US Congress to eye new site security bill in Dec

29 November 2007 23:16  [Source: ICIS news]

WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--The US Congress will begin hearings next month toward legislation to replace chemical plant site antiterrorism security regulations that are just being put into place, sources in the House of Representatives said on Thursday.

 

The House Committee on Homeland Security will hold a hearing sometime during the last two weeks of the 2007 legislative calendar in December, a committee spokeswoman said.

 

The existing law was passed by Congress in late 2006 and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hurriedly drew up enforcing regulations early this year. The final part of those regulations, a list of threshold chemicals that will trigger reporting and compliance obligations under the law, was published only last week.

 

The existing law and regulations, known as the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS), mandates federal oversight of security measures at high-risk plants that might be attractive targets for terrorists.

 

However, the existing statute contains a sunset provision and will lapse at the end of 2009 unless renewed by congressional authority or replaced by new legislation.

 

The 2006 statute was passed under a Republican-majority Congress. Control of the US House and Senate passed in January to the new Democrat majority elected in the November 2006 US national elections. 

 

Many Democrats involved in debate over the 2006 site security measure were not pleased with the final outcome and had sought more stringent federal controls and a free hand in plant security matters for individual US states as well. 

 

Although the 2006 statute was silent on the matter, the current DHS regulations provide for federal pre-emption of state laws on chemical site security that conflict with or frustrate enforcement of the federal role.

 

The spokeswoman said Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (Democrat-Mississippi) has not yet drawn up a bill outline or general provisions.  She said a bill would not be introduced before the new year, although a hearing will be held in December.

 

In addition to eliminating any federal pre-emption of state laws, some Democrats wanted the statute to mandate inherently safer technology (IHT) as a plant security measure and more public access to site security information.

By: Joe Kamalick
+1 713 525 2653

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