Washington, D.C.-The House and Senate Appropriations Committees have approved competing versions of the fiscal year 2007 emergency supplemental appropriations bill. According to the Agricultural Retailers Association, $4 billion of the $120 billion appropriations total is for emergency agricultural disaster assistance for farmers and ranchers; the bills also include changes to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s proposed chemical facility security regulations that ARA opposes and considers disruptive. ARA said changes to the House bill would allow “government disapproval and shutdown of a facility based on non-security prescriptive measures, such as environmentally-driven operational changes, instead of a risk-based performance standard of overall site security.” ARA also criticized the House bill for withdrawing protections for sensitive chemical security information by exposing vulnerability information gleaned from submitted documents; for striking a ban on “obstructionist third-party lawsuits;” and for allowing states and local governments “sovereignty over the U.S. government on the protection of chemical plants from terrorism and other acts of war.” ARA cautioned that “if the House and Senate chemical security provisions are allowed to remain in any final supplemental funding bill, the U.S. agricultural industry will be open to even more frivolous lawsuits from anti-chemical activist groups.” ARA noted the President Bush has threatened to veto the bill due to the inclusion of a timetable to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq over the next 18 months, as well as excessive spending.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain