In Houston Texas, we see the triumph of de-regulation.
Zoning laws, which Republicans tend to dislike, gave rise to the paving over of prairie land that would have absorbed at least some of the flooding in Houston. Zoning laws are regulation that protect the interests of an area’s residents. Houston has no zoning laws to speak of. Widening the storm drains and bayous in the Houston area was recommended but he US Army Corps of Engineers, and in 2016 Democratic representatives in the Houston area put up a bill to fund that work, and the Republicans declined to bring it to the floor for a vote. The organized meetings and communiques of concerned Houston area academics and environmental scientists fell on deaf ears. The chemicals being burned off by Arkema Inc. are not inventoried by the EPA and were just disclosed to them a few days ago, without any quantities or reference to what substances are going into the air, ground, and ground water in Houston — again the product of lax and eroded regulation of that industry. The Houston metro area has about a dozen EPA Superfund sites, most of which were flooded and have yet to get a visit from the EPA, see here.Many of the residents of Houston are now eating the bitter fruits of de-regulation. Democrats will squander a golden opportunity to educate the public at large about the perils of de-regulation if they do not call this out for what it is: a massive abdication of the government’s valid role in protecting the people.
You will hear all the usual platitudes like “No one could have predicted” and “Now is not the time to play politics when people are in shelters” and “Let’s work in a bi-partisan way to re-build”. Those all detract from the plain truth: de-regulation made a bad weather event infinitely worse.
Look at the results — the human suffering we’ve witnessed in Houston is ultimately seen as the cost of doing business by those in power and their corporate paymasters. Indeed Arkema Inc. was warning its investors of the danger of chemical explosions there while it was simultaneously lobbying against safety regulations.
For the past 40 years, the Republicans have successfully made “Regulation” a dirty word, and it is high time that the Democrats publicly advocate to regulate zoning and industry to protect the people. But that means going up against the interests of their corporate paymasters (DNC donors). Do they have the courage to frame it this way?