Some environmentalists believe President Bush’s Homeland Security Act could have some harmful effects on the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Some environmentalists believe President Bush’s Homeland Security Act could have some harmful effects on the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The National Strategy for Homeland Security is the White House plan to deal with threats of terrorism. Among a number of proposals, the Bush Administration wants to limit access to information about hazardous chemicals at company plants. Alys Campaigne is with the environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense Council. The NRDC notes that industry has long wanted to get rid of laws that required disclosing to the public what chemicals they might handle…
“We’re concerned that the Bush Administration is using the guise of Homeland Security to legislate very sweeping exemptions to corporations under public disclosure laws and to give them unprecedented immunity from laws that are on the books now.”
The NRDC says instead of letting companies keep secrets about chemicals at their sites, the government should conduct vulnerability assessments and work with companies to reduce the hazards at a site. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.