Koch-Funded Texas Gubernatorial Candidate Limits Public Chemical Disclosure After Deadly Explosion

Shortly after the anniversary of the 2013 fertilizer plant explosion that killed 15 people, wounded 226, and upended a large portion of the small town of West, Texas, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board said the incident was preventable and that it resulted from the failure of a company to take the necessary steps to avert it. The explosion at the West Fertilizer Company storage and distribution facility was caused by ammonium nitrate. There are dozens of facilities across Texas storing that same chemical in large quantities. In the year since the explosion the Texas government has only made one change to laws surrounding chemical disclosure and safety: restricting publicly available information regarding the location of these chemicals.