The House Homeland Security Committee on July 27 passed what is being hailed by public interest groups as a substantially improved chemical security bill, the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006 (H.R. 5695). The bill, sponsored by Rep. Daniel Lungren (R-CA), establishes security requirements for our nation's chemical facilities, something that critics charge is long overdue. The original bill, however, had serious flaws, among them failing to require companies to use safer technologies and preempting states and localities from establishing their own security programs. During the markup of the bill, Reps. Edward Markey (D-MA) and James Langevin (D-RI) successfully added amendments to the bill which will:

• Require high-risk facilities to consider switching to safer chemicals and process, and give the Department of Homeland Security the authority to require these facilities implement safer alternatives if it's feasible and not cost-prohibitive; and
• Allow states to set more stringent chemical security requirements, so long as these requirements do not "frustrate the federal purpose."

Public interest groups have praised the amendments. "We applaud the Committee for recognizing that guards and fences alone do not guarantee that Americans are protected because the deadly chemicals remain behind those fences," U.S. PIRG staff attorney Alex Fidis told reporters. "Switching to safer technologies removes the bull's-eye on chemical plants that terrorist could exploit to inflict mass casualties." When Congress reconvenes in September, the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which also has jurisdiction over the legislation, will review and markup H.R. 5695. The Markey-Langevin amendments are likely to receive particular attention there. Committee members may strengthen the bill further, leave the current provisions or strip them out entirely. The Senate is also expected to pick up where it left off on chemical security after the congressional recess. On July 14, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously passed chemical security legislation, S. 2145, that lacks the stronger provisions that were added as amendments to the House bill. The Senate bill, however, has reportedly been bogged down because of a variety of objections from more than a dozen senators. In a letter to the objecting senators, Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-ME) urged her colleagues to allow the bill to reach the Senate floor and settle any differences over the legislation there.