As a resident of West Virginia, I am especially appalled at the disastrous chemical spill into the Elk River that has left 300,000 without safe water. My family and I are fortunate that we live well north of the spill and we have not been burdened by a lack of safe water. Still, our state, our friends, and our environment have been, and we can sense the suffering. 

In the wake of disasters, there often follow what are known as “policy windows” that create opportunities for new legislation. G. Richard Shell describes the concept like this in Make the Rules or Your Rivals Will (Amazon link) :  

Policy windows “open” in the wake of a high visibility event such as an expose, a scandal, a public-health crisis, or a disaster.  They “close” when the legislature acts to address the problem or when some other news event pushes the issue off the front pages and diverts public attention elsewhere.

Some have noted that the disaster in West Virginia has not gotten its due on some of the news shows (see, e.g., Sunday Shows To West Virginia: Drop Dead!”, but the disaster has still been a high-profile media event. 

This chemical…