In light of last week’s deadly explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) on Thursday introduced legislation that would make it a crime for facilities to fail to register the dangerous chemicals in its possession.
Reports suggested that the Texas fertilizer plant neglected to report a massive amount of ammonium nitrate normally regulated by federal officials.
“The chemical reporting laws on the books today are toothless and do little to help us protect communities from chemical explosions. Facilities that break the reporting rules today essentially get away with just a warning, so my legislation would stiffen penalties and make it a federal crime for plants to intentionally keep their possession of dangerous chemicals a secret,” Lautenberg said in a statement. “We may have been able to save lives in West, Texas if first responders and regulators had knowledge about the chemicals stored on-site. Millions of Americans live near chemical facilities, and we owe it to them to ensure that safety measures are being taken to prevent deadly accidents. Chemical plants present an especially dangerous potential threat in my home state of New Jersey, and we can’t allow negligent facilities to put first responders and neighboring residents at risk again.”
