A Trump proposal would defund the Chemical Safety Board later this year, potentially leaving a Louisville-based investigation in limbo.

The CSB and its proponents say the agency, with its $14 million budget, more than pays for itself by preventing future chemical disasters.

Thousands of Louisville residents live in close proximity to industrial facilities handling hazardous chemicals, raising the stakes for the kind of disasters CSB seeks to prevent.

On a Monday evening in March 2011, an overpressurized electric arc furnace exploded in Carbide Industries' Louisville plant, ejecting molten calcium carbide at 3,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

The debris blew out of the furnace, broke through the reinforced glass of a nearby control room and fatally burned two workers inside: Jorge "Louis" Medina

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