<DOC>
[109 Senate Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:23157.wais]
S. Hrg. 109-382
CHEMICAL FACILITY SECURITY: WHAT IS THE APPROPRIATE FEDERAL ROLE?
=======================================================================
HEARINGS
before the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
----------
JULY 13 AND 27, 2005
----------
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
CHEMICAL FACILITY SECURITY: WHAT IS THE APPROPRIATE FEDERAL ROLE?
S. Hrg. 109-382
CHEMICAL FACILITY SECURITY: WHAT IS THE APPROPRIATE FEDERAL ROLE?
=======================================================================
HEARINGS
before the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 13 AND 27, 2005
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
23-157 WASHINGTON : 2006
_____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512ÿ091800
Fax: (202) 512ÿ092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402ÿ090001
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman
TED STEVENS, Alaska JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio CARL LEVIN, Michigan
NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
TOM COBURN, Oklahoma THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island MARK DAYTON, Minnesota
ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico MARK PRYOR, Arkansas
JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia
Michael D. Bopp, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Allison J. Boyd, Counsel
Joyce A. Rechtschaffen, Minority Staff Director and Counsel
Holly A. Idelson, Minority Counsel
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
------
Opening statements:
Page
Senator Collins.............................................. 1, 49
Senator Lieberman............................................ 3, 50
Senator Voinovich............................................ 4, 59
Senator Lautenberg........................................... 6, 52
Senator Carper............................................... 7, 62
WITNESSES
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Martin J. Durbin, Managing Director, Security and Operations,
American Chemistry Council..................................... 8
Matthew Barmasse, Environmental, Health, Safety, and Quality
Director, ISOCHEM, Inc., on behalf of the Synthetic Organic
Chemical Manufacturers Association............................. 12
Bob Slaughter, President, National Petrochemical and Refiners
Association.................................................... 15
Gerald V. Poje, Ph.D., Former Board Member, U.S. Chemical Safety
and Hazard Investigation Board................................. 29
Glenn Erwin, Project Director, Triangle of Prevention Program,
United Steelworkers International Union........................ 33
Carol L. Andress, Economic Development Specialist, Environmental
Defense........................................................ 36
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Rear Admiral Craig E. Bone, Director of Port Security, Marine
Safety, Security, and Environmental Protection Directorate,
U.S. Coast Guard............................................... 53
Beth Turner, Director, Global Operations Security, E.I. duPont de
Nemours and Co., Inc., Wilmington, Delaware.................... 64
Jim Schellhorn, Director of Environmental Health and Safety,
Terra Industries, Inc., on behalf of the Fertilizer Institute.. 67
John P. Chamberlain, Security Manager, Asset Protection Services,
Corporate Security, Shell Oil Company, on behalf of the Shell
Oil Company and the American Petroleum Institute............... 70
Chief Robert A. Full, Fire Marshal/Emergency Management
Coordinator, Allegheny County (PA) Department of Emergency
Services....................................................... 74
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Andress, Carol L.:
Testimony.................................................... 36
Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 209
Barmasse, Matthew:
Testimony.................................................... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 102
Bone, Rear Admiral Craig E.:
Testimony.................................................... 53
Prepared statement........................................... 233
Chamberlain, John P.:
Testimony.................................................... 70
Prepared statement........................................... 264
Durbin, Martin J.:
Testimony.................................................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 91
Erwin, Glenn:
Testimony.................................................... 33
Prepared statement with an attachment........................ 144
Full, Chief Robert A.:
Testimony.................................................... 74
Prepared statement........................................... 272
Poje, Gerald V., Ph.D.:
Testimony.................................................... 29
Prepared statement........................................... 130
Schellhorn, Jim:
Testimony.................................................... 67
Prepared statement with an attachment........................ 253
Slaughter, Bob:
Testimony.................................................... 15
Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 119
Turner, Beth:
Testimony.................................................... 64
Prepared statement........................................... 238
APPENDIX
Survey entitled ``PACE International Union Survey: Workplace
Incident Prevention and Response Since 9/11'', October 2004, by
Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers
International Union (PACE), submitted by Mr. Erwin............. 150
``Security Vulnerability Assessment Methodology for the Petroleum
and Petrochemical Industries, Second Edition,'' October 2004,
American Petroleum Institute, NPRA, submitted by Mr.
Chamberlain.................................................... 277
``Security Guidelines for the Petroleum Industry,'' American
Petroleum Institute, April 2005, submitted by Mr. Chamberlain.. 428
Paul Orum, Working Group on Community Right-to-Know, July 2004,
report entitled ``Unnecessary Dangers: Emergency Chemical
Release Hazards at Power Plants,'' submitted for the record.... 482
Jon P. DeVine, Jr., Senior Attorney, Natural Resources Defense
Council, prepared statement, with an attachment entitled
``Critical Infrastructure Security Series, New Strategies to
Protect America: Securing our Nation's Chemical Facilities,''
by Dr. Linda Greer............................................. 522
Meghan Purvis, Environmental Health Advocate, U.S. Public
Interest Research Group, prepared statement with attachments
entitled ``Needless Risk, Oil Refineries and Hazard
Reduction,'' August 2005, U.S. PIRG Education Fund, and
``Survey of Chemical Industry Hazard Reduction to Protect
Public Safety, 2002 Survey Summary''........................... 549
The National Association of Chemical Distributors, prepared
statement...................................................... 587
Agricultural Retailers Association, submitted by Richard Gupton,
ARA Director of Legislative Policy and Counsel, prepared
statement with attachments entitled ``Guidelines to Help Ensure
a Secure Agribusiness,'' and ``Agricultural Retailers
Association: Security Vulnerability Assessment Workshop''...... 595
CHEMICAL FACILITY SECURITY: WHAT IS THE APPROPRIATE FEDERAL ROLE?
----------
WEDNESDAY, JULY 13, 2005
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:32 a.m., in
room 562, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Susan M.
Collins, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Collins, Lieberman, Voinovich,
Lautenberg, and Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS
Chairman Collins. The Committee will come to order. Good
morning.
Today marks the third in this Committee's series of
hearings on the issue of chemical security. At our first
hearing, we heard from experts about the potentially
catastrophic impact of a successful terrorist attack on a
chemical facility and about how vulnerable many chemical sites
are.
At the second hearing, the Department of Homeland Security
and the Environmental Protection Agency testified that current
laws are not sufficient, and the Administration pledged to work
with this Committee in developing appropriate legislation.
At today's hearing, we will hear from a variety of
witnesses who have a longstanding interest in the safety and
security of chemical sites.
Let me take just a moment to describe the chemical
industry. By economics alone, it is impressive. The total value
of chemical shipments in the United States approaches half-a-
trillion dollars annually. The chemical industry represents our
largest export sector, with exports totaling $91.4 billion in
2003. More than 900,000 people work directly in the American
chemical industry, with an additional 700,000 supplier jobs and
millions more in indirect jobs.
Perhaps even more significant than the economic impact is
the impact of chemicals on our daily lives. Chemicals are
necessary for more than 70,000 products that help make life in
our country what it is today and that have helped us to achieve
the greatest standard of living the world has ever seen.
How many people have enough food to eat because fertilizers
and other agricultural chemicals have helped to make America
the breadbasket of the world? How many Americans would die of
cholera and other diseases if we did not have chemicals to
treat our water supply? How many children's lives are saved
each year by the chemical compounds that make up prescription
medicines? Where would we be without computers and other
consumer electronics, which are not possible without chemicals?
It is an unfortunate fact of life that many things in this
world that have the greatest capacity for good also have the
greatest capacity to cause harm. Chemicals fall in that
category. While of immense benefit to society, chemicals can
also cause tremendous damage.
Since the first large-scale use of chemical weapons in
World War I, chemicals have been the most used weapon of mass
destruction by both governments and terrorists. As we learned
in chilling detail in this Committee's first hearing, even
necessary and legitimate chemicals have an immense capacity to
cause death and destruction.
It is a further fact of life that we often fail to
appreciate the significance of a threat until a catastrophe
occurs. For example, many of our most important chemical safety
measures were not established until after the tragic deaths of
thousands following a chemical accident in Bhopal, India. The
Chemical Safety Board, as well as the EPA's Risk Management
Plan program, were both established in response to Bhopal.
Many companies have recognized the need for stronger
security and have already taken strong steps to improve
security at their chemical sites. Many in the industry have
subscribed to well-regarded voluntary programs such as the
Responsible Care program. I applaud these efforts and strongly
encourage the continuation of voluntary actions to improve
security.
Unfortunately, as the Department of Homeland Security
testified at our earlier hearing, not all companies abide by
such codes of conduct. I look forward to hearing from our first
panel of industry representatives today about their views on
the need for mandatory measures to complement the voluntary
efforts.
Our second panel consists of representatives from
environmental, labor, and public advocacy groups. Environmental
groups and other public advocates have long sought to increase
public recognition of the risks inherent in operating large
chemical facilities, particularly near large population
centers. Similarly, labor representatives have long pushed for
greater worker safety at chemical plants.
Given that the chemical industry presents both tremendous
benefits as well as immense risks, it is critical that any
legislation strike a carefully thought out balance. Terrorists
seek to use our infrastructure and assets to cause maximum
disruption to our society and harm to our economy. In our
search for a solution to the threats that we face, we must be
careful not to accomplish the terrorists' objectives for them
by harming our economy.
I look forward to hearing from industry, labor, and
environmental groups in today's hearing. Their different views
and perspectives will be most helpful to this Committee as we
continue our work on this critical issue.
Senator Lieberman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN
Senator Lieberman. Thanks very much, Chairman Collins. As
you have noted, this is the third in a series of hearings that
our Committee has held on chemical site security. Since there
are not many subjects that get three hearings before the
Committee in 3 months, it should be very clear that the
Chairman and I and the Members of the Committee consider
chemical security to be a particularly urgent challenge for our
Nation and for this Committee.
This hearing, as we all know, comes just 1 week after
terrorists in London demonstrated yet again their intention and
capacity to attack and kill innocent civilians, to find and
exploit weaknesses in our homeland defenses. And even though
the most recent incident was an attack on a mass transit
system, it was a very loud and painful warning that we need to
continue to be alert, to be vigilant, to identify and close
vulnerabilities in our own country.
By any measure, the chemical industry today is one of the
sectors in American life that is most vulnerable to terrorist
attack. At our first hearing, we heard compelling testimony
about the potential risk posed by chemical sites across the
Nation. We were told that chemical facilities represent
potential weapons of mass destruction. If released through
accident or terrorist attack, the chemicals stored or
manufactured in these plants could kill thousands of people in
surrounding communities.
At our second hearing, the Department of Homeland Security
agreed that chemical facilities posed a serious risk from
terrorist attack. While describing some significant initiatives
taken by the chemical industry itself, the Department conceded
that these voluntary measures are not enough. Rather, the
Department said we need new legislation to ensure that all
facilities that use or store significant amounts of hazardous
chemicals, and therefore pose a terrorism risk, are subject to
minimum security standards. I agree.
Today, we will hear from representatives of the chemical
industry and other stakeholders, that is, those who work at
chemical sites and also environmental and safety advocates who
work on issues relating to the operation of chemical
facilities. These witnesses really can help us on this
Committee answer some of the most difficult questions that we
will need to answer as we attempt to draft responsive and
sensible legislation.
For example, one of our witnesses today, the American
Chemistry Council, developed a security code for its members
after September 11. I would like to learn more about what this
code requires, what are its strengths and weaknesses, and how
it might inform any Federal mandates, statutory mandates, for
chemical facilities.
Another important question that I have relates to local
preparedness and response. While some chemical facilities have
clearly tried to improve security on their premises themselves,
they also rely on local officials to secure the area outside
their gates and respond in the event of an accident or an
attack. Based on testimony at our earlier hearings and on
interviews by our Committee staff, I am concerned that State
and local officials will need more resources than they now have
to carry out those responsibilities, and I hope today we can
get some clarity about what is the best division of labor
between the chemical industry and public authorities and what
needs to be done by whom to ensure effective security and
response capability.
Third, I am also concerned that there may be many citizens
who live near chemical facilities who haven't been adequately
prepared and informed about what to do if there is an accident
or an attack at a chemical facility, and so I hope our
witnesses can help us to decide how we can improve public
readiness here.
And finally, and perhaps most difficult, we have to resolve
critical questions about how to define and regulate the word
``security.'' Some have argued that any legislation should be
limited to physical security measures, such as gates,
surveillance cameras, and access controls. Others say that
these types of measures will never stop a determined terrorist
and that we must instead figure out how to reduce potential
damage from these sites. Some have said that this will and
should require that the chemical industry look into alternative
substances or technologies to reduce the amount of harmful
chemicals it employs or configure them in ways that minimize
the risk of hazardous release.
I know that there is great disagreement about whether these
issues, all of them, should be addressed in chemical security
legislation, but there should be no disagreement, and I don't
believe there is, about the need to make our chemical industry
and processes as safe as possible, indeed, safer than they are
today, and the question is how to best get there.
A final word, Madam Chairman. Although the Administration
is not testifying today, I am sure that they are listening, and
so I want to reiterate my request made at our last hearing that
the Administration and the relevant departments take a real
leadership role in crafting chemical security legislation. I
know you and I are prepared and eager to work with them. We
need the benefit of the Administration's work on this issue and
its recommendations on legislation it believes is needed, and
we need that as soon as possible. Thank you very much.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Voinovich.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH
Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for holding
this series of hearings on chemical facility security. I
compliment your diligence in examining the issue. I look
forward to a bipartisan legislative effort to ensure that our
Nation's chemical sector is secure from the threat of terrorist
attack.
The chemical industry is a critical component of our
Nation's infrastructure. It is massive, impacting every facet
of our daily life. The scope and complexity of the chemical
industry warrants careful consideration of any new security
initiatives.
During the first hearing of this Committee on April 27, we
heard alarming statistics that warned of a devastating loss of
life in the event of a terrorist attack against a major
chemical facility. Senator Lieberman, in your opening remarks,
you made reference to the threat that is there.
In the hearing on June 15, we heard from the Environmental
Protection Agency and the Department of Homeland Security
regarding the safeguards that have already been implemented
industry-wide. I think we must recognize that there has been a
lot of legislation addressing safety at chemical facilities.
I recently hosted a round table discussion in Cincinnati
and included local officials, law enforcement, and emergency
response personnel. I was informed of the Community ``Right-to-
Know'' laws, which require companies to disclose what is inside
their facilities, assess the potential risk, and develop a
response plan. So there has been a lot of work on the local
level and by the industry that we should take into
consideration when we pursue this legislation.
Today, we are going to hear differing views on how the
Federal Government should best secure the chemical industry. I
look forward to learning the perspectives of each party as we
begin to debate the Federal role in securing this vital sector.
Though the risk of terrorism is serious, as last week's
horrific attacks on London's transportation sector demonstrate,
I must reiterate my belief that the Federal Government cannot
protect against every potential threat that we can possibly
conceive of in this country. Doing so would bankrupt the
Nation. I would like to state publicly that one of the stated
goals of the terrorists, the people who have announced that
they would like to do us harm, is that they want to hurt our
economy. We should learn the lessons of the Cold War. The
Soviet Union bankrupted themselves trying to protect against
whatever the United States might do to them.
So as we address the issue of chemical facility security, I
think as a Nation, we need to take into consideration just how
we are going to handle this. We must be wary of throwing money
at this issue. Further, if we require that the industry incur
the cost of enhanced security, it will have a horrific impact
on the economy. I would like to emphasize the importance of a
balanced approach between self-regulation by industry and more
proactive Federal action.
Industry leaders like the American Chemistry Council and
the National Petrochemical Association should be commended for
building a strong foundation for chemical safety. It is my hope
that the significant safety measures developed by industry will
be incorporated into legislation and built upon. Likewise, we
should carefully evaluate the laws already on the books and
seek to enhance those relevant to chemical security.
As we further explore the issue, I would like to iterate
four points. First, efforts to enhance the security of our
facilities should be sharply focused on prevention, protection,
and consequence management of potential terrorist attacks.
Second, Federal action to address chemical facility
vulnerabilities must not be burdened with extraneous issues.
Third, critical information must be protected from
unnecessary public disclosure, providing it only to responsible
government authorities that need to have access to such
information.
And fourth, Federal action should be based on risk and
vulnerability. In other words, security considerations should
be based on factors such as potential for adverse economic
impact and serious loss of life. A one-size-fits-all approach
will not work for chemical security.
Finally, Federal legislation should adhere to a
comprehensive cost-benefit analysis so as not to place industry
at a competitive disadvantage. As my colleagues may know, the
chemical industry is experiencing economic hardship as a result
of natural gas costs. In fact, we have gone from a Nation that
exported chemical products to a Nation that is now importing
chemical products because of the high cost of natural gas. The
industry is already under economic stress.
I think we ought to take all these things into
consideration when we are putting this legislation together.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Lautenberg.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LAUTENBERG
Senator Lautenberg. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for
convening this hearing, yet another on chemical security. As I
look at the witness table, I just left a Durbin and now we face
another Durbin. Welcome. Part of the family, right?
Mr. Durbin. Indeed.
Senator Lautenberg. But we know you are objective and we
welcome you. [Laughter.]
My concern about the security of chemical plants dates back
to the late 1990s, when I introduced the first bill in Congress
to deal with the problem. And while the industry has made
substantial investments in trying to improve the safety around
these plants, more obviously needs to be done.
Now, 2005, we are well past the time to start acting to
confront the terrible risks that have not diminished, but
rather have increased since September 11, and I commend
Chairman Collins for calling this hearing.
In view of the devastating attack in London last weekend,
it is clear that we can't let down our guard. But as the 9/11
Commission cautioned, we must not focus so much on the last
attack that we fail to continue to develop our own strategy.
Since September 11, we have focused on the security of our
aviation system. But the London attacks remind us that there
are many other potential targets in our country, particularly
chemical facilities. With over 15,000 chemical plants, storage
facilities in the country, we have quite an array of facilities
that under attack, could be devastating. More than half of
these are located in areas where an attack could claim
thousands or even millions of lives.
In my State, New Jersey, we lost 700 of our friends,
neighbors, and loved ones on September 11. We all hope that we
can prevent something like that from ever happening again. But
as horrible as the attacks on September 11 were, most of the
victims were adults, but this wouldn't necessarily be the case
in an attack on a chemical plant, since an incident there could
kill or injure thousands of innocent children at home or
school. The Congressional Research Service has calculated that
more than 8,000 schools or hospitals are near a chemical
facility.
Now, according to EPA, the largest zone of vulnerability to
widespread death and destruction is in South Carney, New
Jersey. You know that New Jersey has an industrial past, and we
welcome the jobs and the industry in our State. But in this
particular area, it is believed that an attack on this chemical
facility could kill as many as 12 million people. It is a
densely populated area, the New York-New Jersey region.
The threat is clear and our response deserves some
acceleration. New Jersey has some 1,600 chemical facilities
within our State borders. Not a single one of these facilities
is legally required to take any of the risk-reduction steps
identified by experts at our hearing a few months ago.
Ignoring the threat of a chemical plant attack won't make
it go away. So I urge my colleagues on this Committee, who I
know are very committed to the issue, to try to move forward
from this hearing toward a legislative remedy. I am not sure
that we can legislate everything that we want. Senator
Voinovich was correct. I mean, we can't disrupt an industry
that provides so much good, keep it from operating efficiently
or at costs way beyond their capacity. But we do have to
protect our citizens where we can, and I thank all the
witnesses who are with us and look forward to hearing their
views. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. Thanks, Madam Chairman, and to our
witnesses, welcome. We are glad that you are here today.
I was sitting here listening to Senator Lautenberg talk
about all the chemical plants that they have in New Jersey. At
one time, Delaware was known, among other things, as the
chemical capital of the world, with companies like DuPont,
Hercules both headquartered there with a number of facilities
there, as well. I don't think we ever had 1,500. You may have
bragging rights there.
We are known for a number of other things. We are also
known as the First State, the State that started the Nation, as
well as the Nation's summer capital, home of tax-free shopping,
Small Wonder. I expect we could go around the Committee here
and ask for each of us to tell what our States are known for or
famous for, and we could all do that. And we may not be the
chemical capital of the world, but we have a great deal of
interest in the security of the chemical plants that we do
have.
In Delaware, we have a bit of a reputation for being able
to get things done, for being able to work across the aisle,
for using common sense. It is one of those rare States where
actually Democrats kind of like Republicans and vice versa. It
reminds me a little bit of this Committee. This Committee has a
reputation for getting things done, and with the leadership of
Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman, we do work well across
the aisle. I am told they like each other, and frankly, we like
them, too.
This is an issue whose time has come. There are other
Committees that have sought to deal with this without a great
deal of success. The ball has been punted, if you will, in our
direction, and we are on the receiving end, and I am pleased to
see that we are going to receive that ball and take the kickoff
and run with it, and I look forward to providing some of that
upfield blocking and maybe a lateral from time to time, and let
us see if we can't get this ball in the end zone and provide,
whether it happens to be the chemical capital of the world in
Delaware or our neighbors to the East, a little greater
security not only for the folks who are really living around
those plants, but also those who are working there, too. Thank
you.
Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator.
Our first panel of witnesses represents some of the largest
chemical industry associations. Our first witness will be
Martin Durbin, the Managing Director of Security and Operations
and the Senior Director for Federal Relations at the American
Chemistry Council. ACC member companies are responsible for
approximately 90 percent of basic industrial chemical
production in the United States. We welcome you, Mr. Durbin.
I would also like to welcome Matthew Barmasse, Director of
Environmental, Health, Safety, and Quality at ISOCHEM,
Incorporated. Today, however, he is here representing the
Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association. He has
more than 25 years of experience in the chemical industry and
will provide this Committee with the perspective of how a
smaller company like ISOCHEM has improved security.
Last, I would like to welcome Bob Slaughter, the President
of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. The
NPRA has more than 450 member companies, including virtually
all the refiners and petrochemical manufacturers in the United
States. So we welcome you, as well.
Mr. Durbin, we are going to begin with you.
TESTIMONY OF MARTIN J. DURBIN,\1\ MANAGING DIRECTOR, SECURITY
AND OPERATIONS, AMERICAN CHEMISTRY COUNCIL
Mr. Durbin. Madam Chairman, Senators, good morning. My name
is Marty Durbin, and as the Managing Director for Security and
Operations at the American Chemistry Council, I appreciate the
opportunity to provide testimony on behalf of ACC.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Durbin appears in the Appendix on
page 91.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Allow me to directly address the question posed by this
hearing: ``What is the appropriate Federal role for chemical
facility security?'' On behalf of ACC, I am here this morning
to repeat and continue the call we have made for more than 2\1/
2\ years, and that is the need for legislation to set mandatory
national standards for security at chemical facilities and
provide the necessary regulatory authority to the Department of
Homeland Security to ensure this critical part of our national
infrastructure is protected.
ACC represents more than 130 of the leading companies in
the U.S. chemical manufacturing sector, and as noted, we are
responsible for nearly 90 percent of basic industrial chemical
production and are an essential part of our Nation's critical
infrastructure. As many of you have noted, the products of
chemistry are critical in many aspects of our lives, from
cleaning our drinking water to supporting agriculture and
spurring medical innovations to prevent and treat disease.
In my brief remarks, I would like to highlight the
following. First, the leadership role that ACC members have
taken to further ensure the safety and security of their
products, their facilities, the supply chain, and the
communities in which they operate, an investment to date of
more than $2 billion in security since September 11.
Second, the great strides we believe have been made by the
Federal Government and our industry, cooperatively, to secure
the chemical sector.
Third, the real need for Federal legislation to provide
nationwide assurances that all portions of the industry take
the same aggressive actions that ACC members and others are
taking.
And finally, our views on the important and often
misunderstood subject of inherent safety.
Security isn't new to our members, but the tragedies of
September 11, 2001, brought swift and decisive action from the
industry leaders of our association. Without waiting for
government direction, ACC quickly issued site and
transportation security guidelines in October and November of
that year, after which ACC's Board of Directors launched an
aggressive effort to develop a new, Responsible Care Security
Code. Implementation of Responsible Care, which is ACC's
signature program of continuous improvement in environmental,
health, safety, and now security performance, is mandatory for
our members.
The Responsible Care Security Code and ACC member security
enhancements have been widely and uniformly acknowledged by
government and security experts. State and local governments
have used the code as a model for their own regulation of
chemical facility security, and the U.S. Coast Guard, which
regulates security for nearly 240 chemical facilities under the
Maritime Transportation Security Act, recognized our Security
Code as an alternative security program for ACC members.
The Security Code itself required each of our member
companies to take the following four steps broadly. First, they
had to prioritize every facility by risk.
Second, they had to assess the vulnerabilities using
methodologies that were developed by Sandia National
Laboratories and the Center for Chemical Process Safety, which
is a program of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
Third, they then had to implement security enhancements
commensurate with the risks that were identified by those
assessments and taking into account inherently safer
approaches, engineering, and administrative controls and other
security prevention and mitigation measures.
And finally, they had to verify the implementation of those
physical security measures using third parties that are
credible in the local community, such as first responders and
law enforcement officials. All ACC member company facilities
have completed their vulnerability assessments, implemented
security enhancements, and to date nearly all have had those
enhancements verified.
The ACC Security Code also covers transportation and cyber
security. It allows our members to extend the reach of the code
throughout the physical and virtual value chain. Separate
guidance documents were developed to assist members in
implementing the code with those companies who transport our
products, including rail, truck, and barge.
Specific to cyber, our members lead an industry-wide cyber
security program that has developed guidance documents and a
broad practices standards and technology initiative. We believe
our members provide a model to other industries with similar
automated systems. Some of our members' cutting edge
facilities, in fact, have hosted visits by staff from DHS and
this Committee, and we have received very positive reports.
All of the guidance materials I have mentioned addressing
site, transportation, and cyber security, as well as the code
itself, are publicly available through our website so they can
have the broadest possible effect beyond our membership.
Now, turning to our partnership with the Federal
Government, the Homeland Security Presidential Directive Number
7 specifically names DHS as the lead or sector-specific agency
for the chemical sector. To achieve the infrastructure
protection objectives of that directive, ACC and its members
have worked in close partnership with DHS over the past years,
facilitated site visits to our member facilities, and
participated in their Buffer Zone Protection Program that
provides support and resources to local governments.
We created, fund, and maintain the Chemical Sector
Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a two-way 24/7
communications tool between DHS and the chemical sector, which
we operate as a public service through our CHEMTREC program in
cooperation with DHS.
We participate regularly in exercises and drills at all
levels, from facility-based emergency preparedness and response
drills to the recent national level TopOff 3 exercises.
We also facilitated development of the Chemical Sector
Coordinating Council, a group of 16 leading trade associations
that coordinates communication between DHS and our sector for
purposes of infrastructure protection. In fact, all three
organizations represented on this panel are members of that
Council.
Along with others in the sector, we are working with DHS to
develop tools and methods to help intelligently allocate
protective resources on a risk basis. That is not to say
everything is working perfectly in our relationship with DHS,
but we are all learning together, and we have made great
strides to improve the partnership between our sector and the
agency, and we have established a constructive relationship
that will allow for even better things as we move forward.
