Dick Cheney's Dangerous Son-In-Law

Dick Cheney's Dangerous Son-In-Law is lawyer Philip Perry. He's been in the administration as Associate Attorney General, (number 3 in the Department of Justice), and helped on the War on Terrorism and building the Department of Homland Security. He then became the General Counsel for the OMB. He left the administration for private practice in 2003 but returned in 2005 as General Counsel of DHS.

"Perry has been a key player in the struggle to prevent the federal government from assuming any serious regulatory role in business, no matter what the cost". He prevented the EPA from regulating the chemical industry to improve their security measures after 9/11 on the grounds they didn't have the right to do so. "In November 2005, acting New Jersey Governor Richard Codey got tired of waiting and issued an executive order mandating that the forty-three riskiest chemical plants in his state come up with chemical-security plans and conduct a review of potential IST measures."

"The only acceptable outcome, then, would be for Washington to pass legislation giving the industry exactly what it wanted: a fig leaf of regulations to satisfy public opinion and a hidden gun that would take aim at New Jersey's tough new regulations."

"Perry came through in a characteristically concealed manner. When it became clear that Collins-Lieberman was going nowhere, Perry went searching for a new vehicle to get more industry-friendly results. He would find it in a DHS appropriations bill in the Senate, to which had been attached an obscure amendment giving the DHS short-term regulatory authority over chemical security. Perry reworked the language and helped to get it added to the spending bill in a conference committee. Under the new amendment, the DHS would have nominal authority to regulate the chemical industry but also have its hands tied where required. For example, the DHS would be barred from requiring any specific security measures, and citizens would be prohibited from suing to enforce the law. Best of all for industry, while the bill didn't mention giving the DHS preemption authority, it didn't bar it, either, leaving a modicum of wiggle room on the subject. In other words, if Perry was sufficiently brazen, he could claim for the DHS the power to nullify the chemical regulations in New Jersey."

"He was sufficiently brazen. When the DHS finally unveiled its proposed regulations in late December of last year, Hill staffers noticed that the department had effectively granted itself the power to set aside state laws, even though the new federal law didn't expressly grant such authority. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were livid. "In order to please their cronies in the chemical industry, the Bush administration is willing to put the health and safety of millions of people at risk," said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.). Senator Collins, for her part, released a statement accusing the DHS of attempting to create regulatory powers "out of whole cloth." It was indeed curious that Perry, who had been so cautious about allowing the EPA to claim regulatory authority in the Clean Air Act, should now be so bold in interpreting the language in an appropriations rider. Or perhaps it wasn't so curious at all. "

These people disgust me. Remeind me again with party wants the terrorists to win? It's 5.5 years since 9/11 and the chemical industry has done nothing to secure it's plants (that would cost money) and government is doing nothing either. And when the next attack comes, they'll blame the Democrats.