Trend: Chertoff announces end to chemical plants

said that DHS “wants and deserves authority to set federal standards for chemical security, and then enforce those standards …. Four and a half years after 9/11, they still don’t have that.” Would that he had said all these years ago.

A bill by Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-Connecticut) would largely let the chemical industry draw up its own security plans for the federal government to approve or reject. Chertoff has not endorsed the Senate plan, but he today he will outline elements that he said would need to be in acceptable legislation.

There are two elements in the Collins-Lieberman bill that draw criticism from security experts but also from environmentalists: First, the clause that will have federal chemical plant safety regulations supersede state regulations (in other words, New Jersey will not be able to impose stricter safety measures than those stipulated by federal law). Second, the absence of a requirement that the 300 or so chemical plants located very close to urban population centers be encouraged or forced to substitute safe substances for hazardous chemicals. Rick Hind of Greenpeace is blunt: Without that second provision, “there isn’t any security that would be good enough …. A small plane or a high powered weapon would bypass any gate or fence.”

-read more in Lara Jakes Jordan’s AP report

Chertoff’s speech

This just in. In his speech at an event hosted by the chemical industry in Houston, Texas, DHS secretary Michael Chertoff called for government regulation of chemical plant security, but said the industry should come up with its own protective measures, to be verified by private auditors. Chertoff said Congress needs quickly to give his department regulatory authority to bolster facilities that are attractive targets for terrorists. He said, however, that federal regulations must be flexible to prevent harsh burdens on business. “We ought to say to the industry, ‘Look, here’s where we need to go,’” Chertoff said. “‘Now, there are a lot of different roads to get there. And you can choose the road that best fits your particular kind of chemical, or your particular type of operation. We’re not going to micromanage. What we do insist, though, is that you get to the place you need to be.’”

Chertoff said he envisioned performance standards, set by DHS, for chemical companies to follow. Those standards would not require specific safeguards, such as gates and guards, but would force the industry to develop adequate security plans at all manufacturing and storage facilities. Those standards could be validated by private auditors contracted with DHS, Chertoff said.

Large chemical corporations quickly applauded Chertoff’s plans, which were mostly aimed at small firms that have resisted installing security because of high costs. “What we’re doing at Dow falls very much in line with what the secretary was talking about,” said Tim Scott, chief security officer at Dow Chemical. “We approach security from a risk management perspective, and we try to identify the right level of risk and the right approach to reduce that risk at all of our sites.”

Chertoff said he did not think any regulation should require the chemical industry to use certain kinds of substances that would be less dangerous to the public in an attack or accidental release, as environmentalists have demanded. “We have to be careful not to move from what is a security-based focus, as far as the type of regulation I’m describing, into one that tries to broaden into achieving environmental ends that are unrelated to security,” he said.

-read more in this report