"According to the EPA, there are 823 sites where the death or injury toll from a catastrophic disaster at a chemical plant could reach from 100,000 to more than 1 million people...There are no federal laws that establish minimum security standards at chemical facilities."
So writes Dr. Stephen Flynn, who held major national security positions in the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations, in a new book released this week.
"After 9/ll," writes Flynn, "Senator John Corzine (D-NJ) drafted legislation that would require chemical companies to identify the vulnerabilities in their operations and prepare security plans to address them...The chemical industry rallied nearly 30 trade associations...to oppose these new requirements." The Bush administration later supported weaker legislation backed by the industry.
With the report of the 9/ll Commission due out today, Flynn's book, "America the Vulnerable," is all the more timely, since it coincides with the failure this week of the Bush administration and the U.S. House to enact legislation that would strengthen chemical plant protection against terrorist actions.
Instead the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, chaired by Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA), became bogged down in a jurisdictional dispute that appears to doom passage of a proposed Homeland security bill before Congress adjourns this week. The dispute involved Cox's decision to divide the bill into nine pieces, apparently as a way of rendering non-germane some 70 amendments offered by Democrats seeking to strengthen the bill.
Adding to the impasse is the fact that several GOP chairs of other House committees do not want to yield additional authority to Cox's committee. "When Congress reformed the executive branch, it did not take the next step immediately and reform itself," said Cox last Sunday in a national television interview.
The impasse prompted a coalition of eight national environmental groups and four labor unions--all of whom have been working to strengthen chemical plant security--to send a letter to Cox's committee. Concerned that almost nothing has been done on the issue in the nearly three years since 9/11, the groups pointed out that "The good news...is that we have options better than increasing physical security and hoping terrorists cannot evade fences and guards."
Instead, continued the letter, "Many high-hazard industries have readily available safer alternatives to current chemicals and processes: simple changes could reduce or eliminate the terrorist threat in those communities."
Responding to the chemical industry assertion that it should be allowed to implement its own safety standards, the coalition letter noted that "Allowing facilities to follow their own standards has not been deemed acceptable for airports or nuclear plants, and should not be acceptable for chemical plants."
The coalition urged passage of an amendment by Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), similar to the Corzine proposal, which would require the use of safer alternatives whenever possible.
The urgency of the chemical safety problem was underlined in the coalition letter's observation that "The Army Surgeon General has ranked the potential for attacks on chemical plants second only to bio-terrorism as the top threat confronting America's homeland security."
The letter added that a RAND Corporation study for the Air Force stated that the risk of toxic warfare "is increased by the wide availabilty of materials throughout the United States, together with the proximity of industrial operations to large urban centers."
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