Chertoff touts chemical plant plan

WASHINGTON -- Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday that the White House favors new security regulations on the nation's chemical plants to reduce the risk of a catastrophic terrorist attack that could release a toxic plume over a city, but some government watchdogs said the administration's proposal is not tough enough to solve the problem.

Speaking at a forum cosponsored by the main lobbying arm of the $460 billion chemical industry, 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.

Yesterday, Chertoff said the Bush administration -- which has been largely silent on the issue -- is throwing its weight behind getting a bill passed this year.

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."

There are 123 chemical facilities nationwide where a significant accident or terrorist attack could endanger more than a million people, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. One of the facilities is a major storage and distribution center near downtown Boston.

Separately, Homeland Security has identified 3,400 chemical facilities that would pose a great hazard to humans if attacked.

The principles that Chertoff outlined yesterday match proposals supported by the chemical industry. Many corporations have adopted voluntary guidelines established by the American Chemistry Council.

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.

Congress is considering several chemical security bills.

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.

Specifically, Chertoff proposed a law that would order Homeland Security to divide the nation's chemical facilities into four categories based on the degree of risk posed by each. The government would then set certain standards for security and emergency planning for each level.

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

Auditors would make sure they are complying with their plans, and companies that failed to do so could be fined or shut down.

''Our object is to raise our security in a way that doesn't destroy the businesses we are trying to protect," Chertoff said.

''It's very easy to put all the weight on one side of the balance," Chertoff added, ''but if the consequence of that is that we stifle the economy, throw workers out of work, and make it difficult to live our way of life, then we will have actually succeeded in doing what our enemy has not -- caused our own loss of prosperity and our own loss of freedom."

But Ashford said Chertoff's proposal amounted to letting the chemical industry get away with doing as little as possible.

''This is not a serious attempt to deal with a major problem," he said.