So why is Federal legislation necessary? Despite all the
progress that has been made to date, there is no way to assure
that all chemical facilities that need to be protected are
taking the same kinds of aggressive steps that ACC members have
taken to protect this critical sector. No doubt, many non-ACC
members have also taken appropriate steps, and they should be
commended. But as highlighted by DHS Assistant Secretary
Stephan at last month's hearing, there are high-risk facilities
that have not.
ACC has led the effort to ensure that all chemical
facilities are secured against the threat of terrorism. We have
worked continuously with Congress and the Administration for
enactment of national security legislation that will first
establish national standards for security of chemical
facilities. We agree with DHS that those standards should be
risk-based, reasonable, clear, and equitable, and that they be
performance-oriented in a way that will provide flexibility to
facilities.
Second, require those identified facilities to conduct
vulnerability assessments and implement security plans.
Third, provide oversight, inspection, and enforcement
authority to DHS.
Fourth, protect sensitive security information.
And finally, recognize responsible voluntary efforts.
Naturally, we believe that any Federal legislation should
enable DHS to give credit to ACC members for their substantial
actions and investments to implement the Responsible Care
Security Code. As witnesses at your April hearing concurred,
ACC members deserve a level playing field and a common set of
expectations. But let me be clear. We are not asking for an
exemption from the law, only that DHS be allowed to recognize
our members' significant actions just as the Coast Guard has
already done.
Without Federal action on this vital topic, State
legislatures will fill the void. Both Maryland and New York
have already enacted chemical facility security laws. And while
ACC was able to support both of those statutes, we strongly
believe that a national program, not an incomplete patchwork of
potentially conflicting State efforts, is necessary.
Finally, Madam Chairman and Senators, in the debate over
chemical security, no issue has proven more controversial than
the role of inherent safety. Because of ACC members' deep
investment in this issue, I want to spend the balance of my
time explaining our views and why we feel so strongly about
them.
In a nutshell, inherent safety means designing a process to
minimize hazards in the first place rather than managing and
controlling them with protective equipment or procedures. This
concept was invented by the chemical engineering profession and
our industry has long embraced it. Under the Responsible Care
initiative, inherent safety is a key element in the design and
modification of facilities and job tasks. Our members
continually conduct process hazard analyses of our facilities,
and those analyses can lead us to change processes, modify
procedures, or substitute materials to reduce and manage risks.
And, as I noted earlier, the Responsible Care Security Code
mandates that our members take inherently safer approaches into
account in assessing possible security measures.
I cannot overemphasize, however, that inherently safer
chemical processing requires considering all the risks
potentially associated with a process. Inherent safety
typically involves making very challenging judgments to ensure
that risks are not unwittingly shifted or substituted and that
overall risks are reduced.
Many inherently safer approaches involve trading one risk
against the potential of another.
For example, advocates of inherent safety frequently speak
of reducing onsite inventories or reducing or eliminating
storage of hazardous materials. While that may be appropriate,
reducing inventories at a facility may also increase the number
of truck shipments through a neighborhood. Similarly, replacing
a low-temperature, low-pressure process that uses a toxic
chemical with a process that uses a less-toxic chemical but
operates at a higher temperature and pressure may increase the
potential hazard to workers.
The challenge of trying to oversee inherent safety
decisions is compounded by the complexity of chemical industry
processes. Chemical companies make tens of thousands of
products, and there are no standard processes for making them.
To expect effective regulatory oversight in this area is
unrealistic, at least without great difficulty, expense, and
delay. In fact, in the Clean Air Act Risk Management Program
rulemaking, EPA concluded that requiring and reviewing multiple
process options at each regulated plant would not lead to
greater advances in process safety.
Members and witnesses at April's hearing agreed on the
importance of this legislation, and in Senator Voinovich's
words at the time, any legislation must be sharply focused on
security and not burdened with extraneous issues. We firmly
believe that judgments about inherent safety are fundamentally
process safety decisions that must ultimately be left to the
process safety professionals. So mandating IST, we believe,
should not be part of any security-focused legislation.
In closing, I just want to say that it has been nearly 4
years since September 11, and now is the time to act. So we
welcome this hearing, and we are committed to continuing to
work with this Committee and others to see that legislation is
enacted in this session of Congress.
Thank you, and I would be happy to answer any questions.
Chairman Collins. Thank you very much. Mr. Barmasse.
TESTIMONY OF MATTHEW BARMASSE,\1\ ENVIRONMENTAL, HEALTH,
SAFETY, AND QUALITY DIRECTOR, ISOCHEM, INC., ON BEHALF OF THE
SYNTHETIC ORGANIC CHEMICAL MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION
Mr. Barmasse. Madam Chairman, Members of the Committee, my
name is Matt Barmasse. I am the Director of Environmental,
Health, Safety, and Quality for ISOCHEM, which is a small
chemical manufacturer located in Western New York. My company
mainly produces phosgene and phosgene derivatives, serving very
diverse customers and markets, from pharmaceuticals to
photographic products.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Barmasse appears in the Appendix
on page 102.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am appearing today on behalf of the Synthetic Organic
Chemical Manufacturers Association, also known as SOCMA. I
appreciate the opportunity to speak with you about the
appropriate Federal role in chemical site security. SOCMA is
the leading trade association representing specialty and batch
chemical producers, most of which are small companies. As a
condition of membership to SOCMA, chemical companies must
subscribe to Responsible Care and its security code.
I will focus my remarks today on the nature of specialty
chemicals and batch manufacturing, our relationship with DHS,
EPA's Risk Management Program, and our perspective on
Inherently Safer Technology.
Specialty chemicals are essential ingredients and building
blocks for other products and perform very specific functions
based largely on their molecular structures, which give them
unique physical and chemical properties. Without these
substances, nylon would not be strong enough to use for seat
belts, medicine would revert back to what it was in the 1800s,
and our Armed Forces would not have the modern equipment and
supplies necessary to defend our country.
Because of their complex chemistries and narrowly focused
applications, specialty chemicals are typically produced in
small quantities, batch by batch. Most batch producers change
products frequently, often on customer demand and short notice.
This leads to frequent changes in the risk profile of the site.
In many cases, batch producers are located in nondescript
industrial or office parks with most of the processing
equipment either indoors or out of view, making them difficult
to recognize as chemical facilities.
Does this mean that my company and other SOCMA members feel
that we should do nothing about security? Absolutely not.
ISOCHEM conducted a security vulnerability analysis and
accordingly enhanced its security policies and procedures. We
spent over $750,000 to upgrade our physical and cyber security
since September 11. And again, we are a small company.
I do believe, however, that a one-size-fits-all approach to
security is neither appropriate nor feasible. Instead, SOCMA
and its members support a tiered, risk-based approach.
SOCMA has established a strong working relationship with
the Department of Homeland Security. DHS officials have met
with SOCMA and its members on many occasions. SOCMA staff and
member company experts are routinely consulted by DHS on
technical issues and participate on DHS work groups, such as
the team developing RAMCAP. SOCMA is a founding member of the
Chemical Sector Coordinating Council, which also works closely
with DHS.
DHS has also visited our site, providing valuable insight
and constructive suggestions to enhance security. ISOCHEM has
also been involved in our area Buffer Zone Protection Program,
enabling our region to receive direct DHS funding for security
upgrades. We are also participating in a RAMCAP pilot project
which will be conducted over the summer. In addition, DHS is
working with other Federal, State, and local agencies, trade
groups, and individual companies to secure America's chemical
facilities.
The Committee should be aware of other important efforts
currently underway. State and local authorities are often in
the best position to help secure our Nation's infrastructure,
and there are many ongoing efforts to augment chemical site
security. At the community level, we all have a mutual interest
in mind. None of us want our communities to be attacked by
terrorism.
In earlier hearings before this Committee, some have
suggested that a number of RMP facilities are unwilling or
unable to secure their facilities. While there may be some
outliers, which are primarily small-scale chemical users rather
than manufacturers, I am not easily convinced that they are
very attractive terrorist targets. Simply put, the figures
often cited by the press, 15,000 chemical facilities that put
thousands or even millions of people at risk, are just not an
accurate depiction of reality.
In fact, the RMP database, especially the worst-case
scenarios, were never designed to be realistic. EPA and DHS
officials have made this point repeatedly, and this has just
been reaffirmed by the Congressional Research Service. Yet I
repeatedly see RMP data used to scare people into thinking that
the chemical industry is putting our communities at significant
risk. This is both irresponsible and inaccurate. It is unfair
to the chemical industry, DHS, and the local authorities with
whom we work closely.
An important consideration missing from RMP methods include
the safety systems in place at our facilities, our outstanding
emergency response capabilities, residential and industrial
building codes, and the realities of how hazardous materials
behave when released, which will explain why we don't see
Bhopal-like incidents occurring here in the United States.
That is not to say RMP data cannot be useful. While we
believe that most facilities falling under the RMP program are
not attractive terrorist targets, the list does provide a
reasonable universe of sites to begin screening and
prioritizing according to risk.
Inherently Safer Technology (IST) is probably the most
misunderstood and controversial aspect of chemical site
security. IST is a philosophy, it is not a technique, and it is
certainly not a panacea for securing America's chemical
facilities. Many non-scientists have been led to believe that
the only way to achieve inherent safety is by substituting for
the hazardous materials used in chemical manufacturing and
processing. Application of IST, however, is bound by the laws
of physics and nature. Physical laws place restrictions on what
can and cannot be done when trying to make a chemical. In
chemistry, reactive substances must be used to form new
molecules and many reactive chemicals are, by their very
nature, hazardous.
Where hazardous chemicals are used, they are highly
regulated by EPA and OSHA and appropriately managed by chemists
in universities, government, and industry. The fact of the
matter is that scientists cannot produce the materials that
make our standard of living possible without using very
specific chemicals.
Making medicine is a good example. Phosgene is a key
building block for an important starting material in a
pharmaceutical application. The structure of phosgene allows
for transfer of atoms that is clean, meaning that it does not
allow side reactions to occur that would contaminate the
compound with potentially toxic byproducts. Using phosgene
helps secure the safety of medicines used to treat diseases,
such as MS.
Another important factor is the potential for transferring
risk from one area to another. For example, if the amount of a
chemical stored onsite is reduced, the only way to maintain
production schedule is to increase the number of shipments to
the site, which increases the transportation and transfers the
risk.
The very nature of hazardous chemicals provides important
economic incentives for companies to use the safest and least
hazardous chemicals possible, including reduced accidents,
cheaper transportation and disposal costs, cheaper insurance
rates, fewer government regulatory requirements, and avoidance
of facility down time.
With all these incentives in place, the question becomes
why do chemical companies still use hazardous materials? The
simple fact is that the law of physics and nature are much
larger drivers than anything else. No Federal program mandating
IST will change the science of chemistry. Instead, such a
program would result in nothing more than a burdensome
paperwork exercise forced on companies just to justify their
scientific methods and decisions while doing nothing at all to
enhance security.
As noted earlier, chemical sites are extremely diverse as
are the chemistries that take place within our facilities.
Because of this, a one-size-fits-all approach to security of
chemical facilities with prescriptive standards just will not
work, nor will attempting to mandate Inherently Safer
Technologies.
SOCMA and its members support a tiered risk-based approach
to security that begins with a mechanism to screen and
prioritize sites and concentrates further work on areas with
the greatest degree of risk. Any Federal oversight of security
in a chemical sector needs to account for the significant
voluntary efforts already undertaken. It should also use
performance-based fundamentals that provide the flexibility
needed to implement effective site-specific programs.
Key elements of such a program include a clear definition
of covered entities and any exceptions; recognition of past
efforts and voluntary programs that are substantially
equivalent to DHS requirements; flexibility in achieving
compliance; compliance assistance for small companies; risk
screening for prioritization across covered facilities; DHS
approved security vulnerability assessments for higher-priority
sites; Federal preemptive authority for DHS; retention of
security plans containing critical infrastructure information
with availability to DHS upon request; and finally, recognition
of efforts by the regulated community under other security
programs.
Madam Chairman, Members of the Committee, thank you for
your consideration of SOCMA's perspective of these important
issues, and I am happy to answer any questions you have about
my testimony.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Mr. Slaughter.
TESTIMONY OF BOB SLAUGHTER,\1\ PRESIDENT, NATIONAL
PETROCHEMICAL AND REFINERS ASSOCIATION
Mr. Slaughter. Thank you very much. Madam Chairman, Senator
Lieberman, and other Members of the Committee, my name is Bob
Slaughter. I am President of the National Petrochemical and
Refiners Association.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Slaughter with attachments
appears in the Appendix on page 119.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
NPRA's member companies constitute an extremely broad
representation across two industries, the petrochemical
industry and the refining industry, as well as their suppliers
and vendors. On behalf of our members, I do want to begin by
thanking you for the opportunity to appear today and for
holding this important hearing, as well as for the very
balanced and fair opening statements.
We would like to offer the following summary of our
complete testimony. Maintaining the security of our facilities
has always been a priority at refineries and petrochemical
plants. It is job one. It simply has to be that way. Our
industries have long operated globally, often in unstable
regions where security is an integral part of providing for the
world's energy and petrochemical needs.
After the occurrence of the tragic events of September 11,
those industries realized, as did everyone else, that
additional threats had to be taken into account to secure the
critical assets that we own. Our members began implementing
additional and far-reaching measures to address these new
threats, and you have asked what are some of those steps.
We developed, along with our sister association, the
American Petroleum Institute, a peer-reviewed Security
Vulnerability Assessment methodology especially attuned to the
needs of refining and petrochemical industries. The Department
of Homeland Security has endorsed this methodology and, in
fact, uses it in instances to train its own people.
Under that methodology, you analyze a facility to determine
the vulnerabilities. You identify potential threats. You
identify potential security vulnerabilities. You determine the
risk by measuring the likelihood of an attack and the
consequences, and you recommend appropriate incident mitigation
and countermeasures. You identify the appropriate security
measures and incorporate them in a security plan addressing the
SVA findings, which is then implemented.
Our members have conducted security vulnerability
assessments pursuant to these plans, and they have prepared and
implemented facility security plans in response to the
findings. In 2004, the SVA methodology was extended to
transportation-related activities, including pipelines, rail,
and truck transportation.
We developed an extremely close working relationship, as
well, with key Federal agencies, as well as State and local law
enforcement officials, to obtain and exchange critical
information. We are actively partnering with DHS on many
important security initiatives, including the development of
the Risk Assessment Methodology for Critical Asset Protection,
or RAMCAP, the Homeland Security Information Network, HSIN, and
the Buffer Zone Protection Plan, among others. Other groups
that we work with include the FBI, the Department of
Transportation, DOE, the Department of Defense, the CIA, the
Government Accountability Office, and, of course, the
Department of Homeland Security and its various components,
particularly the U.S. Secret Service, Transportation Security
Agency, and Coast Guard.
We have held joint training exercises simulating terrorist
attacks on numerous occasions with both Federal and State
officials. We have developed training programs involving
Federal and State Government officials. We have shared best
security-related practices among large and small companies that
constitute our diverse membership at NPRA meetings and
conferences. We have held five national security conferences
involving large numbers of companies in both industries since
2001. Again, they have shared best practices, they have heard
from experts, they know what the state of the art is when it
comes to security practices.
Our members, like others, have complied with the 2002
Maritime Transportation Security Act. The Coast Guard has
jurisdiction over a majority of the 150 refineries and 200
petrochemical manufacturing facilities in the United States.
SVAs and plans have been submitted to the Coast Guard. They
have been reviewed and approved. Companies have designated
Facility Security Officers to oversee implementation. Quarterly
drills are required to test the elements of these plans.
Companies themselves have taken strong new security
measures. They have reconfigured sites. They have set critical
assets back from perimeters and installed electric intrusion
detection systems, implemented card access controls using
biometric technology. They have acquired enhanced security
community systems, shared security response plans with local
law enforcement and appropriate Federal agencies. They have
conducted drills and exercises to test security and response
plans, and hired additional security personnel. There is an
even more complete list of this, which in itself is still
partial, in the filed testimony.
You have asked for NPRA's position on legislation. We do
not oppose reasonable chemical security legislation and
regulation. However, the existing system, we believe, is
working well and care must be taken to do no harm to current
efforts in fashioning your ultimate product. Although we have
not advocated legislation, we realize this Committee and DHS
have both announced support for new regulatory authority, and
in response, we have developed some principles that we hope the
Committee will consider and adopt in Federal legislation, and
we look forward to working with you on that.
Our principles are, you need to be prudent in fashioning
what could amount to a significant additional and costly
mandate on America's scarce refining and petrochemical
facilities. There has been a lot said about how scarce our
refining facilities are in the United States. We have not built
a new refinery in the United States since 1976. So security
needs to be maintained at these facilities, but we have to have
an eye toward the impact on their survivability and the
maintenance of these facilities in the United States.
The same with petrochemicals. As Senator Voinovich pointed
out, the petrochemical industry has been under intense pressure
on natural gas prices in recent years, so no one wants to
compromise security, but requirements need to be reasonable.
These are scarce assets and necessary to national security.
We hope you will try to maintain the close and highly
productive relationship that currently exists between the
Department of Homeland Security, other Federal, State, and
local governmental bodies, and the refining and petrochemical
industries. That relationship is largely responsible for the
success of security programs in those industries thus far. We
are concerned about the impact of new legislation on this
productive relationship. The dynamics of the relationship could
be affected and the current level of information sharing could
be diminished and that would not be productive, and we hope you
will keep that in mind as you fashion your legislative product.
We hope that you will use MTSA as the model for any new
security legislation. It has clear performance-based
requirements. Essentially here, we are talking about support
for a tiered approach based on risk. We favor reliance on
Security Vulnerability Assessments and responsive facility
security plans with exercises, documentation, reporting
procedures, and audits, protection, above all, for sensitive
security information.
We think there should be self-assessment and auditing. We
have had good experience with Coast Guard jurisdiction. We
would assume that you would set up a Department of Homeland
Security jurisdiction for facilities not subject to Coast Guard
jurisdiction. We think that a facility that currently is
partially covered by the Coast Guard should be able to opt in
its whole facility if it chooses. We hope you will preempt
other Federal and State programs so there aren't a lot of
overlapping requirements that will make it difficult to comply
and understand what the rules are.
We hope you will credit companies for security programs
already implemented by companies. We have not developed and
marketed a proprietary NPRA program for our members. We have
tried to let them know what the state of the art is. We have
some of the largest meetings in the world in the petrochemical
and the refining industry, and we have invited folks to come in
and talk about their programs, including ACC, so that our
members will know what is available. We let them make their own
choice.
We hope you will help companies with background checks, to
define the criteria for denying access to facilities, and
hopefully allow companies to access and utilize government
resources and databases in making employment decisions.
Again, we hope you will require DHS to develop a tiered
risk-based approach to regulate chemicals and facilities.
We were very much encouraged by the DHS statement before
this Committee and others that they are developing core
principles based on risk, reasonable, clear, equitable and
enforceable security standards, ones that recognize investments
and the progress that companies have made so far. We are
committed to continuing that progress however we go forward.
So just to conclude, I want to underscore again that
refiners and petrochemical manufacturers take very seriously
the responsibility to maintain and strengthen security at
facilities. We urge the Committee to fully consider the impact
of legislation on existing programs and practices. Please use
MTSA as the template for developing new chemical security
requirements and embrace and support the core principles
outlined by DHS at this Committee's June 15 hearing.
I am happy to answer any questions the Committee may have
on our testimony. I want to thank you again for offering us the
opportunity to be here today.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
Mr. Durbin, you testified that compliance with the
Responsible Care Security Code is mandatory for ACC members.
First, could you explain to us how ACC monitors compliance with
the code, and second, what would your suggestions be for
compliance measures to be included in the legislation that we
will be drafting?
Mr. Durbin. Senator, for the Responsible Care program
overall and the Security Code, we have set the guidelines for
the companies to follow within the code and they self-assess.
And in the case of the Security Code, they actually had to
report to a third party that they had completed the steps that
I outlined. And again, if they had not done that, they had not
met those guidelines within the code, then we have a governance
process that would first try to bring them into compliance, and
if not, make clear that they are no longer eligible for
membership.
With regard to compliance within legislation, again, I
think, clearly, we have stated very clearly that there should
be clear oversight, inspection, and enforcement authority for
DHS. All that we asked, just as the other witnesses have, as
well, is that we give DHS the ability to look at work that has
been done through programs such as those that have been cited
and determine whether or not they are essentially equivalent to
those regulatory programs, and if so, let us not force
companies to duplicate efforts that they have already made.
Chairman Collins. Mr. Slaughter, in your written testimony
and again this morning, you have cited the Maritime
Transportation Security Act as a model that this Committee
could use in drafting chemical security legislation. Under that
law, the Coast Guard has the authority to shut down a facility
if the Coast Guard determines that the facility has not
established sufficient security measures. In fact, the law
prohibits a facility from operating unless it has submitted and
is in compliance with a security plan approved by the Secretary
of Homeland Security. Would you support giving the Department
of Homeland Security similar authority to shut down chemical
facilities that the Secretary determines have not taken the
necessary steps or security measures that the Department deems
necessary?
Mr. Slaughter. Obviously, any regulatory entity, Madam
Chairman, has got to have ultimate authority to enforce its
requirements. I think you have to hope that any regulatory
authority will use wisely whatever authority they are given,
and I don't believe that anyone in the industry would be
disinclined to grant that as the ultimate authority to the
Coast Guard under MTSA. But again, one would hope there would
be a number of steps and the good working relationship has been
set up with the Coast Guard and DHS, but that is probably one
aspect of that regulation, yes.
Chairman Collins. Mr. Barmasse, more than 3 years ago, the
CIA first alerted us to the possibility of an al Qaeda attack
on chemical facilities, and since that time, many experts both
inside and outside of government have warned the industry that
you are a potential target. That is different, however, from
knowing the specifics, from knowing that there is a specific
plant that is at risk or a specific plot against a particular
sector.
I am curious about the flow of communication and
information sharing between the Department and smaller
companies like yours. I suspect that the Department has a very
close communication and working relationship with the ACC and
with larger industry players. But could you tell us how a
threat that would involve plants that are smaller, like yours,
would be conveyed and assess for us the extent of communication
and information sharing between the Department and the smaller
manufacturers?
Mr. Barmasse. We have been very pleased with the flow of
information from DHS and through the chemical sector, ISAC,
which anybody can participate in to get that type of
information on chemical site security. We signed up for that.
We get notices and information on potential threats. And the
Department of Homeland Security and their different offices
within the Department have been very forthcoming with
information and sharing information. They visited our site.
They have assessed our security procedures that are in place.
They provided valuable information on how to assess threats,
and we have found that the information flow from them through
the chemical sector, ISAC, has been very good, which all small
chemical companies would be available to. So it has been a very
good relationship to date and the information has flowed very
well.
Chairman Collins. That is good to hear.
Mr. Durbin, one of the issues raised by witnesses at our
previous hearings is that while 80 percent of the industry is
complying with voluntary codes and has taken sometimes very
expensive measures to improve security, there is a smaller
percentage, possibly as much as 20 percent, according to the
Department, that has not implemented the kinds of security
measures that your members have embraced.
Are there competitive issues at play here? What I am
thinking of is that a company that makes the investments, and
they may well be expensive investments, to improve security may
be put at a competitive disadvantage compared to a counterpart
that does not make those investments.
Mr. Durbin. Certainly. I think it is clear that we have--
just speaking for ACC members, we can point to more than $2
billion worth of investment in security. That doesn't count
what my counterpart organizations here at the table have also
invested there. But while that is certainly a consideration,
and something that I think from our members' standpoint, yes,
we would like to see the playing field leveled and ensure that
as we do move forward, we are not forced to make duplicative
investments, the fact of the matter is our primary drive here
is that you have a critical sector, critical part of this
national infrastructure that has to be protected, and we have
to have those nationwide assurances that the entire sector is
acting in ways that it should.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
Senator Lautenberg. Madam Chairman, may I make a request
that questions be answered by the witnesses in writing? I have
to go to another hearing.
Chairman Collins. Certainly. The hearing record will remain
open for 15 days. Senator Lieberman.
Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Madam Chairman. Thanks to the
witnesses for their testimony this morning.
Let me ask this question. Despite some of the significant
steps that the industry has taken, which you have testified to
today, there have been media reports relatively recent that
suggest an unacceptable level of access to some chemical
facilities with dangerous materials. Most recently, the New
York Times reported that the stretch of Northern New Jersey
between the Newark Airport and Port Elizabeth, which has more
than a dozen chemical plants and a lot of other potential
targets--storage tanks, refineries, and pipelines--was very
accessible to trucks. Apparently, you could drive within 100
feet of storage tanks. A Times reporter and photographer, and I
quote here from the story, ``found the plant only loosely
guarded as they drove back and forth for 5 minutes, snapping
photos.''
This experience echoed previous incidences, which I am sure
you are familiar with, including one highlighted on ``60
Minutes'' where reporters easily gained access to a chemical
facility near Pittsburgh, which contained very toxic and
explosive chemicals.
Given the work that the industry has done, how do you
explain these incidences and what do they say to us about what
more should be done? Mr. Durbin, do you want to start?
Mr. Durbin. Sure. In the instances that were cited with
``60 Minutes,'' if there is access to a facility, and certainly
getting to the more sensitive areas of a facility, frankly,
that is unacceptable, and I think that is why you have to have
programs that are focused on making sure those things won't
happen and why we as an organization have been calling for
national legislation to make sure that we do have those kinds
of standards set in place.
It is difficult to comment on other stories without knowing
more details, but not all security preparations are obvious or
visible. So I am reluctant to get into specifics on any one----
Senator Lieberman. No, I understand----
Mr. Durbin [Continuing]. And you are talking about public
roadways and what have you. But in general, again, I think that
this just points out why there needs to be a nationwide set of
standards to be sure that all those facilities that ought to be
taking these kinds of actions are doing so.
Senator Lieberman. I appreciate that answer. Mr. Barmasse.
Mr. Barmasse. And again, I am not familiar with the
specifics of those, but we are also supportive of legislation
that is reasonable and flexible for the risks associated with
facilities. A facility like ours takes quite a few steps to
make sure that our facility is adequately secured. We have gone
through a lot of the risk assessments and worked with DHS to
help identify those threats. And I think many of the small
companies are doing similar-type things. So we would be very
supportive of legislation that does provide those types of
security.
Senator Lieberman. Mr. Slaughter.
Mr. Slaughter. Senator Lieberman, we work very closely
through our NPRA Security Committee with our members, who go
from the largest to the smallest of companies. I can tell you
from what I have seen personally and what I have heard is that
they are extremely sensitive to problems such as were discussed
in this particular article, which I also have read.
Senator Lieberman. Right.
Mr. Slaughter. And we certainly have sent a very strong
message, and they have heard it and they have heard it from
others, that this is unacceptable behavior. So it is difficult
to determine--the company names I have seen are people who are
not our members, but sometimes you don't see them. But this is
behavior which seems to be very different from what we are
seeing in our members who are watching to see if anyone takes
pictures of the facility or anything. So it is difficult to
determine who the outliers are. All of us are united here in
efforts to get the information about best practices out and to
see that they are enforced.
Senator Lieberman. OK. I appreciate the answers. I think
you draw the same conclusion I do, which is that these stories,
generally speaking, speak to the need for national standards
and for legislation.
Mr. Durbin, let me ask you this. After September 11, I know
that your organization added a security requirement to the
Responsible Care Security Code that requires facilities, and I
applaud this, to conduct a vulnerability assessment and then
prepare and implement a security plan. There is third-party
verification of plan implementation. However, the third-party
review consists of verifying that the chemical facility took
the steps outlined in the security plan, but it doesn't conduct
an independent assessment of whether the plan is adequate to
the threat.
Is there a need for a truly independent assessment of the
sufficiency of the security measures taken in our Nation's
chemical facilities?
Mr. Durbin. You are absolutely correct, Senator, in your
explanation of the verification process, and that is how it was
set out when the code was developed. At that time, the overall
program was moving from one of a separate set of codes to what
is now the Responsible Care Management System. So we put the
code in place and the verification piece that you described in
place in the interim.
Now, as we move forward, we are moving to RCMS, modeled on
ISO 14,000, where there actually will be third-party
certifications and audits of companies that will encompass
everything they have done in the environmental, health, safety,
and security area. So moving forward, there will be those
independent third-party auditors coming in to certify that they
have taken appropriate actions.
Having said that, we were also working toward trying to get
a government role that would help to assure that the actions
taken were indeed up to the measure on whatever the national
standards are that would be set.
Senator Lieberman. OK. My time is up. Thank you for that
answer.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Voinovich.
Senator Voinovich. I have been thinking about this from a
perspective of a former governor and former mayor, and I am
wondering how you get all of this done? Specifically, what
percentage of the industry is covered by MTSA?
Mr. Slaughter. For refining, it is over half of the
refining facilities and probably over half of the petrochemical
facilities, as well, Senator Voinovich. They tend to be located
close to coasts and large navigable waterways.
Senator Voinovich. OK. How much different is the MTSA
regulations as to the Responsible Care Security Code? How
similar are they?
Mr. Durbin. Actually, Senator, they are very close. In
fact, as I noted, the Coast Guard was given the authority to
look at programs like Responsible Care and determine whether
or not they were substantially equivalent. We worked with them
over about a 6- to 9-month period to walk through their
regulations and our program, and at the end, the Coast Guard
was willing to declare that the Responsible Care Security Code
was an alternative security plan for complying with MTSA. They
did require each facility to provide some additional
information on what they will do when we raise the alert levels
in the port, but overall, our companies did not have to go back
and redo vulnerability assessments----
Senator Voinovich. So from the Committee's point of view,
if we looked at your Responsible Care Security Code and looked
at the MTSA regulations, that could give us a nice picture of
what we should be doing in terms of regulation. Now, does the
Coast Guard verify that MTSA is being carried out?
Mr. Slaughter. Yes, Senator.
Mr. Durbin. Yes, sir.
Senator Voinovich. From your perspective, is it pretty
conscientious?
Mr. Durbin. It is extremely conscientious. It is one of
the, frankly, rare times that our members say that a Federal
agency is extremely conscientious, and also, they have a very
good relationship with that group.
Senator Voinovich. How do your recommendations differ from
one another? If you read the testimony, you are almost all in
sync about what you think the legislation should look like. You
all agree that there should be national legislation. So how
much different, in terms of your consensus of the legislation,
is it from what the Department of Homeland Security has
suggested as the kind of legislation that needs to be
implemented? Is there a wide discrepancy? I have asked my staff
to look at that, but from your perspective, how far off are
you?
Mr. Durbin. Again, just responding to what we have heard so
far, what Assistant Secretary Stephan laid out in his testimony
and from discussions with them, so from the broad context, I
think we are very supportive of the approach that they are
taking on this. Again, nothing specific to respond to yet, but
very supportive of the structure they have laid out.
Senator Voinovich. It would be interesting to get from DHS
their opinion about what the industry folks are recommending in
terms of the legislation.
The other issue, then, is the bureaucracy. I understand
that the Coast Guard is responsible for the facilities or
navigable water. What bureauacy do you suggest should monitor
the rest of the facilities?
Mr. Slaughter. That is correct, and we suggested DHS
outside of the Coast Guard.
Senator Voinovich. It appears that the Coast Guard is a
good role model for them to follow.
Mr. Slaughter. Right.
Senator Voinovich. The other issue, of course, is
Inherently Safer Technologies. The concept that reduction or
elimination of particular chemicals or alternative approaches
will lessen the threat. What is your opinion on I.S.T?
Mr. Slaughter. I would say we have concerns about an IST
requirement, Senator Voinovich, because a lot of--there are
great incentives to go to Inherently Safer Technologies if they
are effective and practical today. But if you get into a
situation where it is mandated and you get into an extensive
review process as to why didn't you do A, B, C, and D instead
of what you are doing, this whole program may be very difficult
to implement and be very problematic for everyone and just be a
papermaking exercise, as the SOCMA testimony pointed out.
Mr. Durbin. I would echo those comments. I think the
Inherently Safer Technology is clearly something that our
member companies, this industry really drives toward, but it
does not lend itself to a regulatory approach.
I believe one of the Senators in your opening statements
talked about the dichotomy between those who just want physical
and those who say you have to have this approach. I don't think
it is that stark of a contrast here. If you are doing a
meaningful vulnerability assessment that has a meaningful
methodology behind it, that is going to point you in that
direction toward process changes as well as other ways of
managing risk.
For example, the GAO report responding to Senator Byrd that
was provided in March, they visited ten ACC member company
facilities. Seven of those facilities noted that they made
process changes as part of their security enhancements.
Senator Voinovich. My time is up. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Senator Carper.
Senator Carper. Thanks very much.
I have a couple of questions. One, I find it helpful with a
panel like this where there is a fair amount of consensus,
before you wrap up, just to come back again and tell us where
you think the consensus lies among the three of you. A follow-
up question is going to be, where do you disagree?
And then I think I am going to ask you to sum it up by
saying, again, the purpose of this hearing was what is the
appropriate Federal role, and I am going to ask you to sum up
again and say this is what we believe, each of you, this is
what we believe the appropriate Federal role is.
So if you could, Mr. Durbin----
Mr. Durbin. Sure. At the risk of speaking for my
colleagues----
Senator Carper. Where is the consensus, what are the
differences, what is the appropriate Federal role?
Mr. Durbin. The consensus I am hearing here this morning is
that the Federal role that is put in place needs to be a risk-
based tiered approach that will set national standards to
ensure that everyone in the chemical sector that has been
identified is taking the appropriate steps. But again, it needs
to be a risk-based program that is reasonable, clear and
measured, and provides some flexibility, and also recognizes
the efforts that have already taken place within the industry.
Mr. Barmasse. And I agree with that, and I would like to
add a few things to that----
Senator Carper. Go right ahead.
Mr. Barmasse [continuing]. Especially for the smaller
facilities and smaller chemical companies that may not have the
expertise of the larger companies. I think Small Business
assistance or compliance assistance is going to be a very
important component of anything that is drafted, and so I
believe that is the extent of my additional comment.
Senator Carper. All right. Mr. Slaughter.
Mr. Slaughter. We also would agree that it is very
important that everything rely on a tiered, risk-based
approach, which is what DHS apparently is talking about. I
suspect where there may be a little bit of disagreement is
that, I think the impression is left sometimes that industry
has not focused on this issue and done a great deal of work. We
have.
I would say at the same time there are competitive issues
here. I think we need to have a flexible program that fits
requirements to facilities and responds to the risk and threats
at that particular facility. If large companies can make
certain investments but they go beyond what is necessary to
secure facilities that may be owned by someone with less
capital, we don't want to lose facilities in the petrochemical
and refining business unnecessarily. So rather than force
everyone to do what the largest companies in the world are
doing, we need to focus, as I think the MTSA does, on what does
a facility really need to do rather than going beyond in any
case. If there are competitive concerns, as the Chairman
mentioned and questioned earlier, they run both ways, and I
think a reasonable program will take care of both elements of
competitive concerns.
And as I said before, we have not been advocates of Federal
legislation. We have focused on working with our members to
help them do everything they can do at their facilities. But
given the position of the Committee, the position of DHS, we
want to work with you to fashion reasonable requirements and
look forward to working with you in that. And I agree with you,
there is a substantial consensus at the table with just small
differences and concerns.
Senator Carper. Does anyone else want to mention
differences, where you might differ?
[No response.]
OK. I will come back again to the issue of the appropriate
Federal role with a specific focus on this Committee, if you
will. Any closing thoughts?
Mr. Durbin. Again, just to restate, the ACC believes there
needs to be a Federal role. We believe DHS should play that
role in coordinating the efforts of the Federal Government to
protect this critical sector. They have worked very diligently
with our sector. You have heard all three organizations talk
about the good working relationship there, and I think that is
absolutely the case.
Allow them to take that expertise that they have built over
at the agency and that relationship and really put together and
build a meaningful program that will also take advantage of not
only the existing actions of the industry itself, but the
existing actions of various Federal agencies that we all deal
with on a day-to-day basis, not just EPA. We are talking about
DEA and the Department of Commerce and Department of State,
OSHA and what have you. Those are all the things that need to
be coordinated.
Mr. Barmasse. I would like to add that I have a legitimate
concern that, being in New York State, there is New York State
security legislation drafted, and if there are vast differences
between Federal and State legislative activities, it could
conceivably require us to spend a lot more time, effort, and
money to comply with two totally different types of programs,
and we would be supportive of Federal preemptive authority over
the State programs so you don't have to do two totally
different things.
Senator Carper. Any last comment, Mr. Slaughter?
Mr. Slaughter. Well, Senator Carper, I just say that the
real trick in doing this will be not to harm the existing
relationship that exists with DHS and industry. Particularly
with DHS, the information flow is very good right now. There is
a lot of understanding and it grows all the time--between the
industries and DHS. If they become a regulator, you don't want
to do too much harm to that relationship. The nature of it will
change somewhat, but you want that information flow to be
maintained and not to set up a purely adversarial relationship.
Senator Carper. All right. One more real quick one. There
are many times when safety and security actions mesh together
well. There are some instances when security priorities have
conflicted with safety. Are you aware of any times when we have
had a conflict between the security priorities and the safety
priorities?
Mr. Durbin. One example that sticks out, more on the
transportation side, was the use of placards for hazardous
materials as they are being transported. The question raised is
does that make it a target, or do you need to maintain that as
the useful tool that it is for first responders and others that
need that information in the event of an accident?
Our association very clearly agreed that placards should
stay because they do play an important role for first
responders, and the first responder community themselves said,
until we come up with a better way of doing this, those need to
stay on there. So that is the only kind of obvious conflict,
but DHS clearly stepped in and resolved that, as well, and said
they are staying on. We are not going to try to change that at
this time.
Senator Carper. Anybody else?
Mr. Barmasse. The only thing I would add to that is that
the protection of the information may be a conflict. The
security-sensitive information and people's right to know what
is going on at these facilities is a very important
consideration. I think that information, it is very important
that it is protected, kept within the chemical facilities and
possibly with only DHS so that this information isn't publicly
available beyond that and might pose another threat to the
chemical facilities.
Senator Carper. Gentlemen, thanks very much. Madam
Chairman, thank you.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
I want to give my colleagues the opportunity for one last
question each to this panel before we go on to the second one.
I understand from your testimony that each of you would oppose
including in legislation a requirement involving Inherently
Safer Technology, and Mr. Durbin, you have cited the complexity
of the chemical processes. In addition, others have cited to me
a fear of litigation resulting from the requirements.
But let me ask you a broader question. Do you think that
the Department of Homeland Security should have any authority
to regulate chemical processes, chemical use, or chemical
storage? Mr. Durbin.
Mr. Durbin. I believe that with regard to chemical
processes, use, and storage, there are existing regulations in
place. Our companies have to perform process hazard analyses as
part of the PSM rule at OSHA and with RMP and----
Chairman Collins. If I could interject, just for a second.
Those programs are not aimed at security. Those programs are
aimed at enhancing worker safety or environmental health and
safety. So they have a different justification. They may, in
fact, help safety and security, but that is a different issue.
Mr. Durbin. That is correct, but that is why it is
important that you have a meaningful vulnerability assessment
that would be required that would essentially point you toward
and encourage the use of different technologies or things that
you could put in place to change not only your process, but
perhaps the way you distribute it and the way that your plan is
configured. We have countless examples where our member
companies have done just that to address security issues.
Chairman Collins. But should the Department be able to
require a process change if the vulnerability study indicates
that this is an issue for a particular facility?
Mr. Durbin. I think I could only answer that by saying we
would have strong concerns about the agency making those types
of decisions, as to what process should or shouldn't be used or
what material should or shouldn't be used. I think we should
use that authority to really drive companies toward finding
those solutions.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
Mr. Barmasse, same question for you. Should the Department
have any authority in this area?
Mr. Barmasse. I think the Department's expertise is going
to be in the area of security and not chemistry, and it is
going to be very difficult for security experts to have the
expertise to understand how to regulate what goes on in a
process. Chemists and scientists spend a tremendous amount of
time trying to understand their process, and they develop these
processes in the safest manner they can. And security experts
would have a difficult time understanding the intricacies and
the complexities of a chemical process and be able to make any
meaningful suggestions or recommendations on that. So I think
it is outside the realm of their area of expertise.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
Mr. Slaughter, what about a requirement that companies have
to consider Inherently Safer Technology, which is different
from having the Department mandate specific chemical processes?
Mr. Slaughter. My answer, I am sorry, is somewhat
hackneyed, is that the devil is in the details on that one
because--the devil is in the details because the question is,
how is that written? What is reviewable? I mean, you can end up
in the exact same place just with that type of requirement as
you can actually giving them authority to mandate changes in
processes.
I agree that the SVA methodology and process will lead to
information about potential problems and a dialogue with the
regulator. But I think we would have significant concerns about
either type of provision being included in the legislation.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Lieberman.
Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Madam Chairman. Thanks again to
the witnesses.
My question goes to the interaction of the chemical
industry with local governments, and I would just ask each of
you to respond briefly. Mr. Durbin, first, if you might, I am
interested in knowing whether the Responsible Care Security
Code includes a requirement to conduct drills and exercises or
interact in any way with first responders and local
communities.
Mr. Durbin. Absolutely. In fact, it was one of the founding
principles within Responsible Care, the original Care Code,
was the community awareness and emergency response. Frankly,
that is one of the good stories here, is that after September
11, this is an area where we didn't have to start from scratch.
Our member companies generally had very well established and
good relationships with first responders in their communities.
In fact, in many cases, you will find that the first responders
work at our facilities. The volunteer firemen--some of our
security directors happen to be the deputy sheriff of the
county or the fire chief of the neighboring community. So there
is a very robust relationship that already existed there and
drills that have been taking place all along. So this was just
one more way of focusing our effort.
Senator Lieberman. Mr. Barmasse and Mr. Slaughter, do you
believe that the chemical facilities should have a role or a
requirement to play in ensuring that the surrounding
communities which they might impact have a well-functioning
local emergency planning committee, and just briefly, because
our time is going, what is your sense of the current
relationship generally between the chemical facilities that you
are involved with and the local surrounding communities?
Mr. Barmasse. I would be happy to respond to that, and I
would like to say that it is not just large companies that do
those types of things. It is small companies, also. We work
very actively with local emergency planning committees.
Previously, it was always on response to chemical accidents,
but now, we have even worked with them and broadened the local
law enforcement to provide security and vulnerability
assessments from a security perspective.
The Buffer Zone Protection Program brought in State, local,
and county law enforcement agencies to perform buffer zone
protection analysis. We have had drills and we have had
meetings with our local and county emergency planning
committees that discuss just response to terrorism activities.
So I believe that the integration has already occurred in a
lot of cases, and not just at the larger LEPC levels. It is
happening with smaller companies and at the smaller level.
Senator Lieberman. Good. Mr. Slaughter.
Mr. Slaughter. I would agree that is the case with large to
small companies across our membership in both industries,
Senator, and I would also say that the State and local law
enforcement personnel plus also first responders have been
active participants in all the exercises that we have been
doing for several years with Federal and State agencies on
terrorist-related events.
Senator Lieberman. I thank the three of you.
I think, Madam Chairman, that the testimony of this panel
has been significant. I, at least, have not heard up until
today this kind of clarity of statement that, while some
progress has been made voluntarily and in other ways, that the
status quo with regard to chemical security of facilities in
America today is no longer acceptable, that there is a larger
necessary and appropriate Federal role.
Now, obviously the question is, what is that role, and
there are going to be a lot of disagreements about that. But
most encouraging from your testimony today, I think we are all
at the same table. The Administration is. Obviously, we are.
And I presume that the representatives of the stakeholders on
the next panel are. Under your leadership, Madam Chairman, I am
more encouraged after hearing this panel that we are going to
get something done in this critical area in this session of
Congress. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. I, too, want to thank this
panel for excellent and very constructive testimony. We look
forward to continuing to work closely with you. Thank you.
I would now like to call up our second panel of witnesses
today. Our first witness on the second panel is Dr. Gerald
Poje. Dr. Poje is a toxicologist by training and has years of
experience dealing with safety issues in the chemical industry.
Dr. Poje recently completed his second term on the U.S.
Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, where he earned
the distinction of the longest-serving member of that Board. He
currently is serving on the National Academies of Science
Expert Committee assessing the vulnerabilities of the Nation's
chemical infrastructure.
Our second witness on this panel will be Glenn Erwin, the
Project Director of the Triangle of Prevention, or TOP Program,
and the Catastrophic Accident Investigator for the United
Steelworkers. Mr. Erwin has more than 30 years of experience in
the petrochemical industry and in particular with health and
safety issues. The Steelworkers Union recently merged with
PACE, the largest chemical workers' union in the United States,
and we welcome you, as well.
And finally, we will hear from Carol Andress, who is an
Economic Development Specialist for the environmental
organization known as Environmental Defense. She has led
Environmental Defense's work to foster pollution prevention and
improve the public's awareness of chemicals in the environment,
and we thank you for coming today, as well.
We are going to start with Dr. Poje.
TESTIMONY OF GERALD V. POJE, PH.D.,\1\ FORMER BOARD MEMBER,
U.S. CHEMICAL SAFETY AND HAZARD INVESTIGATION BOARD
Dr. Poje. Thank you, Madam Chairman and Senator Lieberman,
for the opportunity to testify before this Committee on
strengthening the chemical sector's security.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Dr. Poje appears in the Appendix on
page 130.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
With its history of catastrophic releases, the chemical
sector has had too many unintentional incidents of public
terror to leave unregulated the potential for intentional
terror. As last Thursday's events in London and yesterday's
blast at a Spanish power station tell us, terrorism, maybe home
grown, is becoming an all too frightening global specter.
My written testimony focuses on a number of issues.
However, my oral testimony today, I hope, will convey my
passion and urgency for preventing these chemical disasters.
While America's worst chemical disaster occurred in Texas
City in 1947, my wake-up call came more than 20 years ago when
I was a young toxicology professor. I vividly remember the
world's worst chemical disaster. It began as a violent runaway
reaction within a methyl isocyanate (MIC) storage tank in
December 1984 at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal,
India. After about 1,500 pounds of water entered an MIC tank,
possibly caused by a routine line washing procedure, an
exothermic reaction ensued. Excessively heated and pressurized
gases burst through a rupture disk and opened a pressure relief
valve, allowing approximately 50,000 pounds of MIC and
reactants to be released through an elevated scrubber vent
system.
The cooling gas formed a dense, low-lying cloud in that
early morning and slowly and quietly drifted through the
adjacent housing and much of the central city. MIC is highly
reactive, irritating, and a toxic gas that is soluble in the
aqueous fluid membranes around eyes and lungs. Victims awoke
gasping for painful breaths and stumbled bleary-eyed into the
streets with no indication of which direction to seek relief.
Immediate fatalities were estimated at 3,000, with an
accumulation of almost 20,000 disaster-related deaths in
subsequent years. Injuries estimates range from 200,000 to
500,000. Casualties overwhelmed the city's four hospitals and
several clinics that supplied only a total of 1,800 hospital
beds and 300 doctors. Now, how many American communities could
triage such an event?
What made Union Carbide such a tool of mass destruction in
Bhopal? Well, I think the root causes lie in the systemic
problems at the facility and within the community.
Lack of awareness and knowledge of the hazards--MIC was
produced and utilized as a high-volume intermediate chemical,
and yet its hazards under specific process conditions were not
well understood by the workers, or the management, or the
emergency responders.
Deficient hazard assessments--the hazards associated with
contamination of the MIC in the storage tanks and their
operations under high temperatures and pressures were poorly
assessed and, therefore, abnormal situations were not managed.
Inadequate operating procedures--procedures were just
insufficient, poorly written, understood, and executed.
Insufficient staffing and preparedness for the abnormal
situation--managing staff at that facility were relatively new,
unfamiliar with its processes. Employee responsibilities were
not clearly established. Staffing had been downsized and staff
turnover was high.
Failure to maintain the essential design and safety
equipment--major changes had occurred without them being
assessed for their safety impact. A refrigeration unit was shut
down and the refrigeration material drained. The flare tower
had been shut off for maintenance and was inoperable. The
scrubber system, which had the ability to detoxify smaller
amounts of MIC, also was turned off at the time of the event.
Inadequate investigations and failure to implement audit
recommendations--prior deadly incidents that caused fatalities,
injuries, and evacuations and smaller releases at the facility
were not fully investigated and their root and contributing
causes not established.
The equipment mechanical integrity was not maintained.
Valves, pipes, and other pieces of equipment were corroded and
leaking and unable to contain the material.
And there was inadequate emergency planning and response.
The community was not even alerted to the disaster that was
impending in their midst.
And there was lack of public oversight and authority. The
government of India did not have rules, regulations, and
authorities to conduct the appropriate management of such
facilities.
You might think that this incident was long ago and far
away and off topic. However, the CSB observed every one of
these deficiencies in our investigations during my tenure, and
who among us could not imagine a terrorist scenario being
successful at such an operation and location? In fact, a
consultant to the company speculated that the real cause was
sabotage.
Let us look at a tale of two countries. While most
Americans remember the events of September 11, few recall the
major chemical catastrophe that occurred just 10 days later. On
September 21, a huge explosion tore through the AZF fertilizer
factory in Toulouse, France. Nearly 400 tons of ammonium
nitrate detonated with a force equivalent to 3.4 on the Richter
scale. AZF is owned by Atofina, the chemicals unit of
TotalFinaElf, one of the world's largest petrochemical and
petroleum producers.
The blast created a crater 50 meters in diameter and 10
meters deep. Windows shattered in buildings throughout the
city's center three kilometers away. Thirty people were killed,
10,000 injured, and a further 14,000 sought treatment for acute
post-traumatic stress. Over 500 homes were rendered
uninhabitable and 27,000 others were damaged. Alarm systems
failed, telephone lines were severed, frustrating public
communications of safety messages. Nearby businesses collapsed
and others had long-term business interruptions.
Thousands of tons of liquified ammonium, ammonium nitrate,
and solid fertilizers and other chemicals at nearby businesses
prompted additional concerns about possible domino effects.
Because so many windows and building structures were damaged,
sheltering in place would have been impossible if toxic
chemicals were released.
The event greatly exceeded the consequences of the
scenarios that have been used for planning emergency response.
More than 1,500 firemen, special emergency personnel, and 950
policemen responded to the event, yet the early responders
arrived on scene lacking exposure assessment equipment and
personal protective equipment to cope with the toxic cloud.
The facility had been inspected several times in 3 years by
local authorities, but not for the inadequacies of the ammonium
nitrate fertilizer management in a warehouse of that facility,
a warehouse mostly operated by the subcontracting workers and
not by the management itself.
The Toulouse disaster, as many others have, and you already
know, prompted nationwide debate about acceptable risks in
communities. The French legislature extensively reviewed
policies and practices and new legislation has focused on
strengthening safety management systems of technological risk,
including enhanced worker training and roles in risk
prevention, improved safety management coordination and roles
for contract workers, expanded public information about the
risks and involvement in prevention, and better land use
planning and siting around these high-risk facilities.
Now, with 20/20 hindsight, could we imagine what would have
happened if that event occurred in the United States on
September 21, 2001? The same corporation had a facility in
Michigan that just 2 months earlier had sent 2,000 people into
an evacuation mode and killed three in using a chemical called
methyl mercaptan.
If there is a silver lining in this cloud of terrorism, it
is, I believe, the urgent motivation to reign in the risks
posed by the chemical sector. I urge the Committee to see the
development and maintenance of competent management systems for
safety as essential underpinnings to enhanced security. These
have to go together. We need to have U.S. policies that will
force the marriage between these two domains such that we are
not Balkanizing security into a Homeland Security Department
that is completely ignorant of all of the essential security
features that have to be part of a security paradigm.
I give you five--or six recommendations to consider. One,
ensure that whoever has responsibility monitors the scope of
the chemical sector problem. We know that we have 9,000
incidents occurring annually in just 15 States in this country.
We don't have a nationwide surveillance system to tell us how
many chemical events are occurring in America.
I ask that you also establish a Department of Homeland
Security responsibility that promotes effective coordination
with other agencies. If these agencies are only on bended knee
to Homeland Security about security issues and there is no
interdigitation of security's work with these other agencies
functions, we will lose a golden opportunity for strengthening
our whole system of safety and security.
Set requirements for a security management system. We heard
on the previous panel the importance of the words ``management
systems.'' I believe that those are the critical underpinnings
for us being able to have a much more effective approach. One
where effectiveness is observed, in my particular unique safety
portion of the world, by looking at exceptions. Yes, I know
about good coordination between agencies. I know about good
work of trade associations. But I have had to look at the
safety exceptions, when good practice and oversight don't work.
We have to make more abundant use of such features of the
safety landscape of the chemical sector and force the study of
the exceptions, the exceptions that are causing evacuations and
injuries in communities right now and are showing us where
those relationships aren't working. I think we have to keep a
high focus on that.
I also believe that the ultimate solutions for security and
safety will be found in reducing the volumes and the toxicity
of the hazardous chemicals. We need to have a better way of
making an attack on that problem.
And finally, we need to employ effective training
approaches. An absolute critical step to improving security at
the chemical plants is going to be to properly train the
workers who respond to the disruptions. We have some good
models, and I think they need to be built upon for enhancing
security.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify, and I would be
happy to answer any questions.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Your testimony is a powerful
reminder of why we are committed to passing legislation.
Mr. Erwin.
TESTIMONY OF GLENN ERWIN,\1\ PROJECT DIRECTOR, TRIANGLE OF
PREVENTION PROGRAM, UNITED STEELWORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION
Mr. Erwin. I would like to thank you, Chairman Collins and
Senator Lieberman and the rest of the Committee. I would also
like to thank the staff. Too often, the ones that do the work
never get the recognition, so I would like to thank the staff.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Erwin with an attachment appears
in the Appendix on page 144.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Dr. Poje said in his remarks, he said he wanted to share
with you his passion for this concept here. He reminded me of
an 86-year-old cowboy friend I have in Texas that always said,
``Whatever you do, you do with all your heart, mind, and
soul.'' So I guess you have my mind in the written agenda that
I gave you, or the written comments. Like Dr. Poje, I would
like to share my heart and soul. I promise you I won't sing. I
am not Aretha Franklin. [Laughter.]
But I would like to talk about some things that are very
near and dear to me. Just as recently as March 23, 2005, I lost
a very good friend in an explosion in Texas City, one of the
most wonderful, Godly men I had ever met. As a matter of fact,
the last Christmas that I saw him, he was gathering up a pickup
load of toys to take to the Texas State Penitentiary in
Huntsville, Texas, to make sure that none of the children there
had a Christmas without toys. He was killed in that explosion.
