[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Pages 25497-25498]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        CHEMICAL PLANT SECURITY

  Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, the primary topic I will talk about today 
is the markup tomorrow with regard to chemical plant security. The 
Environmental and Public Works Committee will take up legislation 
dealing with one of the most serious security threats to our Nation. 
According to statistics by EPA, there are 123 facilities in 24 States 
where a chemical release could expose more than a million people to a 
toxic chemical, and nearly 3,000 facilities spread across 49 States 
where 10,000 people could be exposed.
  This is a serious issue that can create real health and safety 
hazards to our community, particularly in a time when we know we are 
under potential terrorist attack at home.
  This is an issue that has been identified by the Department of 
Homeland Security and by almost every security expert as one of the 
most serious exposures we have in our infrastructure. When we go from 
code yellow to code orange, chemical plants are identified as part of 
the infrastructure that needs to be hardened in those events.
  It seems to me we need to be addressing this matter. I am pleased 
Chairman Inhofe, EPW, and others are taking up this challenge to 
address this issue. I have been pushing on this for the last 2 years, 
actually got a vote in EPW on a bill that had 100-percent support of 
everyone in the committee a year and a half ago. Until the lobbyists 
went to work, we thought we had a real response that would work on a 
bipartisan basis. We have adjusted that bill, made changes, offered 
economic incentives to the industry to move forward. We have a 
roadblock to dealing with one of the most important risks we have in 
our infrastructure.
  I commend Senator Inhofe and other members of the committee for 
addressing the issue. Unfortunately, I do not think the bill meets the 
needs of what we are trying to accomplish. Constructively, the 
committee has moved to require chemical plants to develop security 
plans and submit them to the Department of Homeland Security. The 
administration had not asked them to submit the plans. Unfortunately, 
DHS will not have to review them according to the bill, as I understand 
it. They would not have to evaluate them. They would not have to 
approve them. They would not have to do anything to assure the public 
is protected. That is a problem. The Department could simply let the 
plans sit on a back shelf and let dust accumulate.
  Furthermore, it would tighten all 15,000 chemical plants without any 
kind of prioritization in the country, which is also a big mistake. We 
need to make sure these plans are actually reviewed, that there is real 
accountability. That is my major concern with the mark that will be 
coming through tomorrow.
  There are other problems also. It is not strong enough on one of the 
fundamental issues with regard to my original bill, inherently safer 
technologies. There are alternative approaches. We cannot build fences 
high enough and put enough guards to make sure that every possible 
terrorist attack or criminal attack on a chemical plant could actually 
be accomplished. We need to make sure if there is a successful attack, 
that it has minimal exposure. We ought to do everything we can to have 
inherently safer technologies within economic feasibility. That is 
practical.
  While there is a step forward in recognizing this is immediate, and 
there is necessary evaluation that is being asked for from chemical 
producers, I don't think we are going far enough in requiring the use 
of inherently safer approaches if they are economically feasible and 
practical. That should be a requirement of the law. This is one of the 
major issues I have.
  Finally, there is a gaping loophole in this legislation as I 
understand it, and I hope others will challenge it tomorrow in the 
committee mark. I certainly will if it gets to the floor; that is, if 
the chemical industry or any particular private sector approach has a 
substantially equivalent standard as opposed to what DHS puts out as a 
standard, that will be acceptable to the Department of Homeland 
Security. They have already embraced a private standard that they have 
suggested is very good. It does not include inherently safer 
technologies. It does not require accountability in that other standard 
being established by the chemical industry.
  As a consequence, we are actually moving back to a completely 
voluntary approach. I don't get it. I don't understand it. I don't 
think it is the direction we should be taking. It is a loophole that 
erases all the good things that have been included in the mark if you 
go to a substantially equivalent standard.
  There are serious shortfalls in the mark, at least as I understand 
them. I hope they will be debated seriously in the committee tomorrow. 
I want folks to know this is not an issue that will die down. We have 
eight of these plants in New Jersey. They are located right smack dab 
in the middle of some of the highest concentrations of population in 
our country. We have had accidents over the years in my community that 
have taken lives in the community and evacuated the surrounding 
citizens. This is a vulnerability that everyone acknowledges is real, 
it is present, and it needs to be addressed. That is why I feel so 
strongly about it.
  This should be a bipartisan issue. I am glad Senator Chafee has been 
working to push the issue in committee this year. But we need to move 
it.
  By the way, just finally, there is something I have a problem with 
also in the bill in the sense that if somebody turns loose one of the 
plans that is filed by an individual plant, that will be subject to 
criminal penalties. But if a chemical producer does not comply with the 
standards they set down in the plan, that is a civil liability. It 
sounds right to me there would be criminal penalties for people who 
leak information into the public that could be dangerous and used 
against the public. But it strikes me as unequal treatment; it sort of 
does not jibe with regard to parity that those people who are actually 
not complying with the law are going to be treated on a civil basis.
  Where is the parity? It seems to me we are listening to industry more 
than we are listening to the needs of the American people. If September 
11 taught us anything, it is that America can no longer avoid thinking 
about the unthinkable. We have to face up to the

[[Page 25498]]

