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U.S. Chemical Giants Seek Federal Law to Improve Security at Smaller Firms By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The largest U.S. chemical companies support federal legislation to impose industrywide security improvements as a way of forcing smaller firms to protect their chemical inventories from terrorist attacks, an industry representative said here yesterday (see GSN, April 27). The industry’s biggest players have stepped up security significantly since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but some smaller firms have made no changes, American Chemistry Council security head Dorothy Kellogg said at the McGraw-Hill Homeland Security Summit. “There’s some that have done nothing. That’s why we think federal legislation is necessary,” Kellogg said during a panel discussion on critical infrastructure protection. Since the September 2001 attacks, industry has often resisted federal attempts at new security lawmaking. National Security Research analyst Joan Grewe, who represents telecommunications interests, said during the infrastructure discussion yesterday that the U.S. Homeland Security Department should strive to place greater trust in business rather than impose security systems and standards from above. Kellogg said her association’s 140 companies, which she said represent more than 85 percent of U.S. chemical manufacturing capacity, have spent $2 billion since the 2001 al-Qaeda attacks implementing a new security code that involves vulnerability assessments at sites and outside verification of plant security. Homeland Security recommends the program for all chemical companies, she said, but legislation is needed to bring some nonmembers — “those few recalcitrants”— into line. “We’re not everyone in the chemical sector. We’re not everyone in critical infrastructure,” Kellogg said of her association’s members. During House of Representatives debate last week on the fiscal 2006 Homeland Security Department authorization bill, top Homeland Security Committee Democrat Bennie Thompson (Miss.) and others in the minority party sought unsuccessfully to insert new chemical plant security measures. At a hearing last month on chemical industry security, experts said sites housing modern industrial chemicals — many of which are similar to the chemical weapons of the early 20th century — could be targeted by terrorists in what would amount to a chemical weapon attack without need for transporting chemicals. U.S. Government Accountability Office environment chief John Stephenson said at the hearing that Homeland Security programs in the area were “still in their infancy” and that the overall state of the country’s chemical security was unknown. Kellogg said yesterday that the industry as a whole must improve background checks for employees, control of access to buildings, cybersecurity and security communications among companies and government agencies.
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