[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 72 (Wednesday, June 5, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5043-S5044]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. BOND:
  S. 2579. A bill to amend the Clean Air Act to limit access to off-
site consequences analysis information in order to reduce the risk of 
criminal release from stationary sources, and for other purposes; to 
the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
  Mr. BOND. Madam President, today I am introducing a bill to help 
protect communities in Missouri and across the Nation from terrorist 
attack. Chemical plants in communities across America are perfect 
terrorist targets. Right now, the U.S. Government provides a virtual 
blueprint for attacks on these facilities to any member of the public 
who requests the information--on any terrorists frankly. The Community 
Protection From Chemical Terrorism Act will help protect communities 
from terrorists who would use sensitive information made public to 
destroy those communities.
  There are 15,000 chemical facilities across the country. Facilities 
store and use potentially dangerous chemicals to make consumer products 
and keep us healthy. Chlorine, for example, is used by every family to 
whiten and brighten our clothes. Every child, every senior person, 
every family across America is able to drink clean water and avoid 
getting sick because of chlorine treatment.
  However, we know that chlorine is a dangerous chemical if misused or 
abused. According to EPA, at least 123 plants each keep amounts of 
chemicals that if released, could form deadly vapor clouds that would 
put more than one million people in danger. A plant outside of Detroit 
projects that a rupture of one of its 90-ton rail cars of chlorine 
could endanger three million people. Even worse, an accident at a New 
Jersey plant in suburban New York City could cover a 14 mile radius 
affecting 12 million people.
  Missouri is not spared from these dangers. In the Kansas City 
metropolitan area alone, there are over 100 plants filing reports to 
EPA on their potential chemical accidents.
  I am holding back on the names and addresses of these facilities, but 
their identity and location is no secret to those who want to look. In 
fact, the law currently requires EPA to make this information available 
to the public. You do not even have to look, because the newspapers are 
publishing this information. Here is the front page of the Kansas City 
Star with a story ``Chemical Plants Ordered to Prepare for the Worst.'' 
The story describes how information on worst-case scenario accidents is 
publicly available to anyone who bothers to look.
  The San Francisco Chronicle published a story entitled ``If All Hell 
Broke Loose.'' Here you see the newspaper not only describes the 
chemical facilities in Northern California, but provides a map of the 
location of the facilities and the radius of potential damage from a 
toxic release. This newspaper published not only the names and 
addresses of the facilities, but drew a map with their location and

[[Page S5044]]

the radius of destruction from a release. It helps the terrorists by 
showing just what radius of death and destruction would occur. This is 
the front page of a newspaper that is out there for anybody who wants 
to make a terrorist strike in San Francisco. This is published in May 
of 1999. I wonder, after September 11, they would still be so helpful.
  The reason this is a problem is that this is exactly the type of 
information terrorists would use to plan and carry-out an attack. 
Families in suburban San Francisco and across the country have a bulls 
eye on their communities because terrorists can use this publicly 
available information to target their attacks.

  By law, the government requires chemical facilities to report to the 
government the hazardous chemicals they have on site and then predict 
the worst-case scenario for an accident with those chemicals. These 
Offsite Consequence Analysis or OCA reports include the type of 
chemical, the conditions under which a worst-case accident would occur, 
the distance a toxic cloud of chemicals might travel, the environmental 
or public receptors such as hospitals, schools or national parks in 
danger's way, and the number of people who would be harmed by an 
attack.
  According to the FBI, this publicly available chemical facility 
information provides a ``blueprint for potential terrorist attack.'' A 
DOJ report analyzing the threat from terrorists abusing OCA information 
says:

       The distance that a toxic cloud might travel, the numbers 
     of people who might be harmed, and the environmental or 
     public receptors that could be affected are precisely the 
     types of factors that a terrorist weighs when planning an 
     attack.

  Chemical facilities are exactly the type of target terrorists would 
attack to create mayhem and destruction. According to DOJ:

       Certain types of facilities that are required to submit OCA 
     information are preferred terrorist targets. Many such 
     facilities exist in well-populated areas, where a chemical 
     release could result in mass casualties and would result in 
     widespread destruction.

