these new regulations. He doesn’t expect any surprises.


“The final regs, if they came out that we have to have armed guards
at piles of limestone, I’d go back to Washington and start a fight. But if
everything stays reasonable, we’ll just go ahead and comply.”


Tighter security may mean some guards, surveillance cameras, fences and alarms.
Skelton says these things are costing ports money without much financial
help from those making up the new rules. Skelton won’t say how much
Duluth-Superior has spent, but he says so far they’ve had to foot the bill.
Ports will have one year to comply with the Marine Transportation Security
Act.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.

Region Deals With Deadly Nerve Agent

The Army wants to get rid of its stockpiles of chemical weapons because they fear terrorists might get to them. There are eight Army sites across the U.S. that store those kinds of chemicals. At one site in the Midwest, the military is planning to dispose of Nerve Agent VX. To destroy the stockpiles, the Army must first “water-down” the nerve agent. Then it has to be shipped to a company that disposes of industrial wastes. But while the Army says it’s making neighborhoods safer near where the chemical weapons are stored … some people fear having the watered-down nerve agent trucked into their neighborhoods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston reports:

Transcript

The Army wants to get rid of its stockpiles of chemical weapons because they fear terrorists might get to them. There are eight Army sites across the U.S. that store those kinds of chemicals. At one site in the Midwest, the military is planning to dispose of Nerve Agent VX. To destroy the stockpiles, the Army must first “water-down” the nerve agent. Then it has to be shipped to a company that disposes of industrial wastes. But while the Army says it’s making neighborhoods safer near where the chemical weapons are stored, some people fear having the watered-down nerve agent trucked into their neighborhoods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston reports:


Nerve Agent VX is a clear, odorless liquid with the consistency of motor oil. It was
accidentally created during the Korean War, when British chemists were experimenting
with various concoctions meant to kill lice on North Korean POW’s and refugees. Nerve
Agent VX kills within minutes after contact with the skin. It has never been used in
combat by the United States. Instead, most of the country’s supply sits in a highly-
guarded tank at the Newport Chemical Depot in west-central Indiana. In 1985, Congress
ordered the chemical weapons destroyed because many seemed obsolete. In 1997, the
United States joined the Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits countries from
developing, producing, stockpiling or using chemical weapons.


Then, as U.S. Army spokesperson Terry Arthur explains, terrorists slammed planes into
the World Trade Center towers:


“After September 11th, 2001, because the public suddenly became aware of the possibility
for terrorism here in the United States, folks living near the stockpiles became acutely
aware of that. And the army began to look at ways to accelerate destruction of the
stockpiles.”


The Army is planning to burn some of its chemical weapons in incinerators. The Nerve
Agent VX that’s stored in Newport, Indiana will be destroyed through a neutralization
process. That’s a process that makes the nerve agent no more harmful than a household
drain cleaner.


(Ambient sound fade up)


The watered-down version of the nerve agent is called hydrolysate. It will be shipped by
tanker truck to Perma-Fix Environmental Services, a company in Dayton, Ohio. It’s a
company that usually handles industrial wastes and used oils.


“If you get your oil changed anywhere at a service station near the Dayton, Ohio area,
chances are, the used oil from your vehicle ends up here.”


That’s company Vice President Tom Trebonik. He says the hydrolysate will, simply put,
be broken down by a natural process. It will be eaten by microscopic bugs. And then it
breaks down even more into a form that will be pumped into the sewer system.


But, once word of a “nerve agent” coming to town spread around the small, poor
neighborhood near the plant, environmentalists began working with residents to voice
opposition to its disposal. They tacked up signs in the local supermarket and carry-out
that read “Deadly VX Nerve Agent” is coming to the neighborhood.


(Nat sound)


Martha Chatterton is a young mother of one with another child on the way. She lives in a
small house in a decaying area. Her husband fixes cars in the garage out back. They’re
glued to the news on CNN about heightened terror alerts. They know terrorist attacks are
a possibility. But they don’t want a problem from Indiana shipped to their backyard.


Chatterton is worried about the health effects of living near a plant that deals with such
industrial wastes. She says some days the air is orange and smells of a chemical stew.


“Well, last year we did the whole yard with roses and different flowers, and about a week
after we planted them, all of them died. So there’s got… there’s something wrong with
the ground here, because when I dug the hole for the rose tree, it smelled like gas fumes.”


Chatterton fears Perma-Fix won’t be able to properly handle the hydrolysate. The
company was cited in 2001 for odor violation but has since installed equipment to solve
the problem. Beyond that, the U.S. EPA and the Army see no reason why the treated
nerve agent can’t be trucked into town. Again, Army spokesperson Terry Arthur:


“We understand the concern of the public because it’s derived from a chemical agent.
What we want them to understand is that we have truckers who will be dedicated and
trained specifically for hauling this product and getting it across the state line to the Ohio
facility, where experts have been working with this kind of material for years.”


With the threat of terrorism, there’s little that’s likely to slow the pace of the destruction
of the nerve agent. The risks of leaving it intact seem greater than the risks associated
with destroying it.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Natalie Walston.

Critics Say Homeland Security Bill Goes Too Far

Some environmentalists believe President Bush’s Homeland Security Act could have some harmful effects on the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Some environmentalists believe President Bush’s Homeland Security Act could have some harmful effects on the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


The National Strategy for Homeland Security is the White House plan to deal with threats of terrorism. Among a number of proposals, the Bush Administration wants to limit access to information about hazardous chemicals at company plants. Alys Campaigne is with the environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense Council. The NRDC notes that industry has long wanted to get rid of laws that required disclosing to the public what chemicals they might handle…


“We’re concerned that the Bush Administration is using the guise of Homeland Security to legislate very sweeping exemptions to corporations under public disclosure laws and to give them unprecedented immunity from laws that are on the books now.”


The NRDC says instead of letting companies keep secrets about chemicals at their sites, the government should conduct vulnerability assessments and work with companies to reduce the hazards at a site. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.