rick_hind

Tomorrow, Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee will consider inserting loopholes into their own bill on behalf of the chemical industry. If adopted, these amendments will gut the Chemical Facilities Anti-Terrorism Act of 2009 (H.R. 2868).

In particular, these amendments will tie the hands of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), perpetuate disastrous risks to communities and employees, and burden business and government with redundant studies. In addition, they could also exempt many of the highest-risk plants in the country — roughly one hundred plants, each of which puts over 1 million Americans at risk — from the best security measures. Read more here.

We don’t need more loopholes and inaction, we need a law that protects the 110 million Americans who are still at risk because the existing law ties the hands of the DHS. These amendments would only serve to continue tying the hands of the folks whose job it is to protect the American public, which is why we are trying to make sure they do not pass.

We the people can speak up and demand strong chemical security legislation without loopholes that favor industry. If you can call members of Congress on this committee ASAP, tonight or first thing in the morning tomorrow, it will really help. Just follow these steps:

1. Call (202) 225-3121, the House switchboard.
2. All of the members of these Homeland Security Committee members need to hear from us: Dent (R-PA), King (R-NY) and Lungren (R-CA), Pascrell (D-NJ), Carney (D-PA), Richardson (D-CA), Clarke (D-NY), Cleaver (D-MO), DeFazio (D-OR), Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Sanches (D-CA), Thompson (D-MS). Pick one and ask the operator to be put through to their office. If you're actually a constituent of one of these Reps, all the better. Representative Charlie Dent (R-PA) is among the lead sponsors of the loophole amendments, so if you're not a constituent of one of the Reps, he'd be a good one to call.
3. A staffer will pick up. Tell them you're calling to give the Rep. a message. Here's a script you can use:
   
   

   I'm calling to urge the Rep. to support a strong chemical security bill by voting against dangerous loopholes proposed for H.R. 2868, the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2009. We need a law that protects the 110 million Americans who are still at risk due to the fact that the existing law ties the hands of Homeland Security, and these amendements would only continue to do so.

Thanks in advance for making a call. It's very important that we speak up and make our voices heard. The members of the House of Representatives were elected by us to represent us, not the chemical industry. That's why it's so important that they hear from us.

As Congress finally begins to move chemical security legislation in the House Homeland Security and Energy & Commerce Committees, Greenpeace is urging everyone to weigh in and remind Congress what they have to do before October 4th when the fatally flawed temporary law expires.  A blue-green coalition of more than 50 organizations including the Steelworkers, UAW, Teamsters, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Sierra Club, U.S. Public Interest Group are also working hard.

For almost eight years this legislation has been held up by a coalition of chemical industry lobbyists representing giants like Dow and DuPont, the Bush administration and their allies in Congress.  In 2008 the industry deployed some 200 lobbyists spending millions to successfully stall this legislation for the seventh year in a row.  In the same seven years, hundreds of chemical plants have converted to safer chemicals, eliminating risks to millions of Americans.  Unfortunately at the current rate it could take 70 years to eliminate these hazards at the nation’s highest risk plants.

This year the chemical lobby is at it again. As you can see by their March 2nd letter to Congress, they are obsessed with killing legislation that could require any chemical plant to use safer chemicals that will eliminate the risk of a Bhopal magnitude disaster. Instead they are pressuring Congress to make the temporary law permanent. They ghost wrote that law in 2006 in a successful effort to derail stronger legislation. That “law” actually PROHIBITS the government from requiring the use of safer chemicals and EXEMPTS thousands of chemical facilities completely, including all water treatment plants.

Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, the largest chemical companies are pretending to have a kinder, gentler side in contrast to the more publicly dogmatic wing that signed the March 2nd letter. They apparently think Congress is as naive as Little Red Riding Hood because this “kinder” wolf is the primary lobbying arm of Dow and DuPont, aka the American Chemistry Council (ACC). By not signing the March 2nd letter the ACC companies hope Congress will forget that they spear headed the industry lobbying over the last eight years that either killed, delayed or weakened chemical security legislation.  As you can see by the flow chart, ACC leaders Dow and DuPont are also prominent members of many of the hard-line lobbying groups that signed the March 2nd letter.  

