Subject: Fwd: Letter to President Obama from 100+ groups re chemical plant security
From: David Halperin <[email-masked]>
To: John Podesta <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2015 12:40:19 -0400

John, I hope all is well, and that you can take a moment to review this
letter.  Thanks. Best, David

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Halperin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 12:34 PM
Subject: Letter to President Obama from 100+ groups re chemical plant
security
To: [email-masked]
Cc: Rick Hind <[email-masked]>

March 19, 2015

The Honorable Denis McDonough

Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff

The Honorable Valerie Jarrett

Senior Advisor and Assistant

The Honorable Susan Rice

Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs

Dear Mr. McDonough, Ms. Jarrett, and Ambassador Rice,

Please find the attached letter to the President, and supporting materials,
from organizations and leaders across America, regarding the urgency of
issuing new rules to protect Americans from the dangers of accidents or
deliberate attacks at U.S. chemical facilities.

I participate in the Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters
<http://preventchemicaldisasters.org/>, more than 100 environmental,
environmental justice, labor, and community groups that have been working
for years to make U.S. chemical plants safer. We represent communities and
people who are at the greatest risk from chemical plant accidents or
attacks.

Members of our coalition would be pleased to discuss these issues with you
at any time.

Sincerely,

David Halperin

David Halperin, Attorney & Counselor

1530 P Street NW 1st floor

Washington DC 20005

(202) 905-3434

The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

March 19, 2015

Dear Mr. President:

We write to strongly urge you to take prompt and decisive action to address
a danger you have highlighted for a decade – the threat to our communities
and workers from accidents or deliberate attacks on U.S. chemical plants.
Your Administration is running out of time to make a real difference on
this critical issue.

We were grateful when, after the tragic West, Texas disaster in April 2013,
you issued Executive Order (EO) 13650, “Improving Chemical Facility Safety
and Security,” that directed federal agencies to modernize safety
regulations. As a result, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is
considering revisions to its Risk Management Program (RMP) regulation, but
has postponed proposing changes until September. We believe that this
schedule will jeopardize finalizing a rule before you leave office and
therefore needs to be accelerated.

Your past leadership on preventing chemical disasters has been
unparalleled. The millions of men, woman and children living, studying,
playing and working within high risk zones near hundreds of chemical
facilities are counting on you to prevent future tragedies. To ensure that
new rules do take effect, they must be finalized well in advance of the end
of your administration’s term in office.

EPA’s RMP data, first reported in 1999, exposed the overwhelming danger of
these hazards to workers, first responders, children, and surrounding
communities. In 2006, as a U.S. Senator, you stated emphatically that
“these plants are stationary weapons of mass destruction spread all across
the country.” According to a December 2014 Congressional Research Service
analysis, 466 of these facilities each put 100,000 or more people at risk
of a catastrophic disaster.

Fortunately, safer cost-effective chemical processes are widely available.
Since 2001, hundreds of chemical facilities have switched to safer chemical
processes and eliminated these risks to 40 million people in 47 states. For
example, in 2012, the Clorox Company completed conversion of all of its
U.S. facilities to a safer manufacturing process. While this is
encouraging, reliance solely on voluntary efforts has left more than 100
million people in the U.S. at risk of death or injury because they live and
work inside “vulnerability zones” surrounding the high-risk chemical
facilities.

Section 112(r)(7)(A) of the Clean Air Act provides the EPA with rule-making
authority to prevent future tragedies by requiring chemical facility owners
and operators to use, where feasible, safer processes that will reduce or
eliminate the potential for a catastrophic chemical incident. Safer
processes are the only foolproof way to eliminate or dramatically reduce
the loss of human life in such an event, whether it is triggered by an
accident, natural disaster, or terrorism.

These catastrophic hazards became obvious following the 9/11 attacks and
after every attack since. In 2002, the EPA under then-Administrator
Christine Todd Whitman proposed using the Clean Air Act’s disaster
prevention authority to make chemical facilities “inherently safer by
reducing quantities of hazardous chemicals handled or stored, substituting
less hazardous chemicals for extremely hazardous ones, or otherwise
modifying the design of processes to reduce or eliminate chemical hazards.”
Tragically, the Bush administration, under pressure from special interest
lobbyists, scuttled this proposal.

In your 2008 book Change We Can Believe In you promised, “An Obama
Administration will…[s]ecure our chemical plants by setting a clear set of
federal regulations that all plants must follow, including improving
barriers, containment, mitigation and safety training, and wherever
possible, using safer technology, such as less toxic chemicals.”

