The Department of Justice (DOJ) has informed Congress that it will not meet a statutorily mandated August 5 deadline for reporting on the vulnerabilities of chemical plants. The delay, which is the third such delay by DOJ on the same piece of legislation, has frustrated key Members of Congress who were instrumental in drafting the “Chemical Safety Information, Site Security and Fuels Regulatory Relief Act of 1999” (CSISSFRRA).
Among other things, CSISSFRRA directs industrial facilities to file risk management plans (RMPs) with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in June of each year. Included in the RMPs is an estimate of how many people living near a facility may be affected by a massive chemical spill, including projections of property damage, injury and death. More than 15,000 chemical facilities are required to file RMPs, and reveal their “off-site consequence analyses” (OCAs). The statute also directed DOJ to produce an interim report on August 4, 2000, concerning the vulnerability of chemical plants to terrorist activity. That report, as well as another, which was to have been completed on December 21, 2001, has not been completed. Now DOJ has informed Congress that it will not meet the CSISSFRRA deadline to complete the final report.
Key members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which drafted CSISSFRRA, met with DOJ representatives on February 13. When they learned that DOJ would miss the deadline, they asked the General Accounting Office (GAO) to conduct a detailed review of the preparedness of chemical manufacturing plants against terrorist activity. Representatives John Dingell (D-MI) and Frank Pallone (D-NJ) expressed concern that DOJ had failed to produce the required reports, particularly in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks.
DOJ maintains that it lacks funding for the project, an allegation that Democrat Members of Congress deny. DOJ has, however, been working with the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratory to produce a template and methods analysis that chemical companies can use to determine potential security vulnerabilities. That project should be completed within the next several weeks.
