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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rascal who wrote (24918)	8/11/2003 9:43:23 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Business as Usual for Chemical Plants ___________________ By Gary Hart Editorial The Washington Post Monday, August 11, 2003 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. © 2003 The Washington Post Company washingtonpost.com