A push for safer chemical sites

Congress is poised to try to pass a law regulating security in and around chemical and petrochemical plants, which security experts say are among the most potentially deadly terrorist targets in the nation.

Many of these industrial sites are situated in densely populated areas. The Department of Homeland Security has identified almost 300 plants where there could be more than 50,000 casualties in the event of a catastrophic release of hazardous materials.

"Legislation is very badly needed," says Michael Greenberger, director of the University of Maryland's Center for Health and Homeland Security in Baltimore. "This has been left to self-regulation, which is self-evidently constricted by the fact that the plants don't want to spend any more money than they have to."

In the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon four years ago, the chemical industry voluntarily spent tens of millions of dollars to increase security at plants. It increased the height and number of fences and installed new security cameras and barriers to keep out intruders.

But security experts, local law-enforcement officers, and local emergency planners have consistently warned that many of those plants still are not properly secured against a terrorist attack. They've been urging Congress to pass minimum security standards at the least. But the chemical industry, backed by Republicans in Congress, has stymied efforts to date, arguing that it is successfully self-regulating and that federal interference would amount to "micromanaging."

Last spring, however, the Department of Homeland Security bucked other Bush officials and came out in favor of federal regulation of chemical plant security. By the summer, representatives of most of the nation's chemical plants had switched positions, acknowledging that basic security standards are needed to ensure that "bad actors" within the industry are brought into compliance.

"That's why we're working to get national legislation enacted," says Marty Durban, managing director for security and operation at the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the industry's main lobbying organization, in Arlington, Va.

This week, Sen. Susan Collins (R) of Maine is expected to introduce a compromise bill that has the ACC backing. It would require America's 15,000 plants that use hazardous chemicals to undertake safety assessments and allow the Department of Homeland Security to set minimum standards based on the risk presented by each plant. If plants don't comply, the government can shut them down.

Still, some terrorism experts and environmentalists contend the bill is a sham because the legislation doesn't include a provision that would require chemical companies to use safer alternatives wherever possible. The provision, called "inherently safer technologies," was a centerpiece of previous chemical security legislation. In addition, because the Collins bill would preempt state action on chemical plant security, it would override a New Jersey law - the only one in the country - that requires 43 of the most dangerous plants to use inherently safer technologies where possible.

Page: 1 | 2