After Plant Explosion, Texas Remains Wary of Regulation

[steve2470]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/us/after-plant-explosion-texas-remains-wary-of-regulation.html?google_editors_picks=true



The explosion in April of a fertilizer plant near West, Tex., was so powerful that it registered as a 2.1-magnitude earthquake. McLennan, the county that includes West, has no fire code.

WEST, Tex. — Five days after an explosion at a fertilizer plant leveled a wide swath of this town, Gov. Rick Perry tried to woo Illinois business officials by trumpeting his state’s low taxes and limited regulations. Asked about the disaster, Mr. Perry responded that more government intervention and increased spending on safety inspections would not have prevented what has become one of the nation’s worst industrial accidents in decades.

“Through their elected officials,” he said, Texans “clearly send the message of their comfort with the amount of oversight.”

This antipathy toward regulations is shared by many residents here. Politicians and economists credit the stance with helping attract jobs and investment to Texas, which has one of the fastest-growing economies in the country, and with winning the state a year-after-year ranking as the nation’s most business friendly.

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[Zoeisright]

1. What a bunch of fucking idiots.

There are too many Americans who are simply incapable of learning and logical reasoning. Example: the majority of Texans.

[steve2470]

2. "It left a crater 93 feet wide and sent a gray mushroom cloud into the sky that reminded many...

residents of the images they had seen of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945."

I despair for Texas.

[jberryhill]

3. It's only 93 feet wide

Texas is HUGE!

A 93 foot crater isn't that big a deal there.

[steve2470]

4. ah yes, just a mere firecracker in the vastness of Texas

[jberryhill]

6. I was in Dallas last week

I'd never been to Texas in my life, so I jumped at an invitation to speak at a conference there. Since I booked late, all the hotels downtown were filled and I ended up at a hotel right smack dab across the Central expressway from the George W Bush Presidential Center. So I had something of a morning commute. And what struck me was how often a theme it is in radio advertising how great Texas is. It's radio - in Dallas - I mean, it's not like anyone who lives there needs convincing or anyone needs to be persuaded to visit. FM doesn't carry outside the state.

I mean, in the shuttle bus to the rental car area at DFW I leaned that DFW is 30 square miles, which is the second largest in the country... "Not just second in Texas, but the whole country!"

I gotta say, I had some AWESOME ribs and met a lot of genuinely friendly people.

But I can readily understand the mindset of there always being a shitload of cheap land somewhere if someone wants to go mess it up, build their freak compound, or whatever.

[HiPointDem]

5. let the death and destruction continue! (it's no one that actually matters...)