Houston should be real wake-up call for Pruitt
Perhaps when EPA administrator Scott Pruitt is in Houston this week to speak at an oil and gas industry forum, he also will address the trail of disasters left behind by the inaction of his agency during and after Hurricane Harvey.
Perhaps he will take a few deep breaths near the Arkema chemical plant in Crosby, where 20 emergency responders became ill breathing smoke-filled air after floodwaters cut power and wiped out the backup generators at the facility.
Perhaps he will sit down for dinner with a family in Manchester and tell the children why EPA took so long to test the noxious odors that wafted from the Valero refinery after Harvey damaged the roof atop one of its storage tanks — a toxic plume that my organization independently found to contain benzene.
Perhaps he will extend to other at-risk parts of Houston’s ecosystem the promise he has made to fix one of Houston’s most dangerous Superfund sites, the San Jacinto Waste Pits, and explain why EPA took the word of the company responsible for it that there was no danger from the storm. Weeks later his agency acknowledged finding the release of cancer-causing dioxins into the river there at levels 2,000 times EPA’s safety limits.
As a Texas-based health scientist, I am concerned about the recent past performance of Pruitt’s agency during and after Harvey’s tragic strike here. I am even more worried about the future and his campaign to curtail EPA’s ability to protect public health every day and especially during disasters.
Though Pruitt and President Donald Trump refuse to accept the scientific understanding of climate change, we know that storms like Harvey, Irma, Maria and Nate will be more frequent and more intense with a warming planet. Coastal cities will flood. Wildfires will continue to rage across the tinder dry West and Southwest. More people and more infrastructure will suffer.
There is a lot EPA does to help America protect itself. A fully equipped agency can help monitor pollution dangers, set and enforce prudent standards and keep the nation’s laws in touch with the principles of chemistry and physics.
If Pruitt and his allies have their way, however, Houston will be less ready to face environmental hazards before the next hurricane season. The administration called for slashing an astonishing 30 percent of EPA’s already low budget; the House plan strips half a billion dollars from the agency, and the Senate is about to vote on its cuts to environmental protections.
Pruitt, meanwhile, is installing reckless industry insiders in top EPA positions while working to lay off thousands of the agency’s science, enforcement, and administrative staff. He also delayed rules requiring companies to fully address risks in their chemical emergency plans — a move he made following requests from the chemical industry.
The administration’s actions and the budget cuts pending in Washington threaten public health and safety. We are all in harm’s way.
Environmental Defense Fund’s air quality sampling after Harvey renewed my belief that America needs more, not less, monitoring, as well as stronger safety plans at refineries and petrochemical plants to protect public health.
We need stronger enforcement so that polluters, not taxpayers, pay the bill to clean up their messes.
We also need ongoing scientific research and review, not rhetoric, to identify the best ways to keep people safe. We need reality-based standards, not politics.
It is time to reverse the dangerous course of Pruitt’s policies and Trump’s budget cuts. Ignoring science, weakening protections and crossing our fingers that the next storm does not target the Gulf Coast will not get the job done. If the administrator who is supposed to protect our environment does not seize the opportunity of his Houston visit to start setting things right, then Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz should stand up for Texas and reject the Pruitt playbook and the back-room budget deals that put us all at risk. We need a fully funded, fully functioning EPA — for the next storm and for our future.