WASHINGTON, DC-- Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Susan Collins, released this statement regarding chemical security legislation:
“The Lautenberg-Obama legislation would require many of the 15,000 facilities across the nation that manufacture, use, or store chemicals to redesign their processes, reformulate their products, change the chemicals they use, and modify their technology. These facilities include hundreds of refrigeration facilities, meat processing facilities, fertilizer, water supply and irrigation facilities, and more than 4,000 farm suppliers, wholesalers, and storage facilities. While I share Senators Lautenberg and Obama's belief that federal legislation is needed to strengthen the security of chemical facilities, their approach would impose costly, intrusive, and burdensome mandates that take the wrong approach to homeland security.
“We should establish strong federal standards that will help to protect our chemical facilities from a terrorist attack without harming our economy and involving the government in process engineering decisions best left to the private sector. The Collins-Lieberman bill achieves the right balance by giving the Department of Homeland Security strong authority to require vulnerability assessments, security plans, and emergency response plans and authorizes the Department to shut down chemical facilities that have not complied with federal security standards. By passing the Collins-Lieberman bill, the Senate can strengthen the security of our chemical sector without driving chemical companies and jobs overseas.”