[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 117 (Friday, August 2, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1482-E1483]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     EXPLOSIVES FINGERPRINTING ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. THOMAS J. MANTON

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, August 2, 1996

  Mr. MANTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to voice my sadness and outrage 
over the bombing at the Centennial Park in Atlanta. My thoughts and 
prayers are with the families and friends of those injured or killed in 
the blast.
  Living in fear of random acts of terrorism is relatively new for 
Americans, but sadly, it has become a reality. After a series of 
terrorist attacks, we can no longer presume our safety is guaranteed.
  Mr. Speaker, while comprehensive terrorism legislation has passed 
Congress and been signed into law by President Clinton, we must take 
additional steps to prevent future terrorist acts from occurring. In 
1993, I introduced the

[[Page E1483]]

Explosives Fingerprinting Act in response to the World Trade Center 
bombing. This bill would require that explosive manufacturers introduce 
high-technology additives into explosives that will give them 
identifying ``signatures'' which would tell our law enforcement 
officials when and where they were made. President Clinton has 
expressed his support for the use of these chemical taggants in 
explosive material.
  Mr. Speaker, Americans are being murdered. Our citizenry is at risk. 
We must not let the gun lobby or any other special interest groups deny 
our law enforcement agents powerful antiterrorism tools.

                  [From the Daily News, July 30, 1996]

                 Tracing Gunpowder Bombs With GOP Pols

                             (By Jim Dwyer)

       You may not realize the sacred status of the black 
     gunpowder that was stuffed into pipes and exploded in front 
     of the world this weekend. But black powder is holy stuff, by 
     decree of Congress.
       Even though it is possible to put chemical ``tags'' into 
     black powder so it can be traced back to the seller, it is 
     against the law for the government to even study using those 
     tags.
       That makes the average pipe bomb into an American 
     sacrament.
       And if you thought one bomb in Atlanta might change that, 
     check out yesterday's White House meeting on terrorism.
       Minutes after the TV cameras were turned off, it became 
     clear that the Republican leaership--Newt Gingrich, Trent 
     Lott and elder statesman Orrin Hatch--would not yield an inch 
     on tags for black powder, a source at the meeting said.
       I have to go back to the members who didn't want tags 
     before, said Gingrich, who lives in Georgia, home of the 
     world's most famous pipe bomb.
       The tags may not be safe, said Lott, the Senate majority 
     leader.
       Meanwhile, Hatch, from Utah but apparently lost in space, 
     thought the key to stopping terrorism was not tracing 
     explosives, but cutting back a defendant's right to an 
     attorney during questioning.
       Here are the facts.
       For nearly two decades, it has been possible to place tiny 
     chemical tags, known as taggants, into explosive materials as 
     they are being manufactured. The tags are like the lot 
     numbers on a package of aspirin. They show the name of the 
     company that made them, and what batch they came from.
       The chemical tags are not destroyed by the explosion, so 
     investigators could use them to trace the bomb material to 
     the place where it was sold.
       A few months ago, a major anti-terrorism law was passed by 
     Congress and signed by President Clinton. It included money 
     to study the chemical tags used in identifying some 
     explosives--like TNT and plastic.
       But the far right of the Republican Party flat-out refused 
     to permit the study of tagging black powder. Why? The 
     National Rifle Association is absolutely opposed to tagging 
     black powder because it is used by sports shooters to pack 
     their own shotgun shells. For the NRA, tagging powder is a 
     half-step away from bullet control, and then we would hurtle 
     down the slippery slope to more gun control.
       The NRA has a freshman congressman named Robert Barr of 
     Georgia to defend it on every issue.
       For months, Barr wrestled with Henry Hyde, a veteran and 
     very conservative Republican congressman, on the issue of 
     tags. At one point, Hyde blurted out that tags were being 
     blocked by ``arch-conservatives . . . who seemed insensitive 
     to the advances [of terrorists] and are unwilling to let our 
     law enforcement people catch up to them.
       ``I want my party to be the party of law and order, as it 
     always has been, and not the party of the militias.''
       In the end, Hyde was defeated on a study of tags for black 
     powder.
       Right now, black powder is the explosive material in more 
     than half of the bombs investigated by the Federal Bureau of 
     Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. So refusing even to study tags 
     for black powder is a big victory for dangerous psychos. But 
     it is also a win for the militia-type extremists who view ATF 
     agents as jackbooted thugs bent on destroying the 
     constitutional right to bear arms.
       In the last hours of the debate on the terrorism bill, Rep. 
     Charles Schumer, a Brooklyn Democrat, was able to include 
     language that permitted a study of tagging other explosives--
     like dynamite and plastics.
       The Republicans went along with the idea of a study, as 
     long as it excluded black powder--although they provided a 
     total of zero ($00.00) dollars for the study in the federal 
     budget.
       Yesterday, the NRA and the Republican leadership stuck with 
     their line that tags in black powder might make them unsafe. 
     ``We do not believe you're going to achieve public safety by 
     introducing a safety hazard into millions of U.S. homes,'' 
     said NRA spokesman Tom Wyld.
       ``There isn't a reliable piece of evidence that shows the 
     taggants are unsafe,'' said Richard Livesay, their inventor.
       ``If the tags aren't safe, a study will show that,'' said 
     Schumer. ``But when the right-wing rabid forces don't want 
     something in, this Congress just bows and scrapes and goes 
     along.''
       This is not only catching bomb nuts--it's about making it 
     just a little more difficult for them.
       ``If taggants applied to black powder, it would have been a 
     real deterrent to those who set off this pipe bomb in 
     Atlanta,'' said Schumer.
                                                                    ____