Now, I know we are here to talk about intentional acts of
sabotage, but whether it is an intentional act or an accidental
act, his life was cut short and our community has really lost a
wonderful person.
Now, I believe that we, in the oil and petrochemical
industry, oil refineries and chemical, I believe that we will
be a target. It is not ``if'' but ``when.'' I am certain it is
going to happen. I think one of the reasons for it is we are
too easy, very easy to gain access.
We did a survey.\2\ We have distributed that. We have also
submitted that for your review. But only 3 percent of our
people think that we have done an excellent job in preparing to
prevent an intentional act of sabotage. So, we are too easy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ The survey entitled ``PACE International Union Survey:
Workplace Incident Prevention and Response Since 9/11'', October 2004,
by Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International
Union (PACE) appears in the Appendix on page 150.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is such a large vulnerability. There is such a
potential on what they can do if they get access into certain
chemical plants, and our industry is just too important. If we
disrupt the flow of energy, the flow of gasoline, the flow of
chemicals, as everybody said before, we are going to really
impact our country.
Now, I want you to think layers of protection, and that is
what we need to do, is we need to look at protection, some way
to protect from this worst possible thing happening. And I
guess I would ask you to visualize, I couldn't think of
anything better, but maybe an onion. Let us make it a 10-15
layered onion that was developed by Texas A&M---- [Laughter.]
It goes great with barbecue and will give you something to
pick on Senator Hutchison about, about somebody talking about
onions from her State.
But anyway, I want you to visualize an onion and just kind
of take the outer skin of it. The outer skin of it, the first
layer is our security. It is the fence line. It is to keep the
unauthorized people from being there, the gates to control the
flow of who goes in and out in normal admission, and also to
train and equip our guards. That is our first layer. That is
the one that we need first to put in place, but it is not there
yet.
I just stood at the front gate of a major multi-national
oil company the other day right at lunch time, and I watched
the flow through the front gate of one car going in after
another, and I watched a pickup truck, and I will use this one
for an example. There were two people in it, and they drove up
to the gate, and they showed their badge, and they went right
on through. Well, sitting in the back of that truck was five or
six buckets, closed-top five-gallon containers, and I looked at
the guy that was next to me, and I said, ``What is in the
buckets?'' And he said, ``I don't have any idea.'' And I said,
``Well, does the guard?'' And he said, ``No.'' I said, ``Why
won't he check them?'' He said, if he did, nobody would get
back from lunch, and he would be in trouble for holding up the
flow of traffic.
So I think that we are vulnerable there. I don't think we
have control of our main gates yet. So that is the first layer.
The second layer of security is inside the plant. Once you
are inside the plant, there are different areas. But our
security is set up for perimeter. Our security is not set up
for everything within it. We treat a kerosene tank, the
accessibility to a kerosene tank, the same as we do to a
hydrofluoric acid tank. In fact, the same plant, as we drove
by, and we drove on a road, not 100 feet, maybe 150 feet from a
hydrofluoric tank that contained probably 800,000 pounds of
hydrofluoric acid.
That didn't bother me as much as to see 50 or 100 people
with a flurry of activity going on around that. And I said,
``Is that tank empty?'' And he said, ``Oh, no, that tank is
full.'' They had heavy equipment operating within 20 to 25 feet
of a line, the suction line to that tank. Now, had they have
hit that, whether intentionally or unintentionally, knocked
that suction line loose from that tank, I asked our guide, I
said, what would have been the effect, and he said it would
have been catastrophic. And I said, ``Well, how bad?'' I said,
``Thousands?'' And he said, ``More like 10,000, maybe 100,000
if the wind direction is right,'' if that happened.
So that is the second layer. There needs to be added
precaution once inside and not treat everything just the same.
Let us peel another layer. Let us go now to substitution,
and we have talked--they have used some fancy words for it. I
am not going to use that, but let us get rid of some hazards.
Just like the HF tank, it is used for an alkylation process
that you can also use sulfuric acid for. Now, why does one
company use one method that doesn't have the potential and
another company use the other one? I can't answer that. There
are lots of other examples of how we can eliminate, how we can
substitute, how we can change. I guess economics is one reason,
but if you start looking at the human toll if something
happened to a sulfuric tank versus a hydrofluoric tank, there
would be a tremendous incentive to try to move to the others.
Now, some companies may not want to hear that I feel, and
our institution feels, that there should be some mandatory look
at what you handle. Whether you use the HF, sulfuric, chlorine,
or bleach, I think somebody has to do it, and it is not just
economics. It should be based on the vulnerability.
Now, you may not get that law passed, but I will tell you
the second best thing. Pass a law where the plant manager or
the CEO has to live in that plant, and I will tell you what,
they would look at it just a little different. You know what
the dirty little underbelly is? It is that most of the people
that manage our facilities don't even live in the same town.
They move further away.
Let us peel another layer--reduction. Reduce the hazard.
Look, there are things that we can do, and it has got to be
mandatory to look at trying to reduce the hazard. My old cowboy
friend would say, if you are going to raise cattle, you have to
have a bull, but he doesn't have to have horns. Look at doing
something to try to reduce the hazard in the materials that we
work with.
We can store it in smaller amounts. They say you have to
truck more in that way. If you use 1,000 pounds a year, I don't
care if you store 100,000, that is what you have to use to get
in and out. I don't see the math. So I think we need to look at
trying to reduce it.
Let me peel another layer. Next is to minimize what we have
other than just the amount in a tank. We had an 800,000-gallon,
or pound tank of hydrofluoric acid. Wouldn't it be less
hazardous to have four 200,000 if you have to do it? There are
just some things like that that make common sense to me that I
understand why we don't do it, the things that we have to look
at.
Now, I want to emphasize that there are a couple hazards in
the plant we have to look at. One of them is explosives. The
other one is toxics. Nine-eleven was explosives, but Bhopal was
toxic.
Now, I have a friend that drives a truck, and he drives a
hydrofluoric acid truck--methyl mercaptan. He drives a methyl
mercaptan truck. And I was talking to him and I said, ``well,
what would happen--what are you doing to prevent somebody from
using your truck as a weapon of mass destruction? What is to
prevent somebody from hijacking it?'' He said, ``Well, I have a
Global Positioner Satellite on top of my truck.'' And I said,
``Have you got one on the tank?'' He said, ``No.'' And I said,
``Well, all they have to do is just to waylay you and take the
tank, isn't it?''
Let me visualize, can you imagine what a tank of methyl
mercaptan could do if they drove it into the right area and
somebody knocked the belly cap off that thing and just released
all the contents of that highly-toxic material at the right
place, at the right time? It would be devastating. We need to
put the positioning satellites on the trailer, not just the
truck. We need to see where the actual shipment is going.
Now, look, I lost a friend, I said, to that explosion. I
have had other people that have been hurt in fires. I have
walked into Ben Taub Hospital and walked into the burns
institute. There were four people in there and I was trying to
find my friend, and I couldn't tell the four people apart. I
couldn't even identify him. His own mother didn't even know
which one he was.
The incidental act and the intentional act still have the
same effect, but if we can prevent the intentional and really
prepare ourselves to prevent for those along at the same time
that we are looking for the intentional acts, I think we are
going to gain so much more.
Let me give you a personal example. I am running out of
time, but I will tell you what--on Halloween night, 1987, it
was Friday night in Texas. We had a football game. And on
Friday night in Texas, what is the most important thing that
goes on? I have two kids, a 17- and 15-year-old that were
already down at the stadium, and I was preparing to go, and as
I was sitting there, I came across the eyewitness news that we
had a leak in town, shelter in place, stay off your phones and
behave yourself. Don't get out of the house. There I sat, with
two kids at the football field. They told over the TV where the
spill was occurring. It was occurring at a Marathon facility.
Well, I could just draw a beeline from my house to there and
right in the middle of it was where that stadium was.
I know what it would be like if the leak that occurred was
a contractor dropped and hit the vapor line of that tank. Now,
had he hit the liquid line of that tank, it would have killed
both my kids. Both of them were exposed, but it was minor
because the vapors were coming up, not the liquid being left
off.
Look, the hazards are out there, the potential in our
communities. We have to do some things. We have to look at
layer protection. We have to work together. We have done our
survey. We said there is more that can be done. Our members say
that there is more that can be done. It is not just me sitting
here. It is 125 sites that were surveyed. It says we are not
ready enough. They are not involving the people. We have not
involved the actual workers to the extent that we can.
Now, we support legislation. I am out of time and I am
going to shut this off, but we support it. It is in my written
comments. We can do better. I think we can do better. And I
appreciate your effort for convening this and attempting to try
to make our workplaces and our communities safer. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Thank you very much. Ms. Andress.
TESTIMONY OF CAROL L. ANDRESS,\1\ ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
SPECIALIST, ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE
Ms. Andress. Good morning, and thank you for the
opportunity to testify today. I represent Environmental
Defense, a national environmental group where I work on
pollution prevention issues. I will summarize my written
statement, but I ask that my full statement and the attachments
be entered into the record.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Andress with attachments appears
in the Appendix on page 209.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chairman Collins. Without objection.
Ms. Andress. On the issue of chemical security, I want to
describe an example that I believe is illustrative of the
challenges and the opportunities before you. It is about an
actual chemical plant in Baltimore, Maryland, that was subject
to three separate but overlapping security programs. It was
covered by ACC's Responsible Care Security Code, and, in fact,
the facility had already passed the company's mandatory third-
party verification process. The facility was also covered by
the Maritime Transportation Security Act because it is located
on a navigable waterway. The Coast Guard approved the security
plan that the facility developed under ACC's voluntary program.
The facility is also covered by a Baltimore ordinance on
mandatory security plans. Despite these requirements, a
reporter was able to enter the facility, enter an unguarded
gate, reach two fully loaded chlorine tank cars, and then leave
without ever being challenged.
This is not an isolated example. Investigative reporters
have documented lacks and inadequate security at many
facilities storing and using extremely dangerous substances. An
enterprising reporter, or more troubling, a determined
terrorist could likely gain access to most if not all of the
several thousand facilities that use or store large quantities
of dangerous substances. This includes about 2,800 facilities,
all of which have 10,000 people or more living within a
projected danger zone. These very high-risk facilities are
located in almost every State.
So the problem is significant, pervasive, and yet
unaddressed. This is why your commitment to a strong chemical
security program is so important.
I want to return to the example of the plant in Baltimore.
What lessons can we learn from this? First and most importantly
is that a sole reliance on a strategy of guards, gates, and
guns is simply inadequate and bound to fail. Physical security
alone cannot prevent a determined terrorist.
Second, current security programs which, frankly, are
largely voluntary, are not effective. This suggests that the
accountability mechanisms in the existing laws are not enough.
So what should we do? The most effective and economical way
to achieve security is to design the products and processes
that reduce the use of these extremely dangerous chemicals.
Reducing the source of the problem, the chemicals and
processes, makes a facility less attractive as a terrorist
target. It cuts the needs and costs of security measures. And
it minimizes the likelihood of a major chemical accident. This
is classic pollution prevention. But more importantly, this is
how you get real, lasting, cost-effective security.
My written statement provides examples of some high-hazard
industries that have eliminated or significantly reduced their
vulnerabilities to terrorist attack. This includes refineries,
power plants, sewage treatment, and water treatment facilities.
The challenge then is not how many guards, gates, and guns
are needed but how to foster more widespread risk reduction.
Several State laws and one local law provide a road map for how
to achieve that risk reduction. These include New Jersey's
Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act, Massachusetts's Toxic Use
Reduction Act, California's Accidental Release Prevention Act,
and Contra Costa County's Industrial Safety Ordinance. These
laws are aimed at spurring facilities to cut their use of
certain toxic chemicals and the results are impressive.
At the start of New Jersey's program, 575 facilities
reported having chlorine tanks on site. Now that number is 26.
Contra Costa County, California, experienced a 36 percent
reduction in acutely hazardous substances between 1990 and
1994.
Lessons from these programs suggest three key principles
for a Federal chemical security program. First, Congress should
mandate the most effective, most efficient, and safest option.
This means establishing requirements that all facilities
conduct a thorough evaluation of ways to switch to safer
chemicals or processes, reduce the amount of dangerous
chemicals used, or reduce the amount stored onsite. When those
options are practicable, the facility should be required to
implement them. High-risk facilities, especially, should be
expected to make significant investments in reducing the
quantity and nature of the hazardous chemicals onsite.
I realize not every facility will be able to eliminate or
significantly reduce the hazards. When a facility finds that
there is no safer option that is technologically feasible, or
where the alternatives are prohibitively expensive,
particularly when compared to the potential damages, or when
the available alternatives would create an equal or greater
hazard to public health or the environment, then they should
provide a justification for why an alternative approach is not
practicable.
Safety cannot be voluntary. The issue is too important and
the market mechanisms are simply inadequate. Facilities that
are facing daily questions about operational efficiency and
financial performance have little interest in dealing with
catastrophic hazards that seem remote. For that reason,
Congress needs to mandate that a reasonable process be put in
place for getting safer approaches in place. The complexity of
the industry should not be an obstacle to action.
A second key principle is accountability. I trust that most
facilities will make a good faith effort to implement safer
approaches. However, this is far too important to rely solely
on good intentions. Facility owners and operators must be
accountable to Federal authorities and the public for reducing
hazards. I believe accountability measures should include
government oversight and intervention, especially when
facilities do not perform; public disclosure of the reasons why
they were unable to implement alternative approaches; and
linking public funding with safer operations.
This is especially applicable at sewage and water treatment
plants that receive substantial public money and yet continue
to use chlorine gas in populated areas. It frankly makes no
sense to me to have taxpayer money going to basically pre-
position a deadly and unnecessary chemical in a populated area
and then spend Homeland Security money to try to protect the
chemical. Taxpayer money should not be spent at facilities that
pose an unnecessary risk to the American public.
The third principle is that Federal legislation should
avoid creating loopholes for voluntary programs. We commend
ACC's, SOCMA's, and MPRA's early efforts to protect their
facilities. But as we have seen with many news reports,
voluntary programs alone are wholly inadequate. Creating
special conditions for facilities that participate in these
voluntary programs will undermine your efforts to safeguard
facilities. Allowing facilities to follow their own standards
has not been deemed acceptable for airports or nuclear plants
and should not be acceptable for chemical plants.
We agree that companies should not have to reinvent work
done previously. Congress should allow them to submit prior
documents with supplements, as needed. For example,
vulnerability assessments done by drinking water facilities
under the Bioterrorism Act should be considered as part of
meeting their obligations under a chemical security program.
However, it is particularly important that work done as
part of a voluntary industry program be strictly scrutinized.
It is one thing to recognize the security efforts performed
under Federal statutes. However, it is completely unacceptable
to rubber stamp voluntary measures that have not been evaluated
or enforced by a Federal agency.
My written statement elaborates on some additional issues
to include in chemical security legislation, including
requiring buffer zones and simulating community evacuation
drills with the community and coordinated by local emergency
responders.
Efforts to protect Americans from terrorist attacks are
often costly and complicated. Instances when protection of the
public can be achieved in a cost-effective manner should be
aggressively pursued. That some of these options have side
benefits, such as eliminating the potential for chemical
accidents, makes them all the more appealing, and I do not
consider these to be extraneous issues. Safety and security
cannot be separated.
Congress should insist that facilities take all reasonable
steps to reduce risks of catastrophic chemical release. Thank
you.
Chairman Collins. Thank you for your testimony.
Each of you has argued for mandating a reduction in the use
of dangerous chemicals or the substitution of less-hazardous
chemicals wherever possible. But if we draft legislation so
that it is truly risk-based, so that the level of regulation is
ratcheted up depending on the hazards at a particular facility,
wouldn't the companies have an inherent incentive to use less-
dangerous chemicals or smaller amounts of hazardous chemicals
in order to get into a lower-risk category with fewer
regulations imposed upon them? Dr. Poje.
Dr. Poje. Actually, Senator, that is a very good point. The
earlier mentioning of the Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act in
New Jersey, I think, has given us quite a few examples to look
at for how a regulatory regimen over time has caused the
mobilization of the industry to change its pattern and practice
of the use of chemicals.
A certain portion of chlorine-using facilities,
particularly in the water and wastewater treatment arena, have
migrated out of chlorine gas usage for biocidal treatment, and
that has come in part because of a higher degree of oversight
and a ranking of high hazardness for that particular chemical
in that regulatory regimen.
Now, to be fair to the previous panel, there is enormous
complexity in the diversity of processes being used throughout
the chemical producing and using sector. However, I think it is
abundantly clear to me that there are some processes whose
moment has come for inherently safer approaches and we need to
be able to challenge the usage of those chemicals in ways that
embrace clear alternatives available. I think Ms. Andress has
given us a pretty clear example with chlorine in the water-
treatment industry.
Do we taxpayers want to pay both for the development of a
wastewater treatment facility using the most highly hazardous
form of biocidal treatment and then a second payment for using
Homeland Security protection measures to be imposed over that?
I think that is just foolish, and we clearly don't have the
resources to perpetuate such a poorly thought out system.
Chairman Collins. Mr. Erwin, wouldn't there be an inherent
incentive for companies to change to less-hazardous processes
if we draft the legislation so there is a different level of
regulation depending on the risks involved?
Mr. Erwin. That might be very true. The more hazardous it
is, the larger the problem. It is a very complex issue. There
are some things that are hazardous they can't get rid of. And a
lot of the companies have done a lot of work, and I don't want
to sound like they haven't because they have done a lot of work
to try to substitute, when they can reduce. But not everybody
has.
There are some forward-thinking companies. There are some
companies that are very responsible. And then there are some
that are not. There are some that keep the books right and some
that don't. We know that for a fact, too, and it is the same
thing here. But you are right. That may be true.
Chairman Collins. Ms. Andress.
Ms. Andress. Well, I think implicit in that kind of risk-
tiering approach is that safer approaches are, frankly, the
best option. And so from that standpoint, I find that
appealing. I think, however, I am concerned that it would
leave--it potentially leaves some fairly high-risk facilities
to simply adopt a physical security approach and that, I don't
think, is enough, to just rely on physical security.
Chairman Collins. Dr. Poje.
Dr. Poje. If I could just make one additional comment on
that. My experience for 7 years has been to look at safety
tragedies in the chemical sector, so I have a very myopic view
of seeing where failures occur. Having said that, though, I
also see that is the place where Phoenix-like, we can rise up
out of the ashes to do a much better job.
Bhopal changed policies in the United States to be more
aggressive. There was a chemical facility in the State of Texas
right after the terrible Bhopal tragedy in India, a DuPont
facility, that within an 8-month period switched dramatically
out of methyl isocyanate usage. It actually had plans already
developed. Now, the acceleration of the implementation of those
plans took the terrible Bhopal tragedy to make it happen.
The Chemical Safety Board under my tenure conducted 33
investigations. Only less than 10 percent of those
investigations involved chemical processes covered under the
RMP system. Now, in one way of thinking, RMP is an appropriate
approach for risk ranking systems, the conceptual basis of what
is worst, highest toxicity, highest amounts. Those are all very
rational designs that we have to employ.
But there is one other piece of the equation to consider.
What happens when failure tells us there are other management
processes that are having terrible problems. In fact, every one
of those 9,000 incidents that I mentioned occurring in those 15
States is an enormous red flag to everybody--a red flag to
those who want to do harm that we have management problems here
and harm can be had in this fashion. If we don't embed the
responsibility within DHS to have to hold them up for an
example and examine them in a detailed way, we are going to
lose the advantage of those disasters to strengthen the whole
of the system of safety and security.
And I would argue if there is a pattern within these safety
incidents that identifies particular chemicals and processes
having the most frequent problems, we had better figure out
solutions for them quickly. And, there should be governmental
resources, if there isn't private sector resources, to help
make that happen.
Chairman Collins. Mr. Erwin, before I turn to Senator
Lautenberg, I am very interested in the results of the study
that you were involved with. It prompts in my mind a question
about whether the Department of Homeland Security involves the
workers, goes to the head of the local union if there is one,
when it does an assessment of the security of a chemical plant.
Do you happen to know? DHS has pointed to these site visits
that it has undertaken. Do you happen to know whether workers,
union representatives, are interviewed by DHS officials when
they do these site visits?
Mr. Erwin. We are not party to when they come in like we
are when OSHA comes in or when the CSB comes in, and we are not
included in the conversations, to my knowledge. I don't know of
any union leaders or employee representatives that have been
included in this area. I think it is nonexistent.
Chairman Collins. That is very helpful and something I will
follow up with the Department on, because I think, judging from
your testimony and experience, that they could learn a lot from
talking to the employees of these facilities.
Let me ask just one other related question. Has the
Steelworkers Union or PACE shared its survey with the
Department of Homeland Security, do you know?
Mr. Erwin. Well, we have copies here. I would be glad to
give them a copy. But what we did when we prepared the report,
we shared this with the governmental agency that we were
working with, the National Institute of Environmental Health
Scientists. Now, it is our understanding that they have shared
that in the report with other agencies with whom they are
working, and I guess they work with DHS, too.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Lautenberg.
Senator Lautenberg. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you
all for your testimony. I am sorry that I wasn't here, Madam
Chairman, when the first panel was still up because I was
struck by some things that were said, and one of them related
to Mr. Barmasse's testimony about IST.
You talked, Ms. Andress, about how much use has been
reduced of chlorine, and we know that here in this district,
the wastewater treatment had enormous reductions in threat as a
result of transfer from chlorine to another material that
appeared to be substantially safer. I don't like to ask
questions that Mr. Barmasse could have answered, but I am
compelled by the structure to ask you.
I think in Mr. Barmasse's testimony for SOCMA, he made the
point that Inherently Safer Technology is probably the most
misunderstood and controversial aspect of chemical site
security. While it seems self-explanatory, the term as used in
chemical and engineering may be misleading to non-scientists.
It is an approach to chemical processing that considers
procedures, equipment, and the use of hazardous substances.
Don't we have data that refutes the fact that IST can be
seriously employed with a lot less expense or risk than the
other massive changes that have to be made? Are we out of
reliable changes of one material for another that can make us
safer?
Ms. Andress. I am not sure I understand the question.
Senator Lautenberg. Well, the question is whether or not we
have exhausted the opportunity to make substitutions of
materials. Dr. Poje may want to say something about that. Have
we run the gamut on substitutable materials?
Ms. Andress. Well, you are correct in that we have--there
is quite a bit of knowledge and expertise out there, and, in
fact, there is quite a bit of knowledge about these issues at
the various State institutions in New Jersey, Massachusetts,
and elsewhere. So there probably--I don't think we have
exhausted it. I think there is still ground to be tilled. I
think from my standpoint, the most important point is that we
haven't exhausted the adoption of the safer chemicals. There
still are several wastewater treatment plants using chlorine
gas in heavily urban areas. That is simply outrageous.
Senator Lautenberg. Would that transfer be relatively
transparent with regard to costs? Dr. Poje, do you have any
knowledge about this?
Dr. Poje. Yes. I think as I said earlier and I think as the
first panel reflected, there is a great complexity to certain
aspects of the chemical industry. But we have already heard
from two panelists here about the use of hydrofluoric acid in
alkylation within the oil refining industry for which there are
two alternatives. One, hydrofluoric acid, has a much higher
risk than the other sulfuric acid. In the chlorination and
alternative biocidal treatment of water and wastewater, there
are also clear examples.
In other chemical process areas, it takes specific research
and analysis to make processes inherently safer. Now, within
the chemical industry, there are some that are leaders in doing
this R&D work, and it gives them the competitive advantage of
new materials. In fact, the greatness of our chemical industry
comes in large measure by very innovative chemistry and R&D to
help get a competitive advantage in the global market over
those who are producing things in a less efficient way.
The term that has grown of art recently is green chemistry.
That is the most vibrant aspect of the chemical industry's
development and the chemical sciences development. How do we
optimize across 12 different principles for making a better
chemical science that will be of advantage to us for our lives
and lifestyles in the future? There are aggressive programs in
universities all over this country and across the globe to
promote that end.
One of the Green Chemistry principles is to design things
so that they are inherently safer and so that we prevent
chemical accidents. I would argue in the post-September 11
world, also to prevent terroristic disasters.
Senator Lautenberg. Dr. Poje, you heard the testimony of
our first panel, and yet it is clear that you believe that
improvements in chemical safety and security beyond the
industry's Responsible Care program are needed. How do you
draw those conclusions because I think they are quite different
from the idea we heard earlier.
Dr. Poje. I certainly draw those conclusions from my more
intimate experience, having studied the pattern of safety
tragedies that occur when chemicals aren't appropriately
managed. And when you see after the incident that safer
alternatives could have been available, you are forced to ask
the question, what are the barriers that prevented people from
either knowing about those alternative approaches or for
economically employing them?
Clearly, there are two different worlds that we have to be
concerned about. Greenfields development, in which we should
have the best and most cutting-edge technologies applied as we
develop new facilities. Then there is the brownfields, the
facilities that already have tanks and concrete and
``hardened'' facilities for which making changes is going to
have to come out of someone's capital budget.
And I think that is where the artfulness of business
decisionmaking is coming into this debate. How much can you
mandate of that to existing facilities before you wind up
mandating those facilities to leave the country and go
offshore. We have to be concerned about that. I think we do
need this domestic industry and its jobs and its opportunities
here in the United States. But how do we avoid expanding the
risks that we see?
Last April, I had the terrible experience of having to lead
a team from the Chemical Safety Board to a place in Dalton,
Georgia, that was a SOCMA member that for the first time had
been using a chemical called allyl alcohol. And while the
investigation is still ongoing at the Chemical Safety Board,
rudimentary aspects of safety and emergency response just were
not operational in that fairly sizeable community of Dalton,
Georgia.
When that chemical was being used for the first time, there
were poor plans on how to deal with abnormal situations. The
reaction got out of control and it bubbled out of the reactor.
There was no secondary containment available. A bucket, a small
plastic bucket, was being used to capture what was coming out
of this reactor, and that poor containment allowed toxic gas to
emanate into the surrounding community.
Emergency responders turned out to deal with it. Police
went door to door. Police without any kind of protective
equipment went gasping into this cloud of toxic allyl alcohol,
trying to get community members out of harm's way. There was no
awareness within this community about those hazards.
In fact, I was quite shocked. When I gave a press briefing
the next day after I had arrived and announced to people what
chemicals were involved, they didn't already know that
information at that time. They didn't know it at the hospital.
They didn't know it in the broad community. You shouldn't wait
for somebody from Washington to come and investigate and find
out what people might have been exposed to. You need to know
that at the hospital.
Those 154 people went to the hospital on a cold mountain
Georgia evening to be stripped naked, hosed down before they
were allowed to go in and be examined for any possible impact.
But if the medical system did not know what they were exposed
to, how would you possibly be able to deal with the hazards
that those people had?
So we here have a reason to start asking more serious
questions about who is using chemicals, when they are using
them, how they are using them, and make sure that we are
adhering to even the minimal standards that currently operate
for risk management and process safety management. There are a
whole bunch of chemicals that are outside of the RMP system,
and the Chemical Safety Board has had to investigate numbers
that are not currently covered by Federal safety standards.
