HSD requests companies' security plans

Some of the rules go too far, a senator said.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's chemical companies will have to submit to new security inspections and provide the government with plans for protecting themselves from terrorist attacks.
The proposed orders issued Friday by the Homeland Security Department would take effect April 4, a deadline set by Congress and President Bush. The orders closely follow the recommendations of the chemical industry and result from legislation Bush signed into law in October.
Companies will be required to assess their own vulnerabilities and provide the government with their plans for fixing them under the proposed new rules released Friday for public comment.
Industry representatives welcomed their arrival.
"They are following the structure that Congress outlined," said Scott Jensen, a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council, which represents the largest chemical makers. "The idea here is to set a security level that they want these facilities to achieve, commensurate with the risk that each facility represents."
The council's 133 members lobbied for the new rules and have spent 3.5 billion on security upgrades to their 2,000 facilities since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Jensen said.
Companies will have to conduct background checks on employees and better control access, or face possible fines of up to 25,000 a day or risk being shut down. But they also may contest government disapproval of their security plans.
Critics
Congress likely will have more than a little to say about the proposed new rules next month, according to the reaction Friday from critics, who included Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who is stepping down as head of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Collins, who co-wrote the legislation calling for the rules with Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., the committee's incoming chairman, said the department was going too far in some areas, despite having gained much-needed authority to regulate security at chemical facilities and to shut down those that are noncompliant.
The rules "appear to go beyond what Congress authorized" by the department assigning itself authority to pre-empt the legal authority of states and courts and creating other ways "to shield itself from legitimate judicial scrutiny of its own actions."
Collins said the rules also inappropriately follow "a need-to-know approach to information sharing, where a need-to-share construct is more appropriate."
Democrats taking over Congress in January view the new rules as too soft on industry, and have sought to require manufacturers in some cases to replace toxic materials with safer but more expensive substitutes.
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