WASHINGTON —
After months of delay, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today finalized a shortened list of approximately 300 hazardous chemicals to be regulated. The most important change from the list DHS proposed in April is that much larger quantities of hazardous chemicals will now be exempted from regulations.
After participating in a DHS briefing on the revised list, Rick Hind, Legislative Director of Greenpeace’s Toxics Campaign said, “we were shocked to learn that DHS increased the exemption of chemical quantities for every high-priority chemical, including chlorine, ammonia, and hydrogen fluoride gases. When pressured by the chemical industry, they folded like an old sheet.”
Most notably, the DHS exemption of up to 2,500 pounds of chlorine ignores several sobering events earlier this year. There have been at least five terrorist attacks in Iraq using 150-pound cylinders of chlorine gas and two thefts of similar quantities of chlorine in California and Texas.
When Greenpeace asked why the DHS chose to widen these loopholes, the DHS staff said they had received 4,000 comments. When pressed again, DHS staff stated that their April proposal used numbers representing 75 percent of the quantities that EPA uses and they simply chose to adopt the EPA’s numbers. The DHS, however, will now exempt up to 60,000 pounds of propane gas. The EPA threshold level for propane gas is 10,000 pounds.
Hind also pointed out to the DHS staff that the EPA numbers are based on accident scenarios. In their December 28, 2006 Federal Register notice, the DHS warned that terrorist attacks “may be larger” than an EPA accident scenario.
DHS Secretary Chertoff said this list of chemicals is “a critical piece of the federal effort to increase security at high-risk facilities.” The DHS regulations are based on a controversial statute attached to the DHS spending bill in the closing days of the last Congress. It exempts more than 3,000 facilities, bars DHS from requiring any specific security measures, and will expire in October of 2009. “Given the huge loopholes in this law and the DHS unwillingness to ask for stronger legislation, it should be clear for whom this law and these loopholes were written,” Hind said.
“This is another reminder to the Congress to take immediate action on permanent legislation that will protect the thousands of American communities still at risk. Hundreds of facilities are already using safer chemicals or technologies that will eliminate the consequences of a terrorist attack on a plant.”
Chemical facilities will now have another 60 days to complete what the DHS calls “an easy-to-use online questionnaire” and then the DHS will determine whether they should be subject to new regulations.
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Contact: Jane Kochersperger, 202-680-3798, cell or Rick Hind, 202-413-8513
