Blow Out

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

11 August 13

little over a year ago, at a Chevron refinery in Richmond, California blew up. Nobody died but, in the aftermath, 15,000 people were treated for various respiratory problems caused by the poison that the explosion and fire spewed into the air. Now, the city is suing Chevron. Among other things, the city is accusing Chevron of not giving much of a damn who it sickened in and around Richmond.

The lawsuit alleges the explosion and blaze at the Richmond refinery on Aug. 6, 2012, resulted from "years of neglect, lax oversight and corporate indifference to necessary safety inspection and repairs." The fire occurred after a leak in a corroded pipe in the refinery's crude oil unit created a large cloud of hydrocarbon vapor that ignited in a fireball at about 6:30 p.m. that day. The fire burned for several hours before being controlled and sent a huge plume of toxic black smoke over the area. More than 15,000 people were treated at hospitals for respiratory problems and other illnesses. The lawsuit, authorized by the City Council last week, seeks financial compensation for economic damage to the city, including the costs of emergency response, firefighting, environmental cleanup, alleviating harm to public health, and loss of value in city property.

The blog has been following closely those place in the country - West, Texas, Geismar, Louisiana, etc. - that have taken to blowing up recently and it has discovered that, in many cases, the blowing up occurs because the local "business-friendly" climate proposed by state and local governments has had a lot to do with how the Invisible Hand has lit the fuse. After things go boom, however, the Invisible Hand strangely becomes more invisible. The Invisible Hand doesn't leave any fingerprints, either. For example, and for its part, Chevron obviously has decided that little people and their petty attempts to breathe do not concern Chevron very much.

Chevron spokeswoman Melissa Ritchie said on Thursday, "We believe the decision to pursue such a suit is a waste of the city's resources and yet another example of its failed leadership."

Translation from the original weaselspeak: We have lawyered up and we will drag this bad boy out, and the great-grandchildren of your town counsel will be answering motions, and we will break you and your government in court before y'all ever see a dime.

You've got to be a special kind of arrogant to blame your company's corroded pipe that caused an explosion and fire at your company's refinery on the "failed leadership" of the city you poisoned, but that's the kind of arrogance that has arisen as the relationship between American business and American government has shifted so dramatically over the last 40 years. That's the kind of arrogance that gets embedded in the corporate class when it looks around and sees no penalties being exacted by the government for the depredations the corporate class has unleashed on the people for whom the government is the only real protection. This is yet another consequence of looking forward, and not back.