EPA Likely to Require "Terror Checks" at Chemical Plants

According to Associated Press reports last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may finally begin to require chemical plants to assess their vulnerabilities to a terrorist attack, and then take measures to reduce those risks. While chemical plants have always posed significant risks to communities from “routine” accidents, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 prompted a reassessment of these threats and greater sense of urgency in addressing these risks, and as OMB Watch previously reported here, chemical plants have failed to effectively address the threats on their own. A senior EPA official reported that EPA wants to require plants to conduct mandatory vulnerability assessments, which would be similar to the Risk Management Plans that facilities are required to submit under the Clean Air Act that document what might happen in the case of an accidental release of chemicals from the plant. Chemical facilities would be required to assess how they might be vulnerable to an attack, and take measures to minimize the harmful effects of a potential attack. EPA is reportedly unsure whether or not a law is needed in order to enforce the new "principles" for chemical plants, which are due to be released by EPA Administrator Whitman any day now. However, a law such as Sen. Jon Corzine's (D – NJ) Chemical Security Act (S. 1602), would go a long way in giving EPA the enforcement authority to protect communities from the great risk of accidents or terrorist attacks at a chemical plant. S. 1602 directs the EPA and Department of Justice (DOJ) to work with state and local agencies to inventory hazardous chemical sources and determine which are a high-priority risk. EPA and DOJ would then work to reduce those risks by requiring the companies that manufacture, use, or store hazardous chemicals to make processes inherently safer by reducing chemical quantities, switching to safer chemicals, or storing chemicals under safer conditions, starting with the facilities that pose the greatest risk. Though S. 1602 has been sitting in the Senate since it was introduced in October 2001, it will reportedly be marked up in the next couple of months.
back to Blog