Chemical Facility Anti-terrorism Act Of 2009

Floor Speech

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Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Chair, I yield myself 2 minutes.

I would like to first thank Mr. Luján of New Mexico for allowing me to work with him on this important and commonsense amendment to the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act.

The underlying bill is a positive step towards ensuring the security of America's chemical facilities, but overlooks key differences between commercial facilities and university and educational laboratories. This amendment directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to take a graduated approach to security in school labs and to create a separate and appropriate set of protocols for university affiliated laboratories with relatively small quantities of chemicals.

One-size-fits-all safety regulations only create more paperwork, more bureaucracy and more confusion without necessarily making us safer. This is especially true in educational settings where large numbers of students move in and out of smaller chemical labs constantly, making it difficult and expensive to impose on them the same security protocols as large commercial facilities.

However, this amendment does not let our schools off the hook for maintaining a safe and secure environment. The Secretary of Homeland Security will still require that universities create and report a security plan of precaution and prevention as part of normal campus safety procedures. At a time when university budgets are already tight, this amendment will avoid placing potentially large financial hardships on our educational institutions.

This amendment is supported by a number of higher educational associations, including the American Council on Education, the Association of American Universities, and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. I was very happy to be able to work on this commonsense solution.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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