The House Homeland Security Committee continues its markup at 5:30 p.m. of H.R. 2868, the Chemical Facility Antiterrorism Act, a seemingly well-intentioned piece of legislation that will make U.S. production and storage of chemicals more expensive and burdensome with no appreciable benefit to public safety and national security. Extension of the current 2006 regulations would allow the increased safety measures known as the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards, or CFATS, to be implemented fully in a logical, effective way. The Obama Administration supports such an extension.

We posted on the bill here and here, and have also noted the writing of E.F. Glynn, blogging at KansasMeadowlark, concerned about the impact of yet more government regulation on farmers and the ag economy. In a new post, “Homeland Security may impose new regulations on agriculture,” Glynn includes videos from last week’s committee meeting and expresses astonishment that the debate seems to be driven by a left-leaning think tank: “A Center for American Progress study that shows no economists or engineers on the project team, nor any economic or engineering analysis, is enough for Congress to decide national chemical security policy?”

Well, count up the usual suspects. The believers in regulations first and always at OMB Watch say, “Chemical Security Bill Withstanding Industry Assault“: “With luck and the continued hard work of the ‘Blue Green Coalition’ of labor, environmental, and public interest groups, the bill hopefully will emerge from this committee mostly unscathed.” See, obviously this coalition formed because of their mutual interest in fighting terrorism.

There’s also the U.S. PIRG news release, “U.S. PIRG Urges Passage of Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2009.”

Both groups support the “citizen suits” provisions which create a second regulatory system, that imposed by environmentalist lawsuits. Blogger P.J. Coyle also wonders about the impetus behind the newly added “citizen suits” provision at his blog, “Chemical Facility Security News.”

As committee members debate this legislation that will add costs to a major employer during a serious recession, we would remind them of these facts, courtesy the American Chemistry Council:

That’s 5.66 million jobs.

We’ve recently highlighted a new bill being pushed through the House, H.R. 2868, the Chemical Facility Antiterrorism Act, that promises to make U.S. production and storage of chemicals more expensive and burdensome. The chemical industry is one of strong foundations of the U.S. economy. As Marty Durbin of the American Chemistry Council (ACC) described it at Tuesday’s hearing on the legislation by the House Committee on Homeland Security:

The business of chemistry is an important part of our nation’s economy and employs more than 850,000 Americans, and produces 19 percent of the world’s chemicals. ACC member companies manufacture essential products critical to everyday items that keep the economy moving and are essential to developing the greener, cleaner, more competitive economy the nation seeks. More than 96 percent of all manufactured goods are directly touched by the business of chemistry. Our members provide the chemistry that is used to produce life saving medications and medical devices, body armor used by our military and law enforcement officers, light weight components for vehicles, energy saving insulation and windows, silicon for solar panels, wind turbine blades and so much more. 

Yet the legislation includes many provisions that will simply make it harder to do business in the United States with no real benefit in terms of safety or anti-terrorism security. Sure, environmental groups will appreciate the additional power to sue companies in tandem with federal regulatory enforcement, but that “citizen suit” provision only serves the activists, not security.

This legislation is also a major item of interest and concern in farm country, since modern agriculture involves fertilizers and other chemicals, to say the least. The Kansas Meadowlark blog has been covering the rural angle, with attention to the growing-power-of-government angle, too. From “Congress could give government bureaucrats more control of farms and industry:

The federal government continues its push for unprecedented control of more aspects of our lives while there is little public discussion of the changes and consequences.  The mainstream press is mostly ignoring changes being discussed now in Congress regarding chemical security, which could have a huge impact on most industries, including ones important to Kansas.

Shouldn’t Kansans speak up about more federal controls that may affect Kansas farms?  Don’t Kansas farmers know more about farming than federal bureaucrats?

The committee mark-up starts at 10 a.m. Go here for the streaming video.

From our Legal Beagle search engine:

On January 30, the NAM and other business groups filed an amicus brief urging the Rhode Island Supreme Court to reverse the verdict because the trial court improperly rewrote the law of public nuisance. Our brief argues that public nuisance law should never be used to replace product liability law. Traditional standards of public nuisance law require that there be an injury to a common public right, that there must be some conduct by the defendants that created a public nuisance, and not merely injury, and that the defendants must have some control over the nuisance, both for imposing liability and for providing a remedy of abatement. The lower court also ignored the need to show proximate cause between a particular manufacturer’s actions and an injury.

Allowing this suit would create unpredictable liability for manufacturers in situtations where they have no control over the ultimate use and/or maintenance of their products,a nd constitutes regulation by litigation. The NAM has been very active in opposing the attempted expansion of the public nuisance theory of liability by plaintiffs’ lawyers who are attempting to avoid the straightforward requirements of product liability law. Similar cases have been brought against manufacturers of firearms, cigarettes, automobiles, gasoline additives, chemicals and electricity. Many of these have been rejected.

Related Documents:
NAM brief (1/30/2008)
Press release (1/30/2008)

The other amici were the Coalition for Litigation Justice, Inc., the National Federation of Independent Business Legal Foundation, the American Chemistry Council, the American Insurance Association, National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, and American Tort Reform Association.