Nation's most serious vulnerabilities. We have to focus on them. And we 
have to confront them head on.
  That is why I have long advocated the adoption of legislation to 
create meaningful and enforceable security standards for chemical 
facilities. Under my proposal, the Federal Government would identify 
``high priority'' chemical facilities--those that potentially put a 
larger number of people at risk. It then would require those facilities 
to assess their vulnerabilities and implement plans to improve 
security. These plans would have to be submitted for review. And 
changes could be required if deficiencies are identified.
  In the last Congress, my legislation was approved on a unanimous vote 
by the Environment and Public Works Committee. But after the committee 
acted, the bill was killed after some in industry lobbied against it.
  This year, the committee apparently is planning to take up a 
different bill. And let me say, first, that I commend the chairman, 
Senator Inhofe, and the other members of the committee for addressing 
this matter. Unfortunately, while I no longer serve on the committee 
and have not been privy to all of its discussions, it appears that the 
bill currently under discussion has at least one glaring weakness.
  The committee is considering requiring chemical plants to develop 
security plans and submit them to the Department of Homeland Security. 
But--and here is the problem--the bill doesn't require the Department 
to do anything with them. DHS wouldn't have to review them. It wouldn't 
have to evaluate them. It wouldn't have to approve them. It wouldn't 
have to audit them. It wouldn't have to do a thing to ensure the public 
is protected. Instead, the Department could simply let these plans sit 
on a back room shelf, collecting dust.
  Some might ask: Would the Bush administration really do that? Would 
it really just let security plans sit on the shelf, and not even review 
them? Well, for those who think that is unrealistic, consider this: The 
administration's own plan didn't require companies to submit their 
security plans to the Government at all. And that would certainly be 
the preference of many of their friends in industry. So, yes, there is 
every reason to be concerned that, unless forced to do so, the 
administration will take a hands-off approach and simply ignore these 
security plans. And the end result would be a lax security system with 
no real teeth.
  Beyond the failure of the bill to require review of security plans, 
the legislation under development in the Environment and Public Works 
Committee has other problems, as well. First, it fails to require 
industry to adopt alternative technologies--such as the use of safer 
chemicals--if those alternative approaches are cost effective. I think 
that is a mistake. After all, no matter how many security personnel are 
hired, and no matter how high a security fence, no security scheme is 
impenetrable. And we need to prepare for the possibility that 
terrorists will be successful in attacking a chemical plant and 
releasing toxic materials. That is why it is important for facilities 
to implement inherently safer technologies, where practicable, to 
reduce the resulting death and destruction in the event of an attack.
  Thanks largely to the involvement of Senator Chafee, the Inhofe mark 
has made real progress in this area. As I understand it, the chairman 
has agreed to require detailed consideration of safer technologies. And 
I think that's a step forward. In my view, though, it still falls 
short. Given the number of lives that are at stake, I think companies 
should be required to implement safer technologies if they are cost 
effective.
  Unfortunately, the requirement that facility owners consider safer 
technologies could be undermined because of a huge loophole in the bill 
that may allow industry to sidestep many Federal security requirements. 
Under this provision, DHS's security standards could be waived for any 
facility that participates in an industry program that is, 
``substantially equivalent.''
  At first, that may sound like a reasonable approach. But the term 
``substantially equivalent'' is so broad that it could well allow the 
Bush administration to simply rubberstamp an existing chemical industry 
program that is grossly inadequate. For example, the chemical 
industry's program has no requirement that industry evaluate safer 
technologies in any detail. Yet it seems very possible that the Bush 
administration would exploit the bill's loophole to rubberstamp this 
industry program, and exempt participating plants even from the bill's 
limited requirement for consideration of safer alternative approaches.
  The last point I want to make about the bill apparently being 
discussed relates to enforcement. Under the legislation, as I 
understand it, if a Government employee wrongly discloses a chemical 
plant's security plan, that employee would be subject to criminal 
penalties. That sounds right. Yet, if the owner of a chemical plant 
knowingly violated Federal security standards, the only remedies 
prescribed in the legislation are civil. That sounds wrong.
  That disparate treatment of Government employees and chemical 
industry officials doesn't seem fair. Nor does it seem appropriate, 
given the nature of the threats are now confronting. After all, 
criminal penalties are available for violations of certain anti-
pollution laws. Surely violations of a new chemical plant security 
law--a law designed to save lives--should be punished with an equal 
degree of severity.
  Before I conclude, let me step back for a moment and again remind my 
colleagues that should terrorists attack one of 123 chemical facilities 
around the country, at least a million American lives could be at risk. 
These are real people--mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers--all 
innocent Americans who have no choice but to rely on their Government 
leaders to protect them.
  We, in Congress, have an obligation to do everything we can to 
protect these Americans, and to prevent what really could be a tragedy 
of catastrophic proportions. We should not be satisfied with a largely 
toothless plan that leaves industry free to design security plans to 
their own choosing, with no requirement that those plans even be 
reviewed. That is just unacceptable.
  I hope my colleagues on the Environment and Public Works Committee 
will reconsider this approach. And, if not, I intend to pursue this 
matter aggressively if, and when, the bill ever reaches the Senator 
floor.
  We need to address chemical plant security. But we need to do so in 
an enforceable way that will really make Americans safer. The lives of 
many thousands of Americans may well hang in the balance.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 1 minute remaining.
  Mr. CORZINE. Thank you, Mr. President.

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