             [From the Wall Street Journal, July 31, 1996]

 Tracing Explosives Through Taggants Draws Heavy Fire From Gun Lobbies

                          (By John J. Fialka)

       Washington.--The nation's gun lobbies are blazing away at 
     one of President Clinton's new antiterrorist proposals--to 
     put tiny plastic markers called taggants in explosives and 
     gunpowder.
       Taggants are color-coded identifiers that allow authorities 
     to trace explosives back to the retailer, which could 
     ultimately lead to the buyer. Originally developed in the 
     U.S., taggants have been used for 11 years in Switzerland. 
     According to Microtrace Inc. of Minneapolis, Minn., which 
     manufactures them, Swiss police have used the microscopic 
     markers to trace the source of explosives in more than 500 
     cases of bombing or illegal possession of explosives.
       The gun lobbies, however, consider taggants an invasion of 
     privacy as well as a potential safety hazard.
       ``We need to be registering politicians, not citizens,'' 
     asserts Larry Pratt, executive director of 150,000-member Gun 
     Owners of America. He claims the use of the markers is a 
     hidden form of gun registration that won't thwart terrorists.
       ``I don't believe you achieve safety by introducing hazards 
     into the homes of millions of Americans,'' argues Tom Wyld, a 
     spokesman for the National Rifle Association, which claims 
     three million members.
       The gun owners' chief concern is putting taggants into two 
     types of gunpowder, smokeless and black powder, which are 
     used by some three million hunters and marksmen who buy 
     powder in bulk to load their own ammunition. There are also a 
     small group of hunters and war re-enactors who use black 
     powder in antique rifles. As in last weekend's terrorist 
     incident at the Olympics in Atlanta, which killed one person 
     and injured more than a hundred, gunpowder can also be used 
     to make crude pipe bombs.
       According to Mr. Wyld of the NRA powder containing the 
     taggants could cause a ``catastrophic failure'' in some guns, 
     causing bullets not to explode properly. But Charles 
     Faulkner, general counsel of privately held Microtrace, said: 
     ``We don't know of any case where a premature explosion was 
     caused by taggants.''
       The NRA, one of the strongest and most free-spending 
     lobbies in Congress, wants an independent study of taggants 
     before any commitment is made. Taggants have been under 
     consideration since the late 1970s.
       On Monday, President Clinton proposed a $25 million, six-
     month Treasury Department study of the taggants, which are 
     designed to survive an explosion. If found to be safe, the 
     Treasury would order manufacturers to put them in all 
     explosives, including black and smokeless powder. Mr. Clinton 
     said yesterday, however, that if lawmakers can't agree on the 
     taggant issue, he would be willing to put it aside for now.
       Taggants, which are also opposed by the Institute of Makers 
     of Explosives, were tested by Congress' former Office of 
     Technology Assessment in 1980 and found to be ``compatible'' 
     with most explosives. The OTA, however, found they could 
     cause ``increased reactivity'' with at least one form of 
     smokeless powder.
       The markers were also studied by Aerospace Corp., an Air 
     Force-funded research company, which found they caused no 
     hazard to explosives or gunpowder. Referring to the explosive 
     manufacturers' opposition, Gerald H. Fuller, a physicist who 
     worked on the Aerospace study, called it ``pure bunk, pure 
     smoke screen.'' He asserted that the real reason companies 
     that make and use explosives oppose taggants is the legal 
     liability they could incur if explosives are traced back to 
     them.
       ``If their products are stolen and used in bombings and can 
     be traced back, they're going to be subject to lawsuits, and 
     this bugs them,'' he said.
       J. Christopher Ronay, president of the Institute of 
     Makers of Explosives, couldn't be reached for 
     comment. Mr. Ronay, who formerly headed the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation's bomb laboratory, has claimed that the 
     industry is opposed to the addition of taggants because it 
     will drive up manufacturing costs and amount to a ``hidden 
     tax'' of $700 million a year on the products of mining and 
     quarrying industries--the primary users of explosives.

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