Hearing Of The Senate Committee On Homeland Security And Governmental Affairs - Chemical Security: Assessing Progress And Charting A Path Forward

Statement

More than 70,000 products are created through the use of chemicals,
helping to supply the consumer, industrial, construction, and agricultural
sectors of our economy. The United States is home to thousands of facilities
that manufacture, use, or store chemicals.
This industry is vital to our economy, with annual sales of nearly half
a trillion dollars, exports of $174 billion, and employees exceeding 850,000
people.
But after Sept. 11, 2001, we realized that chemical facilities were
vulnerable to terrorist attack. Given the hazardous chemicals present at
many locations, terrorists could view them as attractive targets, yielding a
terrible loss of life, significant injuries, and major destruction if successfully
attacked.
In 2005, as Chairman of this Committee, I held a series of hearings on
chemical security. Following these hearings, Senators Lieberman, Carper,
Levin, and I introduced bipartisan legislation authorizing the Department of
Homeland Security to set and enforce security standards at high-risk
chemical facilities. That bill was incorporated into the homeland security
appropriations act and signed into law in 2006.
To implement this new authority, DHS established the Chemical
Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards program, or CFATS. The program sets 18
risk-based performance standards that high-risk chemical facilities must
meet. These security standards cover a range of threats, such as perimeter
security, access control, theft, internal sabotage, and cybersecurity.
High-risk chemical facilities covered by the program must conduct
mandatory vulnerability assessments, develop site security plans, and invest
in protective measures.
The Department must approve these assessments and site security
plans, using audits and inspections to ensure compliance with the
performance standards. The Secretary is empowered to shut down facilities
that are non-compliant.
This risk-based approach has made the owners and operators of
chemical plants partners with the federal government in implementing a
successful, collaborative security program.
This landmark law has been in place slightly more than three years.
Taxpayers have invested nearly $300 million in the program. Chemical
plants also have invested hundreds of millions more to comply with the law.
As a direct result, security at our nation's chemical facilities is much
stronger than it was five years ago.
Now we are at a juncture where we must reauthorize the program or --
as some have proposed -- scrap what has been a clear success and set off in a
different direction. I firmly believe that we should reauthorize the law.
Simply put, the program works and should be extended.
Proposals to drastically change this successful law would discard what
is working for an unproven and burdensome plan.
We must not undermine the substantial investments of time and
resources already made in CFATS implementation by both DHS and the
private sector. Worse would be requiring additional expenditures with no
demonstrable increase to the overall security of our nation.
Last November, the House of Representatives passed legislation that
would alter the fundamental nature of CFATS. It would require the
Department to completely rework the program. I am concerned about
several aspects of the House bill, not the least of which is the authority to
mandate the use of so-called "inherently safer technology," or IST.
What is IST? It is an approach to process engineering. It is not,
however, a security measure.
An IST mandate may actually increase or unacceptably transfer risk to
other points in the chemical process or elsewhere in the supply chain.
For example, many drinking water utilities have determined that
chlorine remains their best and most effective drinking water treatment
option. Their decisions were not based solely on financial considerations,
but also on many other factors, such as the characteristics of the region's
climate, geography, and source water supplies, the size and location of the
utility's facilities, and the risks and benefits of chlorine use compared to the
use of alternative treatment processes.
According to one water utility located in an isolated area of the
Northwest, if Congress were to force it to replace its use of gaseous chlorine
with sodium hypochlorite, then the utility would have to use as much as
seven times the current quantity of treatment chemicals to achieve
comparable water quality results. In turn, the utility would have to arrange
for many more bulk chemical deliveries, by trucks, into the watershed. The
greater quantities of chemicals and increased frequency of truck deliveries
would heighten the risk of an accident resulting in a chemical spill into the
watershed. In fact, the accidental release of sodium hypochlorite into the
watershed would likely cause greater harm to soils, vegetation and streams
than a gaseous chlorine release in this remote area.
Currently, DHS cannot dictate specific security measures, like IST. Nor
should it. The federal government should set performance standards, but
leave it up to the private sector to decide precisely how to achieve those
standards.
Forcing chemical facilities to implement IST could cost jobs at some
facilities and affect the availability of many vital products.
Last year, the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates
testified that mandatory IST would restrict the production of
pharmaceuticals and microelectronics, hobbling these industries. The
increased cost of a mandatory IST program may force chemical companies
to simply transfer their operations overseas, costing American workers
thousands of jobs.
To be clear, some owners and operators of chemical facilities may
choose to use IST. But that decision should be theirs -- not that of
Washington.
Congress should not dictate specific industrial processes under the
guise of security when a facility could choose other alternatives that meet
the nation's security needs.
A straight-forward, common-sense reauthorization of this program is
critical. The "Continuing Chemical Facilities Antiterrorism Security Act of
2010," which Senators Pryor, Voinovich, Landrieu and I recently introduced,
would extend CFATS for five more years.
No one is more conscious than I of the risks our nation faces through
an attack on a chemical facility. That is why I authored this law in the first
place and battled considerable opposition to get it enacted. We should
support the continuation of this successful security program without the
addition of costly, unproven federal mandates.

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