On April 3, 2012, Governor Whitman wrote EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson
urging the use of “authorities you can apply to reduce these hazards before
a tragedy of historic proportions occurs.” And following the West, Texas,
disaster, then-EPA Administrator Jackson told MSNBC, "We need to use the
authority we have now."

Due to the billions of dollars of potential liability, the Association of
American Railroads issued a statement in 2008 saying: “It’s time for the
big chemical companies to do their part to help protect America. They
should stop manufacturing dangerous chemicals when safer substitutes are
available...” More recently, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board recommended in
its May 1, 2014 final report on the 2010 Tesoro refinery disaster that the
EPA issue new rules under the Agency’s Clean Air Act authority

We respectfully urge you to use your authority to expedite finalizing a
rule that will eliminate these potentially catastrophic hazards wherever
feasible. As organizations committed to this objective, we look to your
office to ensure that this critical rule is finalized as soon as possible.

Thank you for your leadership on this important issue.

Respectfully,

Kristen Breitweiser
9/11 Widow

Monique Harden
Advocates for Environmental Human Rights

Adrian Shelley
Air Alliance Houston

Pamela K. Miller
Alaska Community Action on Toxics

Katie Huffling
Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments

Rick Wilson
American Friends Service Committee WV Economic Justice Project

Diane E. Brown
Arizona Public Interest Research Group

Miya Yoshitani
Asian Pacific Environmental Network

Heather Cantino
Athens County Fracking Action Network

Jim Puckett
Basel Action Network

Jay Feldman
Beyond Pesticides

Charlotte Brody
BlueGreen Alliance

Jeanne Rizzo, R.N.
Breast Cancer Fund

Emily Rusch
California Public Interest Research Group (CalPIRG)

Steve Savner
Center for Community Change

Katherine McFate
Center for Effective Government

Michael Green
Center for Environmental Health

Lois Marie Gibbs
Center for Health, Environment & Justice

Carroll Muffett
Center for International Environmental Law

Barbara Warren, RN, MS
Citizens' Environmental Coalition

Maria D. Cabrera
City Councilwoman, City of Wilmington, Delaware

Erin Heaney
Clean Air Coalition of Western New York

Saleem Chapman
Clean Air Council

Kathleen A. Curtis, LPN
Clean and Healthy New York

Mark Rossi, PhD
Clean Production Action

Robert Wendelgass
Clean Water Action

Amy Goldsmith
Clean Water Action, New Jersey

Nic Clark
Clean Water Action, Michigan

Andy Galli
Clean Water Action, Maryland

Myron Arnowitt
Clean Water Action, Pennsylvania

Meg Kerr
Clean Water Action, Rhode Island

Anne Hulick
Clean Water Action, Connecticut

Andria Ventura
Clean Water Action, California

Sara Lu
Clean Water Action, Colorado

Kathy Aterno
Clean Water Action, Florida

Elizabeth Saunders
Clean Water Action Alliance of Massachusetts

Deanna White
Clean Water Action Alliance of Minnesota

Danny Katz
Colorado Public Interest Research Group (CoPIRG)

Judy Robinson
Coming Clean

David Le Grande
Communications Workers of America

Sofia Martinez
Concerned Citizens of Wagon Mound and Mora County

Evan Preston
Connecticut Public Interest Research Group (ConnPIRG)

Amy Roe, Ph.D.
Delaware Chapter of the Sierra Club

Paulyne A Webster
Delaware Concerned Residents For Environmental Justice

Lisa Locke
Delaware Interfaith Power & Light

Beverly Wright, Ph.D.
Deep South Center for Environmental Justice

Eric Kirkendall
Diesel Health Project

Dr. Robert D. Bullard
Environmental Justice Leader

Trip Van Noppen
Earthjustice

Angela Adrar
EcoHermanas

Jeff Gearhart
Ecology Center

Margie Alt
Environment America

Luke Metzger
Environment Texas

Richard A. Denison, Ph.D.
Environmental Defense Fund

Emma Halas-O'Connor
Environmental Health Strategy Center/Prevent Harm

Michele Roberts
Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform

Renee C. Sharp
Environmental Working Group

Jeannie Economos
Farmworker Association of Florida

David Halperin
Former Staff Member, National Security Council & Senate Intelligence
Committee

Gerald Poje, PhD
Founding Member, U.S. Chemical Safety Board

Erich Pica
Friends of the Earth

Monica Wilson
GAIA: Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives

Denny Larson
Global Community Monitor

Fran Teplitz
Green America

Jeremy Hays
Green For All

Arlene Blum, PhD
Green Science Policy Institute

Sue Phelan
GreenCAPE

Annie Leonard
Greenpeace

Bill Walsh
Healthy Building Network

Henry S. Cole, Ph.D
Henry S. Cole Environmental Associates, Inc.

