Toxic-Free Communities News

Safer chemicals measure will protect communities and reduce risk of terrorist attack

WASHINGTON, November 6 — The U.S. House of Representatives today passed legislation to protect American communities from industrial and water facilities that use and store large amounts of highly hazardous chemicals. The House rejected efforts to gut the bill’s requirement that the most dangerous facilities implement safer technologies.

The Chemical and Water Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2868) will require thousands of facilities where a toxic release endangers the surrounding community to assess their ability to “reduce the consequences of a terrorist attack” by switching to safer alternative chemicals or processes, and authorizes the Department of Homeland Security and Environmental Protection Agency to require use of those alternatives at the nation’s most dangerous facilities where feasible and cost-effective.

“With this historic vote, the House said ‘Yes, we can’ protect American communities in the face of the ‘can’t do’ rhetoric of the chemical lobby,” said U.S. PIRG Public Health Advocate Liz Hitchcock. “Reducing the use of dangerous chemicals will make communities safer while also reducing the threat that chemical stockpiles become terrorist targets.”

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, one hundred facilities endanger more than a million people in the event of an accident or attack; more than 7000 facilities endanger thousands. One hundred and ten million Americans live in the shadow of catastrophic poison gas release from one of 300 chemical facilities.

Safer and cost-effective alternatives are already in use for many of the most dangerous chemicals. U.S. PIRG’s Needless Risk report documented that two thirds of U.S. oil refineries already use safer alternatives to hydrogen fluoride, a highly toxic and corrosive chemical that forms a heavy toxic plume that can travel for miles. The Center for American Progress has identified nearly three hundred facilities that have converted to safer chemicals and processes in the last decade.

Senator Frank Lautenberg (New Jersey) has announced that he intends to introduce a Senate version of H.R. 2868 this year, noting the momentum of the House vote.

“We should not tolerate unnecessary risk to millions of Americans when we know that we can do better, and we should not tolerate further delay in passing this already long overdue protection for America’s communities,” said U.S. PIRG’s Hitchcock. “We applaud the bill’s sponsors for their tenacious support for this important legislation, and look forward to working with champions in the Senate to bring this bill to the President’s desk.”

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U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups, is a non-profit, non-partisan public interest advocacy organization.
For more on our campaign to build Safer Communities, click here.
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