Chemical Safety Bill Needs to Pass in Congress Soon

The two houses of Congress have been batting around a bill that will require additional security at the nation’s 15,000 chemical plants. It has been stalled due to the introduction of amendments to the bill that attempt to regulate the chemical companies themselves.

Security concerns need to be separated from all other considerations at this time.

The bill should focus on getting more security fences, guards, cameras, and emergency response services in place to stop terrorists from trying to start huge chemical fires or explosions near the population centers.

The focus needs to move away from the government trying to tell the companies which chemicals they can use and which ones they cannot.

Instead, chemical plants should have an assigned classification based on the chemicals that are there and build the new security measures around that rating. The classifications should be based on chemicals that have the most potential to be damaging or destructive to humans should those chemicals be set on fire or blown up by terrorist bombs. The higher the plant is on the classification list, the more security it needs.

There may already have such a classification system in place, but security must be upgraded at all plants, not just some of them.

This bill needs to happen NOW. And this should be part of the Homeland Security budget as well. Protecting America’s chemical plants should be a joint operation between the companies and the government. This cannot wait any longer.