NPRA ’07: New US site security law threatens

25 March 2007 23:17  [Source: ICIS news]

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (ICIS news)--New congressional legislation to tighten federal antiterrorism security standards at US chemical plants could put environmental limits on production and create multiple state regulatory plans, an industry official said on Sunday.

 

Charles Drevna, executive vice president at the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association (NPRA), said that new site security legislation recently introduced in Congress “throws everything into disarray”.

 

Speaking on the sidelines of the association’s 32nd annual petrochemicals conference, Drevna said that changes in site security legislation introduced in recent weeks by Democrat leaders in the House and Senate amounts to a “backdoor approach to impose environmental controls on chemicals production”.

 

Late last year, Congress passed the first federal site protection legislation affecting high-risk chemical plants, and the US Department of Homeland Security is within days of issuing regulations to implement that law.

 

New legislation introduced in Congress in recent weeks would overturn many of the features of the existing law favoured by industry.  If passed, the new legislation would eliminate federal pre-emption of state laws on site security and allow the department to impose inherently safer technology procedures on plant operators as part of security regulation.

 

Drevna argued that inherently safer technology - the use of less volatile feedstocks and processes involving lower temperatures and pressures - should be a production decision, not a security matter.

 

He also complained that in attaching new site security language to a Defense Department spending bill, congressional Democrats have subverted the legislative process and denied industry and the public the opportunity to air their views on the matter in full congressional hearings.

 

However, Drevna said, the industry will have to deal with the new regulations expected next week from the department and then wait to see what else Congress may decide to do on site security mandates.

By: Joe Kamalick
+1 713 525 2653

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