I would not want Homeland Security to think that somehow it
can pull out of another agency the named list of chemicals,
talk to the industry and thereby say that these are the only
ones we are going to worry about, and consequently blindly miss
other risks that are around us. And those risks, the ones that
I see, have seen, are ones that announce themselves through
mismanagement as releases into communities.
Senator Lautenberg. Madam Chairman, if I might, just
another question.
Chairman Collins. Certainly.
Senator Lautenberg. It was said by Mr. Barmasse in the
first panel that, in response to a memo to Congressman Markey
of Massachusetts, the population potentially affected under an
EPA worst case scenario release is calculated in a circle
around the facility. It is unlikely that this entire population
would be affected by any single chemical release even if it is
a worst case accident. So this challenging to the data that are
being used to describe the threat.
All three of you have had occasion to look at these. Would
you agree that the figures that are used are under suspicion in
terms of their accuracy?
Ms. Andress. Well, he is correct when he says that
everybody within the vulnerability zone would not be affected
in the event of a release. The idea is there is a circle drawn
around the facility. It shows where the potential could be. But
on any given day, an incident is only going--depending on
prevailing wind conditions, it is only going to move in one
direction or another. But it does get to this issue of how do
we determine what are the risky facilities, and I am aware
that, for example, the Department of Homeland Security has its
own system for evaluating risk.
At Environmental Defense, we recognize we need to
prioritize. We are not talking about a rigorous government
oversight of rural facilities that have minimal, if any,
offsite consequences. We do believe that every facility that
poses an offsite risk needs to evaluate safer options, but
where we need to focus government resources is on the high-risk
facilities.
But I do think the EPA numbers are useful in that they are
transparent. We know how those numbers got arrived at, whereas
the DHS numbers, it is largely a secret methodology, and it is
predictable, and we think both the public and the agencies
need--and the companies need that kind of clear basis for
knowing what the priorities are.
Senator Lautenberg. Well, the ``Right-to-Know'' law that I
helped coauthor in Federal statute derived from a similar law
that was developed in New Jersey. The thing that triggered the
Right-to-Know law in New Jersey was when the firemen
approaching a chemical fire had their protective gear virtually
melt in front of them. What happened is there was an incredible
amount of participation by industry on a voluntary basis to
reduce the emissions and to identify these hazardous chemical
facilities that were located in lots of places in New Jersey.
So it was a good start.
But as we look now, there wasn't an interest then by some
terror group that was looking for a way to really do us a lot
of damage, and so there are things that we can do on a
voluntary basis, but there are also things that we have to do.
Mr. Erwin. Can I comment on this issue right here?
Chairman Collins. Absolutely.
Mr. Erwin. Any institution is just like a body. The head of
it is the only one that gets to dream. The ones down in the
rest of the body live in reality. [Laughter.]
Having said that, the worst case scenario, we only look at
single worst case scenarios, and if we are going to deal with
terrorists, don't you believe that they are smart enough to hit
more than one? So when we look at a worst case scenario, we are
not dealing with a single incident. We are going to look at
multiple things. I mean, if I was going to do it, I would knock
the HF tank, I would hit your power supply, I would also do
some other things all at one time, and I am not a terrorist, so
I don't think like that. But just imagine what they could do
when they hit a lot.
So I think we need to go back and reassess what our worst
case is now in the light of terrorism because I think it has
changed. I don't think that our worst case that we looked at
now is truly our worst case. I think we need to go back and do
a reassessment on that.
Senator Lautenberg. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you to
the witness table.
Chairman Collins. You are welcome.
I just have a couple of final questions for this panel. One
of the most important tasks that this Committee will face will
be to define in legislation the universe of chemical facilities
that DHS should be regulating for security. Do you have any
advice for the Committee on how we should define the universe?
Dr. Poje.
Dr. Poje. Yes. I think it is clear that the usage of
chemicals is widespread in our society. One could go to an
individual consumer who goes to a Home Depot and picks up a can
of pesticide for use on their lawn and that person is handling
a chemical. Could we possibly reach down and touch such persons
for the way that they are securely and safely managing it? You
can't do that. So there has to be a scale that moves in some
direction toward those that are using the highest and the worst
chemicals.
I think there has been an awful lot of work done in this
country in the chemical safety arena to examine and reexamine
that question. I think we can build off of that platform to
define what are the highest risks in a measurable fashion above
the next tier. The Risk Management Planning program obviously
establishes three different tiers of program responsiveness for
dealing with that kind of work. I think that should be examined
and looked at, and I would hope you would get the assistance
that you called for from Homeland Security and from OSHA and
EPA and those who have had that kind of responsibility to work
together to come up with such a proposal.
Again, my written statement, though, asks also that we be
prepared for the exceptions. Do not put the blinders up that
says that listed chemicals in regulated amounts are the only
thing we worry about. Force yourself and DHS to have to
confront the annual reality of chemical releases and cross
compare. Are the chemical incident events reflective of the
reality that we have chosen for our regulatory programs?
Chairman Collins. Mr. Erwin, do you have any advice for us
on the scope of our legislation?
Mr. Erwin. I think the scope of your legislation should be
based on potential, the potential risk, the potential
vulnerability, the amount of who could be harmed, and if you
based it on that, it would be very inclusive.
Chairman Collins. Ms. Andress.
Ms. Andress. Well, I would start with the Risk Management
Program. It is, as I mentioned earlier, a transparent system.
We know how those numbers are derived at. They are imperfect on
both sides. As the industry panel noted, they may exaggerate
the risks in some respects, but then in others, as Mr. Erwin
noted, they don't take into account, what if all of the
inventory were to be released at one time. But I actually think
maybe that makes them the best option because they are kind of
in the middle.
And then in terms of--I know there have been proposals, for
example, to say that all facilities above a certain
vulnerability should do X, Y, and Z, and I think that is--we
recognize again the need to prioritize, and there are a number
of facilities in the Risk Management Program that don't need
heavy regulation and oversight. But as I said earlier, I think
everybody needs to have--all facilities in the program that
pose a potential risk to communities and workers nearby need to
do an evaluation of the safer alternatives. And then you focus
government resources on the high-risk facilities.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Erwin?
Mr. Erwin. Because I have never been here before, I may not
understand the procedure, but do I have to ask to have my
written comments and the survey added into the record?
Chairman Collins. All of the statements, surveys, and
anything else that you wish to submit will be included in the
record.
Mr. Erwin. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Just one final question, Dr. Poje. In
response to an earlier question, you made a statement along the
lines that we need to be able to challenge the chemicals and
chemical processes employed by chemical facilities. This raises
a question that I posed to the first panel.
You have already testified that you would support imposing
some sort of IST requirements directly on facilities. But could
you also support an alternative approach whereby we would not
impose those requirements across the board, but give DHS the
explicit authority to require changes if specific vulnerability
studies for particular sites indicated a problem that could be
addressed that way?
Dr. Poje. Certainly, I would, if I understand you
correctly, I would see the advantage of having a Federal entity
have some oversight in this area, particularly if it could
identify common problems across the country and for which there
should be some mandated inherently safer approaches. However, I
would also have to say, my experience on the Chemical Safety
Board is that the knowledge as to where a particular process
could best change oftentimes is dependent upon the best process
engineering competency within that facility itself or within
that corporation.
I don't think that we are going to be able to guarantee
that any Federal agency is going to become the best repository
for that intimate process information. The agency should be the
coordinator, convener, collaborator for drawing that
information into a public arena so that more of the public
would be able to see what are the opportunities. And thereby,
more of the facilities that might not have access to getting to
a professional American Institute of Chemical Engineering
meeting would find out what inherently safer techniques are
being used through the services provided by a Federal entity
required to make sure that information gets out to the public.
And I think it would also help this Committee do an effective
job of oversight on whether we are making the progress as
rapidly as we could.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. I want to thank all of our
witnesses today for truly excellent testimony that will be very
valuable to this Committee as we undertake the Herculean task
of weighing all these arguments and drafting legislation.
We will be having a final hearing in this series of four
hearings focusing on chemical security. That hearing is
tentatively scheduled for July 27.
Again, I want to thank you all. We look forward to working
closely with you.
The hearing record will remain open for 15 days for the
submission of any additional questions for our witnesses as
well as other materials.
This hearing is now adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
CHEMICAL FACILITY SECURITY: WHAT IS THE APPROPRIATE FEDERAL ROLE?
----------
WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 2005
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in
room SD-562, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Susan M.
Collins, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Collins, Voinovich, Lieberman, Carper,
and Lautenberg.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS
Chairman Collins. The Committee will come to order.
Good morning. Today, the Committee is holding its fourth
and final hearing on the security of our Nation's chemical
industry against terrorist attack. The goal of these hearings
has been to help this Committee develop comprehensive,
bipartisan legislation to address what is clearly one of our
Nation's greatest homeland security vulnerabilities.
Throughout this series of hearings, we have learned that
the United States is home to an astonishing number of
facilities that manufacture, use, or store chemicals for
legitimate purposes that could cause devastation if turned
against us as weapons.
The Environmental Protection Agency has listed some 15,000
chemical facilities that produce, use, or store large
quantities of hazardous chemicals. The Department of Homeland
Security uses a different methodology and has identified 3,400
facilities that could potentially affect more than 1,000 people
if attacked and nearly 300 chemical facilities where a toxic
release could potentially affect at least 50,000 people.
We have heard expert testimony regarding recent chemical
accidents in our country that have also resulted in injury and
death. We have learned that the chemical industry is enormous,
diverse, and vital to the American economy. The U.S. chemical
manufacturing industry approaches half a trillion dollars
annually in sales. The chemical industry represents our largest
export sector, with exports totaling $91.4 billion in 2003.
More than 900,000 people work directly in the U.S. chemical
industry, which supports an additional 700,000 supplier jobs
and millions more indirectly.
From national defense and high-tech to agriculture and
health care, the chemical industry produces more than 70,000
products that improve the well-being of the American people.
And these hearings have reminded us that the terrorist enemy we
face has a clear strategy of turning the tools of free and
productive societies into weapons. They did it on September 11,
2001. They did it in Madrid last year. And they have done it in
London, not once but twice this month. Given the chance, they
will surely do so again.
Currently, the Federal Government's regulation of the
security of chemical facilities is limited. The Department of
Homeland Security's representative and many other witnesses
have testified that new legislation is required to strengthen
the security of chemical sites. The Department points out that
approximately 20 percent of the overall chemical industry
sector that it believes to be at high risk does not subscribe
to voluntary industry security standards. While I applaud those
many companies that have taken voluntary measures, an
unacceptable number have not. Moreover, given the severity of
the threat, I believe that it is a mistake to rely on voluntary
measures alone.
To date, we have heard from witnesses representing
industry, labor and environmental associations, as well as
chemical safety professionals, homeland security experts, and
the Department of Homeland Security and the Environmental
Protection Agency. Today, we will hear from company security
chiefs who will describe the day-to-day challenges of securing
these sites. A local emergency manager with decades of
experience in responding to chemical incidents will also
testify. And we will begin our hearing today by hearing from
the U.S. Coast Guard, which is responsible for implementing the
Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002.
Throughout these hearings, the results-based cooperative
approach of MTSA has been described as a security success
story. Maritime commerce is no less diverse or vital to our
economy than is our chemical industry, and the security issues
are no less challenging.
I will be very interested to hear the Coast Guard's views
on the extent to which MTSA could be used as the template for
the chemical security legislation we will begin drafting next
month.
I look forward to hearing from all of our expert witnesses
today.
Senator Lieberman, welcome.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN
Senator Lieberman. Thank you, Madam Chairman. This is, as
you have said, the fourth--and I believe the last for now--in a
series of hearings that the Committee has held on chemical
security. I think this series has really served to inform us of
the vulnerabilities we face as well as the various responses
that we can take together to strengthen our defenses against a
potential terrorist attack or a chemical accident. I hope it is
clear that Chairman Collins and I and the Members of this
Committee consider securing our most exposed chemical storage
and manufacturing sites a top priority for this Committee and,
indeed, for our country.
I am heartened that we have agreement with the
Administration and a large portion of the chemical industry
itself that legislation is necessary. The fact is that the
recent news from Sharm el-Sheikh and London reminds us again
that the war of Islamist terrorists against us is continuing
and it is global; that terrorists will exploit weaknesses in
our homeland defenses wherever they find them; and that they
aim to kill as many innocent men, women, and children as
possible to spread fear and panic throughout our countries to
bring about the political changes that they desire.
By any measure, the chemical industry today is one sector
where a successful attack could have catastrophic consequences
for our people and our country, and that is why we must and
will continue to work with haste to do everything we possibly
can to prevent such an attack.
At our first hearing in April, we learned of the potential
risk posed by thousands of chemical sites across the Nation.
One witness described chemical facilities as potential weapons
of mass destruction. At our second hearing, in June, the
Department of Homeland Security testified that voluntary safety
measures taken by the chemical industry, commendable as they
were, were not enough and that the Administration supports
legislation to secure the most hazardous facilities by imposing
minimum security standards.
Earlier this month, industry representatives told us that
legislation was, in fact, needed in their opinion to establish
Federal security standards. The largest chemical trade
associations--which is to say the American Chemistry Council,
the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association, and
the National Petroleum and Refiners Association--all agreed
that Federal standards would improve security, although they
opposed Federal mandates requiring companies to implement the
so-called inherently safer technologies.
Today, we are going to hear from a variety of stakeholders,
both public and private. Some of our witnesses will argue that
Federal controls should be limited to--and have argued, in
fact, that Federal controls should be limited to standards for
physical security measures such as gates and surveillance
cameras. But I must say that I am impressed by the arguments of
most of the security experts that we have heard that physical
measures alone will not stop a determined terrorist attack.
Knowing that, I believe we must look long and hard and
thoughtfully at what can be done to reduce the inherent hazards
at chemical sites by finding alternative substances or
technologies to reduce the risks or configure plants in ways
that minimize the possibility of a hazardous release. In other
words, how can we ensure that the chemical companies are doing
all they can to achieve better safety and security through such
measures?
I am also concerned that too many local preparedness and
response teams may not be able to respond effectively to an
attack on a chemical plant, and I believe that State and local
officials, who are also the first preventers, need more
resources than they now have if they are expected to protect
the areas just outside a chemical facility's fence, as now
seems to be the case.
And, finally, I want to be sure that the people who live
near chemical facilities have been informed and prepared about
what to do if there is a breach at a chemical facility. Today,
in too many places, I conclude that is not the case, leaving
the public uninformed and unnecessarily at risk.
I know that there are still disagreements about details,
and they are not insignificant disagreements. But I must say,
as we come to this fourth hearing, I am very encouraged that we
all are walking along the same road, which will lead us to an
agreement that will make our chemical plants safer and that
will guarantee that they pose as few risks as possible to the
American people.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Lautenberg. Madam Chairman, are we going to be
permitted to make opening statements?
Chairman Collins. As the staff had informed all Members, we
just did opening statements at the first day of this series of
hearings. But if you and Senator Voinovich----
Senator Lautenberg. I just think this subject is such an
important one, and in particular, the area I come from is
highly vulnerable to terrible destruction if an attack is
placed against any of the chemical facilities, and I don't want
to upset the routine, but I would hope, Madam Chairman----
Chairman Collins. Senator, if you would like to make a few
comments, that is certainly fine with me. We do have a number
of witnesses this morning, so I would ask that they be brief.
Senator Lautenberg. Sure.
Chairman Collins. I will call on Senator Voinovich and
offer him the same courtesy, if he would like to make any
comments.
Senator Voinovich. The only comment I would like to make is
I have been working on this subject for about 4 years.
Chairman Collins. You are very knowledgeable.
Senator Voinovich. In that amount of time, the issue was
before the Environment and Public Works Committee, and now it
is over at Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. I am
really pleased that you and our Ranking Member have taken it
upon yourselves to have these extensive hearings on this issue.
I hope that as a result of them we can come up with some
legislation that is fair.
Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator. You have worked long
and hard on this issue, and we are very fortunate to have your
expertise to help guide us as we draft legislation jointly on
this issue. So thank you for your participation.
Senator Lautenberg.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LAUTENBERG
Senator Lautenberg. I won't extend the courtesy, Madam
Chairman, but I would hope that in the future there is an
opportunity to lay out a point of view. And I, too, started on
this a long time ago. As a matter of fact, before I took my
sabbatical, I had proposed a chemical hazards structure so that
we could identify these things. But I look forward to the
hearing, and I commend you, Madam Chairman, for having held
these hearings. But the change in procedure is one that I would
hope would change.
Chairman Collins. Senator Lautenberg, we will discuss that
further after the hearing, but the procedure was made very
clear.
Our first witness today is Admiral Craig Bone of the U.S.
Coast Guard. Admiral Bone is the Coast Guard's Director of Port
Security and brings to this job more than 28 years of service
to our country. It is noteworthy that he was the Deputy
Commander of Activities-New York on September 11 and later
served as the Commanding Officer and Captain of the Port
Activities-New York, where he laid the groundwork with the
maritime industry for the implementation of MTSA. We look
forward to hearing his testimony.
Admiral Bone, thank you for being with us, and you may
proceed.
TESTIMONY OF REAR ADMIRAL CRAIG E. BONE,\1\ DIRECTOR OF PORT
SECURITY, MARINE SAFETY, SECURITY, AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
DIRECTORATE, U.S. COAST GUARD
Admiral Bone. Good morning, Madam Chairman, Senator
Lieberman, and distinguished Members of the Committee. I am
Rear Admiral Craig Bone, Director of Port Security in the Coast
Guard's Marine Safety, Security, and Environmental Protection
Directorate. Today, I intend to discuss the Coast Guard's role
to secure chemical facilities on the waterways of the United
States.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Admiral Bone appears in the Appendix
on page 233.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A terrorist incident against a facility in our marine
transportation system could have a disastrous impact on public
safety, our Nation's economy, and international trade. Such an
incident, if it were to occur in a strategic port, could also
threaten our military mobilization capabilities. Clearly, the
security of the chemical sector is vital and important to the
protection of the public from harm.
Of more than 3,000 facility security plans that the Coast
Guard has reviewed and approved under the Maritime
Transportation Security Act, commonly known as MTSA, we have
approved 300 for chemical facilities. This represents about 2
percent of the approximate 15,000 chemical facilities in the
United States that use or store chemicals. The Coast Guard also
approved an alternative security program for the American
Chemistry Council. An alternative security program is an option
afforded to facility operators under MTSA. Instead of creating
their own facility plan, operators of facilities required to
meet Title 33, Code of Federal Regulations, Parts 101 through
106, may meet an alternative security program that has been
approved by the Coast Guard. Approximately 50 chemical facility
operators have chosen to use the American Chemistry Council's
alternative security program rather than create their own
individual plans.
The Coast Guard has completed compliance inspections of all
facilities that currently have facility security plans or the
alternative security program to verify that they are operating
within their respective plans. Since the July 1, 2004,
implementation date for MTSA, the Coast Guard has taken control
actions, which include restrictions to or suspension of
operations, against 45 facilities. Three of those facilities
were from the chemical industry.
The Coast Guard's work in implementing MTSA for waterfront
facilities has been a collaborative effort with other Federal,
State, and local agencies as well as the private industry
partners. We have worked in conjunction with the Information
Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate within the
Department of Homeland Security to ensure that all MTSA plans
are consistent with their buffer zone protection plans.
The Area Maritime Security Committees, led by the local
Coast Guard Captain of the Port, have identified their port's
specific vulnerabilities and created a plan to address those
vulnerabilities. The Area Maritime Security Committees, which
include representatives from the oil and chemical sector,
developed the Area Maritime Security Plans to address the risks
specific to their ports. These area plans focus on critical
port operations and infrastructure, which include regulated
chemical facilities under MTSA as well as those facilities
merely located in close proximity to the navigable waterways
but do not engage in marine transfer operations. Such
facilities would not be regulated under MTSA. These plans
address how local, State, and Federal resources will be
deployed to prevent terrorist attacks and protect critical
infrastructure in our ports, waterways, and coastal areas.
We have developed a security matrix under Operation Neptune
Shield, which is our internal plan to identify highest-risk
threats and conduct operations which prevent and protect the
public, facilities, and vessels from a terrorist attack. The
matrix establishes a protocol of risk awareness and
surveillance to include vessel traffic, air patrols, cutter
presence, security zones, vessel escorts, security boardings of
vessels, and positive control measures used to mitigate the
vulnerabilities inherent in the ports, waterways, and maritime
domain.
We continue to address highest-risk maritime operations. As
such, we have contracted for a special assessment of inland
barges which carry certain dangerous cargos, evaluating their
vulnerabilities and identifying the blast consequence analysis.
The Coast Guard will continue to perform facility security
plan compliance examinations and spot checks on waterfront
facilities that are regulated under Title 33, Code of Federal
Regulations, Part 105, including facilities identified as
chemical, production, and storage operations. Those facilities
will continue to be held to a standard commensurate with the
vulnerabilities of the facility, the threat to the facility,
and the consequences of a successful attack.
Since September 11, the Coast Guard has worked closely with
Federal, State, and local agencies and members of the chemical
industry to enhance the security of the chemical sector and the
marine transportation system. We have established a robust
strategy to enhance public safety from potential threats to
chemical facilities located in the maritime region. We have
conducted vulnerability assessments, implemented comprehensive
security plans, and worked again with the Federal, State, and
local agencies and industry to exercise those plans against
realistic scenarios.
The MTSA has provided the foundation piece for chemical
facility security in our ports. Our work is far from complete.
We will build upon this foundation using a program of regular
training and exercises, an annual review of plans.
The Coast Guard, in concert with the other Federal
agencies, State and local authorities, and partners in industry
will continue to refine the tools and analysis that aid senior
leaders and first responders alike in their ability to protect,
prevent, and rapidly respond to maritime transportation
security incidents. We want to minimize the damage in such an
incident and aid in recovery operations.
I thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I will be
pleased to answer any questions at the appropriate time.
Chairman Collins. Thank you very much, Admiral. I very much
appreciate your testimony and the expertise that you bring.
Many of our witnesses, including representatives of the
Department of Homeland Security, have indicated that the
framework under the Maritime Transportation Security Act might
be one that we could use in drafting a chemical security bill.
So I would like to ask you more questions about the specifics
of the implementation of the MTSA.
First of all, how does the Coast Guard verify and enforce
compliance with MTSA regulations?
Admiral Bone. Well, first off, the plans have to be
approved in accordance with the regulations, so that is the
starting point, which we have already completed. But then there
is annual compliance examinations. We have already, again,
examined each facility, and our inspectors go out with a
checklist that includes the performance dimensions required of
the facility to deal with their particular risk environment. In
other words, not every facility is exactly the same; each
facility has different types of chemicals, has different
vulnerabilities. So facilities conducted--we confirmed that the
facilities, in fact, conducted their actual facility risk
assessment or their vulnerability assessment and then have put
into place the actions necessary to protect that facility. And,
again, the checklist includes such things as access controls,
training of individuals, looking at realistic scenarios for
threats to that facility or attempts to basically threaten that
facility and cause a transportation security incident.
Again, we do not look at everything that could happen. We
look at those things that would have significant consequences
if it was, in fact--if someone entered improperly or took
actions.
Chairman Collins. Let me pick upon a point that you made
that not all facilities are the same. This is a point that the
chemical industry representatives have made to us repeatedly,
that they are not in favor of a one-size-fits-all regulatory
scheme, and they have pointed to the performance-based
regulations of MTSA as a possible model.
Could you explain for us the differences between
performance-based and prescriptive regulations and how you have
implemented a performance-based framework?
Admiral Bone. An example might be someone could prescribe
20-foot-size fences plus perimeter guards outside that have to
be located 20 feet or 100 feet from the facility to address
incoming traffic. That may be one standard in one highly
populated area or high risk, particular high risk, but what if
the facility, for example, you are worried about the cargo that
is there being taken, or being used, which is a byproduct on
the facility, versus the product being the target itself to
cause it to explode or blow up at the location.
You may be able to do that in a different way in a
different location, say if you are in a rural area on the
inland rivers versus if you are sitting, as Senator Lautenberg
mentioned, in New Jersey, in the port of New Jersey.
The requirements, however, that are in place are access
control. Establish effective access control that will not allow
someone who is not properly identified and is not supposed to
be there to do business from entering your facility. There are
multiple ways of doing that, both within your facility but also
with the help of State and local agencies. In other words, you
may hire additional security contractors and maybe people
within your own. You may actually have the local authorities
assisting you in establishing those access controls.
Chairman Collins. The focus is on the goal, not how to
reach the goal.
Admiral Bone. Yes.
Chairman Collins. Under MTSA, the Coast Guard has the
authority, I am told, to shut down a facility that is not in
compliance with MTSA regulations. Has this actually happened?
Has the Coast Guard shut down facilities for noncompliance?
Admiral Bone. Yes. Again, since July 2004, there have been
32 cases where we have actually shut down a facility, these
facilities--not all of them chemical. When we are talking about
MTSA, three of which were chemical facilities. But the majority
of those, the very beginning when the program started up, some
of them had not submitted their Federal security plans and as
such they were not allowed to continue to operate until they
had submitted them early in the process.
Chairman Collins. Do you think that authority is important
for us to give the Department of Homeland Security?
Admiral Bone. Yes. If you have a significant violation of
security such as access, illegal access or breach of the
facility, and there are not proper procedures in place, then
you have compromised that security, safety, and the well-being
of the public, and I think that it is imperative.
Chairman Collins. Does the Coast Guard have authority under
the MTSA to mandate changes in the storage of chemicals at
facilities if you deem the security plan to be inadequate?
Admiral Bone. Well, we start off with an adequate security
plan, so if they decided to move something to a different
location, then we would--the Captain of the Port has the
authority to seek an amendment to their security plan or
actually require a modification of, again, their protective
measures or their performance, or it may be a determination
that they make to move it in order to continue operations.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Lieberman.
Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Madam Chairman.
Admiral, thanks very much for your extremely helpful
testimony. Some of the experts in this area that I have talked
to and we have heard from have said, given the thousands of
chemical facilities in this country, that they worry whether
the Department of Homeland Security has the kind of
infrastructure or capacity to adequately monitor and oversee
implementation of security measures in this sector. In
contrast, I have heard that one reason why the Coast Guard has
been able to effectively implement the provisions of MTSA is
because the agency does have an existing infrastructure at the
ports, obviously, where the Captains of the Ports are clearly
in charge of ensuring that security is improved in their areas
of jurisdiction. The Coast Guard also received substantial
additional resources to implement MTSA.
I wanted to ask you to reflect a little bit on the existing
DHS infrastructure, as you understand it, and also how the
Coast Guard determined how much in the way of additional
resources it needed to adequately oversee implementation of
MTSA.
Admiral Bone. Well, first off, as you stated, we were
fortunate because we already had experience working in the
safety and environmental arenas with these facilities and, in
fact, had area committees similar to the area security
committee, both for environmental and port safety operations,
two separate committees.
However, we did not have the additional bodies, as you have
said, in order to do that and actually called up people on
Title 10 in order to do that until the Administration and the
Senators and Congressmen provided the additional resources for
us, which in turn was about $101 million and approximately 800
people to carry this out.
Now, when we look at what differential, what do we have to
put in place in order to establish and actually execute the
plans and the review of the plans and approval of the plans is
separate from the execution of the compliance. But, again, part
of the regulatory process, which we follow, includes looking at
those alternatives, looking at the approach in order to do this
and identifying what is required in order to execute it. So it
is a very deliberate process, identifying--and if you are going
to be having requirements that are annual, quarterly, semi-
annually, that will drive your resource requirements as well.
