TrendACC, DHS work to increase chemical plant safety

Published 25 July 2007

Chemical industry leader says that “new security regulations will raise the bar for protecting all of the nation’s chemical facilities”; his organization —and chemical plants — have increased their plant safety efforts

The new chapter in U.S. chemical plant safety has just opened, and DHS is already busy implementing the new federal regulations. DHS personnel have already begun visiting a cross section of chemical facilities and working with these companies to accelerate the implementation of the new requirements. For years after 9/11, the chemical industry, with help from the political wing of the White House and large donations to the campaign coffers of legislators on Capitol Hill, had been able to thwart any effort to impose federal safety regulations on the nation’s 15,000 chemical plants. Clever politicians and lobbyists opted instead for what was called “voluntary, industry-developed” safety standards which even industry insiders considred as not much more than window dressing (to say nothing of the fact that only about 1,200 of the chemical plants even bothered to take part in it). The industry began to relax its opposition to regulation last fall, when it became clear that Congress was losing patience with lax safety measures at the most dangerous facilities in the United States. Rather than oppose all regulations, the industry supported safety regulations which will allow federal measures to “pre-empt” stricter state safety measures; which will not force chemical plants to replace the most toxic and volatile chemicals with safer materials; and which would exempt chemical plants’ security plans submitted for government inspection from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

We should not necessarily be critical of the industry’s efforts to fight off federal regulations. Safety measures cost money, and the issue of chemical plant safety raises anew the question of who should pay for public goods: Safey and security are public goods, so it is not clear why the industry should be called upon to shoulder the costs of thes goods on its own. This philosphical question aside, the industry got most of what it wanted (with DHS leaving itself some leeway to allow stricter state safety standards to stand in certain cases), and it is happy to go along with the new regulations. “While our members continue to build on the more than $4.4 billion they have already invested upgrading security as part of the ACC’s Responsible Care Security Code, the new security regulations will raise the bar for protecting all of the nation’s chemical facilities,” said Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council (ACC). For the first time, a federal agency is authorized to enforce national risk-based security regulations utilizing nineteen categories of performance standards to ensure that chemical facilities assess vulnerabilities and implement detailed plans to address them. Equally important, DHS has clear authority to inspect these facilities and apply strong penalties, including facility shutdowns, for those that fail to act.

DHS has not yet finalized Appendix A to the rules, which will outline exactly which facilities they cover, but it is important to note that many ACC member companies are not waiting and instead are registering with DHS, gathering data, and completing the DHS screening process at their facilities. ACC is also actively reaching out in an effort to explain the new requirements to hundreds of companies in and outside of its membership, sponsoring its own Chemsecure workshop in April and cosponsoring a second workshop, the Chemical Sector Security Summit, last month.

inst any threat to the nation’s critical infrastructure. American Chemistry Council

CONTACT: Scott Jensen of American Chemistry Council, +1-703-741-5834, scott_jensen@americanchemistry.com

Web site: http://www.americanchemistry.com/