My Vote For Clean Air.

OK, here's the news from BP. It seems that while we were all focused on the gigantic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a little known slip up occurred in Texas City, Texas. I guess an oil refinery piece of equipment broke down, spewing toxic gases. Well, they realized this would be unpopular, so they decided not to tell the good folks of Texas City. So instead of shutting down and making the necessary repairs, they decided to channel the toxic gases to a smoke stack in an attempt to burn off those toxic gases. Guess what. It didn't work too well and for forty days it spewed out about 540,000 pounds of toxic poisons including benzene. Here's the kicker, neither BP or the state of Texas informed the people or local officials. Now, I might expect BP to try to pull one over like that, but the State? On it's own citizens? Are other states so unconcerned about it's citizenry? How would your state handle this kind of thing? For about six weeks? Do you mean to tell me they would allow this kind of a problem to go on for six weeks? What's wrong with Texas? Do you suppose the revenue from this BP refinery was so important that the state government was justified in not doing anything? I wonder how much does that come down to, per person? Just how much is a citizen of Texas City worth, anyway? For that matter, how much are any of us worth to our governments? Just what is the price of one vote?