US chems fret over new site security legislation

08 December 2007 00:17  [Source: ICIS news]

WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--Plans by Congress to consider new chemical plant antiterrorism legislation before the current law is implemented could derail security improvements that are already under way, an industry spokesman said on Friday.

 

Scott Jensen, spokesman for the American Chemistry Council (ACC), said the trade group recognizes that “it is more than appropriate for Congress to be exercising their oversight role in this, especially in chemical security regulation”.

 

However, he said, major changes to chemical site security regulations now being implemented could derail the existing programme.

 

The House Committee on Homeland Security has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday next week (12 December) on what the committee chairman has already identified as the “Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2008”.

 

A spokeswoman for the committee chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson (Democrat-Mississippi), said earlier that new chemical site security legislation will be introduced early next year.

 

The existing law is set to expire at the end of 2009, and congressional action to extend or replace the statute was expected at some time in the next couple of years.

 

Although the committee is not thought to have a draft bill yet, Jensen said he understands the coming legislation would deal with the three main issues that Democrats had advanced unsuccessfully when the then majority Republican Congress passed the first chemical facility antiterrorism legislation late last year.

 

Democrat proposals for the law then included a mandate for inherently safer technology (IST) as a security measure.  IST involves the use of less toxic feedstocks and processes when available.  Chemical industry officials said then that feedstock and other production decisions should be left to producers and that IST standards are an environmental matter, not a security issue.

 

Democrats also objected last year to the high level of federal security classification given to information provided by producers under the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) implementing regulations.  They wanted a lower level of data security so that citizens could be better informed about the nature of terrorism risks in their communities.

 

The implementing regulations drawn up early this year by the department, known as the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS), included a provision giving the federal rules pre-emption over state regulations in this area.  Democrats complained last year that the statute contained no language authorizing federal pre-emption.

 

“We want to move forward with DHS and help DHS to implement the existing rules,” Jensen said, “and we think this is where the main focus should be.”

 

“That said, we recognize that there are those who see the need for some small changes and tweaks to the programme, but we would not like to see the programme derailed while we’re under way and making very significant progress,” Jensen said.

 

He said that major changes to the existing law to impose inherently safer technology as a security tool, compromise federal pre-emption or reduce information security would be seen as significant changes that could undermine the security programme.

By: Joe Kamalick
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