One of the last bills passed by Congress before recessing for the November elections killed a bipartisan agreement to bring the nation’s chemical facilities under the umbrella of homeland security oversight.

I am a member of the Homeland Security Committee, and the committee worked hard last July to send to the House a bipartisan bill mandating that all chemical facilities be required to prepare security assessments, and that the high-risk sites be required to shift to safer chemicals and processes where possible.  As with all homeland security issues, the bipartisan bill represented an attempt by the committee to find a reasonable balance between protecting facilities and communities from the foreseeable harm of a terrorist attack, and the interest of the chemical industry in keeping government regulation to the minimum.  

The decision of the Republican leadership to abandon that consensus and ram through weak alternative language that leaves most communities at risk was unforgivable.

These risks are not small. Perhaps the worst chemical disaster in modern history occurred in December 1984 at the Union Carbide Plant in Bhopal, India. As recalled by those who were there:

“Shortly after midnight poison gas leaked from a factory in Bhopal, India, owned by Union Carbide Corporation. There was no warning, none of the plant's safety systems were working. In the city people were sleeping. They woke in darkness to the sound of screams with the gases burning their eyes, noses and mouths. They began retching and coughing up froth streaked with blood. Whole neighbourhoods fled in panic, some were trampled, others convulsed and fell dead. People lost control of their bowels and bladders as they ran. Within hours thousands of dead bodies lay in the streets.”
        “That Night”, www.Bhopal.net

In an April analysis done at my request by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), using data provided to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Clean Air Act, we learned that in the United States there are over 100 chemical plants situated in densely populated areas such that a Bhopal-like disaster could harm more than 1 million people.  But even smaller plants can be attractive targets for terrorists depending on the nature of the chemicals in the plants.  The same CRS analysis found that there are approximately 7,000 facilities in the US which pose a risk to more than 1000 people in or near the plant – and about 50 of those plants are in Massachusetts.

So you would think that the Republican majority would be willing to require that the owners of these plants prepare and send to the Department of Homeland Security security assessments for each of these plants, and require them to meet minimum security standards.  But instead, in a back-room deal just before the recess, the Republicans exempted 90% of facilities from any risk assessment and site security measures whatsoever.

Moreover, even in the few “high-risk” plants that this new legislation covers, the Department of Homeland Security is specifically forbidden from ordering any chemical plant to move to inherently safer technologies (IST).  It is often possible to accomplish the same industrial purpose with an alternative chemical or process that is less volatile, poisonous or explosive than the one being used – without costing a lot of money.  For example, an April report by the Center for American Progress found that 284 facilities in 47 States switched to safer technologies, resulting in a reduction of risk to 38 million people. But under pressure from industry, the Committee’s bipartisan effort to move in that direction was squelched.

We know that Al Qaeda is desperately seeking to attack us on our own soil. Chemical plants are at the top of Al Qaeda’s terrorist target list.
If there is a successful attack at a chemical plant in one of our communities, the residents in the surrounding areas will not call the Department of Homeland Security for help.  They will call their local fire department, police department or emergency medical personnel.  These first responders are hometown heroes, but even heroes need help.

But instead of acting to reduce the threat that these plants present to their communities in an age of terrorism, this Congress caved to the pleadings of a few corporate leaders with undue influence.  I expect that this episode will become a poster-child for a Congress intent on protecting special interests instead of the American people.