U.S. to Require More Security at High-Risk Chemical Plants
December 22, 2006
By ERIC LIPTON
nytimes.com
WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 — After years of debate, and criticism over the delay, the Bush administration will move Friday to require security enhancements at high-risk chemical plants nationwide so their hazardous stockpiles do not become a target for terrorists.
Department of Homeland Security officials said Thursday that the new rules would reduce the likelihood of a catastrophic chemical attack when paired with a recent tightening of regulations for rail shipments of highly toxic materials.
“This will bring us to a much higher level of security,” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in an interview Thursday.
But the draft regulations will almost certainly evoke protest from Democrats on Capitol Hill — as well as from state officials — because they may allow a federal pre-emption of conflicting and perhaps more demanding state laws.
They also may allow the Department of Homeland Security, under certain circumstances, to recognize as sufficient the security measures already put in place voluntarily by major chemical manufacturers, meaning that for many plants, few if any changes would be required.
And the draft rules do not require any specific security measures, like the construction of barriers or a switch to less hazardous chemicals. Instead, they will leave it up to plant owners to decide what measures are most appropriate, although the Homeland Security Department will review the plans and have the power to order changes.
Democrats, who failed this year in an effort to mandate more stringent requirements, said that they intended to take up the issue next year, when they will have the majority.
“It concerns me that the regulations do not require chemical facilities to switch to safer technologies wherever feasible,” said Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, who is to take over as chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. “Without such a requirement, I fear a significant gap remains in our chemical security efforts.”
Scott Jensen, a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council, said the organization’s members, which include industry giants like Dow Chemical and DuPont, welcomed the regulations, particularly if they would credit security investments already made by plant owners, which he said had cost more than $3.3 billion nationwide.
“We want to make sure that work is recognized when it comes to complying with the new regulations,” he said.
Rick Hind, a lobbyist for the environmental group Greenpeace, called the regulations “an industry-friendly excuse so they can claim they are doing something.”
The debate over the need for chemical plant regulations began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Unlike nuclear power plants or ports, facilities that manufacture or store large quantities of toxic chemicals are not subject to antiterrorism mandates.
Christie Whitman, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said after she left the agency that its efforts to enact such regulations had been held back by the White House, under pressure from the chemical industry.
The Bush administration and the chemical industry joined with Democrats in calling for regulations because even though the industry had voluntarily adopted security standards, some plants were not abiding by them.
The new regulations, which Congress ordered as part of the 2007 Homeland Security budget act, would require that facilities that manufacture, use or store chemicals evaluate all the ways they could be attacked — from outside the plant, or by sabotage from the inside — and then propose countermeasures.
“We are not going to tell them, ‘You have to build a big fence as opposed to putting a tank underground,’ ” Mr. Chertoff said. “We are simply going to say, ‘The choice you make must prevent somebody from being able to shoot the tank and blow it up.’ ”
Only “high risk” plants are subject to the mandate, although the draft rules do not yet define exactly what that term means, making it impossible to say how many facilities will be subject to the regulation.
Plants that are affected will have to conduct background checks on employees and take at least some steps to control access, secure chemical stockpiles and establish emergency plans in the event of an attack. Plants that ignore the requirements may be subject to fines of up to $25,000 a day or face a shut-down order.
The proposed rules do not explicitly preempt state plant security laws, like one adopted last year in New Jersey that requires facilities to consider switching to safer chemicals or technologies. But the draft regulations say the Homeland Security Department may take such a step to “preserve chemical facilities’ flexibility to choose security measures.” |
