Pollution study finds Houston refineries
emit 3 times as much as reported

From the Houston Chronicle:

Refineries and petrochemical plants in the Houston area release three times more toxic air pollution than they report to the federal government, according to a study released Tuesday.

The report by the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Integrity Project and a local air pollution advocacy group, used calculations developed by the state's environmental agency to estimate that 102 refineries in the Houston area released 116 million pounds of pollution in 2001, 79 million pounds more than they reported.

Applying that same formula throughout Texas, and to refineries and chemical plants nationwide, the groups found that the state would rank first in releases of 10 toxic air pollutants, rather than third, as was reported in the last year's Toxics Release Inventory, a federal database compiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Nationally, 330 million pounds of toxic air pollution went unreported in 2001, the report said.

Here's a punchline appropriate for this Republican-dominated era in which we are living:

Fisher said that it's the EPA that tells industry how to report its pollution. The law requires industries to submit the "best available information," which in many cases does not entail actual monitoring.

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Not only are chemical plants wide open to terrorists who want to kill us, but these plants, themselves, are also doing their damnedest to help the terrorists out by killing us slowly with unreported toxic emisions. Man, I live right smack dab in the middle of this shit, and I know that if I end up with some weird cancer ten years or so down the road, the government is going to tell me that's just too bad, socialized health care is evil. None of this is surprising to me. Of course, the EPA doesn't actually require massive industrial polluters to monitor their pollution: the federal agency is run by Republican shills recruited directly from the industries that pollute the most. Meanwhile, Texas is sticking it to its citizens in a vain and cosmetic attempt to make up the difference. I suppose it would be too much to ask for me to be able to simply report an estimate of my car's emission levels for my state auto inspection--I just had to get the fucking engine replaced on the damned thing because it wouldn't pass the state's new stringent standards for exhaust emissions in Harris County. I know fully well that cars do cause pollution, but certainly not on the scale that the petrochemical industry does. This is really fucked. If the state had its shit together in any sane way at all, we'd have a good public transportation system, and the car thing would be a moot point. But, then, I suppose that public transportation is socialist, and therefore evil.

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