Business as Usual for Chemical Plants
By Gary Hart
August 11, 2003; Page A17
washingtonpost.com
In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush administration, working
with Congress, moved quickly to shore up homeland security in some of our most
critical areas. Airports are now safer, and some municipal water supplies are
better protected. But the government has failed to plug a gaping hole in
homeland security: our vulnerable chemical plants. The 15,000 facilities around the country that produce, use or store
significant quantities of toxic chemicals present attractive targets for
terrorists. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, more than 100 of
these plants, especially those near urban areas, could endanger a million or
more Americans if attacked. In 2001 the Army's surgeon general reportedly ranked
this health risk second only to a widespread biological attack. Earlier this
year the National Infrastructure Protection Center warned that al Qaeda might
target chemical facilities in the United States as part of its terror campaign.
And Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has said that the administration is
concerned that terrorists could turn a chemical facility "into a
weapon." These assessments are alarming but not surprising. Three years ago former
senator Warren Rudman and I co-chaired a commission assessing America's national
security. Our bipartisan investigation found, among other things, that the
"critical infrastructure upon which so much of the U.S. economy depends can
now be targeted by non-state and state actors alike." Chemical facilities
are among the potentially most dangerous components of our critical
infrastructure. Securing them requires urgent action. As hard as it is to believe, the chemical industry has refused to take
adequate precautions to safeguard its facilities and surrounding communities.
Some plants have strengthened on-site security by adding guards, building fences
or installing surveillance cameras. Others have committed to reducing or phasing
out their use of highly hazardous processes or chemicals in favor of safer ones.
Unfortunately, however, it is still business as usual at most plants. They
continue to deal with high volumes of dangerous chemicals -- even when safer
materials or processes are readily available. That is why the government must
require industry cooperation in homeland security. The Bush administration's homeland security efforts since the Sept. 11
attacks have ignored this highly vulnerable sector. The White House was silent
last summer while industry lobbyists scuttled federal legislation that would
have required chemical companies to address their vulnerability to attack. The
bill, sponsored by Sen. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.), died in Congress without a vote,
even though a bipartisan Senate committee had passed it unanimously. Meanwhile,
in March of this year, the General Accounting Office issued a report urging
passage of legislation to require the industry to assess its vulnerability to
terrorism and, where necessary, require corrective action. The Bush administration and its congressional allies nevertheless ignore
Corzine's security solution. Even worse, the White House and Sen. James Inhofe
(R-Okla.) are pushing a separate and far weaker bill, one that would leave
millions of Americans vulnerable to chemical terrorism. Incredibly, the Inhofe bill provides for virtually no oversight or
enforcement of safety requirements. Unlike Corzine's proposal, it would not
allow the government to demand emergency action by companies that it has reason
to believe are terrorist targets, nor would it insist on government review of
facility security plans. (The latter failure is akin to the Internal Revenue
Service's telling companies to fill out their tax forms but not to bother to
file them.) The Inhofe bill prohibits the federal agency with the most expertise
on chemicals, the EPA, from putting its skills to good use. And unlike the
Corzine bill, the Inhofe bill would not require companies to replace dangerous
chemicals -- which might pose tempting terrorist targets -- even when safer
technologies are available and affordable. The chemical manufacturers say that
they will consider making their processes safer. But we did not just ask
airlines to simply consider improving security -- we made them do it. If Inhofe's bill were to become law, only the chemical industry would breathe
easier. But the Bush administration has an obligation to all Americans to do
more than simply permit industry to write its own rules. We need legislation
that keeps us safer by requiring chemical companies to reduce their risks and
that ensures accountability through government oversight. The writer is a former Democratic senator from Colorado.
