Congressman Says Philadelphia Area Refinery Closures Could Threaten National Security

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

February 15, 2012 | 1:42 PM

Southeast Pennsylvania Congressman Pat Meehan says the closures at the Sunoco and ConocoPhillips refineries in Delaware County may pose a security threat. Meehan, a Republican from Delaware County who is a member on the Homeland Security Committee, announced that a subcommittee will hold a hearing on refinery closures nationwide.

“Two of our local refineries have closed and one is slated for closure – together they account for 50 percent of the Northeast’s entire refinery capacity,” said Meehan in a press release. “More than 30 U.S. refineries have closed in the last decade. This hearing will help us understand the homeland security consequences of our declining domestic refining capacity, both in terms of threats to critical infrastructure and our dependence on imports from unstable parts of the world.”

The announcement comes as the clock continues to tick on finding a buyer for the ConocoPhillips plant. The company says they will demolish the refinery if no purchaser is found by the end of March. Several hundred union workers are down in Washington, D.C. today to lobby Congress and demonstrate outside of the headquarters of Sunoco and ConocoPhillips.