This month is the anniversary of the BP oil spill and the West Texas disaster, yet since those two events, there has been little to no major reforms or regulation to deal with the problem of toxic waste, pollution and environmental and civilian safety. The people need to take these events seriously because statistically it’s only a matter of time before another preventable disaster strikes.
The most ridiculous part about the West Texas tragedy, which took the lives of 15 people and injured more than 160, is according to the Preliminary Findings of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, the disaster could have been prevented.
Because of the political climate of lax-regulation in predominantly Republican Texas, there was never a push to have inspections or mandate the installation of sprinkler systems, which would have put out the fire and prevented the disaster in the first place.
We all should be concerned with the lack of regulations and safety code enforcement of chemical plants because, according to Greenpeace, LSU and Baton Rouge are within the risk area of about a dozen plants.
Anti-regulatory conservative Republicans dominate Louisiana’s political climate almost as much as Texas. Because of the power of the corporate media, regulation has become a politically unpopular word, especially in the South, which clearly needs it the most.
Although most enjoy getting on the anti-government bandwagon, we need to accept that some regulations work and clearly prevent fatalities and injuries.
The sad reality is there are too many disasters to think of in recent months and years that continue to occur because of the government not acting enough to prevent them from occurring.
Another major travesty that occurred this month, four years ago, was the BP Deepwater Horizon Spill, which turned out to be one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in history, claiming the lives of 11 workers.
The BP oil spill, just like the disaster in West Texas, could have been prevented with proper inspections and regulations. As it turned out, the Bush administration lowered the regulations on oil rigs, which benefited Vice President Dick Cheney’s old company Halliburton and their partner, BP.
For the past 30 years, Republicans have pushed for deregulation from the financial sector to the energy sector. Deregulation of the chemical and energy industry puts at risk people’s lives and the environment.
Corporations and businesses will never police themselves when they are rewarded by the free market for cutting corners and limiting maintenance with higher returns.
The Elk River Chemical Spill, another recent pollution disaster, in West Virginia, left more than 300,000 people without drinking water. West Virginia doesn’t have a Republican governor, but the coal industry basically rules the state.
The states governments and the Obama administration are not doing enough to stop these types of disasters. On one hand, Obama passed an executive order after the West Texas explosion pushing for more cooperation between regulatory agencies and enforcement of the environmental laws, but it seems no matter how many times companies pollute, they just pay the fees and continue on as business as usual.
Companies polluting the environment are just a symptom of the larger problem of a culture that glorifies wealth and greed and rewards it. Instead of being passive consumers allowing the destruction of our communities and the environment to persist, we all should have active concern and make environmental regulation an election issue, because if we don’t, they won’t.
With technology and consumption increasing exponentially, the planet cannot handle our greed for resources and energy much longer. As an proverb once said, “When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money.”
Joshua Hajiakbarifini is a 24-year-old political science and economics senior from Baton Rouge.