Efforts to improve the security of chemical facilities from terrorist attack took a step forward this week as a House subcommittee passed legislation that encourages plants to switch to safer and more secure technologies. The bills – the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2009 and a related bill that addresses security at drinking water facilities – also require participation by plant workers in assessing vulnerabilities and creating a security plan. With no Republican support, the party-line vote in the Energy and Environment subcommittee sends the bills to the full Energy and Commerce committee for another vote, likely next week. Although the bills still lack crucial accountability measures, they represent a major improvement over the flawed and inadequate temporary security measures now in place.

The bills require all covered facilities to assess whether there are alternative chemicals or processes that they could use that would reduce the consequences of a terrorist attack. For example, numerous water facilities across the country have independently switched from using chlorine gas as a disinfectant to liquid bleach or ultraviolet light. These alternate technologies work as well or better than chlorine gas and do not potentially threaten thousands should a terrorist attack cause a release.

Significantly, the bills give the Department of Homeland Security or the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to require the most high-risk facilities to convert to whichever safer technology the facility identifies for itself – under certain circumstances. A chemical plant can only be forced to convert if it is economically and technologically feasible to do so and if the conversion would actually reduce the risks.

Unfortunately, the bills allow the government to conceal information that should be available to the public. Citizens have a right to know whether the government and the regulated businesses are complying with the law and doing what they must do to make our communities safer. However, under the bills, basic regulatory information can be treated as secret, thereby denying the public the information needed to hold the government accountable and protect citizens.

The bills include valuable citizen suit provisions that give people the power to use the courts to impel compliance with the law. These lawsuits have proven repeatedly to be essential to upholding laws that protect the public interest. Yet, without public disclosure of even basic compliance information, the usefulness of this important tool is undercut. How can the public know whom to sue or for what violations if that information is kept secret? And, to be sure, disclosure of this information would not be a security threat. On the contrary, allowing the government and businesses to implement national security legislation without meaningful accountability arguably is a real security risk.

The House Homeland Security committee passed a weaker version of the chemical facilities bill in June. The Senate has taken no action on the issue, preferring to let the House take the lead and react to whatever it produces. The existing security regulations expired this month, but interim appropriations measures have extended that expiration date. There is a long road ahead for perilously overdue legislation that adequately addresses a serious threat to national security by reducing the risks of a terrorist attack on a chemical plant. Tell your representative to support this effort by clicking here.