Homeland Security: Federal and Industry Efforts Are Addressing Security Issues at Chemical Facilities, but Additional Action Is Needed Page: 3 of 19
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Madame Chairman and Members of the Committee:
Thank you for this opportunity to discuss our work on chemical facility
security.' As the events of September 11, 2001, showed, a terrorist attack
on infrastructure that is critical to our nation's economy can cause
enormous damage to our country and jeopardize public health and safety.
The USA PATRIOT Act defined critical infrastructure as those "systems
and assets...so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction
of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security,
national economic security, national public health or safety, or any
combination of those matters."2 We often take these systems for granted
because they are so basic in our daily lives that we generally only notice
them when their service is interrupted. The President's February 2003
National Strategy for the Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructures
and Key Assets sets forth the federal government's goals, objectives, and
responsibilities in protecting the nation's critical infrastructure. The
strategy, as well as a presidential directive issued in December 2003,
identified the chemical industry among the sectors that are critical to the
nation's infrastructure.3 The chemical sector produces, uses, stores, and
distributes the chemicals needed to manufacture thousands of products,
such as those used in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and automobiles.
The national strategy states that the private sector bears primary
responsibility for protecting their facilities from deliberate acts of
terrorism. While federal, state, and local governments work in partnership
with the private sector to protect chemical facilities, before September 11,
2001, attention was largely focused on the risks of accidental, rather than
intentional, chemical releases. In this regard, the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) regulates about 15,000 facilities under the Clean
Air Act because they produce, use, or store more than certain threshold
amounts of specific chemicals that would pose the greatest risk to human
health and the environment if accidentally released into the air. These
1GAO, Homeland Security: Voluntary Initiatives Are Under Way at Chemical Facilities,
but the Extent of Security Preparedness is Unknown, GAO-03-439 (Washington, D.C.:
March 2003) and Protection of Chemical and Water Infrastructure: Federal
Requirements, Actions of Selected Facilities, and Remaining Challenges, GAO-05-327
(Washington, D.C.: March 2005).
2Pub. L. No. 107-56, 1016(e) (2001) (codified at 42 U.S.C. 5195c(e)).
3Homeland Security Presidential Directive Number 7 (Washington, D.C.: December 17,
2003).GAO-05-631T
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United States. Government Accountability Office. Homeland Security: Federal and Industry Efforts Are Addressing Security Issues at Chemical Facilities, but Additional Action Is Needed, text, April 27, 2005; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc290939/m1/3/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.