Providing For The Consideration Of H.R. 2868, Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act Of 2009

Floor Speech

Providing For The Consideration Of H.R. 2868, Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act Of 2009

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Mr. DENT. Mr. Speaker, you are going to hear a lot of talk here today about chemical plant security, but let's be very clear. All of us, I think, in this Chamber understand the need for greater chemical plant security. As Mr. Lungren so eloquently stated, we have regulations in place, the so-called CFATS regulations, that are being implemented, and we should give them time to be implemented. I will get into that in more specificity in a few moments. But I do rise to oppose the rule here today.

Mr. Austria of Ohio offered an amendment that was rejected by the Rules Committee that would have exempted small businesses from the inherently safer technologies provisions contained in the legislation that we are discussing today. I would like to get into that IST in just a moment.

Again, we all support the need for greater chemical plant security. We should also note, too, that by adding drinking water and wastewater facilities, we will double the number of facilities that will need to be reviewed under the existing regulatory scheme. Actually, 4,000 of the 6,000 security vulnerability assessments have not yet been reviewed by the Department of Homeland Security, currently. Adding IST will complicate this thing to a much greater extent.

People who know a great deal about IST--``inherently safer technologies'' is the term--have opposed mandating it into this law. Congress is acting as chief engineer. We ought not to be doing that. But this legislation is not simply about chemical facilities. It is about facilities with chemicals. And what kind of facilities have chemicals? Well, what about hospitals, colleges, and universities? We have 3,630 facilities that employ 50 or fewer people who are going to be impacted by this. The point being is hospitals and colleges and universities are going to be subject to these inherently safer technology provisions contained in the legislation.

Now, specifically with respect to IST, Mr. Lungren just referred to the gentleman Scott Berger who came before our committee previously and vehemently argued against mandating inherently safer technologies in this legislation. But I do want to focus my comments on section 2111 of the chemical security title, addressing the concept of IST that was shoehorned into this security-focused bill.

There are similar provisions in the drinking water and wastewater titles, but this bill attempts to define IST, which is a catchy phrase. But I want to say that the concept of IST is not a new one. It's been around for decades as part of the environmental movement. As the Committee on Homeland Security prepared to tackle this bill back in June, I met with a number of scientists and subject matter experts. They consider it a conceptual framework, as Mr. Lungren said, that involves four basic elements: first, minimizing the use of hazardous substance; two, replacing a substance with a less hazardous one; three, using a less hazardous process; and four, simplifying the design of a process.

This is not a technology. It is a concept. It is a framework. It's an engineering process that may or may not lead to a technology. The engineers are very concerned about us mandating this, and here we are, Congress, filled with a lot of lawyers. I'm not a lawyer, but a lot of lawyers are telling them how to build a chemical plant. I represent a district where I have about 4,000 people who make a living building chemical plants, not just in this country but all over the world. They understand this. I'll give you an example.

They built hydrogen plants down by refineries on the gulf coast because you need the hydrogen to help purify or clean the air as it relates to sulfur emissions. It's a requirement. So you build a hydrogen plant down by the refinery. Substituting hydrogen for something else won't work. These plants were placed where they were for a specific reason, and the chemicals they are producing there are being produced for a specific reason. Let not Congress act like chief engineer for the government. We are about to ask the Department of Homeland Security to institute a means by which to police our chemical facilities on their implementation of a conceptual framework. Think about the implication of this for a second.

DHS will be required, under threat of lawsuit by any person, any person that the citizen suit provisions, to fine companies $25,000 a day for noncompliance with a bureaucrat's idea of whether a particular facility has sufficiently implemented a concept. Think about that. During the committee's only hearing on this legislation in June, I inquired with Deputy Under Secretary Reitinger about how many IST specialists they currently have at the department. His answer was, ``I think the answer is none.'' Similarly, when I asked Secretary Napolitano about the number of IST experts currently employed at the Department during our budget hearing earlier this year, she, too, indicated zero.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman from Pennsylvania has expired.

Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. I recognize the gentleman for an additional 1 minute.

Mr. DENT. I would also be remiss if I didn't mention the response of Sue Armstrong, director of the office responsible for implementing these requirements, when questioned on this topic. When I asked exactly what IST was, she demurred, stating, ``There is enough debate in industry and academia that I can't take a position on that very topic.'' Yet this bill not only asks her to do so but requires her, under threat of lawsuit, and saddles hundreds of facilities with the costs of the decision.

So, in closing, I just wanted to make this point once and for all that, you know, with unemployment rates approaching 10 percent, this legislation will imperil many jobs of people who make things, who make chemicals. I think perhaps the intent of some people proposing this legislation is simply that they would rather not have these chemicals be made in this country, that they be made elsewhere. This legislation will have the effect of making it more difficult to produce chemicals that we need in this country. They will be produced elsewhere.

I urge the rejection of this rule. We all support greater chemical plant security, but this is not the way to do it, and this will certainly cost jobs throughout America at this time.

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Mr. DENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I just wanted to point out that the legislation we are considering today is very different from the legislation that the committee considered a couple years ago. There are civil lawsuit provisions, civil suit provisions in here that are very, very different in this legislation than the bill we considered a couple of years ago.

The IST provisions have not been changed, but there are other differences in the legislation as well. This is not comparing apples to apples. These are very different bills, and there are a lot of reasons to oppose this bill. I just wanted to correct the record about my position on this bill and the previous bill.

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