House Commerce Subcommittee Issues Testimony From Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services
"Thank you for this opportunity to speak on the proposed rule to rollback and eliminate critical protections for my community in
"My name is
"Communities in Manchester never know which incident requires evacuation or sheltering in place when we hear the sirens go off. People live in constant fear of releases or incidents while their children are playing outside. In hurricane season, it's bad enough that families have to prepare for their lights to go out and ensuring they have enough food and water. No one should have to shelter in place due to a hurricane, as toxic chemicals flood their homes, wondering what to do if the facility down the street will have a catastrophic explosion, chemical release, or fire, as happened in our community and neighboring parts of
"The Chemical Disaster Rule contains important safeguards that would help communities like mine and across the country with common sense provisions - most importantly for our already over-exposed community, we need this in full effect now to require facilities to take action to prevent fires, explosions, and other disasters, including by ensuring they actually look for safer ways to operate before a disaster starts. It also would have increased the availability of basic information we need to know, like chemical safety data sheets and emergency response contacts so communities can try to find ways to protect ourselves if a serious incident happens. Community members should get information from each incident they are exposed to, without delay, and it's essential for facilities to do real incident investigation reports that they cannot ignore in planning to prevent future problems. I want to highlight that the rule finalized in early 2017 came after years of work by
"These rollbacks don't come without a community cost. As the fires, toxic releases around the country on this Administration's watch, and especially the
"I urge this committee to consider the impacts on your neighbors and family without critical protections like those in the Chemical Disaster Rule and ask you to call on
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