Recently, the United States Congress has drafted legislation in hopes of increasing security at chemical plants against terrorist attacks.  Part of this security includes requiring the chemical companies to use government mandated processes rather than their own.  We aren’t just talking about huge chemical companies, though; we’re even talking about small companies all over America and even college campuses.  As always, once regulations start rolling they snowball into full disasters. 

The effects of increased government regulation such as this throughout the country, however, could be the straw that breaks the camels back for many families. 

Notice that the Department of Homeland Security defines in the rule that, 

“Chemical Facility or facility shall mean any establishment that possesses or plans to possess, at any relevant point in time, a quantity of a chemical substance determined by the Secretary to be potentially dangerous or that meets other risk-related criteria identified by the Department.”

Notice where it says it will be determined by the secretary as whatever meets risk-related criteria, such as a city.  One has to wonder, will every city be scrutinized for their use of common chemicals such as chlorine in their water treatment facilities?  How far is the government going to go?  Most likely this will spiral into regulating every water treatment facility in the nation and putting all Americans at risk for expensive changes.  

The buck would not stop at companies and typical facilities either.  In the DHS’s FAQs, the agency admitted that even colleges and universities with significant amounts of the listed chemicals would be required to fill out extensive government paperwork in order to comply with the new regulations.  With such demands, there is hardly any doubt that the high cost of education in our country will increase and make it even more difficult for families to afford college. 

Such changes are completely unnecessary and expensive.  This is yet another example of how useless government regulation further puts Americans at risk of losing their jobs and causes education to be more expensive all while forcing American families to pick up the slack. 

For a government that claims it is trying to help Americans keep jobs and improve the economy it sure seems to be doing the exact opposite.  Instead of helping Americans, the government chooses to increase its power and twist the arm of the very people who it claims to protect.  Our friends at NAM have a form on there website you can use to send a letter to Congress on this issue.