Additionally, we look at what we are currently doing in
security and what our controls were already able to capture.
And the fact that we are monitoring these from a safety
standpoint as well as security, our visits are more frequent to
these facilities in any event.
Senator Lieberman. As you probably know, Robert Stephan,
the Acting Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis and
Infrastructure Protection, came before the Committee, and he is
the one who said on behalf of the DHS that voluntary measures
were no longer enough and that the Department was working on
legislation. I wanted to know whether the Coast Guard is
currently involved in those efforts within DHS to try to flesh
out proposals for broader chemical security safety legislation.
Admiral Bone. We are not involved in security regulation
drafting, but we have, in fact, been working closely with IAIP
on looking at comprehensive chemical reviews of facilities, of
chemical facilities, and that process. We have also been
involved with them in looking at the liquefied natural gas
facilities and comprehensive security assessments of those to
follow the current assessments that have already been
conducted.
Senator Lieberman. So beyond your answers to my first
question, what lessons have you learned from implementing MTSA
that could be important for Congress to keep in mind as we
consider legislation to broaden the requirements for chemical
safety in the country?
Admiral Bone. First, I think, is that you have an industry
that is a mature industry and that is a risk-based industry
that has been engaged in safety and environmental protection
and actually understands risk probably better than any other
group, if they are professional in what they undertake. Risk
management is not a new thing. The threat vectors may be
different for this group. So it is key that you engage, as we
do, actually, in almost all of our rulemakings, with the
industry component as you go forward and you continue that
process because they have expertise that you should use.
The other is that you have to have compliance. I think that
it is not just--there has to be a mandated set of requirements.
A voluntary system, as we learned in our environment and in our
safety system, for those that are already respectable and the
best companies, they are not just going to meet what you have,
they are going to exceed it. And that is true also in the
security arena. And we learned that also with MTSA.
Senator Lieberman. But they are not all the best companies,
are they? In other words, the best companies will exceed the
minimum that we set, but others need that minimum.
Admiral Bone. But we can learn a lot from those companies
that set those examples, that have been doing it--actually,
many of them, this is not a tremendous change to their way of
doing business because identification and access control and
worrying about threats, even internal individuals doing harm to
their facilities because they have certain dangerous cargos
that, in fact, are such high risk, many of them actually have
gone down this, what I will call a decision tree process to
make sure the critical links in the chain are removed so that
something cannot happen.
I mean, when I think back on my career, I have worked with
this industry in the past to try to prevent catastrophic
incidents from a safety arena. Actually, in our experience with
MTSA, they, in fact, were one of the leaders in this along with
the passenger vessel, cruise ship industry, who were already
involved with security operations.
Senator Lieberman. Any other lessons?
Admiral Bone. I think you need to make sure you exercise
your plans. I think that if you do not have exercises, if it is
not drilled, people are not trained to do this. And if you do
not have exercises that involve not just the people in the
facilities themselves, but the vessel that may be located
there, the emergency response--I heard mention that one of the
emergency response agencies, the local authorities that are
quite often the people that are providing that layer of defense
for the security of this facility, if they are not built into
it, it would be a big mistake to not include them in the drills
and exercises, particularly the exercises, because that is
where you find out your gaps. You put the framework together,
which is what MTSA does. It puts the security framework
together, hardens the targets, and allows for the entities to
engage. Then the question is: How do you buy down the risk in
that system? How do you collectively use that? In my
experience, things have changed drastically from just response.
In today's environment, if you have an incident, you not only
are responding to that incident, but at the same time you are
heightening security in and around the facilities.
So some of the same people that were engaged before in
responding and controlling traffic now may also be tapped to go
provide increased security. So you may build a plan, but until
you actually exercise it, you will not find all your
communications. You will not really clearly know your true
resource requirements. And you may find some things that you
have more than enough of and other things that you need.
Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Admiral. My time is up. You have
been very helpful. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Voinovich.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH
Senator Voinovich. Again, Madam Chairman, thank you for
these hearings.
In the previous hearings, we have learned of the
vulnerabilities of this sector and the need to adequately
secure it from the threat of terrorist attacks. We have also
begun to understand the patchwork of safety and security
measures, both public and private, that begin to address both
the safety and the security of the chemical industry in the
absence of a comprehensive Federal approach to chemical
security.
Before I ask my questions, I would like to express my
thoughts, Madam Chairman, on this issue. Risk is inherent in
business. While it is possible to manage risk and mitigate its
impact, elimination of risk is impossible. Unfortunately, we
continue to see the brutal nature of terrorism, and we know
that the possibility of a terrorist attack is very real. That
threat must be addressed by enhanced security.
That said, I want to reiterate my belief that the Federal
Government cannot protect itself against every single threat,
and I think that is what Osama bin Laden would like to see us
try to do because in the process of doing so, we will bankrupt
this country.
Therefore, I want to emphasize the importance of a balanced
approach between self-regulation by industry and more proactive
Federal action. Admiral Bone, I have been very much impressed
with your testimony here today. It seems to me that the MTSA-
approach to chemical facility security could be the benchmark
for the way we go about handling this. You have come up with
your standards; if necessary, the industry has come up with
their alternative security system. You have approved it. You
supervised it. I am very impressed with the way you are doing
things. Madam Chairman, if we are thinking about who is going
to run the show after we pass the legislation, it seems to me
that maybe we ought to suggest to Michael Chertoff that the
person should be Admiral Bone. [Laughter.]
Admiral Bone. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Voinovich. One of the things that I would like to
know is who takes care of the facilities that you do not
oversee? I understand that you are responsible for facilities
or navigable water ways; but who takes care of the portion that
is not in your jurisdiction?
Admiral Bone. Well, maybe I need to clarify something.
Actually, this was different than the regulation that applied
to transfer operations under environmental or safety in that it
actually takes you to the gate. So if the facility is, in fact,
a single structure or a single perimeter, then we do, in fact,
when it comes to security and access control, have authority
under MTSA to regulate that facility. However, if portions of a
facility owned by the same company are located, as you say, on
another location, for example, if one company has this plot and
area and then there is another one that is completely separate
and has separate access controls, separate processing, not a
transfer of cargos that has a maritime nexus to it, then you
are right, those facilities would be inland facilities and
would not have a maritime nexus.
The key is we need some type, from water, either--for MTSA,
we need from water access for transportation of goods. But from
the Port and Waterway Security Act, we have authority over a
facility if it is adjacent to the waterway and it presents a
risk or a threat. In those cases, MTSA does not apply, but if
there is a threat vector directed, say, at the chemical sector,
we can, in fact, impose requirements on that facility regarding
access controls and assist in that with our own assets, and
that is working with the State and local.
Senator Voinovich. So we could look at the proximity or the
nexus of facilities with that water facility perhaps, to look
at who would handle those that are not in your jurisdiction.
Admiral Bone. What I would tell you is that each plan
identifies the exact perimeter and the layout of that facility,
so that it is clear if it is a MTSA facility or not.
Senator Voinovich. OK. But what I am saying is that for the
facilities that are not subject to MTSA, what entity oversees
them?
Admiral Bone. Right now I don't know anyone that is
actually applying any standards along these lines other than
the States themselves or the local communities that may have
input particular requirements or safety requirements, and then
did it under the guise of safety and protection of the public.
Senator Voinovich. What do you think about using MTSA and
the alternative security system as a prototype for expanding
the method to a nationwide chemical security effort.
Admiral Bone. I think it is a good model and it is a good
framework, and I do not see why it would not work. I think that
you have to look at the organizational constructs. You create
an area maritime security committee and things like that, you
may need to look at some other organizational construct further
inland just because of the nature of the relationship or the
entities and how DHS could best manage.
Senator Voinovich. And you are confident that the MTSA
regulations and the alternative security system that the
industry has come up with, in terms of regulations, gets the
job done in terms of securing these facilities?
Admiral Bone. Yes, it has definitely improved the security
of the facilities. Again, I want to make sure it is clear that
this is a systemic approach. The hardening and the protective
actions by the industry of the facilities is one piece of
securing that facility from a terrorist event. It has to be
layered, no different than from a vessel that is coming to the
facility. When we look at our work overseas, if you are looking
at a terrorist with intent to do harm----
Senator Voinovich. But what I am really interested in is
that in terms of the regulations, that they get the job done.
Do you feel comfortable that we do not have to come back and
add another 50 pages of regulations. Do you feel that the
regulations you have get the job done?
Admiral Bone. Right, I believe so.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Lautenberg.
Senator Lautenberg. Admiral, you know that I have great
respect and I would say friendship with the Coast Guard and so
much appreciate how you get things done, typically with ever
reduced resources to do it but more assignments. That is really
an anomaly, I must tell you. But you carry on in a form that
makes us all proud.
When you do an assessment of risk, do you do risk
assessments throughout the ports that you have jurisdiction
over or are involved in?
Admiral Bone. Yes, sir. We have completed 55 risk
assessments of what we believe to be the 55 most critical
economic and military strategic ports in the United States. We
have completed those.
Senator Lautenberg. So when you do a risk assessment, you
try to measure the damage that might occur if an attack takes
place, and that deals with things like volatility of material.
How about the density of population nearby? Does that figure
into it?
Admiral Bone. We look at the threat vector, we multiple
that by the vulnerability, and then by the consequence. And
part of that consequence could be public safety. It could also
be the economic harm. If you are looking at a port, if you are
looking at a facility, then a facility--again, you will use the
same assessment only if it is a microcosm of the port. But we
looked at the combined port system and the vulnerabilities of
that system, not just of an entity. And we also had threat
assessments that were conducted as well so that you have some
validity of what that threat--what is the true risk that you
are trying to address.
Senator Lautenberg. Do you have a file, a list, a database
that lists the most vulnerable and a scale that defines where
all of these places stand in terms of one risk in one place
compared to the other sites?
Admiral Bone. Yes, Senator. We have, in fact, identified
that----
Senator Lautenberg. Are you familiar with the----
Admiral Bone [continuing]. For ports. And then we work with
DHS to look at critical infrastructure and critical assets.
Senator Lautenberg. So when you look at the port of New
York, Newark, Elizabeth, you are, I assume, familiar with the
identification of the 2-mile stretch from Newark Liberty
Airport to the harbor. And that is described as the most
vulnerable, most damage-susceptible place in the country.
Admiral Bone. I would hope it is not the most vulnerable
now along the waterfront. But I would say that does present a
very high risk. It is a high-risk environment that you have to
have countermeasures for. I agree.
Senator Lautenberg. So you support applying resources based
on risk assessments?
Admiral Bone. Yes, sir.
Senator Lautenberg. Because we do that on the maritime
side, the port security side. And that is different than our
grant programs that we have otherwise. And you know that
Secretary Chertoff, the Administration, and the Chairmen of the
9/11 Commission all suggest focus on the risk and that is how
we should distribute our resources. That is quite logical.
What is the difference between a risk-based security
decision and threat-based? Is there a difference or is that
just terminology?
Admiral Bone. It sounds to me like terminology. I think
that risk includes the threat vector as well as the
vulnerability or the probability of the event and the
consequence when you say risk-based. If you say threat-based,
then usually that is counterterrorism direct, meaning here is
the threat, I go after the threat. I know exactly where it is,
I counter the threat. So that may be the differential.
Senator Lautenberg. Admiral, I thank you for your service
and the Coast Guard.
Madam Chairman, I would ask that the record be kept open
because I have to go, and I have other questions. I will not be
able to hear the other panelists.
Chairman Collins. Without objection.
Senator Lautenberg. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Senator Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. Thanks, Madam Chairman. Admiral, welcome. I
love your name. [Laughter.]
I have to slip out, in just a minute, and go to the Capitol
to participate in an event with one of our colleagues, Blanche
Lincoln, and some others, on a matter. As a result, I cannot
ask you but maybe one question. I am going to miss the
beginning of the testimonies from the panelists who follow, and
I want to especially welcome Beth Turner from DuPont, and I
look forward to hopefully returning to ask some questions.
My staff was good enough to prepare some real good
questions, and my colleagues have asked them all. So I am just
going to ask you one.
Let's say you are sitting on this side of the table, and we
are sitting out there, and you are thinking about what do I do
now. The hearing is over, time to craft the legislation and to
introduce a bill. What would it look like?
Admiral Bone. I think that it would start with the end in
mind, meaning, again, what is the risk, the loss that is
unacceptable. And I would frame it around that.
We framed MTSA around a transportation security incident
that looked at significant loss of life or direct impact on the
transportation--significant impact on the transportation system
as the baseline. You have to decide that, I think, again,
inland for those facilities. Then I would craft legislation
very similar to the protective measures when it comes to
industry's responsibility to execute security around their
facilities. And I think that you may have some nuances in that
maybe trucks go to one location where we have fleeting barges
in a location, maybe trucks or railroad--trains have places
that they may come together different than we do for barges.
But I think you are going to have to look at the nuances
between the transportation systems and the storage systems and
develop it from there.
But I think the framework is in place, and I think it is
something, too, that we have seen that industry and a portion
of the States and the local enforcement entities understand. So
why would you want to create something that is so new or so
different than now if I am over here on this side of the street
I work this way, if I am on this side of the street, I have to
do something completely different.
Senator Carper. That sounds like pretty good advice. Thank
you. Thanks for your service as well and being with us today.
Admiral Bone. Thank you, sir.
Senator Carper. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Admiral. I think now we will be
consulting with you as we begin to draft the legislation over
the August recess, and I hope we can call upon you for advice.
Admiral Bone. Yes.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
I would now like to call forward our second panel, which
consists of three security chiefs from different parts of the
chemical sector as well as a local emergency manager. Our first
witness will be Beth Turner. Ms. Turner is the Director of
Global Operations Security for DuPont and is responsible for
the security of DuPont's operating assets around the world. Ms.
Turner led the American Chemistry Council team that developed
the original Responsible Care Security Code, about which we
have heard so much, and the team also reassessed the code in
2004. She is currently serving as Chairman of the Chemical
Sector Coordinating Council. Welcome.
Our second witness is Jim Schellhorn, the Director of
Environmental Health and Safety for Terra Industries. Mr.
Schellhorn is responsible for security for Terra's North
American operations. In addition to providing testimony about
his own experience with security for Terra's fertilizer
facilities, he will be representing the views of the Fertilizer
Institute, and we thank you for being here today.
Third, we will hear from John Chamberlain, who is the
Corporate Security Manager for Shell Oil Company. Mr.
Chamberlain has years of experience working with Shell's
refineries, chemical plants, and distribution terminals, as
well as more than 30 years of law enforcement experience. He
also serves as the Vice Chairman of the Security Committee for
the American Petroleum Institute and will be representing both
API and Shell today.
And last, but certainly not least, we will hear from Chief
Robert Full, who is the Fire Marshall and Emergency Management
Coordinator for Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, an area that
encompasses the city of Pittsburgh. Chief Full has more than
three decades' experience with hazardous materials and chemical
safety. He has been a volunteer firefighter for 34 years and
the county's emergency manager for the past 7 years. He chairs
or has chaired the local emergency planning committee for the
last 6 years.
I would also note that he has had firsthand experience with
terrorism. On September 11, when Flight 93 crashed in Somerset
County, Chief Full was part of the team that responded to that
tragedy. Chief Full, we welcome you as well.
Ms. Turner, we will start with you. Thank you.
TESTIMONY OF BETH TURNER,\1\ DIRECTOR, GLOBAL OPERATIONS
SECURITY, E.I. DUPONT DE NEMOURS AND CO., INC., WILMINGTON,
DELAWARE
Ms. Turner. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman and Senator
Lieberman. Distinguished Members of the Committee, it is my
pleasure to be here with you today. My name is Beth Turner, and
as the Chairman indicated, I am Director of Global Operations
Security for DuPont. In that responsibility and that role, I
have responsibility for the security of our operating assets
around the world, and the Chairman has indicated some of the
other roles that I have so I will not repeat those. But it is a
pleasure to be here, and thank you for the opportunity.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Turner appears in the Appendix on
page 238.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
My testimony will first address the actions that DuPont has
taken to protect our employees, our communities, and our
facilities, so first I will cover that; second, our views
regarding the critical security legislation that we are here to
discuss; and third, some brief comments on our activities and
working with industry programs.
For over 200 years, DuPont has focused on safety. The
founders of our company established an uncompromising
commitment to safety when we opened our first gunpowder
operation in Delaware, and that safety commitment continues
today. Our focus on safety is driven by what we, in DuPont,
know as our core value commitment to our employees and the
communities in which we operate.
So, in that context, the world-changing events of September
11, 2001, compelled us to view security in a different light.
Quickly after the 2001 attacks, senior corporate leadership
made security a high priority by integrating it into the
company's safety core value, and this sent a very strong and
powerful message across the company about the importance of
security. The bottom line of that change is hardening and
heightening of security at our facilities across the company.
We assessed over 500 locations worldwide, and we used a risk-
based approach to sort these facilities into categories, and we
called the highest category Category 1 facilities. A security
leader was designated at each of these locations to become a
focal point for security. These site security leaders have
worked tirelessly since the events of 2001, and it is their
outstanding work that I am so pleased to recognize today to
this Committee.
These security professionals partnered with process safety
professionals in our company and conducted security
vulnerability assessments of our Category 1 facilities, looking
at equipment, staffing, procedures, the practices we have in
place, and our preparedness. We accelerated the timing for the
overall vulnerability assessment process and completed our
upgrades and our verification of all Category 1 sites 9 to 12
months ahead of the American Chemistry Council deadline for
that work.
While I cannot speak publicly about specific measures that
we took, I can describe in general terms the types of upgrades
that we have implemented at our U.S. Category 1 facilities so
you get an idea of the kinds of things we have done.
Equipment upgrades include fencing, motorized gates,
turnstiles, signage, access control systems, video
surveillance, additional lighting, fence-associated electronic
intrusion detection systems and alarm monitoring, crash gates,
and barricades. We have since implemented a special maintenance
program to ensure that this new equipment remains functional
and reliable, and we have another round of upgrades currently
underway.
Other measures that we implemented include increased
patrols of site perimeters, significant reductions in traffic
coming on site, more stringent identification checks, and
increased inspections of rail cars, vehicles, and other trucks
and other vehicles on site.
In addition, our entire workforce is very alert to
suspicious activities, and I will talk more about that in just
a few minutes.
Security officer staffing has been significantly increased.
These officers received additional training, and they are
continually retrained.
Strong process safety management is a key part of our
DuPont safety culture, and it is a very important means to
protect our employees and our contractors. Process safety
analyses are performed to identify ongoing improvements, and
they consistently include inherently safer evaluations.
We require extensive criminal background checks for all
employees upon hiring and all contractors that seek access to a
DuPont U.S. site.
We have long-standing relationships with local law
enforcement and emergency planners, and these relationships
have been reinforced. Together, we train, we drill, we
exercise, we work together on investigation of suspicious
activities. We are active in local emergency planning
committees and mutual aid groups and, in fact, we offer our own
DuPont transportation emergency response teams to assist other
companies in transportation incidents.
We work with a range of trade associations and Federal
Government agencies such as DHS, the Coast Guard, the FBI, and
the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, and we have found government
to be a very willing and helpful partner in our efforts to
secure our sites.
When the national threat level is elevated, security
measures are immediately reassessed by headquarters and by
individual sites, even if there is no connection to the
chemical industry or DuPont. Additional measures that we might
implement are determined based on the specific threat
environment at the time. Each DuPont Category 1 site has
carefully planned for security actions that might be required
in extreme circumstances, and we have an automated crisis
notification system that can contact all of these sites within
10 minutes or less.
Perhaps the most powerful security measure activated since
September 11 is the involvement of our employees and our
contractors. They have been trained to be alert and to report
anything unusual, and believe me, they do.
In summary, DuPont and our employees have done a lot, and
our security enhancements are continuing. We recognize that an
effective security program is a journey. It requires constant
vigilance and continual improvement, and we are committed to
that.
So now I would like to turn to the Federal legislation.
While many security measures have been implemented voluntarily,
we believe that there is an important role in government to
ensure that all chemical sites are taking appropriate action.
Accordingly, DuPont supports meaningful and effective
legislation and believes that ten important elements should be
addressed, and I now will go through those briefly.
First, we believe the legislation must have a clear
security focus so that we get the job done in a timely and
effective manner.
Second, legislation should be risk-based so that government
and the private sector resources can focus where they can
provide the greatest benefit.
Third, we believe that regulatory authority for the
chemical sector should reside with DHS. DHS and the sector are
already working together and also DHS regulates portions of our
sector through the Maritime Transportation Security Act, as has
been discussed.
Fourth, we believe that chemical security legislation
should be guided by a clear Federal program rather than a
patchwork of State and local programs.
Fifth, it is important to recognize the different yet
complementary roles for government and the private sector in
security matters. The private sector can and should take
reasonable steps to secure its facilities against threats, but
it is the role of government to defend the Nation's
infrastructure.
Sixth, flexibility is important. Our sector is very
diverse. In DuPont alone, we operate thousands of chemical
processes, employing a wide range of raw materials in both
rural and urban locations. Chemical security legislation should
be risk-based and allow DHS to tailor its regulations with the
diversity of the sector in mind.
Seventh, is the Maritime Transportation Security Act. It
has proven, in my opinion, to be a very effective security
regulation for DuPont facilities, and I suggest that it be a
model for regulating the highest-priority facilities.
Eighth, the work already done under programs such as
Responsible Care and the Maritime Transportation Security Act
has materially enhanced security, and these prior efforts must
be credited.
Ninth is the protection of sensitive security information,
and protection of that information is critical. We must obtain
strong protection for information that we need to ensure does
not get into the hands of the wrong people.
The final issue is inherent safety, commonly referred to as
inherently safer technology, or IST. As the Committee knows,
IST is a process safety matter, and we believe that it should
stay with the safety arena and not be mandated in the chemical
security context. DuPont believes that inherently safer
technology is a mainstream component of process safety and that
it has an important role to play in security. And inherently
safer has not only been an integral part of our process safety
system for many decades. In addition, it is now part of the
security vulnerability assessment process that we all ran and
the teams that conducted those assessments included both
security and safety professionals at the table, the safety
professionals being the ones that understand IST.
Each chemical process is complex and unique, a complex
array of piping and pressure vessels, tanks, pumps, valves, raw
materials, and operating conditions at a variety of
temperatures and pressures. So given the complex and unique
nature of each process, safety evaluations do require special
expertise and consideration of a wide range of possibilities
for inherently safer operation. Therefore, companies must have
the flexibility to assess and decide upon options.
I was also asked to comment on the Chemical Sector
Coordinating Council in my role as Chair of the group. I am
pleased to report that the council is strong, and after only
one year of existence has tackled a number of substantive
issues. I can speak further about the council during the
question-and-answer session.
In closing, Madam Chairman, I want to thank you and the
Members of the Committee for allowing me to share what DuPont
has done to build a strong security system and process in place
in our operations. We have very successfully integrated
security, engagement, and responsibility into our culture, and
we know there is more to do. We take this responsibility very
seriously, Madam Chairman, and we appreciate the trust and the
confidence that has been placed in us by the public and
government. Therefore, we are taking the necessary actions to
appropriately harden and heighten security across the company.
Our corporate leadership is very committed to continually
strengthening security. Security and safety of our operations
are critical to our employees and neighbors and, in fact, are
essential to the future of the company.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify. We
appreciate the important work of this Committee, and we have
enjoyed working with you to date and hope we can do that in the
future.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Mr. Schellhorn.
TESTIMONY OF JIM SCHELLHORN,\1\ DIRECTOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL
HEALTH AND SAFETY, TERRA INDUSTRIES, INC., ON BEHALF OF THE
FERTILIZER INSTITUTE
Mr. Schellhorn. Thank you. Madam Chairman and Members of
the Committee, I am Jim Schellhorn. I am the Director of
Environmental Health and Safety for Terra Industries and am
responsible for security for Terra's North American operations.
I am here today to testify on behalf of The Fertilizer
Institute. TFI is the leading voice of the Nation's fertilizer
industry, representing the public policy, communication, and
statistical needs of manufacturers, producers, retailers, and
transporters of fertilizer. I appreciate the opportunity to
appear here today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Schellhorn with an attachment
appears in the Appendix on page 253.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terra is headquartered in Sioux City, Iowa. We are a
leading international producer of nitrogen fertilizers. Our
primary products are anhydrous ammonia, ammonium nitrate, urea,
and urea ammonium nitrate solution. Our facilities operate 24
hours a day, 7 days a week, and Terra employs approximately
1,200 people in North America and the United Kingdom. We are
proud of the vital role the fertilizer industry plays in modern
agriculture.
Fertilizer is essential to food production. Without the
contribution of our fertilizers to crop production, roughly
one-third of the world's population would be without food.
Because food production depletes soil nutrient supplies,
farmers rely on fertilizers to keep the soil productive. With
the help of commercial fertilizer, North American farmers are
able to produce the most abundant and affordable food in the
world.
The fertilizer industry is very diverse. Companies such as
Terra produce and sell fertilizer into the retail distribution
system, which in turn sells it to farmer customers. Most of our
production and storage facilities, like many others in the
industry, are located in rural communities. For instance,
Terra's Verdigris plant, where I work, is located in a rural
area of northeast Oklahoma near the Tulsa port of Catoosa.
Because we produce and store anhydrous ammonia and because our
operations include a waterfront facility, the Verdigris plant
is subject to many Federal safety, security, and environmental
regulations, including OSHA's process safety management
standard, the U.S. Coast Guard's facilities security
regulations under the Maritime Transportation Security Act, or
MTSA, and EPA's risk management program requirements. Company-
wide, in the United States, Terra has five locations subject to
MTSA and nine locations subject to PSM and RMP requirements.
Shortly after the events of September 11, TFI formed a
security task force, of which Terra is a member. In September
2002, TFI's security task force developed and the board of
directors adopted an industry Security Code of Management
Practices designed to help the fertilizer industry secure the
manufacture and transport of its products.
The voluntary code calls on the industry to use
methodologies developed by the Center for Chemical Process
Safety, the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers
Association, or an equivalent methodology when conducting
security vulnerability assessments, or SVAs, and when making
security-related improvements.
The code establishes benchmarks for conducting SVAs and
implementing security measures, for conducting employee
training and drills, for communicating with law enforcement,
conducting audits, and verifying physical site security
measures through a third party, and the code provides timelines
for these activities by ranking facilities at high, medium, and
low risk levels.
I would like to take a moment and discuss specific measures
Terra has taken and continues to undertake to secure our
facilities and the products we produce.
After TFI developed the security code, we immediately began
to conduct security vulnerability assessments and audits at all
of our facilities. We used both outside law enforcement experts
and internal resources to identify vulnerabilities, implement
countermeasures, and develop security plans. The process we
utilized ranked both our facilities and the vulnerabilities we
identified based upon risk. Using those rankings, we began to
address the highest risks first.
Since September 11, Terra has installed many physical
security improvements, including additional lighting, fences,
physical barricades, and video monitors at strategic locations.
All gates are locked when unattended, and facility access is
tightly controlled by security or Terra employees 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week. All of our product carriers and drivers are
pre-approved. All deliveries to our facilities are checked at
the gate prior to authorizing access. And criminal background
checks are required for all contractors and all Terra
employees.
