July 11th CALL TO ACTION!
We desperately need people to contact their Representatives to encourage them to support Senate Interior-Environment appropriations bill (H.R. 2996) for FY2010 that includes a $1.3 million increase in the Chemical Safety Board’s budget.
- Below is a SAMPLE LETTER, TALKING POINTS, and KEY TARGETS in the House of Representatives.
- We desperately need constituents from each of these areas to write their representative, so please pass this along to anyone you know who may live in these areas!
- To easily write your representatives, cut and paste the sample letter at this website:https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
- NOTE: Be sure to CHANGE THE TEXT in LARGE FONT BELOW to personalize the letter.
SAMPLE LETTER
The Honorable Shelley Moore Capito
2443 Rayburn House Office Building
United States House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
July 11, 2009
To The Honorable Shelley Moore Capito:
On behalf of the Kanawha Valley based community group People Concerned About MIC, I am writing to you today to urge you to support Senate Interior-Environment appropriations bill (H.R. 2996) for FY2010 that includes a $1.3 million increase in the Chemical Safety Board’s budget. This increase would not only bring the CSB budget of this critically important agency up to inflation standards, it would provide additional funding that would quite possibly save the lives of my family and about 300,000 of my neighbors, not to mention identify possible job creation opportunities.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) performs vital work to promote safer chemical plant operations. Key Board safety recommendations have included calls to regulate reactive chemicals and combustible dust, to increase safety inspections of oil refineries and chemical plants, to modernize the New York City fire code, and to create the independent Baker panel that published a landmark report on the safety culture of energy giant BP.
The CSB is currently involved in a major accident investigation at the Bayer CropScience pesticide plant in Institute, West Virginia, one mile as the crow flies from my home, where an August 2008 explosion killed two employees and threatened damage to a 37,000-pound storage tank of MIC, the same chemical that killed thousands in Bhopal in 1984. An estimated 300,000 people live and work within the RMP vulnerability zone of this Bayer plant. In May 2009, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee asked the CSB to study inherently safer technology options for Bayer. These technologies would not only protect the surrounding communities, it has the potential to provide cleaner, safer jobs.
The CSB has only 11 deployable accident investigators for the entire country, which is completely inadequate for the dozens of serious chemical accidents that occur each year causing deaths, serious injuries, community evacuations, and environmental damage.
Over the past decade, the CSB budget has failed even to keep up with inflation – let alone provide the increases needed to perform its critical safety mission effectively. The CSB’s budget for FY 2000 was $7.97 million, equivalent to $10.2 million of today’s dollars. But the current CSB operating budget for FY 2009 is only $9.9 million – about one-tenth the size of the NTSB’s $91 million budget, and less than a tenth of the size of the DHS chemical facility anti-terrorism program (CFATS).
Our own Senator Robert C. Byrd introduced language into the Senate Interior-Environment appropriations bill for FY 2010 that includes a much needed $1 million increase for the CSB budget, to a total of $11.2 million. The Senate bill also eliminates a burdensome “pass through” that directs $150,000-$300,000 of the Board’s budget to the EPA Inspector General for oversight. The bill also includes language directing that the additional funds be used to “evaluate and report on how best to eliminate the remaining industrial storage of methyl isocyanate, the substance involved in the Bhopal chemical disaster and in a fatal accident at Bayer CropScience in Institute, West Virginia, in 2008, as requested by the chairmen of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology.”
The Senate bill also includes important language directing the EPA “to ensure that all high-risk chemical facilities are inspected for risk management and process safety compliance” including establishing inspection requirements, an inspection tracking system, and a plan that includes future resource and staff requirements.
The House Interior-Environment appropriations bill only provides $10.5 million for the CSB, continues the burdensome “pass through” of funds to the EPA Inspector General, and does not include any language supporting the work on inherently safer alternatives to MIC storage. The House bill provides for little, if any, growth of the agency.
Over the next couple of months, these two bills will be resolved in a House-Senate conference committee. I urge you to support the bill that provides for needed CSB growth and an increased role in promoting inherently safer technology for chemical plants – and directs the EPA to do its part in inspecting high-risk chemical facilities. My life and the lives of my family, friends and neighbors depend on it.
Thank you for your action.
Sincerely,
Maya Nye, Spokesperson
People Concerned About MIC
TALKING POINTS for CALLS
- Urge them to support the Senate Interior-Environment appropriations bill H.R. 2996 that includes a $1.3 million increase in the Chemical Safety Board’s budget.
- Eliminates a burdensome “pass through” that directs $150,000-$300,000 of the Chemical Safety Board’s budget to the EPA Inspector General for oversight.
- Over the past decade, the CSB budget has failed even to keep up with inflation – let alone provide the increases needed to perform its critical safety mission effectively.
- The CSB is responsible for providing vital safety information to regulators and industry to protect us all from chemical disasters like the one that happened in Bhopal, India in 1984. Chemical incidents happen frequently across the country, and the August 2008 incident at the Bayer CropScience facility in our community of Institute, West Virginia almost "eclipsed the Bhopal disaster," according to a Congressional investigation. H.R. 2996 includes language to "evaluate and report on how best to eliminate the remaining industrial storage of methyl isocyanate, the substance involved in the Bhopal chemical disaster and in a fatal accident at Bayer CropScience in Institute, West Virginia, in 2008, as requested by the chairmen of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology."
- Chemical safety affects us all! If you live near any railroad tracks, river, drive on any roads, or live near a chemical plant, this bill effects you personally -- tell them this! Chemicals are not only produced at chemical facilities, but they are transported across the country via rail, river and road.
The following are KEY TARGETS:
Congressman Alan Mollohan
West Virginia-1st, Democrat
Member, Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
2302 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
ph: (202) 225-4172
fax: (202) 225-7564
http://www.mollohan.house.gov/
The 1st District consists of these counties:
Barbour
Brooke
Doddridge
Gilmer
Grant
Hancock
Harrison
Marion
Marshall
Mineral
Monongalia
Ohio
Pleasants
Preston
Ritchie
Taylor
Tucker
Tyler
Wetzel
Wood
Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito
West Virginia-2nd, Republican
2443 Rayburn H.O.B.
Washington, D.C., 20515
Phone: 202.225.2711
Fax: 202.225.7856
The 2nd District consists of these counties:
Berkeley
Braxton
Calhoun
Clay
Hampshire
Hardy
Jackson
Jefferson
Kanawha
Lewis
Mason
Morgan
Pendleton
Putnam
Randolph
Roane
Upshur
Wirt
Congressman Norman D. Dicks
Washington-6th, Democrat
Chair, Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies (Appropriations)
2467 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: 202-225-5916
Fax: 202-226-1176
Congressman James Moran
Virginia-8th, Democrat
Member, Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies (Appropriations)
2239 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-4376
Fax: (202) 225-0017
For more tips on writing to Congress visit http://www.writeexpress.com/Write-Congress.html.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP ON THIS!!! Our community appreciates it!