August 31 - How the Koch Brothers and the American Chemistry Council Bought Texas Governor Abbot; How Chemical Plants Ended Up in Texas Suburbs; Google Flexes Its Monopoly Muscle

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the possibility that a huge chemical plant 20 miles from Houston could explode at any moment and investigate the reasons why explosive and hazardous materials are in suburban areas of Texas and why, after the 2013 explosion of a fertilizer plant in Ward, Texas the requirement of make the public aware of where hazardous materials are stored was rescinded by the now governor of Texas, Greg Abbott whose government has given the owner of the volatile chemical plant Arkema, $8.7 million in taxpayer subsidies. An historian at the University of Houston, Dr. Robert Buzzanco joins us to explain how this industrial corridor along the increasingly vulnerable Gulf coast known and the Chemical Coast or “cancer alley” because of the concentration of oil, gas and chemical plants, came about and the extent to which the lobbying group the American Chemistry Council has bought Texas’s entire Republican congressional representation along with its U.S. Senators and, most of all, Governor Greg Abbott.

Part 2

Then we speak with Michael Barajas, the Civil Rights reporter for the Texas Observer about the disproportionate impact Hurricane Harvey has had and continues to have on the poor and minority communities around Houston and along the Gulf coast. We look into the lack of zoning and regulations that allows dangerous chemical plants in urban and suburban communities and the lobbying power of the oil, gas and chemical industries over the electoral power of minorities in Texas.  

Part 3

Then finally we examine the firing of a group of scholars at the New America Foundation at the behest of Google, a major donor to the foundation that is using its extraordinary monopoly power and political muscle to silence researchers who had the temerity to call Google a monopoly. Jonathan Taplin, the Founder and Director Emeritus of the Innovation Lab at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California and author of “Move Fast and Break Things: How Google, Facebook and Amazon Cornered Culture and undermined Democracy”, joins us to discuss Google’s growing dominance and his article at The New York Times “Google’s Disturbing Influence Over Think Tanks”.