Open to attact: Bush gives in to chemical companies, leaving the nation vulnerable.

• Author: Cusac, Anne-Marie

Since September 11, 2001, the nation has been on alert about the vulnerability of chemical facilities. And while the Bush Administration claims that homeland security is a priority, time after time, it has opted to do nothing dramatic to improve the security of U.S. chemical facilities. All along, it has followed the wishes of the U.S. chemical industry--at our peril.

The risk to the American people is great. According to the General Accounting Office, "123 chemical facilities located throughout the nation have toxic 'worst-case' scenarios where more than a million people in the surrounding area could be at risk of exposure to a cloud of toxic gas if a release occurred."

Approximately 700 other plants, says the GAO, "could each potentially threaten at least 100,000 people in the surrounding area, and about 3,000 facilities could each potentially threaten at least 10,000 people."

The Bush Administration knows there is a huge security risk. On February 6, 2002, George Tenet, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, testified that Al Qaeda could be planning to target chemical facilities. In February 2003, the Bush Administration announced that terrorists "may attempt to launch conventional attacks against the U.S. nuclear/chemical industrial infrastructure to cause contamination, disruption, and terror. Based on information, nuclear power plants and industrial chemical plants remain viable targets." (This article looks at security in the chemical industry.)

The Administration refuses to do what is necessary to protect the American public from terrorist attacks on chemical plants. Instead, it is listening to what industry wants.

"We haven't even done the minimal things," says Gary Hart, the former Democratic Senator from Colorado and one-time Presidential candidate. "There has been zero leadership from either the White House or the new department" of Homeland Security.

Hart has a lot of credibility on this issue. As co-chair of the United States Commission on National Security in the Twenty-First Century, he helped author the commission's prescient report, "New World Coming: American Security in the 21st Century," published in September 1999. The report warned that, in the course of the next quarter century, terrorist acts involving weapons of mass destruction were likely to increase. "Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers," it said.

Hart says that private industry won't spend what it takes to make adequate security changes. "I don't think many companies are going to disturb their bottom line," he says, "unless they are ordered to by the federal government, or if the President goes on national TV and tells them to do so." Those orders have not yet arrived.

Bush has given primary responsibility for overseeing security improvements in the chemical industry to the EPA. At first, the EPA appeared eager to take on the task. In fact, then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman even prepared a speech announcing a new security initiative, according to papers Greenpeace obtained through an EPA leak and a Freedom of Information Act request.

A June 11, 2002, document labeled, "Draft--Predecisional--Do Not Cite Or Quote," concerns a "Rollout Strategy for Chemical Facility Site Security." According to the documents, Whitman and Tom Ridge, head of Homeland Security, were to announce the new policy at the White House.

"I am pleased to join Governor Ridge today to announce a series of new initiatives by the Environmental Protection Agency to advance security at facilities that handle hazardous chemicals," Whitman's speech begins. "Particularly in the post-9/11 era, it should be clear to everyone that facilities handling the most dangerous chemicals must take reasonable precautions to protect themselves and their communities from the potential consequences of a criminal attack."

EPA was going to get right on it. "Starting in July, EPA representatives will begin visiting high priority chemical facilities to discuss their current and planned security efforts," the speech read. "These visits will allow EPA to survey security and, if appropriate, encourage security improvements at these facilities."

Despite the detailed preparations, Whitman never gave the speech, and the new policy was never issued.

What happened?

Industry weighed in.

"We heard from industry," says...