By the OGJ Editors
WASHINGTON, DC, Mar. 20 -- The American Chemistry Council said it generally supports a new General Accounting Office report that calls for a national strategy to address chemical security.
ACC said it is urging Congress to pass legislation that will establish a national program to ensure that chemical facilities conduct vulnerability assessments and address deficiencies. ACC supports the view of Republican congressional leaders who control both the House and Senate.
Draft proposals call for the Department of Homeland Security to have oversight and inspection authority. A Senate bill sponsored by Democrats last year called for the US Environmental Protection Agency to oversee inspections.
The GAO report recommends that the heads of EPA and the Department of Homeland Security jointly develop a comprehensive national chemical security strategy that is "both practical and cost-effective." This would include assessing vulnerabilities and enhancing security preparedness, GAO said.
GAO noted that no federal laws currently "explicitly" require that chemical facilities assess vulnerabilities or take security actions to safeguard their facilities from attack.
EPA role
EPA believes that the Clean Air Act could be interpreted to provide authority to require chemical facilities to assess risks and to make security enhancements. But the agency opted against enforcement because it feared it would trigger too many lawsuits, GAO noted. Instead, the Bush administration wants Congress to address the chemical plant safety issue through passage of specific legislation.
DHS, EPA, and the Department of Justice generally agreed with the report's recommendations and said they are supportive of efforts to pursue chemical safety legislation.
A related analysis by GAO studied EPA's management of chemical facility data.
The agency noted that the terrorist attacks on the US on Sept. 11, 2001, triggered a national reexamination of the security of the nation's critical infrastructures.
Since then, government agencies, including EPA, have struggled to find the right balance between the public's "right to know" and the dangers of inappropriate public disclosure of sensitive information.
EPA and DOJ are expected to ask Congress to consider tighter restrictions on risk management plans called for by federal clean air law. Facilities prepare and submit RMPs to EPA at least every 5 years. They contain data about the types and amounts of hazardous chemicals in covered processes at a facility, a facility's accident history, accident mitigation and prevention measures that are in place, a facility's prevention and emergency response program, and the potential effect an accidental chemical release could have on the surrounding population.
The GAO analysis examined post-Sept 11, 2001, activities at two EPA regional offices that had initiated limited criminal background checks on individuals who requested access to "worst-case scenario" data in reading rooms. EPA headquarters advised the regional offices against instituting additional safeguards beyond the original 2000 regulations because the agency feared it would be overstepping its legal authority.
Congressional reaction
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.) requested both GAO reports. He said Mar. 18 that the two GAO reports suggest "we must take additional steps to identify, assess, and improve, if necessary, security at high-risk chemical plants around the nation.
"Since these reports highlight the need for stricter control of sensitive information, it is imperative that we act before terrorists do."
Environmental and public interest groups argue that the general public, especially those who live near chemical facilities, still have a right to know if a plant poses a health risk to the surrounding population. They say that efforts by trade groups to limit the information are falsely using national security concerns as a way to hide incriminating data from the public.
