Illinois' landscape is dotted with plants that produce chemicals for car manufacturers, plastics for medical devices and fertilizers for farmers. These sites often contain volatile or toxic substances terrorists could use to poison neighborhoods or set off explosions. Further, the state is a top producer of pharmaceuticals and foodstuffs, making it a potential prime target. Still, five years after the 9/11 attacks, managers of these industries are largely policing themselves.
"Basically these plants are stationary weapons of mass destruction spread all across the country," Democratic U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois complained earlier this year. "Their security is light, their facilities are easily entered, and their contents are deadly. Now, five years after 9/11, the federal government has done virtually nothing to secure these chemical plants."
In late September, the feds did move to close the security gap. Congress approved a measure that would, for the first time, ensure that the federal government oversee chemical plants' security efforts. The law, tacked onto a budget bill for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, requires that agency to spell out within six months the precautions chemical facilities must take.
Obama and other Democrats argue the measure doesn't go far enough in protecting Americans against the threat of terrorism.
That threat is particularly significant for Illinois, the fourth-largest producer of chemicals in the country. Some 52,000 people work at Illinois' 745 chemical manufacturing plants. And terror attacks at those facilities could devastate communities both big and small. A handful of large industrial concerns store massive amounts of hazardous chemicals in the Chicago area, potentially affecting a million people or more in the event of an attack.
The new law specifies that each plant must identify its security risks and outline how it plans to minimize those dangers. Homeland Security officials will review the plans. The agency can inspect the facilities and shut them down or fine them $25,000 a day for violations, but it can't require specific action.
Leaders of the chemical industry told Congress they wanted national standards for chemical plants and emphasized the voluntary efforts by its members following the 2001 terrorist attacks, including the $3 billion the industry has spent to upgrade security.
"Security has always been a concern for chemical facilities, but 9/11 was a real paradigm shift," says Scott Jensen of the American Chemistry Council, a group of 133 large chemical manufacturers.
But the move to implement a national law for security at chemical plants stalled because of disagreements over how much power to give federal agencies and industry concerns that the law would lead to overly complex regulations. The industry ended up with a law mostly to its liking.
But Obama, who sponsored tougher legislation this spring, wanted more authority for the Department of Homeland Security. He and U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey also wanted to require chemical plants to use a strategy called "Inherently Safer Technology."
Other approaches — such as a concrete wall that can contain an explosion or sprinklers that can put out fire — are designed to reduce damage once something goes wrong. But Inherently Safer Technologies aim to minimize the risks in chemical manufacturing upfront by changing production processes.
Using that tack, a manufacturer might switch one chemical for another, less volatile one. Or the company could decide to handle dangerous materials at a cooler temperature or under less pressure. Or use a smaller amount of a volatile chemical at one time to reduce the damage if something goes wrong. Even simplifying the steps in the manufacturing process can reduce the likelihood of deadly errors.
Industry leaders say they are open to the technology. They note the chemical industry largely developed the Inherently Safer Technology approach. But they chafe at the prospect of federal regulators telling them how to make their products.
"This is not like baking a cake where you're substituting Splenda for sugar. It's a little more complex than that," says Mark Biel, executive director of the Chemical Industry Council of Illinois. "Government is good at a few things. I suspect making chemicals is not one of them."
One of the industry's chief concerns is the subjective nature of Inherently Safer Technology. Weighing safety considerations can be a complex process. Although storing less of an explosive chemical at one site could minimize the fallout in case of a fire, for instance, the chances of an accident while unloading or moving the chemical could increase.
And scientists can disagree over which technologies are safer. Chlorofluoro-carbons (CFCs), for example, were used as refrigerants. CFCs gained acceptance because they weren't flammable and they weren't toxic to humans like such alternatives as ammonia and sulfur dioxide. But the CFCs were largely banned starting in the 1980s because they damaged the ozone layer.
Nevertheless, the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington, D.C., think tank, argues it's often cheap and easy for chemical producers to adopt Inherently Safer Technology.
The group points to 284 facilities in 47 states that were dropped from an EPA list of high-risk sites after rolling out safer technology-based changes. The vast majority of them used common technologies, and half said the cost of the transition was less than $100,000.
One of the questions left unanswered in Congress' chemical security legislation is what role states can play in regulating hazards at chemical plants. The industry wanted the federal rules to trump state regulations, but the law is silent on the issue of pre-emption.
Illinois hasn't drawn up security rules for chemical plants, but the state is working with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to strengthen security in "buffer zones" surrounding vulnerable chemical sites.
In fact, the federal government for the first time last year dedicated money specifically for protecting chemical plants, and the new law will complement those efforts, says Jill Morgenthaler, Gov. Rod Blagojevich's deputy chief of staff for homeland security.
Morgenthaler, a retired colonel from the U.S. Army Reserve, says the state will dole out $3 million in federal grants to make those improvements, including new fences, barriers, cameras and infrared equipment.
"We would like the managers of the facilities to have all the infrastructure in place; however, we can't assume that they have," she says. "And, in the case of something that's very poisonous, we want to make sure there's infrastructure in place to stop terrorists or prevent extreme accidents."
But a handful of states have taken action to pencil regulations of their own. Last year, New Jersey issued regulations requiring chemical producers there to consider implementing Inherently Safer Technology. After evaluating more than 100 sites, officials in the Garden State report that the vast majority of those plants complied with the new state rules without problems.
Jensen, the official from the American Chemistry Council, points out that his group has helped legislators write laws on the subject in Maryland and New York. But he says keeping track of myriad state laws is troublesome for manufacturers, especially because many companies have plants in several states. Even if state laws aren't overly stringent, keeping track of the differences among states can be a complex task.
For now, chemical manufacturers in Illinois are digesting the law and waiting for the specifics the Department of Homeland Security must provide.
Chicagoan Edmund Stec, who is chairman of the American Chemistry Council's security committee and general manager of commercial services for Akzo Nobel, says his company has re-evaluated security at its sites — including two in Illinois — and consulted with local law enforcement and emergency responders as part of that process.
Akzo Nobel produces chemicals known as surfactants at its plants in Morris in Grundy County and another southwest of Chicago in McCook that is slated to close next year. Those chemicals reduce the surface tension in water and are used in everything from laundry detergent to shampoo to motor oil. They're produced from animal fat and oils from coconuts and soybeans.
The process of transforming the raw material into the surfactants involves synthetic chemicals, too. Ammonia, hydrogen, isopropyl alcohol, methyl chloride, ethanol and formaldehyde are all used. Many of those chemicals are poisonous, flammable or corrosive.
Stec says Akzo Nobel and other producers routinely look for ways to make their operations safer. "It's just good business to reduce your risk. But a lot of places, you can't just overnight change your processes."
Daniel C. Vock, a frequent contributor to Illinois Issues, is a reporter for Washington, D.C.-based Stateline.org and a former Statehouse bureau chief for the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.
Illinois Issues, November 2006
