In 2006, the EPA's Chicago office told Midwestern fertilizer dealers it found problems with nearly all their safety plans for poisonous anhydrous ammonia. Fix them, the EPA wrote the dealers, or face possible fines.
Members of Congress from both parties protested. Among those publicly flaying the Environmental Protection Agency for excessive zeal was a freshman Democrat from Illinois.
At a Capitol Hill hearing on June 28, 2006, Sen. Barack Obama greeted one witness as an old friend and ally from his days in the Illinois Senate: the head of Illinois' farm-chemical lobby.
Obama then counseled the EPA to give fertilizer dealers friendly and informal phone calls instead of enforcement letters. If most dealers flunked safety checks, he said, it must be the EPA's fault for not educating them.
"It strikes me that this is an industry that wants to do the right thing — that has a stake in doing the right thing," Obama declared. Other senators concurred.
The EPA apparently got the message. It never repeated that particular enforcement threat.
Seven years later, under President Obama, the fatal West Fertilizer Co. fire and explosion again forces federal regulators' hands.
They must decide if any federal violations contributed to the 15 deaths, 200 injuries and $100 million in property damage — and if so, how they should respond.
So far, it appears that, as in the past, uncertainty could be keeping them at bay.
After more than two months, the EPA and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration have not said whether they plan formal enforcement.
They declined to discuss the case. OSHA went further, citing its own investigation in refusing to release any documents on the explosion.
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