Houston flood: Explosions reported at Arkema chemical plant

[Igel]

21. I don't see deregulation being the problem here.

The area's very lightly populated so almost nobody's near the plant.

It has all the federal regulations and won awards for compliance with safety standards.

It had backups and safeguards for hurricanes like Ike or a bit worse. This was a lot worse.

Changing policy because of Katrina or Sandy?

Paris Agreement. But CO2 emissions are sort of a composite of increased population/energy consumption + greater efficiency + greater use of renewables, so it's a decent mix of factors. Carbon emissions in the US, esp. due to energy, declined sharply after 2008 and were still down-trending as of 2015. It's like pollution and poverty in the '60s--there were policies and procedures in place to help, but the trend started sharply downward years before the legislation was put in place. The legislation is arguably an effect of improvement rather than a cause.

The other things are just regulations, are boring, and really don't make the news except in exceptional cases or right after they're called for and so they're salient. Even in Houston where there *were* all kinds of regulation changes after Ike and after some of the flooding events we've had most people don't know they changed.