We have also recently implemented a system to ensure
delivery receipts for all truck shipments of ammonium nitrate
from Terra-owned facilities. All of our facilities now have
active security plans, and our waterfront facilities are in
compliance with the Coast Guard facility security regulations.
Terra Industries and other members of TFI have undertaken
tremendous efforts to ensure that criminals intent on harming
our country cannot purchase and misuse fertilizer products. For
example, after the tragedy in Oklahoma City in 1995, the
fertilizer industry partnered with the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives in outreach programs called
``Be Aware for America'' and ``Be Secure for America,'' which
were aimed at protecting our products and our places of
business.
After the terrorist attack on September 11, the fertilizer
industry launched ``America's Security Begins with You,'' a new
program, which has been endorsed by ATF, the Department of
Homeland Security, and the Association of American Plant Food
Control Officials, who regulate fertilizer at the State level.
The campaign urges that security plans be developed and
implemented, records of sales be maintained, and that law
enforcement be alerted to any suspicious activity.
These programs have primarily focused on ammonium nitrate,
the fertilizer used in the Oklahoma City bombing. Recognizing
the changing nature of the Nation's security, Senators Cochran,
Pryor, Roberts, and Chambliss recently introduced the Secure
Handling of Ammonium Nitrate Act of 2005. The bill directs the
Department of Homeland Security to promulgate regulations
requiring all facilities that handle ammonium fertilizer to
register at the State level and maintain records for all
purchases of ammonium nitrate. The fertilizer industry's
support of the Senate legislation--and parallel legislation
introduced in the House--takes the industry's voluntary
programs to the next level through the creation of a uniform
Federal set of rules for sellers and purchasers of ammonium
nitrate.
We believe that chemical facilities will most effectively
address security when given the flexibility to use measures
that will address the risks specific to each facility. Quite
simply, we at Terra and others in the industry have not
employed a one-size-fits-all approach at our facilities, and we
believe that legislation requiring us to do so would be
counterproductive.
Equally important, Congress must recognize the security
measures already taken and facilities covered under other
Federal regulations, such as the Coast Guard's facility
security requirements, to avoid duplicate regulations.
There has also been considerable debate over whether
Congress should mandate the use of inherently safer
technologies, or IST. IST is not a security measure. It is a
safety concept that has been misapplied by some groups in a way
that we fear could lead to the ban or restricted use of basic
nitrogen fertilizers. For instance, if anhydrous ammonia
manufacture was banned in the United States as a result of an
IST mandate, there would be no nitrogen fertilizer
manufacturing in the United States because ammonia is the basic
feedstock for all other nitrogen fertilizer. U.S. farmers would
have to rely on imported fertilizer to grow their crops, and
indirectly, the American public would have to rely on foreign
fertilizer for their food supply.
Terra and the fertilizer industry are not opposed to
evaluating process safety of our operations and considering
potential safety improvements. On the contrary, process hazard
analyses and risk assessments we have conducted as part of our
PSM and RMP programs and the security vulnerability assessments
we have performed include consideration of ways to minimize
hazards. However, this type of hazard assessment can only work
when applied by a site owner's engineers and safety
professionals who truly understand the facility's operations.
Madam Chairman and Members of the Committee, American
farmers, fertilizer producers, and retailers are committed to
security. We have demonstrated that commitment through the
significant number of voluntary security steps we have taken
and will continue to take. Without question, we very much want
to help Congress in its endeavors to shield this country from
acts of terrorism. We support Department of Homeland Security
Secretary Chertoff's efforts to evaluate the Nation's
vulnerabilities and prioritize the Federal Government's
response based on risk assessment.
As the Federal Government proposes its suggestions for
chemical facility security legislation, we recommend such
proposals be based on reasonable, clear, and equitable
performance standards. TFI and its members believe that to be
effective, fair, realistic, and feasible to implement, the
legislation must: Provide for the varying levels of risk posed
by different kinds of chemical facilities; recognize the
security measures our industry has already taken and complement
Federal regulations with which we already comply; and reject
attempts to mandate inherently safer technology.
Furthermore, we urge that the Federal regulations preempt
any such action by State or local governments. Layering Federal
regulation upon a patchwork of State regulations is, at best,
inefficient and, at its worst, an impediment to efficient
compliance.
I thank you for the opportunity to testify and look forward
to answering any questions you might have.
TESTIMONY OF JOHN P. CHAMBERLAIN,\1\ SECURITY MANAGER, ASSET
PROTECTION SERVICES, CORPORATE SECURITY, SHELL OIL COMPANY, ON
BEHALF OF SHELL OIL COMPANY AND THE AMERICAN PETROLEUM
INSTITUTE
Mr. Chamberlain. Chairman Collins, Ranking Member Lieberman
and Members of the Committee, my name is John Chamberlain. I am
a Manager with Corporate Security for Shell Oil Company. I also
serve as the Vice Chairman of the Security Committee for the
American Petroleum Institute. I have many years of experience
working with Shell's energy operations, and also 30 years of
law enforcement experience.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Chamberlain appears in the
Appendix on page 264.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am pleased to appear before you today to testify on the
issue of chemical security, representing both Shell Oil and the
American Petroleum Institute, API.
The U.S. oil and natural gas industry is committed to
protecting the reliable supply network of fuels and products to
keep our economy growing. Our industry has long operated
globally, and often in unstable regions overseas, where
security is an integral part of providing for the world's
energy needs.
After September 11, 2001, the industry partnered with
Federal, State, and local authorities to reevaluate and
strengthen our domestic security. Within months of the attack,
the industry developed security measures for all segments of
the oil and gas network, including pipelines, refineries,
terminals, and others.
One reason I believe the industry was able to move so
quickly is that we have high caliber security professionals
with both military and law enforcement backgrounds on our
staff. These former FBI, Secret Service, and Delta Force
personnel are experts in physical security, and they are
employed protecting our industry's assets. A large number of
security personnel in the oil and gas industry, including
myself, have security clearances necessary for classified
briefings we have with the Federal intelligence community, and
that is important.
I want to speak briefly about two areas: one, the numerous
broad actions to address security in the energy sector that we
support, including industry actions, Federal security laws, and
public/private sector partnerships; and two, I want to talk
about specific proposals that we think would be
counterproductive to security.
Although it is rarely reported on, the oil and natural gas
industry, in partnership with government agencies, has taken
quite thorough and painstaking actions to improve security. We
have operated under new Federal security law, Federal security
partnerships, industrial practices, and enhanced intelligence
sharing networks, and we support these ongoing efforts. Little
has been communicated about the actions that Congress,
industry, government agencies, State and local first responders
have taken. Examples of these actions are--what we heard
today--the Maritime Transportation Security Act, the TSA
background check requirements under the PATRIOT Act, and the
Department of Transportation's security requirements for
hazardous materials, all security laws that we operate under
and support.
The industry collectively created industry-wide methods to
address two stages of security, first finding the weaknesses
and then protecting them. First API and the National
Petrochemical Refiners Association produced the methodology for
SVA or Security Vulnerability Assessment. This is a method for
managers to identify security vulnerabilities in the wide range
of oil and natural gas operations. This SVA methodology is
sophisticated. It is a risk-based tool used to identify the
security hazards, threats and vulnerabilities. We co-wrote this
with the Department of Energy's security personnel, and DHS
today is using this methodology to train their field
inspectors.
I would like to submit a copy of this document for the
record.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The document entitled ``Security Vulnerability Assessment
Methodology for the Petroleum and Petrochemical Industries, Second
Edition,'' October 2004, American Petroleum Institute, NPRA, submitted
by Mr. Chamberlain appears in the Appendix on page 277.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chairman Collins. Without objection, Mr. Chamberlain. Thank
you.
Mr. Chamberlain. In addition, this security tool is
accepted by the American Chemistry Council's Responsible Care
Code and is an example of the government-recognized industry
practices that are now in operation in this business.
API and Federal security personnel next completed the
Security Guidelines for the Petroleum Industry. This booklet
instructs operators and plant managers in how to protect
facilities and respond to changes in the threat level. The
third edition was completed earlier this summer. These are
working methods and countermeasures the oil sector uses to
protect all segments of industries, and I would like to also
submit this after testimony.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ ``Security Guidelines for the Petroleum Industry,'' American
Petroleum Institute, April 2005, submitted by Mr. Chamberlain appears
in the Appendix on page 428.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chairman Collins. Without objection, Mr. Chamberlain. Thank
you.
Mr. Chamberlain. Some legislators may be tempted to treat
security as a concern to be addressed with proscriptive
inflexible regulations. This would result in a one-size-fits-
all approach that provides a roadmap for terrorists in my
opinion. We ask that you recognize that a terrorist, unlike a
pollutant or physical workplace environment, is clever,
deliberate, and has the ability to adapt against a checklist of
arbitrary rules. This is one reason we value our close
professional partnership with government, industries, and the
intelligence community.
Let me give you an example of a more risk-based approach.
Like other integrated oil companies, Shell and other API
members have joined with the Department of Homeland Security in
developing a common system for comparing security risks across
the Nation's very critical infrastructure. The system is called
Risk Assessment and Management of Critical Asset protection and
has the acronym of RAMCAP. It will give Congress and the
Executive Branch, through the Department of Homeland Security,
the tools they need to make decisions and allocate resources
for security. We support the risk-based concept being adopted
in the RAMCAP program.
Overall, we hope that you would avoid provisions that would
be counterproductive to the gains that we have made in security
since September 11. There are specific proposals that we have
concern would be disruptive to our industrial security
operations. Although we are in the energy business, some
proposals to address the security of chemical sites could
affect the energy industry, as well as agricultural, water
treatment, food, dairy processing, and other small businesses.
These U.S. industries and farms are essential for our national
security and economic vitality and are not traditionally
thought of as chemical industry facilities.
Concerning inherently safer technology, we strongly oppose
any environmental mandates for inherently safer technology
pursued under the guise of security. It would be
counterproductive to protecting our infrastructure. Security
law covering companies should be risk-based and not seek to
legislate out the elimination of all risk, which quite frankly
is impossible. Private farms and company facilities that need
to use dangerous substances intensify their security plans
based on the risk level.
Infrastructure security laws already passed by Congress,
such as the Maritime Transportation Security Act, the
Bioterrorism Act, require vulnerability assessments and
security plans for private facilities and vessels, but they do
not create a new requirement for IST. In fact, no other
security law requires IST and that is for good reason.
First, creating an inherently safer technology requirement
for farms and businesses and others in the name of national
security could actually increase risk. For example, in reducing
volumes of hazardous chemicals stored at a facility, you may
reduce the on-site risk, but consequently you could increase
the transportation risk where the material has to be
transported by rail, truck, or barge traffic to the site that
used to keep it on site, and this could potentially increase
risk to the overall system.
Under new IST authority, a government order for a change to
materials or processes could very well result in accidental or
intentional harm and create a new liability for complying with
the law. Process safety concepts are already incorporated under
existing Federal health and safety requirements. They are both
in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Process
Safety Management Program and the EPA's Risk Management
Program.
American farms and companies will continue to comply with
Federal and State and local requirements as they are today.
Farms and company facilities, through self-interest, consider
the safest, most innovative and cost-effective technology as
they do business. New government mandates for IST could require
bureaucrats without expertise and courts to determine the best
technology of businesses. Creating a new security IST authority
will allow government micro-management in mandating
substitutions for all processes and substances, and this would
greatly inhibit and limit operational flexibility and
innovation.
I want to mention information protection, too. It has been
mentioned earlier. But in addition to FOIA exemption, I believe
information protection is extremely important in anything to do
with security legislation. I would like to see additional
protections made to prevent the leak of vulnerability
information which could provide a roadmap to terrorists or
other criminals. Any information developed in regard to this
security legislation should be protected from civil discovery.
I want to mention, too, MTSA. We have heard a lot about it
already. Should the Committee conclude that new legislation is
needed, we would suggest that it not apply to facilities
already covered under the existing MTSA legislation. We would
also suggest that sites that contain areas only partially
covered by MTSA have the option for the entire facility to be
covered by MTSA instead of a new law, something the Senator
questioned the Admiral about earlier. We would support that as
it would avoid conflicting regulations in a single facility, to
have part of it under MTSA and part of it under some other
requirement when you have a common management for the site.
Examining the MTSA security law, I would like to highlight
a few characteristics for your consideration. In implementing a
broad new security law, the Coast Guard has overall done a
successful job without impeding the commerce it protects. This
is a credit to the Coast Guard century-long experience in
protecting onshore and offshore commerce, as well as the
existing relationships of local stakeholders and the respective
captains of the port. Without this security expertise and these
relationships with private sector operations, the MTSA would
not have been able to be successful. Many agencies do not have
the security expertise of the Coast Guard and should not have
responsibility for counterterrorism.
Like the MTSA, other Federal security laws have protected
and strengthened our infrastructure, instead of having a
Federal bureaucracy attempt to redraw or micromanage how
private operators function. In other words, we believe that a
security rule or law has to be a risk-based philosophy. The
required security protections need to meet the risk under which
the facility is operating.
In conclusion, oil and natural gas operations are safer now
and more secure as a result of the public/private partnerships
and numerous new Federal security requirements. We urge the
Committee to carefully consider the effect any new Federal law
would have upon existing security laws, industry practices, and
the partnerships that have been developed with government thus
far.
The oil and gas industry is committed to protecting the
reliable supply, supply network of fuels and products to keep
our economy growing, and whether or not new security
legislation is passed, we are going to continue to work with
the government to consistently reevaluate and improve security
of U.S. oil and gas operations.
I thank you.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Chief Full, welcome.
TESTIMONY OF CHIEF ROBERT A. FULL,\1\ FIRE MARSHAL/EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT COORDINATOR, ALLEGHENY COUNTY (PA) DEPARTMENT OF
EMERGENCY SERVICES
Mr. Full. Good morning, Chairman Collins and Senators. It
is a distinct honor and privilege to be invited here to testify
on behalf of chemical facility security today and its impact to
the local and county level of government. My County Chief
Executive, Dan Onorato, extends his appreciation for this
opportunity as well.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Full appears in the Appendix on
page 272.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I speak this morning as a 30-year first responder as a
firefighter, paramedic, and a hazardous materials technician,
as both a career professional and a volunteer firefighter from
Allegheny County in Southwestern Pennsylvania. I serve as my
county's local Emergency Management Coordinator, and also the
local Emergency Planning Committee Chairperson. I also have had
the privilege to serve as the chairman of one of our Regional
Counterterrorism Task Forces in Pennsylvania, representing 13
counties, a population of 3.1 million people, which would also
include the city of Pittsburgh.
Allegheny County in Pennsylvania has the city of Pittsburgh
as its county seat and is famous for Three Rivers, steel
making, research centers, world class medical systems,
education institutions such as the University of Pittsburgh,
Duquesne, and Carnegie Mellon, major transportation systems,
and the Pittsburgh Steelers and Pirates. The county covers some
730 square miles with a population of 1.3 million residents,
and most unusual, with 130 separate local municipalities.
This morning as I awoke early to fly here, I took a shower
and made my coffee with crystal clean and safe water. My
clothes have synthetics in them. The breakfast fruits that I
enjoyed were free from bacteria and were hearty from the vine.
The fuel in both my car and the airplane I flew in worked
extremely well today. As I look around here I see so much of
the positives and the need for a strong and safe chemical
industry. It has been said and reinforced that one of the main
reasons the United States enjoys the highest standard of living
is through the use of our chemicals in all aspects of our daily
lives.
On behalf of those that I represent, the first responder
community and local government, we could not agree more in the
need to support and protect our chemical industry. I am humbled
to be with such fine representatives of the chemical industry.
I know personally firsthand the representatives from these
various organizations have done an outstanding job in working
with us at times at the local level to provide us training and
resources so we can better serve the public.
As a first responder, paramount to the success of doing
your job is to be able to protect lives and property during
emergencies. An individual comes into public safety as a first
responder and he/she is primarily trained to deal with the
aftermath of an incident which was caused by perhaps an
accident, an act of God, or an intentional act.
Every day in this country the men and women of our public
safety departments, police, fire, emergency medical services,
911, demonstrate great courage and conviction to be the best
they can be. These folks plan, train, exercise, and respond to
any emergency no matter what the case. No matter how good a
public safety organization is, there will be times that their
training, skills, knowledge, capabilities will be overwhelmed,
or they may not have the expertise to deal effectively with the
situation.
To minimize this scenario, having a strong emergency plan
and relationships with pertinent persons in advance pays
dividends each day at the local level across America. It is
cliche, but it is not the time or place to exchange business
cards during the time of an emergency.
I would like to focus now on chemical safety. In 1986, the
Federal Government enacted the SARA Title III, Emergency
Planning and Community Right to Know Act. The overall success
of this law cannot be overstated and can be measured in my
county and throughout the country by the reduction in chemical
spill emergencies, better informed employees and responders
during emergencies, Federal, State, and local government input
and coordination, and so much more.
In my career I have had an opportunity to specialize in
hazardous materials response emergencies. I was the first city
of Pittsburgh Hazardous Materials Chief and served in that
capacity for 13 years, and today I oversee five hazardous
materials teams in my county, and I have logged in excess of
2,000 responses to hazardous material emergencies.
I have come to see firsthand the potential life-threatening
situations that are involved when chemicals are accidentally or
intentionally released from their containers and processes. The
chemicals and materials are found in fixed facilities during
production, transfer, storage, and along with the
transportation to and from market via highway, railroad, water,
air, and pipeline. Responding to chemical spills requires quick
informed decisionmaking along with specialized tools and
equipment. Incidents of vapor clouds, running liquid spills,
unidentified products, and fires severely complicate local
response actions, many times to the point that a community may
not be able to react fast enough to save its residents.
Transportation accidents involving chemicals provide even a
greater challenge as they move in and out of our neighborhoods,
by our schools, homes, and places of business.
The SARA Title III law targeting fixed chemical facilities,
followed by similar legislation in my Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania, has directly contributed to saving lives,
property, and the environment. The SARA law has allowed us to
be proactive through planning, training, and networking versus
reacting and always responding to the unknown and not knowing
the players when you get there. The Federal Government has
served us all well with this law, but we need to update some of
the provisions to meet the needs of today.
I believe we all knew it would come some day or another,
and never did any of us expect it to come in a manner so
coordinated with such devastating results as it did on
September 11. It did, and we should have learned from it and
should not forget. I was always told by my father that mistakes
and accidents can and will happen. Most importantly you learn
and work to make sure that you do not make the same mistake
twice. We may have missed it the first time to a degree, but
let us do everything to prevent it from happening a second
time. The next time when it comes, we are told by the top
security minds in our government, it may be greater in
magnitude with even more loss of life and property, utilizing
weapons of mass destruction, involving chemicals, biological,
nuclear, radioactive materials, and explosive devices. We need
to get and be ready now.
At the local government and first responder levels we are
concerned that our residents believe that we can protect them
effectively against the threat of WMD and chemical releases
from a terrorist act, which could easily be one of our own
chemical facilities in our neighborhoods.
Our men and women on the front lines in our communities
have been working hard in getting some of the special training
and have begun to reap the benefit of some of the generous
homeland funding that has been provided by this Congress and
the President by putting new specialized equipment in the hands
of first responders and local governments and extra training.
The sharing of intelligence between the levels of government
has not been better. However, we are not where we need to be as
of yet and have a long way to go, but we are better off today
than we were yesterday.
Terrorism threat assessments and uniform strategies that
deal with them are a common requirement and a need at all
levels of government. In looking at all the potential hazards
and threats to our communities, chemical facilities and their
transportation rise with just a few others to the very top. It
is not that we do not know what is in the plant or what is
being transported in most cases. We do, through the impact of
the Federal and State laws. But we do not know for sure what
safety and security measures are in place to keep something or
someone from getting to them. Can the bad guys use them against
us? The fact is that there are some chemicals and materials, if
released from their containers for whatever reason or by a
terrorist, that can greatly cause injury and death to our
unprotected public. We have to make sure that we do everything
in our collective powers to make sure that we understand and
make chemical facilities and their transportation safe.
Madam Chairman and Members of this Committee, today you are
hearing from some of the most notable and responsible chemical
companies in our country. I have had the opportunity to work
with these folks and their people in safety and response
personnel. The communities are top notch, well trained. They
have excellent plans. They are in good financial condition and
have in most cases good security systems.
Unfortunately, that is not the case around the country for
many of us at the local level. There are so many other
companies that are in our neighborhoods that are less fortunate
that really concern us and pose a unique risk. These companies
will not do anything unless there is some force of law to cause
them to do it.
The American Chemistry Council has done a good job in
stepping up to the plate with providing a voluntary program
with materials and training on chemical plant security. A
problem exists that it is voluntary, and second, not all
companies belong to the Council, especially in my county.
Today we have an opportunity to be proactive versus
reactive. Chemical plant safety and transportation is an issue
that needs to be and should be addressed on a national level to
ensure uniformity, and not at the State level, even though my
State government has a fabulous State law that was enacted
utilizing the SARA law and additional legislation from the
Federal Government as a template.
I do not have a political or legislative expertise on
whether or not a new law or tweaking an old one is the best way
to go. I leave that, and the people that I represent, we leave
that to you.
I was around in the 1980s when there was a great outcry
from the chemical industry about how the SARA Title III law was
unnecessary and that the industry voluntary program for
planning and response was more than adequate. The law almost
was not enacted. It took a real wake-up call. It took several
thousands of folks to die in Bhopal, India, coupled with an
incident in West Virginia that was just on the brink of
catastrophe to raise enough concern that our Congress enacted
the law.
Today we hear some of the same in different forms, or you
have heard some of the same perhaps from other folks testifying
before you in the past. Security, trade secrets, plans,
products, we have heard it all before. What if it gets out,
etc.? Together we can work it out.
The local governments and the people that are going to be
responding to these incidents need to be a part of the process
and be part of the solution because we are the ones on the
front lines who are going to be out there responding when that
emergency comes in, no matter what. We speak to international
terrorism, but we know that we have grown some phenomenal
terrorists at home as well. That is not to say that even a
domestic terrorism event cannot be superseded by somebody who
is mentally deranged, whether he is an employee of the company
or not.
I do not know of many trade secrets that have been given up
or critical information that has been given out. If so, then
that information and those folks that made that available
inappropriately should be held accountable and sanctions for
doing so should be applied.
LEPCs have been a great tool to ensure effective planning
and community safety. We can have experienced security people
look over the plans as necessary. I do not advocate LEPCs as a
policing agency by any stretch of the imagination for security.
We can utilize the JTTFs, which are in place around the
country. We have great relationships with U.S. Coast Guard,
Department of Homeland Security, and our local law enforcement,
but I do advocate that we cannot appreciate or effectively plan
for incidents within our jurisdictions without the full benefit
of all aspects of the hazards, the risks, and the
vulnerabilities that we face.
The public is counting on us. I know my residents are
counting on me and the 10,000 first responders in my county.
Shame on all of us if we wait until it is too late. We can do
something now, and we should move forward. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Thank you, Chief. I think your local
Chamber of Commerce ought to give you a special award for
getting in all of the advantages of the county in which you
live, and some beyond them as well.
At the end of your testimony you talked about an issue that
we are going to have to deal with as we draft legislation, and
that has to do with information sharing and the protection of
sensitive security information. Under MTSA, the vulnerability
assessments and security plans for individual facilities are
maintained by the Captain of the Port, and a copy is also kept
at the Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, DC. Do you
believe that local law enforcement ought to also have access to
or a copy of the vulnerability assessment? Where do we draw the
line?
I will tell you that one chemical company told me that the
Coast Guard actually lost its security plan. And I have great
respect and admiration for the Coast Guard, but it seems to me
if we are concerned about information that that was not a good
indicator. But who should have access? Where should these
vulnerability assessments, which obviously contain very
sensitive information, and security plans be kept and who
should have access to them?
Mr. Full. Well, clearly, we have heard today, Senator, that
there is an outstanding program that goes on where the Coast
Guard does deal with the maritime issues of chemical plant
security. I believe that those files, they are kept with the
Captain of the Port, is just that, they are kept with the
Captain of the Port right now.
I would argue the fact that a good bit of that information
that has probably been developed has been developed without any
local input or any knowledge of the local responders that may
be involved with that in concert with local law enforcement or
anybody that is familiar with security aspects from anywhere
other than the maritime folks.
Chairman Collins. Mr. Chamberlain, what is your answer to
that? What is your advice to the Committee on how can we strike
the right balance between ensuring the security of this very
sensitive information, and yet making sure that if someone like
Chief Full, who is going to be called upon to respond,
understands what security issues or vulnerabilities may exist
at a plant?
Mr. Chamberlain. The facility security plan goes into
tremendous amount of detail on single-point sources that could
shut down your facility, basically your Achilles heel, and that
is what you are going to identify and then protect against.
Those types of things I think need to be kept classified, as
they are today.
We work closely, and our facilities, wherever we operate,
have close relationships with local first responder groups. We
usually have various law enforcement and safety committees that
we are active on, so we are not trying to surprise anybody in
the types of issues that they may need to be responding to. The
response is typically going to be after the fact, after
something has occurred. Part of the plan is to try to prevent
something from occurring. I think what you have under MTSA is a
very workable approach. It has worked so far so well.
Chairman Collins. Mr. Schellhorn, should chemical
facilities maintain vulnerability assessments and security
plans on their site or on file with the Department of Homeland
Security in Washington? What are your views on this as we are
drafting legislation?
Mr. Schellhorn. They certainly should maintain a copy of
the vulnerability assessment on site, and we do that now under
MTSA, and a copy of that vulnerability assessment and plan, I
would think, would be submitted to the regulatory authority,
like we do now under MTSA. I do not think a copy should be
submitted to the local fire department or emergency management
authority. My personal opinion is you want to limit the
distribution of those plans and vulnerability assessments.
However, what we have done is we invite the local
authorities, the local emergency management agency, the LEPC
chairman, the local law enforcement authorities to our
facility. We share the details of our security plan and our
vulnerability assessment with those individuals at our site so
that they are familiar with what we are doing and familiar with
the details of our security program.
Chairman Collins. Ms. Turner, what is the right balance
here from your perspective? How do we ensure that this very
sensitive information does not fall into the wrong hands, and
yet make sure that first responder groups or those who would be
called upon to act in the event of a terrorist attack on a
chemical facility or an accidental spill do have the
information they need? What is your advice to us?
Ms. Turner. I think it is extremely important that the
first responders have access to the information they need in
order to know what to expect from the hazards that they are
going to be responding to, and that information is freely
shared today so that our first responders know the hazards they
could encounter, what kind of equipment they need to have with
them, and that is very important to keep that information there
so they can access that.
We might think about that information as different than the
vulnerabilities that are associated with getting into a
chemical facility, as you just said, whether it is accidental
or intentional, the nature of the chemical information is what
you need, different than the vulnerability and separate from
the vulnerability of the facility from a security standpoint.
Now, on that latter information we do, as was just said, we
keep our vulnerability assessments on site, and then we vet the
person who wants information, and we are pretty free with
showing it to people that have a need-to-know basis, and I
think that is the right thing to do. But it is very sensitive
information that we want to be certain is properly secured, and
in fact, that is why in my testimony I indicated that beyond
MTSA we do need a framework for protecting that vulnerability
information.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Voinovich.
Senator Voinovich. I would like to pursue your line of
questioning.
