Above Photo: One of five banners entitled The Worker in the New World Order, painted for the founding convention of ICEM (International Confederation of Chemical, Energy, Mine & General Workers’ Unions–now merged into INDUSTRIALL). Dedicated to then-imprisoned Nigerian oil workers. Copyright © 1995. Mike Alewitz
Arkema Push To Stop Rules Gets Boost From Its Lobbying Group & From Texas Republicans
In its letter to the EPA, Arkema noted that it is a member of the American Chemistry Council — a powerful lobbying group that has delivered $1.6 million of campaign donations to federal lawmakers since 2010. That Arkema-backed group helped spearhead the effort to block the EPA’s chemical plant safety rule. In January, the council was one of 21 groups that sent a letter to congressional leaders asserting that the new rule’s costs were not worth the alleged safety benefits.
“The lack of identifiable and quantifiable benefits stands in stark contrast to the clear costs associated with this rule,” said the letter. “Whether it be the requirement of third-party auditor participation that will reduce the pool of qualified auditors, changing well-established audit procedures already designed to maximize safety effectiveness, or imposing ineffective requirements to consider ‘inherently safer technology/design,’ the final rule includes a litany of costly changes that have not been shown to increase safety.”
The American Chemistry Council also lauded Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton for co-authoring a letter slamming the chemical plant safety rule. The letter chastised the EPA for proposing to require chemical plants to more expansively disclose castatrophic releases of hazardous chemicals and berated regulators for requiring independent audits of facilities’ safety procedures.
“To complicate matters further, EPA is demanding that the auditors have no relationship with the audited entity for three years prior to the audit and three years subsequent,” wrote Paxton and Louisiana Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry. “EPA is demanding that a professional engineer be part of the auditing team, that attorney client privilege cannot apply to the audits, and finding and reports be released to the public. It is difficult to fathom how this collection of burdensome, costly, bureaucratic regulatory requirements does anything to enhance accidental chemical release prevention…This unauthorized expansion of the program does not make facilities safer, but it does subject facilities to even more burdensome, duplicative and needless regulation.”
Paxton received $106,000 from chemical industry donors during his 2014 run for attorney general. His letter was backed by then-Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt and then-Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange (now a senator), who argued that disclosing details of chemical accidents would imperil national security. Pruitt’s campaigns were supported by the Republican Attorneys General Association — which he chaired and which received $50,000 from the American Chemistry Council during his tenure as a state official, according to data compiled by PoliticalMoneyLine.com.
The push to persuade the Trump administration to block the chemical plant safety rules was also bolstered by an American Chemistry Council-backed resolution introduced on February 1 by Republican Rep. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma.
Among the 65 co-sponsors of the measure to block the rules were 10 members of the Texas Congressional delegation, including five who represent Houston area districts: Brian Babin (TX-36), whose district encompasses Crosby, where the Arkema plant lies; Michael McCaul (R-10), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, whose district sits northwest of Houston; John Culberson (R-7), whose district covers part of Houston; Randy Weber (R-14), who represents a coastal district just outside of Houston; Blake Farenthold (R-27), a representative whose coastal district lies southwest of Houston. Other co-sponsors include Louie Gohmert (R-1), vice chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, and Lamar Smith (R-21), chair of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology who has challenged climate science. Weber and Babin are also members of that committee.
The Texas lawmakers who sponsored Mullin’s bill to block the chemical plant safety regulations have received more than $652,000 from the chemical industry, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Federal contribution data show the American Chemistry Council specifically has delivered more than $160,000 to the entire Texas congressional delegation since 2008, with top recipients including Gene Green ($20,288), Olson ($18,999), McCaul, who co-sponsored the Mullin bill ($13,500), and Barton ($16,500). Babin and Weber, who also co-sponsored the bill, each received$3,000 from Arkema.
Also this year, Texas Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn were two of 16 co-sponsors of a companion resolution in the Senate. Cornyn has taken more than $408,000 from the chemical industry over the course of his career, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Cruz has recieved $234,000 from the industry. The National Institute on Money In State Politics reports that the American Chemistry Council has given more to federal lawmakers in Texas than legislators in any other state.
ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical, Koch Industries and Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), a Saudi government-owned firm with multiple locations in the Houston area, including its North American headquarters, all lobbied on the legislation, which set the stage for Trump’s administration to block the rules.
In the lead up to that administration decision, the American Chemistry Council took its lobbyingefforts directly to the EPA — along with the U.S. House and Senate, the Department of the Interior, the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Agriculture — on both the legislation and the EPA rule on behalf of Arkema and its many other corporate sponsors. In a May 2017 letter to the EPA, the American Chemistry Council advocated that the implementation of the safety rule be delayed for “at least eighteen months” — until February 19, 2019, arguing that the current rule would be too expensive for its members such as Arkema to implement.
“The Final Rule raises significant security concerns and compliance issues that will harm ACC members and others in the regulated community,” the trade association wrote to the EPA. “Certain provisions, such as the requirement to audit ‘each covered process’ in a facility’s compliance audit, impose costly and burdensome obligations on facilities.”
UPDATED, 4:13pm ET: Arkema originally reported that there were two explosions at its Crosby facility. Law enforcement authorities have since said there were no explosions. The company’s CEO has said that there is “noxious” smoke coming from the facility. This story has been updated throughout.