Now not all the companies in these lobbying groups necessarily agree with the March 2nd letter. The railroads are also members of some of these groups but in February 2008, the Association of American Railroads released a statement saying: "It's time for the big chemical companies to do their part to help protect America. They should stop manufacturing dangerous chemicals when safer substitutes are available. And if they won't do it, Congress should do it for them." 

The railroads are the largest shippers of the poison gases that make them and U.S. chemical plants among the most vulnerable terrorist targets in the U.S.  Shipping these gases represents less than 0.3 percent of their business but it’s 80 percent of their liability.

Recognizing that major companies such as Dow and DuPont also have enormous liability exposure, we sent their CEOs extensively documented letters citing the millions of people that Dow and DuPont plants put at risk and urged them to join other companies in switching to safer available chemicals.  We also asked them to follow the railroad’s example and break with the industry groups lobbying AGAINST legislation that could ensure that high risk plants convert to safer chemicals.  I wish we could say we’ve reached a break through with them but I can say we’ve definitely gotten their attention at the highest levels.

Remember, help is on the way.  It’s in your own emails, calls and letters to Congress. The two House Committees taking up this legislation understand the stakes but they need to hear from you today if they’re going to keep the proverbial wolf away from the door.  If we’re successful this summer the next stop will be the House floor, hopefully no later than September.  In the meantime the U.S. Senate will have to get serious because the chemical lobby doesn’t take the summer off.

--Rick

 

As we all know, the theme of President-Elect Barack Obama's campaign was "change we can
believe in" or sometimes, "change we need."  Since the election some have wondered how much real change Obama will succeed in implementing.

While it's much too early to answer that question, let's remember that Obama has also repeatedly reminded us that "change happens because the American people demand it - because they rise up and insist on new ideas..."  In other words, it will happen if we get involved.

Long before 9/11 or even Bhopal, Greenpeace has challenged the notion that U.S. chemical plants have no alternative to the storage or use of large quantities of poison gases like chlorine. In 2006, instead of enacting legislation that would require the use of safer alternatives to eliminate the catastrophic risks these plants pose, Congress enacted a temporary law.  The new law is so bad it actually prohibits the government from requiring safer alternatives to poison gases and exempts thousands of chemical facilities, including all publicly owned water treatment plants.

So where is President Obama on this issue? Fortunately, he's been a leader on it since he arrived in the U.S. Senate.  He wrote about it in Audacity of Hope and co-authored the strongest legislation in the Senate.

When Obama introduced his bill (S. 2486) on the Senate floor he said, "there are other ways to reduce risk that need to be part of the equation. Specifically, by employing safer technologies, we can reduce the attractiveness of chemical plants as a target…This concept, known as Inherently Safer Technology [IST]...reduces the danger that chemical plants pose to our communities and makes them less appealing targets for terrorists.

"Unfortunately, the chemical industry has been lobbying nonstop on this bill. They do not want IST, they do not want protection of state laws and they do not want strict regulations...This is wrong. We cannot allow chemical industry lobbyists to dictate the terms of this debate. We cannot allow our security to be hijacked by corporate interests."

Obama wasn't exaggerating. Greenpeace counted 238 registered industry lobbyists who work on chemical security legislation. We estimate they spent approximately $1 million monthly, hijacking strong legislation and regulations.

During the Presidential campaign, Obama gave strong answers to Greenpeace's questionnaire to Presidential candidates. He also raised the issue in a debate with Senator McCain and again on the Letterman Show.  In October, Obama told MSNBC, "I think that chemical plant security is another where the chemical industry has been resistant to mandates when it comes to hardening their sites. But, you know what? If you've got a chemical plant that threatens 100,000, or a million people in New Jersey, we better have some say in terms of how serious they are about guarding that facility."

Since the election, Obama has also listed chemical security on the Transition Team's web site at: http://change.gov/agenda/homeland_security_agenda, but as we look ahead to the new Congress, we will have less than nine months to enact permanent legislation because the interim law expires on October 4, 2009. Obama's leadership will be critical in keeping Congress on the right track.  If the new President calls for strong legislation and that is reinforced by the new Secretary of Homeland Security (Janet Napolitano) and the new EPA administrator (Lisa Jackson), the Congress will have an easier time resisting the chemical lobby and paying attention to the people.

