The U.S. Needs Its Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigations Board

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After the huge success of the National Transportation Safety Board, in 1998 Congress established the   U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazards Investigation Board. The CSB's mission is to investigate accidents such as those at oil refineries and chemical manufacturing plants. Like the NTSB, it has authority to investigate and make recommendations but it has no enforcement power. 

Via Grist I learned this morning that President Trump's Administration is proposing to eliminate the CSB as part of balancing the federal budget. This is a terrible idea! I am a small-government conservative but both the CSB and NTSB produce huge returns on investment, not to mention the lives saved. 

Its budget is just $15 million per year. That amount is just one-quarter of a single NOAA pork barrel grant to a global warming group in Maine (below). And, of course, NOAA makes many of these grants.
To save money, let's get NOAA completely out of the pork-barrel business and use that money to save the CSB, for the NWS to launch its full complement of weather balloons get back to full staff, and to make a down payment on starting a U.S. Disaster Review Board. 

Please send a note to your congresspeople and the White House to get this proposal reversed. 

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