Chief Full, you are the Emergency Management Coordinator,
Allegheny County; is that right?
Mr. Full. Yes, Senator.
Senator Voinovich. Do you have a list somewhere in your
office of the chemical facilities that you have in Allegheny
County?
Mr. Full. Yes, sir, we do. In Allegheny County we have 235
chemical facilities which are required under the SARA law to
have emergency plans and have reported the amount of chemicals
and so forth within the facilities.
Senator Voinovich. Have the chemical facilities in the
county for the most part done their threat assessment?
Mr. Full. We believe that the majority of them, but there
are some of them that are on the threshold of reporting now
through the process of even some of the outreach of the SARA
Title III law and the reporting and so forth. We find that
there is more and more chemical companies that are reducing
their amount of stored materials, putting them in the
transportation stream, and falling out of the need for them to
report.
Senator Voinovich. Is it mandatory that a fertilizer
company share with you their vulnerability?
Mr. Full. No, sir, not whatsoever. That is why the
suggestion is----
Senator Voinovich. Do you think it should be mandatory?
Mr. Full. I believe that we can go into exactly--the
Federal Government address in the SARA Title III law--first
off, again, our experience has been we have held close trade
secrets. We are familiar with that. We are certainly not going
to give up the ship here. We are just as interested as the
corporate chemical facilities to make sure that it does not get
into the wrong hands, but at the same time we believe also that
we are responsible and in the law it already addressed that
fire and local fire folks can get the fire information,
medical----
Senator Voinovich. How about the ``Right-to-Know'' laws?
Has there been pretty good compliance with those?
Mr. Full. Yes.
Senator Voinovich. So to clarify, your fire department has
on file what chemicals are on the premises.
Mr. Full. Right.
Senator Voinovich. So with the ``Right-to-Know'' law, the
community has access to knowing what is on file there, correct?
Mr. Full. There is nothing on security though, sir. There
is nothing of them to share it with us at all other than----
Senator Voinovich. But the fact is that you would not want
them to share that information with, say, the community. You
would like a provision that provides the necessary information
to those that will be responding, and that allows you to have a
good idea of the vulnerabilities, so that you have a better
idea of how you would coordinate with them to respond if
something happened.
Mr. Full. That is what we are asking for right now, right.
Senator Voinovich. Mr. Chamberlain, how do you feel about
that, and Mr. Schellhorn and Ms. Turner, how do you feel about
that?
Mr. Chamberlain. I would like to make a distinction between
responding to an emergency--which certainly the Chief and the
first responders do--an emergency has usually already occurred,
and the security plans, the security vulnerability assessment,
and the facility security plan also address prevention, what
you are doing to prevent an emergency. There are no chemicals
or products on site that our first responders do not know are
there. We are not trying to hide anything at all. It is merely
the sensitivity of giving somebody a roadmap on how to shut you
down or how to do damage that you want to carefully control.
And certainly, I think, MTSA does that today. I would
encourage any future legislation would have that sensitivity in
there. We want people to know what they are going to be coming
into if they are coming out to assist with an emergency.
Senator Voinovich. I would be interested to get your best
thoughts on how you would get that done.
Mr. Schellhorn--fertilizers--how much more has your product
gone up because of natural gas costs? [Laughter.]
Thank you for being in business.
Mr. Schellhorn. It has not gone up as much as the natural
gas price has gone up, I assure you.
I would like to add something if I may to what Mr.
Chamberlain just said.
Senator Voinovich. Sure.
Mr. Schellhorn. Additionally, communicating with neighbors
about what to do in the event that there is a release is
extremely important, and Senator Lieberman touched on this in
his opening statement. It is very important that neighbors know
what to do, that they know when there is an incident, they know
how they are going to learn if there is an incident, and then
they know what to do to protect themselves, and the fertilizer
industry has been very involved in that kind of community
outreach program, as I know others in the chemical industry
have been. Community awareness and emergency response programs
have addressed that.
I have brought some information. I spoke to some of the
staff about this earlier. We have an outreach program that has
been in place for more than 10 years, where we visited with our
neighbors to talk about shelter-in-place programs, and we have
telephone notification systems that call our neighbors within a
very short period of time if we have an accident. I know DuPont
has that system in place, and so do many of the other chemical
plants. I would like to share this with the Committee if I may.
That is a very important part. These programs are coordinated
with LEPCs and the local fire departments. So that is also, I
think, an important part of this whole effort.
Senator Voinovich. Can I just ask one more question?
Chairman Collins. Absolutely.
Senator Voinovich. You represent the Fertilizer Institute.
Mr. Schellhorn. Yes, sir.
Senator Voinovich. Does the Fertilizer Institute also
belong to the American Chemistry Council?
Mr. Schellhorn. No, sir. We are not a member of the
American Chemistry Council.
Senator Voinovich. How about API companies, are you part of
the American Chemistry Council or do you have a separate----
Mr. Chamberlain. No. API is a separate manufacturing group.
Senator Voinovich. So when we talk about 150 companies that
are in the American Chemistry Council that are working with the
Coast Guard, that does not include any oil companies?
Mr. Chamberlain. No, that is not correct. Shell is a member
of the American Chemistry Council. When you asked if API was a
member, those are two----
Senator Voinovich. OK. But that is what I meant.
Mr. Chamberlain. Yes, my company is a member----
Senator Voinovich. They belong to API and they belong to
the American Chemistry Council?
Mr. Chamberlain. Yes.
Senator Voinovich. And you are part of the 150 companies
that are in that organization?
Mr. Chamberlain. Yes.
Senator Voinovich. Mr. Schellhorn, my last question is
regarding Senator Cochran's legislation, ``Secure Handling of
Ammonium Nitrate.'' How does what you are requiring in that
legislation differ from what is in MTSA or what is being done
by ACC?
Mr. Schellhorn. Yes, sir. The Cochran bill is specific to
ammonium nitrate manufacturing, distribution, and retail sales
of ammonium nitrate specifically. It is a registration.
Senator Voinovich. So, when considering legislation, we
ought to be aware of the differences through the industry.
Mr. Schellhorn. Yes, sir.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Carper, you did miss excellent testimony from Ms.
Turner, but I know you made a great effort to get back here in
order to ask questions, and I am pleased to call upon you.
Senator Carper. I apologize for leaving. Senators Lincoln,
Lieberman, and myself, and a few others have just unveiled
legislation to address the issue of children having access to
pornography on the Internet, to create almost like a step that
some would have to go through to register their age, to be able
to identify their age, so that if you are under the age of 18
you cannot get on; to impose a 25 percent tax on the profits
for the Internet, and to use those monies to develop new
technologies to help keep kids clear of that kind of
temptation. I apologize. It is an important issue. Not to say
that this is not important as well, but that is why I have been
away.
Thank you all for coming in. I especially wanted to welcome
Beth Turner to our hearing today, and if I may I would just
like to ask the first question of you, Beth.
We are proud of DuPont and we are proud of DuPont's
reputation as a good steward of the environment, and my wife
who worked there for 28 years, just retired last summer, and in
a number of her jobs she was in charge of safety with the
people in her workforce around her. She not only was that way
at work, she was that way at home. I tell the story about how
we would go on family vacations or be staying at a hotel, and
get the kids to bed in their room, and we were getting ready
for bed. My wife was probably one of the few--I do not know
what other spouses talk about just before they go to sleep, but
my wife is going through, out loud, just making out the escape
routes from the hotel. Which door do we go out? Which direction
do we go? Which stairs do we go down? So it was a company that
puts a whole lot of emphasis on safety, and we are proud of
them and respectful for that.
I would ask of Ms. Turner, if I could, could you describe
DuPont's experience with the Maritime--and you may have
addressed this, and if you have I apologize--but with the
Maritime Transportation Security Act, and how you and DuPont
believe that law can inform our Committee's work in a broader
chemical facility security bill? Specifically I would like to
hear how DuPont implemented the requirements and about your
ongoing compliance assurance.
Ms. Turner. Good morning, Senator Carper, it is nice to see
you.
Senator Carper. My pleasure.
Ms. Turner. I only spoke briefly about the Maritime
Transportation Security Act. In my comments I indicated that
the regulations have very effectively secured our sites and
that we would view them as a model for security and higher
priority sites.
In terms of how we approach the regulation, we identified
our facilities that are impacted. There are some very specific
criteria in the regulations about facilities that have wharves
on navigable bodies of water and that unload certain dangerous
goods. So I went through that analysis of which facilities fell
into that classification. And there are a number of very clear
requirements on what you have to do once you are in, one of
which is identify an individual who is a formal facility
security officer, and put them through some very specific
training. So our approach was to identify the facilities and
then take them through the whole process as a group.
So we centralized, did our training. Much of what we had
done for the Responsible Care Security Code in terms of our
vulnerability assessments, the things we had done for DuPont
all fed into that very nicely so we were able to integrate it
all, which is an important thing, so that the sites could see
an integrated effort, and not, ``I have to do this for
responsible care and that for MTSA, and have to do this for
corporate headquarters.'' So we made sure it all fits together.
On the ground with the Captain of the Port and their staff
we have had a tremendous working relationship. I am very
impressed at how grass roots oriented the Coast Guard is in
deploying itself to work with sites. They do not let us get
lax. They may show up at 2 a.m. in the morning when we least
expect it, or run a boat down the channel and see if our
cameras can pick it up. Our impacted sites have really tried to
incent our security officers to see the Coast Guard before they
think we can see them. So we have given out prizes and awards
for sort of detecting the Coast Guard, and it has generated a
lot of energy.
We have been successfully inspected by the Coast Guard at
all of our regulated facilities.
Senator Carper. I think in your testimony you described how
DuPont categorized its sites. I think you may have just alluded
to it. Category 1 sites, I am told, are your highest priority
group.
Ms. Turner. That is right.
Senator Carper. Category 2 sites have no potential for off-
site release or theft of materials. Is that correct?
Ms. Turner. Yes, that is correct.
Senator Carper. Many folks have advocated--I think even
here today--for a risk-based tiered approach to regulating
facilities. Let me just ask what criteria and what methods did
DuPont use in categorizing your sites and your facilities? Do
you think that the categorization that DuPont used is a
sufficient approach, or do you think some additional steps or
categories might be appropriate as we try to develop a risk-
based tiered approach?
Ms. Turner. I think that the categorization was absolutely
critical. I find that--and let us not talk for a minute about
whether you have two categories or four or however many. The
fact that you can spread facilities out over certain categories
is absolutely critical deploying resources. I treat and work
with and defend and protect a Category 1 site very differently
than I do a Category 2 site because the potential consequence
is so very different.
From my standpoint I think that we have to have--and I
think we have all been in agreement--that risk-based approach
is very necessary here. I might just mention why we had a
Category 1 or 2. It is really an internal thing. The American
Chemistry Council had four tiers. The first three would have
been equivalent to our Category 1, and the only difference was
a 6-month delay that you could spread out. So the Tier 1 had to
be done first, then Tier 2 6 months later, Tier 3 6 months
later, and then Tier 4 after that. I simply made an internal
decision that I wanted to treat everything as Tier 1.
So we identified all of our facilities, and we also tried
to make it simple by saying it does not matter whether a
facility is an RMP facility or not. If it can create an off-
site consequence, then I put it in Category 1. And then we just
took those Category 1s, again, just like we did MTSA, right
through the process as a group. And for our company--and I am
only speaking for our company--that created some efficiencies.
For other companies, obviously having more tiers was a helpful
thing and you could spread the effort out.
Senator Carper. My time has expired. I appreciate those
responses, and again your presence here.
Ms. Turner. Thank you.
Senator Carper. How did these guys do? Did they do a pretty
good job in their testimony?
Ms. Turner. They did great.
Senator Carper. I wish I could ask them a few questions,
but I am afraid time does not allow. Thank you again for
joining us and for your valued input. Thank you, Madam
Chairman.
Chairman Collins. Thank you very much, Senator.
Ms. Turner, I want to follow up on the issue that Senator
Carper just raised. I do believe that we need a tiered
approach. The security for a local fertilizer dealer may not be
the same level that is needed for a large chemical plant on
that two-mile stretch in New Jersey that Senator Lautenberg has
referred to. One of our challenges is defining the scope of the
chemical industry for regulation by the legislation that we are
drafting. Each of the three of you, each of your respective
companies has chemical facilities listed under the EPA RMP
program, and you just were referring to that. Each of you also
have facilities that are covered under the Maritime
Transportation Security Act and are regulated for security by
the Coast Guard.
Of your companies' chemical facilities that are not covered
by the MTSA regulations, how would you identify which ones you
think should be covered under a new chemical facility security
regime? In other words, I am trying to pick up where Senator
Carper left off, on his categorization. As we do this tiered
approach, there are going to be some facilities, perhaps a
local potato farm in Northern Maine, that should not come under
the law at all. There may be others that need some coverage but
at a lower level, etc. How should we define the scope of
facilities that should be covered? Ms. Turner.
Ms. Turner. Thank you. Speaking from DuPont's standpoint,
the criteria that I used was the ability to create consequence
off site. I think that is a very important discriminator, and I
would recommend that as a consideration for the Committee. It
is in our self-interest as a company not to create off-site
consequence. We want the safest communities. We want our
employees to be safe, and so the whole concept that we want to
be able to contain our chemicals in the vessels where they
belong, and focus on those facilities that have the potential
to go beyond our fence line is the internal criteria I have
used.
My view is that it does not matter how far the off-site
consequence goes. If it goes off site then it needs to be in
the highest priority category, and that is the approach DuPont
has used.
Chairman Collins. That is helpful. Mr. Schellhorn.
Mr. Schellhorn. I agree with what Ms. Turner has said. One
thing that I would add, however, is the four categories of risk
is pretty helpful for dividing that group of facilities into
highest, medium, and lowest risk facilities based on the
significance of the off-site impact. I certainly understand why
DuPont did what they did and just grouped everything that had
off-site impact into Tier 1. But when you are looking at a
universe of all facilities, breaking it down into Tier 1, 2, 3,
and 4 is, I think, helpful because that helps to focus
attention on the very highest risk facilities, and then down
from there.
That criteria is established criteria. American Chemistry
Council has a methodology for doing that.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Mr. Chamberlain.
Mr. Chamberlain. Yes. Let me just mention all of our major
chemical facilities do happen to fall under MTSA, but if there
were other--and then I also wanted to just make sure that the
Chairman and the other Senators realize that a number of
chemical facilities are co-located on sites with refineries. In
my case, my two biggest chemical facilities share a property
with a refinery that you would not know where one stops and the
other begins. So the co-located chemical facilities are another
aspect that you need to have in the planning and mapping of
future issues that you deal with.
Certainly off-site consequences is something that should be
considered in trying to determine the severity. You also need
to look at what is off site? If the closest population is 15
miles away and you are surrounded by a sugar cane farm, the
consequence of an off-site release is not the same as if you
are in a major metropolitan area with neighbors living on your
fence line. So you have to look at the entire picture, look at
the vulnerabilities that you have and the consequences of a
worst-case scenario.
Chairman Collins. Chief Full, do you have any thoughts on
this issue?
Mr. Full. Senator, what is interesting to me here right now
is the fact that we receive in our emergency management agency,
emergency plans from companies that are just eloquently put
together by consultants and so forth. We will get plans that
are 100 pages thick. They will answer all kinds of questions in
there about the vulnerabilities to the community and different
things like this. Then we will find some other companies, that
they will send us a three- or four-page report as well. Many of
those folks, especially the ones that come from the biggest
companies, have never consulted with us at the local level.
There is a disconnect right now between what we hear right
now from the table here, and what goes on at the local level at
times. How can folks really sit and say what is going on there
without consulting with the local folks to see what
vulnerabilities there are out there before the plans are done,
and quite frankly, that is more the exception than the rule.
We come upon plans. We review the plans. It will say if
people are injured here, they are going to go to XYZ Hospital.
You tell the hospital that this particular chemical company has
identified their hospital to take the injured, and they say, we
do not know anything about it. They never talked to us about
it.
I mean, my crusade here today on behalf of the folks at the
local level on that is, again, just to ensure that whatever
comes about--and we certainly need chemical plant and
transportation security--additional security. In whatever form
it comes from, we do have to have a strong input in
coordination with us at the local level.
We are going to be there to handle the aftermath, and all
too often it is sort of like they say, well, we will call the
first responders and they will come. But frankly, we need to be
involved in preventing too. We do not want to have to respond
to these things because we know that going in that we are going
to have very little or no impact, positive impact, and we are
going to lose a lot of our folks as well as a lot of residents
if we are not involved. We should know what the risks are, and
so forth. I think there can be a happy balance between
sensitive information and Achilles heel scenarios and so forth
along those lines, but clearly we need to be involved, and we
see all too often that we are not.
Chairman Collins. Ms. Turner, I am going to ask you my
final question of the day. It has to do with, perhaps, the most
controversial issue that we will have to wrestle with in this
bill, and that is the inherently safer technology issue. It is
clear from the four hearings that I have chaired that some
people want this bill to be a hazards reduction bill. There are
others who want this bill to be strictly limited to the
physical security of chemical plants.
You have testified this morning that DuPont believes that
inherently safer technology and chemicals are mainstream
components of process safety and have a role to play as
companies evaluate security. But you have also said that DuPont
does not believe that inherent safety could or should be
mandated by regulation, and you have called that unworkable.
Similarly, and I think it was Mr. Schellhorn who pointed out
that inherently safer technology is a safety process, it is not
a security measure.
Is there a middle ground here? What I am wondering is
whether it makes sense in our legislation to require companies
to evaluate inherently safer technology as they do their safety
plans, but in their vulnerability assessments, but not have the
Federal Government mandate specific processes or get involved
in second guessing, if you will, the safety processes used in
the plants. It seems to me that it does make sense for
companies to be required to look at whether safer chemicals or
processes could be used to help make their plants less
vulnerable to an attack. What are your thoughts on this?
Ms. Turner. First, let me speak briefly about what is
behind the testimony in terms of those things. We are saying
IST has a role in security, but we are saying do not mandate it
in security regulation, and in some respects that could appear
to be sort of a contradiction.
I think that when we look back over the history of
inherently safer technologies, at least in our company, we have
been pursuing this for 40 years through--first the safety
systems are engineering designs for our plants. We have very
mature infrastructure for managing process safety management,
inherently safer technology. We also have two codes of
Responsible Care, the process safety code and the security
code that focus on inherently safer.
Then the Sandia methodology for conducting vulnerability
assessments, which is a site that just because it is the one
that we chose has a very structured approach for going through
inherently safer from the very first step of the methodology
when you form your team, characterize your facility. You have
both process safety experts and security experts at the table
because they bring separate expertise. So in the greater
context we have these drivers for inherently safer in a very
mature safety system that has IST embedded in it.
In my view, the place where we do not have something
complementary is in the pure security side of the house, and
that is why we recommend the passage of legislation so that we
then can essentially bolt or marry these two together.
Now, in terms of how do we feel about what you said at the
end about some view of requiring consideration, I think that my
response is it depends on what is in the language. We would
like very much to work with you if the Committee decides to go
in that direction, using a phrase, the devil is in the details.
I think the thought I want to leave with you is--I will
speak broadly--responsible chemical companies have many
incentives for a look at inherently safer. A big one is keeping
our facility safe, keeping our employees safe, keeping our
employees' families safe. We cannot run a company if we are not
doing that. But the other driver is, as you said at the last
hearing, the incentive to a chemical company to pull its risk
down through any tool is there both because it is good business
and because it helps us bring down the risk category in the
face of regulation and other drivers.
Chairman Collins. Your points are very well taken, and
DuPont, of course, is renowned for its commitment to safety. It
is difficult for me to imagine that the Department of Homeland
Security could teach DuPont anything about the process of
inherently safer technology. We might, however, be able to help
you improve your security in general I would hope. But that is
not going to be true of every chemical facility. I am thinking
of the ones that Chief Full has talked about in his county, not
all of whom are members of the American Chemistry Council or
comply with the Responsible Care Security Code or even have
the sophistication perhaps of a DuPont.
Then we get into the dilemma of what if the Department of
Homeland Security, in reviewing a plant, perhaps doing an audit
of its vulnerability assessment, and comes across improper
storage of chemicals, where there clearly is an increased
security risk because of a lack of a secondary containment, for
example, or some other measure. So should the Department, in
such a case, be able to step in and mandate an improvement in
the storage of the chemicals as the price of approving the
security plant? How do we draw the lines here?
Ms. Turner. I think that is going to require some analysis
of the roles of the different regulatory agencies that are at
play in the chemical industry. Right now I would not see
Department of Homeland Security as having the kind of expertise
to look at how a tank is built. That does not mean we could not
embed it there, and I am not so sure that would not divert DHS
from the security mission they need. It is possible to build it
there, but I think the better approach might be to look at what
resides in OSHA and what resides in EPA for driving the safety
part that has been in place before September 11 ever came.
So it is certainly unacceptable if a chemical company is
doing something that is blatantly unsafe, and somewhere in the
regulatory regime we need to have an agency that has the
capability to enforce its regulations. I am just not sure in my
mind that is going to be a great focus for the security piece,
which we need to stand up very quickly in a very thoughtful
manner.
So it is a very important issue, and I appreciate how hard
the Committee is working to figure out where the right place is
on that issue, and we want to work with you on it. It is very
important.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. I very much look forward to
working with all of you. We are going to use the August recess
to draft what I hope will be a comprehensive, effective,
bipartisan, and reasonable bill on chemical security. We do not
have that many of those around here that meet all of those
criteria, and that is why we have spent so much time on this
issue. This is our fourth hearing. There are not very many
issues that Congress debates that have this many hearings and
this kind of consideration, but I think this is enormously
complex and enormously important. I really appreciate all of
you sharing your expertise today.
I also want to thank the Committee staff, which has worked
very hard to put together this series of hearings. You noticed
that they all groaned when I said we would be spending the
August recess drafting the bill. [Laughter.]
But I am very committed to introducing a bill in September,
and we are going to try to adhere to that timeline.
This hearing record will remain open for 15 days for the
submission of additional questions and other materials. I thank
you all for your cooperation and advice to the Committee.
This hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:23 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.006
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.007
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.008
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.009
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.011
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.012
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.013
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.014
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.015
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.016
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.017
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.018
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.019
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.020
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.021
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.022
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.023
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.024
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.025
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.026
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.027
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.028
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.029
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.030
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.031
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.032
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.033
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.034
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.035
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.036
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.037
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.038
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.039
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.040
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.041
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.042
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.043
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.044
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.045
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.046
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.047
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.048
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.049
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.050
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.051
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.052
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.053
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.054
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.055
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.056
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.057
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.058
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.059
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.060
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.061
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.062
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.063
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.064
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.065
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.066
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.067
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.068
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.069
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.070
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.071
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.072
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.073
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.074
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.075
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.076
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.077
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.078
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.079
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.080
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.081
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.082
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.083
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.084
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.085
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.086
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.087
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.088
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.089
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.090
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.091
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.092
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.093
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.094
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.095
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.096
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.097
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.098
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.099
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.100
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.101
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.102
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.103
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.104
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.105
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.106
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.107
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.108
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.109
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.110
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.111
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.112
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.113
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.114
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.115
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.116
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.117
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.118
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.119
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.120
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.121
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.122
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.123
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.124
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.125
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.126
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.127
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.128
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.129
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.130
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.131
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.132
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.133
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.134
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.135
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.136
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.137
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.138
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.139
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.140
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.141
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.142
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.143
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.144
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.145
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.146
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.147
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.148
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.149
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.150
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.151
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.152
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.153
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.154
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.155
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.156
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.157
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.158
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.159
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.160
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.161
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.162
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.163
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.164
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.165
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.166
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.167
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.168
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.169
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.170
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.171
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.172
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.173
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.174
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.175
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.176
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.177
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.178
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.179
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.180
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.181
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.182
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.183
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.184
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.185
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.186
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.187
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.188
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.189
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.190
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.191
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.192
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.193
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.194
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.195
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.196
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.197
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.198
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.199
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.200
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.201
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.202
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.203
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.204
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.205
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.206
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.207
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.208
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.209
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.210
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.211
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.212
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.213
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.214
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.215
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.216
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.217
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.218
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.219
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.220
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.221
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.222
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.223
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.224
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.225
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.226
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.227
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.228
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.229
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.230
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.231
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.232
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.233
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.234
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.235
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.236
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.237
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.238
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.239
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.240
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.241
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.242
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.243
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.244
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.245
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.246
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.247
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.248
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.249
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.250
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.251
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.252
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.253
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.254
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.255
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.256
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.257
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.258
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.259
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.260
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.261
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.262
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.263
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.264
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.265
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.266
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.267
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.268
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.269
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.270
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.271
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.272
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.273
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.274
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.275
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.276
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.277
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.278
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.279
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.280
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.281
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.282
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.283
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.284
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.285
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.286
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.287
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.288
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.289
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.290
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.291
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.292
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.293
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.294
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.295
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.296
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.297
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.298
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.299
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.300
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.301
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.302
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.303
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.304
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.305
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.306
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.307
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.308
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.309
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.310
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.311
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.312
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.313
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.314
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.315
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.316
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.317
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.318
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.319
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.320
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.321
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.322
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.323
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.324
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.325
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.326
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.327
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.328
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.329
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.330
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.331
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.332
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.333
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.334
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.335
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.336
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.337
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.338
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.339
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.340
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.341
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.342
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.343
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.344
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.345
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.346
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.347
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.348
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.349
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.350
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.351
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.352
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.353
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.354
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.355
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.356
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.357
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.358
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.359
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.360
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.361
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.362
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.363
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.364
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.365
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.366
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.367
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.368
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.369
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.370
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.371
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.372
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.373
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.374
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.375
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.376
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.377
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.378
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.379
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.380
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.381
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.382
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.383
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.384
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.385
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.386
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.387
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.388
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.389
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.390
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.391
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.392
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.393
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.394
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.395
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.396
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.397
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.398
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.399
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.400
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.401
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.402
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.403
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.404
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.405
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.406
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.407
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.408
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.409
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.410
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.411
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.412
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.413
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.414
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.415
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.416
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.417
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.418
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.419
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.420
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.421
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.422
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.423
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.424
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.425
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.426
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.427
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.428
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.429
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.430
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.431
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.432
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.433
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.434
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.435
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.436
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.437
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.438
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.439
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.440
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.441
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.442
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.443
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.444
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.445
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.446
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.447
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.448
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.449
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.450
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.451
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.452
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.453
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.454
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.455
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.456
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.457
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.458
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.459
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.460
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.461
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.462
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.463
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.464
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.465
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.466
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.467
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.468
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.469
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.470
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.471
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.472
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.473
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.474
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.475
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.476
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.477
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.478
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.479
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.480
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.481
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.482
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.483
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.484
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.485
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.486
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.487
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.488
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.489
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.490
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.491
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.492
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.493
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.494
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.495
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.496
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.497
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.498
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.499
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.500
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.501
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.502
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.503
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.504
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.505
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.506
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.507
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.508
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.509
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.510
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.511
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.512
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.513
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.514
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.515
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.516
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.517
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.518
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.519
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.520
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.521
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.522
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.523
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.524
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.525
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.526
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.527
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.528
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.529
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.530
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.531
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.532
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.533
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.534
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.535
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.536
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.537
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.538
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.539
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.540
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.541
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3157.542
<all>