While Congress is famous for making compromises, that works better when they’re spending money which is infinitely divisible, than it does on toy safety or protecting communities from another Bhopal disaster. The "change we need" is simply a requirement that high-risk chemical plants that CAN convert to safer technologies do so. The challenge for Congress is to summon the political will to put the risks now borne by more than 100 million Americans ahead of the lobbyists. For the publicly-owned water treatment plants Congress should make available grants, as part of the economic stimulus package, to local water authorities so the cost of their conversion doesn't compete with other local needs.

And let’s remember that any loopholes that are slipped into the new law will also be visible to al-Qaeda or anyone else who would do us harm.

Alternatively, once a plant converts to safer chemicals or processes, as hundreds have already, they might as well notify terrorists directly because attacking them will no longer achieve the disasters they are aiming for.

The good news is that it will happen if "the American people demand it." But we must "rise up and insist on" it. If we don't those 238 industry lobbyists and their PR firms and front groups will spend the year running out the clock and then try to pressure Congress to make the temporary law permanent.

Tell Congress to get tough on chemical security.

On the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks Senators Barack Obama (D-IL) and John McCain (R-AZ) suspended their presidential campaigns for a day and came together at ground zero in New York City to honor 9/11 victims and their families.  Is it possible to keep that cooperation alive?  What if they decided to work together in the Senate this fall to complete some unfinished 9/11 business from the last Congress?

In 2006 Congress passed a temporary law to set minimum-security standards for U.S. chemical plants.  Unfortunately it was ghost written by industry lobbyists and it actually prohibits the government from requiring the most ironclad security measures.  It also expires on October 4, 2009 which will give Congress little time in 2009 to pass any law, let alone one that protects us.
 
Cities that surround chemical plants have long been recognized as one of the nation's most vulnerable populations to terrorism and catastrophic accidents.  The Department of Homeland Security has identified 3,400 chemical plants that if attacked would each put neighboring communities of 1,000 or more at risk.  For example, one plant in New Jersey, the Kuehne chemical plant (see disaster map) puts 12 million people at risk due to its use of chlorine gas. According to the company’s own reports to the EPA, the disaster zone extends 14 miles, beyond ground zero in Manhattan.

Former Senator Warren Rudman (R-NH) told CBS’s 60 Minutes, “the threat is just staring us in the face.  I mean, all you’d have to do is to have a major chemical facility in a major metropolitan area go up and there’d be hell to pay politically.”

All that is protecting these plants today are security guards, video cameras, and fences. Instead of relying on guards and fences, we need to change what makes a chemical plant an attractive terrorist target.

Fortunately, many safer chemicals and processes are available that can turn these plants into safer places that would be pointless for a terrorist to attack. One example is a Canadian company, that’s in the very same business as Kuehne, which plans to open several new U.S. plants.  For more information: http://www.k2pure.com/news/28/23/

Safer chemical plants shouldn't be optional they should be the norm just like safer airplanes. But the chemical industry likes the temporary law because it actually bars the government from requiring safer chemicals or processes, in other words it eliminates their strongest competitors.  In addition, this law explicitly exempts thousands of chemical facilities including approximately 3,000 water treatment plants, many of which use deadly chlorine gas.

As you might expect the chemical industry wants Congress to do nothing this year and just renew the weak law NEXT year. That won’t make anyone safer but it will make the loopholes permanent.  In May we released a report showing that the chemical industry and allies fielded at least 238 registered lobbyists on Capitol Hill to keep the weak law weak.

So far this year only one Committee in Congress has taken action.  On March 6th, the House Homeland Security Committee adopted the “Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2008” (H.R. 5577) in a bi-partisan vote. Their bill addressed all the flaws in the temporary law. Unfortunately it has been stalled since June due to a dispute with the House Energy and Commerce Committee (see Greenpeace letter to Speaker Pelosi) over which government agency should regulate drinking water facilities.

In the U.S. Senate no legislation has moved. This is the perfect opportunity for Senators Obama and McCain to join together and break the logjam of special interests and infighting that’s preventing the safeguarding of millions of Americans.

Will they get together again? Stranger things have happened...this year. The cynics will say Congress doesn’t have enough time this year but they’re making time for the oil companies who want to expand their off-shore drilling leases. But if Congress does fail to take action, leaders in Congress and our presidential candidates should promise to put this on their agenda to pass in the first 100 days of the 111th Congress.  That's not as good as passing truly protective legislation now but it might give us another reason to vote this year.

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-- Rick Hind