Will 2005 Be The Year For Chemical Security Regulations?

Jan 1, 2005 12:00 PM, by MICHAEL FICKES

It's January 2005, three years and four months since terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. While the federal government has taken strides to secure some potential targets in the United States against future terrorist attacks, Congress has enacted no legislation expressly designed to regulate security at U.S.-based chemical manufacturing facilities, according to a Government Accounting Office (GAO) report issued in February 2004.

The GAO report characterizes chemical facilities as effective terrorist targets given the carnage that a chemical release could cause: 123 chemical facilities operate in regions where toxic releases could affect more than one million people. Releases from another 700 facilities could affect 100,000 people. Three thousand plants operate within striking distance of 10,000 people.

Few, if any other, industries have such dangerous potential. So why hasn't the federal government moved to regulate chemical industry security? Politics.

During 2004, the Senate introduced competing Democratic and Republican bills that would require chemical facilities to conduct vulnerability assessments and beef up physical security.

The Democratic bill, which has been introduced in every Congress since Sept. 11, has come under attack for promoting the use of inherently safe technologies, or ISTs — technologies believed to reduce the dangers associated with a chemical release. Opponents voice two main objections. They contend that government should not dictate chemical manufacturing operations in the form of ISTs. Second, they object to the bill's assignment of chemical security oversight to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). EPA is an environmental agency, not a security agency, they say.

The Republican bill, supported by the chemical industry, makes no mention of inherently safe technologies and assigns oversight to the Department of Homeland Security, on the theory that the Department is better able to deal with security issues.

At the end of 2004, both bills expired on the table of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee. “We were really close to a bi-partisan bill,” says Will Hart, communications director for the EPW. “In the end, there wasn't enough time.”

What's next? Observers expect no legislative action on chemical security through the middle of this year. Last November, EPW sent the issue back to the GAO. “We requested a GAO report to study current chemical industry security, what the Department of Homeland Security is doing, and what if anything additional is needed legislatively,” Hart says. “DHS has already accomplished a lot, and the GAO report will look at what progress has been made. We don't want to reinvent the wheel.”

What has the DHS accomplished? That's a question the GAO will have to answer. DHS media affairs representatives failed to return repeated calls raising the question. Searching for “chemical industry security” at the DHS Web site (www.dhs.gov) turns up programs related to responding to chemical weapons attacks, but few, if any, discussions of regulating physical security at chemical plants.

The 2005 DHS budget request makes no direct mention of chemical facility physical security. The Department hopes to raise funding for the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate (IAIP) from $834 million to $865 million this year. IAIP programs do not specifically mention the chemical industry, but chemical facilities are one of the critical infrastructures that IAIP looks after. In fact, the IAIP budget lists a continuing strategic threat assessment program aimed at water systems, oil and natural gas production facilities, off-shore platforms, natural gas pipelines, seaports, nuclear power plants, dams and “tens of thousands of other potentially critical targets across 14 diverse critical infrastructure sectors.” Chances are, the chemical industry falls into the category of “other potentially critical targets.”

In the end, it seems that the only actual work being done on physical security for the chemical industry is being carried out by the chemical industry itself. With 140 members, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) represents about 90 percent of the nation's basic industrial chemical production. According to Kate McGloon, an ACC spokesperson, the association spent more than $1 billion on security assessments and physical security last year. “By the end of 2004, we had completed vulnerability assessments on 2,040 facilities,” she says. “That's not all chemical facilities, of course. But ACC members have assessed all of their facilities.”

Two years ago, reporters from the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes walked into a number of chemical manufacturing plants, moved around unimpeded, and shot footage of critical plant facilities. The national broadcast that followed not only embarrassed the industry, it illustrated the serious need for physical security. Since then, the industry has moved forward, if the federal government has not.

SHARE YOUR STORY…

This page offers an opportunity for readers to share the management lessons they have learned and to provide other helpful information to their peers in the industry. To offer suggestions, or to contribute to this page, contact Jennifer Pero at (770) 618-0135 or e-mail jpero@primediabusiness.com

Want to use this article? Click here for options!
© 2009 Penton Media Inc.

This month in Access Control

• Targeting The Customer
• Electronic Pedigrees
• One Hero Among Many
• Who? What? When? Where? Why?
• More from September's issue