Thursday, October 07, 2004
Vote Bush...for a more dangerous America
I think Kerry would do much better than Bush in keeping us safe. We'll only know after the fact what steps John Kerry will take to make the US more secure, but it's abundantly clear what Bush has done so far - not exactly nothing, but certainly nothing good...
Of the nation's 15,000 chemical plants, the Environmental Protection Agency has identified 123 where toxic gases released by a terrorist assault could kill or injure more than 1 million people, and 700 others where deaths and injuries would exceed 100,000. Yet a series of recent investigations by news organizations has found that most of these plants are effectively unguarded, even though the risks are beyond dispute and Al Qaeda's interest in these targets is generously documented.
Seven weeks after 9/11, a GOP-controlled Senate committee unanimously passed a bill to require chemical plants to take steps to protect the public from terrorist attacks. But the White House, at the chemical industry's behest, derailed the bill and then removed the EPA's existing regulatory authority to require improvements in chemical plant security. Why would the Bush administration do this? All we know for sure is that President Bush and his party have accepted more than $22 million from the chemical industry since 1998.
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