Chemical facilities securitySenate panels to discuss high-risk chemical facilities

The Senate this week will discuss how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and DHS can most effectively monitor the security measures taken by U.S. chemical facilities.

The chemical security bill approved by the House last year, H.R. 2868 (“Chemical facility security bills would limit local control,” 9 December 2009 HSNW) ) is on the markup agenda for Wednesday’s meeting of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and it will likely occasion a battle between two different visions for regulating high-risk facilities. Later that day, the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee will examine the current state of protection at water treatment plants, which fall into what one EPA official has called “a critical gap” in the current federal system.

Environment and Energy Daily’s Elana Schor writes that the Homeland Security Committee will take up the House bill — which includes a provision asking facilities to adopt inherently safer technologies, or ISTs, such as less toxic chemicals — amid a push to consider alternative legislation sponsored by the panel’s senior Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.

Two Democrats on the committee are co-sponsors of Collins’ proposal for a five-year reauthorization of the existing DHS chemical risk program, known as CFATS, and Collins recently secured an agreement with the panel’s chairman, Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut), to bring up her measure this month. Lieberman has expressed support for IST mandate, a top priority of many environmental and public-health advocates, but this week may find Collins upending plans for quick passage of the House bill.

Schor notes that even if the Homeland Security panel lacks the votes to approve the House plan as written, the Environment and Public Works Committee remains in control of an important part of chemical security jurisdiction: water treatment plants. Senator Frank Lautenberg’s (D-New Jersey) introduction earlier this month of a Senate counterpart to the House bill (“U.S. chemical industry comes out swinging against new Senate plant security bill,” 21 July 2010 HSNW) was paired with a second bill (S. 3598) outlining EPA authority over security at wastewater and drinking water facilities, where hazardous chlorine is often used as a bleaching agent.

Schor writes that the Chemical Facilities Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) system for assessing chemical facilities’ risks does not address water treatment plants, leaving a security hole that the Obama administration has described as significant.

A March report from the liberal think tank Center for American Progress found that 554 water treatment plants in 47 states had already phased out chlorine in favor of a safer alternative (“New survey shows many water, wastewater plants improve chemical security,” 9 March 2010 HSNW), and the author of that report, Paul Orum, is among those who will testify before the Environment Committee on Wednesday.

Schor notes that Collins could face a difficult time winning floor consideration for her chemical security bill from Senate Democratic leaders, but if the impasse remains unresolved by the time DHS’s CFATS program expires in October, a fail-safe is in position. At the request of the administration, language extending the current CFATS authorization for another year was included in the Senate’s homeland security appropriations bill.