Chemical Security: Did Congress Safeguard Americans from Chemical Disasters?

Eight years after September 11th thousands of U.S. chemical plants remain vulnerable to terrorist attacks. More than 100 million Americans live in the shadow of chemical plants that use or store dangerous quantities of poison gases. According to the U.S. Army Surgeon General up to 2.4 million people could be injured or killed in an attack on just one of these facilities.

Since 2001 Congress has unsuccessfully tried to eliminate these vulnerabilities. Late in 2006 Congress passed a temporary law as a “rider” on the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) appropriations bill. The interim law is so weak it actually prohibits the DHS from requiring the use of safer technologies that would eliminate these risks. Congress must act quickly because the law expires on October 4, 2009.

Fortunately the 111th Congress is considering comprehensive legislation to correct the flaws in the temporary law. This includes ensuring that “high risk” plants switch to safer technologies, including safer chemicals that will eliminate these risks, building on the success of hundreds of plants that have converted to safer technologies since 9/11.

Not surprisingly the chemical industry pressed Congress to make the temporary law permanent. We will discuss whether Congress instead heeded the advice of Senator Obama in his 2006 floor statement, “by employing safer technologies, we can reduce the attractiveness of chemical plants as a target…Unfortunately, the chemical industry has been lobbying nonstop on this bill. This is wrong. We cannot allow chemical industry lobbyists to dictate the terms of this debate.”