How Will Peter King Respond To Rick Perry's Request For Federal Aid To Help In The Fertilizer Factory Explosion?

Texas secessionist Rick Perry didn't get a vote in the Hurricane Sandy relief bill. But this is how his state's two dozen Republican congressmen voted:

• Joe Barton- No
• Kevin Brady- No
• Michael Burgess- No
• John Carter- No
• Michael Conaway- No
• John Culberson- Yes
• Blake Farenthold- No
• Bill Flores- No
• Louie Gohmert- No
• Kay Granger- No
• Ralph Hall- No
• Jeb Hensarling- No
• Sam Johnson- No
• Kenny Marchant- No
• Michael McCaul- No
• Randy Neugebauer- No
• Pete Olson- No
• Ted Poe- No
• Pete Sessions- No
• Lamar Smith- No
• Steve Stockman- No
• Mac Thornberry- No
• Randy Weber- No
• Roger Williams- No

Just north of Waco on Route 35, West is in TX-17, Bill Flores' district, but just a few miles from TX-25, Roger Williams' district. People from both districts were impacted. Both voted against federal aid for Hurricane Sandy survivors. This isn't a time for schadenfreude but... as Steve Benen pointed out Thursday the devastation was both horrific and predictable. Should we be spending taxpayer money on willful flouting of federal safety violations, encouraged by renegade states like Texas?

The operators of the Texas fertilizer plant where at least five people died in a blast Wednesday told government regulators two years ago there wasn't a major risk of a fire or explosion from ammonia stored at the plant.

West Fertilizer Co. told the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2011 that it was storing up to 54,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia at the plant, north of Waco, as part of a required "risk-management plan." The plan said that neither fire nor explosion has been identified as a significant hazard, according to a summary of the plan on the website of the Center for Effective Government, a nonprofit group that posts the EPA data.

In the risk-management plan, West Fertilizer said the "worst-case scenario" would be an ammonia leak from a storage tank or hose. It didn't specify the likely consequences. The company said the plant had no alarms, automatic shutoff system or firewall. 

It's not just a matter of schadenfreude or revenge; it's a matter of asking ourselves why we should subsidize these nihilists in the South? Maybe they should just have statewide prayer sessions led by their elected political leaders instead of federal aid. Even now the first thing the fertilizer industry is worried about is whether or not there will be more safety regulations imposed on them.

The fertilizer industry is worried that the tragedy could lead to regulatory overreaction.

"There's a concern that someone may react quickly and perhaps try to change things or impose new regulation on top of existing regulation that's already effective," said Kathy Mathers, the vice president of public affairs at The Fertilizer Institute, which represents about 90 percent of the sector.

"There's definitely a very rigorous regulatory structure in place right now. My sense is that the industry is working very hard to comply with existing regulations," she added, noting that the facility owner, West Fertilizer, is not a member of her organization.

...Though investigators have yet to discover the cause of the explosion, the Dallas Morning News reported on Thursday that West Fertilizer reported to the EPA that the facility did not pose a risk of explosion.

It did, however, have 54,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia, a common chemical in agriculture fertilizer. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "When handled improperly, anhydrous ammonia can be immediately dangerous to life or health" and can cause difficulty breathing.

The chemical is also used to make the drug methamphetamine.

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GOP In Tumult? Scott Brown And Peter King

So he's an unrepentant Islamophobe... the Dems will take him anyway

Defeated Republican Senator Scott Brown wants to get back into the Senate but polls showed him that Massachusetts voters had had enough of him and he passed on the prospect of running against Ed Markey. But he hasn't passed on running altogether. Maybe he finds lobbying demeaning after being the #1 target of lobbyists affection for so long. So he's been hinting he could run in New Hampshire against Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, the most popular political leader in the state, with a career-high approval rating. "In the most recent Granite State Poll, 59% of New Hampshire adults say they have a favorable opinion of Shaheen, 22% have an unfavorable opinion of her, 9% are neutral and 11% don’t know enough about her to say. Shaheen’s net favorability rating is +37, up from +27% in October. Shaheen’s favorability ratings have improved in a bipartisan fashion since October, she is viewed very favorably among Democrats (net favorability rating of +80%), favorably among Independents (+34%), but unfavorably among Republicans (-9%)." Still, Beltway insider Stu Rothenberg claims Brown is serious about running there, regardless of how boneheaded the idea is.

Former senators who were defeated for re-election can’t simply go to another state-- even if they have property there and have paid taxes there-- and get elected to the Senate, especially if the state is politically competitive.

Former New Hampshire Sen. Robert C. Smith, for example, briefly tried running for Senate in Florida in 2004, two years after he was defeated in the Granite State GOP primary by John E. Sununu. He dropped out after finding that nobody in Florida knew who he was or cared.

For many voters, Brown would appear to be nothing more than “seat shopping” if he were to run in New Hampshire. He’d look like a perfect example of a personally ambitious politician who didn’t care who he represented as long as he had an office on Capitol Hill and the title of U.S. senator.

And coming after Republicans mocked Ashley Judd, who lives in Tennessee but grew up in Kentucky, for publicly mulling a run for the Senate from her home state, those same Republicans would look hypocritical if they backed Brown.

The Brown argument that this would be different because he has had property in the state and paid taxes there is a loser. He represented the people of Massachusetts in the Senate and he’d look like someone without principles-- a carpetbagger who was more interested in his own career than in the country’s future-- if he tried to move on to New Hampshire. After all, if he wants to be in the Senate, why didn’t he run in this year’s special election in Massachusetts?

Never gonna happen. Well, let's put it like this... it's probably less likely than Peter King switching parties and becoming a Democrat-- something we've speculated on before. And there's not much new in the month that's elapsed since that speculation... except this interview he did on Morning Joe a couple days ago. Watch:



He's pretty pissed off at "Republicans in Congress" and singles out Marco Rubio for particular vituperation. "My relationship with Congress," he told Joe Scarborough, "will never be the same again. They made us wait 90 to 100 days to give the most basic human aid that is required. It's absolutely disgraceful. And when I see these Republicans, we slap each other on the back, all the camaraderie, 'hey, we're great friends.' All I know is there were people who were close to dying in my district and no one gave a damn." So how is all that anger manifesting? Peter King is no right-wing whack-job like Steve King, but he's far from a liberal. His career-long ProgressivePunch crucial vote score is 8.34, pretty miserable even for a Republican. This year the score tells a very different story. For the first time in his career, King is voting against the Republican leadership more frequently than any other Republican in the House. His score is 38.89, basically the exact same score Steve Israel and Ron Kind have been steering freshmen into. The 38.89 brigade includes worthless losers like Ann Kuster (D-NH), Dan Mafei (New Dem-NY), Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY), Scott Peters (New Dem-CA), Raul Ruiz (New Dem-CA) and Kyrsten Sinema (New Dem-AZ). Peter King actually has a more progressive voting record this session than DCCC faves Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog/New Dem-NC- 35.29), Ron Barber (New Dem-AZ-33.33), Bill Owens (New Dem-NY-33.33), the House's worst Democratic freshman, Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-23.53) and, of course, the House's worst over-all fake Democrat, Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT-16.67).

So maybe if Boehner or Cantor do one more thing to alienate him, he'll knock on his buddy Steve Israel's door and work on a jazzy press release.

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