NACD SECURITY
JOE KAMALICK/WASHINGTON, DC
As Congress moves closer to passing
tougher chemical facility security requirements,
it could well mean that doing business
will get a lot tougher for Us chemical
distributors.
“It’s like the old Chinese proverb says, ‘We
live in interesting times’,” says Doug Brown,
president of Brown Chemical, a regional
distribution company based in oakland,
new Jersey.
22 An ICIS Chemical Business supplement | December 2009
Security
Even as the US implements new security legislation for chemical sites, it is looking
to toughen up the rules with a raft of new proposals. Joe Kamalick gauges the
industry’s reaction
“I don’t recall a time when things were
quite as difficult looking in terms of regulations,”
he says. “It is getting pretty rugged
out there.”
Brown, part of the third generation in a
family business started by his grandfather, is
referring to a particular feature of pending
security legislation on Capitol Hill – a federal
mandate for inherently safer technologies
(IsT) at chemical sites.
The site security bill recently approved
in the Us House, Hr-2868, titled the
gets
tougher
“Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism
Act,” provides that the Department of
Homeland security (DHs) could order
IsT changes in a given facility’s
inventories, feedstocks, processes or
products if in the department’s judgment
such changes were necessary for security
reasons.
Under the legislation, the DHs would
have authority to shut down a facility that
refused to implement its order for IsT
changes.
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