The Nation - News from Feb. 13, 1985

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), responding to the lethal gas leak in Bhopal, India, launched a major effort to evaluate the public health threat from the more than 5,000 chemical plants in the United States. Waxman, chairman of a House subcommittee on health and environment, wrote to the heads of the nation’s largest chemical companies, asking them to identify the dangerous chemicals in their inventories, to estimate the amount of poisonous gases regularly leaking into the community’s air and its adverse health effects, and to evaluate the potential for major poison gas leaks. Waxman said he will use the information to draft legislation ensuring the safety of chemical plants.