Abe Scarr
Illinois PIRG

Sam Loesche
International Brotherhood of Teamsters

Ted Smith
International Campaign for Responsible Technology

John Morawetz
International Chemical Workers Union Council

Sanford Lewis
Investor Environmental Health Network

José T. Bravo
Just Transition Alliance

Chad Cordell
Kanawha Forest Coalition

Heather Warman
Kentucky Environmental Foundation

Dr. Theresa Cordova
Las Pistoleras Institute cultural de Arte

Tiernan Sittenfeld
League of Conservation Voters

Tracy Gregoire
Learning Disabilities Association of Maine

LT. General Russel Honore, US Army (Ret)

Karen Savage
Life Support Project

Richard Moore
Los Jardines Institute

Anne Rolfes
Louisiana Bucket Brigade

Major General Randy Manner, US Army (Ret)

Emily Scarr
Maryland PIRG

Ken and Penny Dryden
Minority Workforce Development Coalition

Trisha Sheehan
Moms Clean Air Force

Dorothy Felix
Mossville Environmental Action Now

Anna Galland
Moveon.org

Mary Vogel
National Council for Occupational Safety and Health

Scott Slesinger
Natural Resources Defense Council

Rev. M. Dele
Nature's Friends

Carol E. Gay
New Jersey State Industrial Union Council

Janice Selinger
NJ Work Environment Council

Niaz Dorry
Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance

Janet Keating
Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition

Dave Rosenfeld
Oregon State Public Interest Research Group (OSPIRG)

Maya Nye
People Concerned About Chemical Safety

Judy Hatcher
Pesticide Action Network North America

Kathy Attar
Physicians for Social Responsibility

Karen A D’Andrea
Physicians for Social Responsibility Maine Chapter

Richard Gibson
Physicians for Social Responsibility of Greater Kansas

Barbara H. Warren, MD, MPH
Physicians for Social Responsibility, Arizona

Peter Orris, MD, MPH
Professor and Chief of Service, Occupational and Environmental Medicine,
University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System

Laura Punnett, Sc.D.
Professor, Dept. of Work Environment, & UML Distinguished University
Professor (2013-16), University of Massachusetts Lowell

Rena Steinzor
Professor, University of Maryland Law School and President, Center for
Progressive Reform

Tom Smith
Public Citizen (Texas)

Tyson Slocum
Public Citizen

Amy Laura Cahn
Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia

Eboni Cochran
REACT (Rubbertown Emergency ACTion)

Liz Hitchcock
Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families

Robert M. Gould, MD
San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, Physicians for Social Responsibility

Ted Schettler
Science and Environmental Health Network

Deborah Moore
Second Look

Jon Barton
Service Employees International Union

Terry McGuire
Sierra Club

Neil Carman, PhD
Sierra Club's Lone Star Chapter

Diana Lopez
Southwest Workers Union

Jennifer Crosslin
Steps Coalition

Michael O'Heaney
Story of Stuff Project

Robin Schneider
Texas Campaign for the Environment

Juan Parras
Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (T.E.J.A.S.)

Diane Wilson
Texas Injured Workers

Anjum Hanafi, MPH
Texas Physicians for Social Responsibility

Sara E. Smith, JD
Texas Public Interest Research Group (TexPIRG)

James Trice
The Praxis Project

Kristina Mazzocchi, Esq.
The Steelworkers' Tony Mazzocchi Center for Health, Safety and
Environmental Education

Andre Delattre
U.S. Public Interest Research Group

Yogin Kothari
Union of Concerned Scientists

Michael J. Wright
United Steelworkers

Elizabeth C. Yeampierre
UPROSE

Bruce Amundson, MD
Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility

Cecil Corbin-Mark
WE ACT for Environmental Justice

Dr. Henry Clark
West County Toxics Coalition

Gary Zuckett
West Virginia Citizen Action Group

Jeffrey S. Allen
West Virginia Council of Churches

Bill Price
West Virginia Environmental Council

Carey Jo Grace
West Virginia Healthy Kids And Families Coalition

Cynthia D. Ellis
West Virginia Highlands Conservancy

Angie Rosser
West Virginia Rivers Coalition

Julie Archer
West Virginia Surface Owners' Rights Organization

Jen Burns
West Virginia Sustainable Business Council

Peter Skopec
Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group (WISPIRG)

Ciera Pennington
WV FREE

CC:
Senator Barbara Boxer
Senator Edward Markey
Senator Tom Udall
Senator Cory Booker
Representative Frank Pallone
Gina McCarthy, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency