Rules push for chemical security
Tuesday, April 24, 2007WASHINGTON -- For most of her life, Jean Taylor has lived in northern New Jersey near the largest oil refinery on the East Coast.
She wonders what she's breathing, though she says the odors are not as noxious as they were a few decades ago.
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, she also has wondered about security. A community activist, she toured the Conoco Phillips Bay View plant with a group of like-minded citizens and was amazed at what she saw -- and didn't see. "There wasn't any guard or security official that I saw. There's more security at the airport than out here."
Federal officials are catching up with Taylor 's concerns.
In October, Congress passed a law giving the Homeland Security Department the authority to regulate the nation's most-hazardous chemical plants.
Those rules have now been published, and regulators and the about-to-be regulated, congressional and state officials, industry and environmentalists, all have different views of what comes next.
Nearly every U.S. urban area has plants that produce or use materials capable of endangering their neighbors. The government lists about 100 plants nationwide with a million or more people living in such a "vulnerability zone."
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has detailed lax security at chemical plants for the past several years.
After probes by the Trib and CBS' "60 Minutes" that exposed lax security over hazardous materials in Houston , Chicago , Los Angeles , Baltimore and Western Pennsylvania in 2002 and '03, Homeland Security began offering a range of programs for voluntary security measures.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff acknowledges that "the collection of a lot of potentially dangerous chemicals in one place does create an attractive target to somebody who wants to carry out a terrorist attack."
Department regulators estimate as many as 66,000 plants around the country possess some amount of a "chemical of interest." Roughly one-third of those already are regulated by other agencies, such as the Coast Guard or the Environmental Protection Agency. For the rest, the government is asking the owners to complete an online questionnaire within 60 days telling what they manufacture, what chemicals they store, in what quantities, and in what type of storage.
The department will determine their risk level by assessing the potential consequences to people nearby of an accident or attack, the impact of sabotage or theft, and the economic consequences of any catastrophe.
Chertoff estimates about 7,000 plants will fall into the high-risk category. Assistant Secretary Robert Stephan, who will oversee the process, said 100 to 150 in the topmost tier can expect the earliest attention and closest scrutiny.
All 7,000 high-risk facilities will file "vulnerability assessments" in which various threat scenarios are played out. Managers must determine whether the plant could withstand an attack by armed assailants, for example, or a bomb. Each plant must develop a security plan that will address those vulnerabilities. The Homeland Security Department will follow up with inspections.
Stephan said resources are tight; he will have only about 80 regulators to address all the high-risk plants, and a budget of $25 million.
T. Ted Cromwell of the American Chemistry Council, an industry group, said some companies already have taken many of the required steps. But Stephan estimated 20 percent present a significant risk because they haven't participated in any voluntary program.
Among the new tools Congress has given the department is the ability to levy fines up to $25,000 per day, or to shut down egregious violators.
"We have the ability to make life so burdensome and so uncomfortable on these facilities that they may on their own choose to adjust their business model and the types of chemicals they use. However, we are not going to dictate that they change," said DHS spokesman Russ Knocke.
A number of lawmakers and environmental activists want the department to do just that. Critics say too much attention is paid to fences and physical security instead of reducing the amounts and toxicity of the chemicals used.
"A chemical attack could be carried out with readily available technology, and people wouldn't even have to go on the grounds to do it," says Bob Bostock, former homeland security chief at EPA.
"It is common sense that if a facility owner can replace a deadly chemical with a safer chemical that would not kill tens of thousands of people," then the department should be able at least to discuss reducing the danger with the owner of the facility, said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.
