chemical plant plan

Chertoff opens mouth, lies, spouts industry talking points. Is anyone surprised?

Chertoff touts chemical plant plan - The Boston Globe
Speaking at a forum cosponsored by the main lobbying arm of the $460 billion chemical industry, Michael Chertoff said it's not enough to rely on chemical plant owners to voluntarily secure their properties.

In the nearly five years since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he said, some companies have upgraded their security, but others have lagged behind.

Several proposals to require all major chemical facilities to improve their security are pending in the Republican-controlled Congress, where similar bills have died in each session since Sept. 11, amid heavy resistance to imposing new regulations on the industry....

But, he said, any such bill would have to meet ''core principles“ -- including the notion that the government should avoid ''micromanaging” private businesses. Chemical plant owners themselves, he said, should be left to make decisions about how to secure their own facilities, so long as their plans meet the government's performance standard.

And under no circumstances, Chertoff said, should plant owners be told they must switch to inherently safer chemicals in their manufacturing process -- even if doing so would eliminate the risks to surrounding residential areas and come at little or no extra cost to the company.

''There are a lot of ways to skin a cat, and we're going to let the chemical industry figure out how to skin the cat as long as the cat gets skinned,“ Chertoff said.

But critics said Chertoff's proposal was essentially written by the chemical industry and avoids more sweeping solutions to the possibility that terrorists could unleash a toxic cloud.

Nicholas Ashford, the director of the Technology and Law Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said it would be better to pass no law at all than to create a ''false sense of security.”

''You have to create a duty for companies to make an earnest search for safer technologies,“ Ashford said.
Rick Hind, the toxics campaign director for Greenpeace, criticized Chertoff, saying he was ''just repeating the talking points of what has been a full-court press of chemical and oil industry lobbying activity.”
...
The guidelines from the council, the industry's main lobbying group, focus on better securing their plants' perimeters, and the council supports forcing laggards to follow suit so that everyone is making the same financial investment in security.

But the industry has also resisted calls for the government to mandate more sweeping changes, including forcing companies to substitute less toxic chemicals where possible in their manufacturing process or to store smaller amounts at their plants. Critics said Chertoff's proposal amounted to letting the industry off the hook

And in a surprising-to-nobody coincidence, everyone's favorite Rockefeller Democrat, Holy Joe Lieberman is the sponsor of a bill that mirrors the industry lobby's position.

The leading bill, which largely matches Chertoff's proposal, would force companies to comply with national security standards and is sponsored in the Senate by Susan M. Collins, Republican of Maine, and Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut.

A House version is sponsored by Christopher H. Shays, Republican of Connecticut, and James R. Langevin, Democrat of Rhode Island.

..Companies would come up with their own security plans, which Homeland Security would approve.

Oh goody, an industry policing itself. Can't see anything wrong with that....

Tags: corruption, /environment, /terrorism