  In a chilling confirmation of this, copies of U.S. chemical trade 
publications were found in one of the cave holes where Osama bin Laden 
had hidden. They found it with the other rat infestations in December.
  Terrorists would have little problem searching through government 
collected OCA. According to DOJ, this data provides ``one-stop shopping 
for refined targeting information, allowing terrorists or other 
criminals to select the best targets from among the 15,000 chemical 
facilities that have submitted OCA data.'' Indeed, accessing this 
publicly available information is easy. In a single afternoon, my staff 
was able to search and find the top ten facilities across my home state 
of Missouri where terrorist attacks would produce the greatest number 
of casualties. By the end of the day, my staff had the names of the 
facilities, their street address, the name of the vulnerable chemicals, 
the conditions under which a worst-case scenario release would occur, 
the radius of harm caused by the attack, any safety or mitigation 
measures plants might use to control the release, and the number of 
people in the affected area who could be hurt.
  It was shocking to me that Federal law makes information which 
terrorists could use to destroy communities available to any member of 
the public.
  The argument goes that communities want to know about dangerous 
chemicals used and stored in their neighborhoods. That is a legitimate 
desire. The law further intends that members of the public use this 
information to pressure chemical facilities to remove dangerous 
chemicals or change their ways so that neighboring communities are not 
in danger from an accidental release. That also is a very legitimate 
concern.
  Unfortunately, the terrorist attacks of September 11th show us that 
times are not so simple anymore. The threat from terrorist attack now 
outweighs the benefits of making this information public. We should be 
concerned about chemical facilities in our communities. However, our 
greatest concern must be protecting those communities from terrorist 
attack.
  In a different time, the environmental policy concerns of making 
worst-case scenario chemical accidental data available to the public 
might have outweighed the security threats to our communities. Sadly, 
those times have passed. According to the Department of Justice, OCA 
worst-case scenario data continues to present a security threat. The 
threat from terrorists using OCA worst-case scenario data is even 
greater after the September 11th terrorist attacks. DOJ believes that 
legislation is necessary to further limit public access to dangerous 
OCA information.
  Unfortunately, the current law does not protect our communities from 
terrorist attack. Congress amended the law concerning OCA information 
in 1999. That legislation, entitled the Chemical Safety Information and 
Site Security Act reversed EPA plans to post OCA information on the 
Internet. However, the law left the task of establishing specific 
regulations for publicizing OCA information to EPA and DOJ. Admittedly, 
the last administration did its work before the terrorist attacks of 
September 11th. It was a different time then. A legitimate argument was 
made that environmental policy concerns outweighed the need to protect 
communities from terrorist attacks.
  However, even the restrictions EPA and DOJ devised to limit access to 
sensitive OCA information were quickly overcome by advocacy groups. 
This story in the New York Times describes how environmental advocates 
put OCA disaster data on the Internet. The caption here is, ``Getting 
around a law intended to avoid helping terrorists.'' My staff used one 
of these sites to help them determine the communities in Missouri most 
at risk from a terrorist attack. This is not fair to the communities 
that wish to avoid terrorist attacks. Further restrictions are 
necessary to protect our communities from terrorist attack.

  The legislation I propose today strikes the best balance between 
allowing the public to monitor the actions of the chemical industry and 
protecting individual communities from terrorist attack. Official users 
engaged in official protection activities will have unrestricted access 
to OCA information. However, my bill will allow members of the public 
to view OCA data on chemical facilities without knowing their specific 
name and location. This will allow advocates to continue watching and 
pressuring the chemical industry at-large to make safety improvements 
without placing specific communities at risk of terrorist attack. For 
those environmental advocates that wish to play a role in a given 
community, this legislation specifically expands local emergency 
planning committees to include members of local and national 
environmental organizations. I recognize that these groups have a role 
to play in making our communities safer and hope they will accept this 
invitation to join in formal community protection activities.
  Communities have much to fear from terrorist attack. According to 
DOJ, the risk of terrorists attempting in the foreseeable future to 
cause an industrial chemical release is both real and credible. We must 
not help those terrorists who want to destroy our communities. I urge 
my colleagues to support the Community Protection From Terrorism Act 
and look forward to working with you on its passage.
  I ask unanimous consent that the bill be appropriately referred.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
                                 ______