Chemical Security Act passed by Senate panel
Friday, July 26, 2007WASHINGTON - Brokering the deal that led to crucial - and unanimous - bipartisan support for the Chemical Security Act by the Senate's Environmental and Public Works Committee, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter on Thursday declared the bill "vitally important to the American people."
"I believe this bill was important enough to go forward," said Specter, a Philadelphia Republican. "This will establish a means to make sure chemical plants remain safe for the people who work and live around them. I don't consider this a Republican or Democrat issue. It's an issue about homeland security."
The bill drafted by Sen. Jon Corzine would force makers and users of toxic and explosive chemicals to file new security plans with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Key to the legislation: prodding facilities to either beef up security or substitute particularly lethal chemicals, such as chlorine or anhydrous ammonia, for inherently safer substances.
The legislation picked up speed after probes by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review revealed security so lax at 62 plants nationwide that an intruder could easily reach tanks filled with catastrophic amounts of deadly chemicals. Putting more than six million at risk of death, injury or displacement in Baltimore , Chicago , Houston and western Pennsylvania , the Trib's easy entry helped sway several senators on the need for federal rules to reform security.
Last month, Homeland Security czar Tom Ridge conceded to Corzine and his supporters that he knew "dozens of chemical plants" were vulnerable to terrorists.
"This is the best strategy to upgrade homeland security," said Corzine, a New Jersey Democrat. "This is the best opportunity we have left in Congress to do something."
The compromise legislation now hits the full Senate. Corzine and his allies - including Rhode Island Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee and Independent Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont - agreed to drop language in the bill industry leaders disliked, especially parts that suggested corporate executives could face criminal charges if a terrorist ruptured toxic tanks. Also exempted: rail, shipping and trucking depots storing massive amounts of chemicals.
This bill likely will be folded into the Homeland Security legislation. It is slated to reach the House of Representatives before Sept. 11. Specter and Chafee also helped beat back amendments to the Chemical Security Act sponsored by Sen. James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, that would have closed risk management plans currently open to public view showing how many citizens are put at risk by toxic chemicals at local plants nationwide.
Inhofe pledged to continue working on a compromise that would "give credit" to companies now striving to revamp bad security. The American Chemistry Council, a trade organization for chemical manufacturers, is leading the effort to fix security at about 10 percent of the nearly 17,000 chemical sites netted in the Chemical Security Act.
Binding on members and independently scrutinized by government agencies, the chemistry council's initiative is slated to wrap up by 2004, a year before a proposed
