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Senate bill would extend CFATS for five years

News

Four members of the U.S. Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee introduced bipartisan legislation on Feb. 10 to extend for five years the existing Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS).

U.S. Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine), Ranking Member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), George Voinovich (R-Ohio) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.) introduced S. 2996, the Continuing Chemical Facilities Antiterrorism Security Act, which would reauthorize the law until 2015. It is now set to expire in October.

The senators said their bill would give the Department of Homeland Security sufficient time to fully implement the CFATS standards that were signed into law in 2006 and took effect in 2007. The chemical and fertilizer industries have voiced support for the existing CFATS standards, and have urged Congress to extend them rather than adopt tougher regulations that were approved last fall by the House of Representatives (GM Nov. 16, 2009).

“The Department of Homeland Security has done a remarkable job developing a comprehensive chemical security program,” said Sen. Collins. “This industry is vital to our country’s economy and important to advancements and innovations in critical fields such as science, technology, agriculture, medicine and manufacturing, but it can also be a dangerous threat in the event of a terrorist attack. That is why it is critical that we enable the Department to continue this important work. The legislation passed by the House of Representatives would unwisely bring this progress to a screeching halt.”

H.R. 2868, the House bill approved on Nov. 6, included several provisions that were roundly criticized by The Fertilizer Institute, the Agricultural Retailers Association and other chemical industry trade groups. Among these was an Inherently Safer Technologies (IST) provision, which would require chemical facilities to assess the viability of switching to safer chemical alternatives. The House bill also contained language allowing citizens to sue DHS for failing to implement the law, and included a petition process through which citizens may request the government to investigate specific facilities.

In her floor statement introducing S. 2996 last week, Sen. Collins was particularly critical of the IST provision in the House bill. “IST is an approach to process engineering involving the use of less dangerous chemicals, less energetic reaction conditions, or reduced chemical inventories,” she said. “It is not, however, a security measure. And because there is no precise methodology by which to measure whether one technology is safer than another, an IST mandate may actually increase or unacceptably transfer the risk to other points in the chemical process or elsewhere on the supply chain.”

Collins also warned that an IST mandate would encourage chemical companies to move their operations overseas, and would affect the availability of several commonly used products. The fertilizer industry has argued that anhydrous ammonia and ammonium nitrate are two products most vulnerable to an IST provision.

“To be clear, some owners and operators of chemical facilities will want to use IST,” Collins said. “But the decision to implement [it] should be that of the owner or operator, not a Washington bureaucrat.” Collins said the existing CFATS rules allow chemical facilities “the flexibility to choose the security measures or programs that the owner or operator of the facilities decides would best address the particular facility and its security risks, so long as these security measures satisfy the department’s 18 performance standards.”

Collins said DHS has received more than $200 million to date to support CFATS, and has hired and trained more than 100 chemical facility field inspectors and headquarters employees since 2007. DHS hopes to employ 260 more by the end of fiscal 2010, she added.

DHS is also well into the tiering process mandated by CFATS, which requires facilities to complete a Top-Screen security vulnerability assessment to determine which plants pose the highest security risk. Collins reported that since the CFATS were established, DHS has reviewed almost 38,000 Top-Screen submissions and notified nearly 7,000 facilities of their high-risk designations and preliminary tiers.

According to the Agricultural Retailers Association, DHS recently notified 544 facilities across the U.S. of their final tiering assignment under the CFATS rules. The Site Security Plans for these 544 facilities will be due to DHS no later than June 1, 2010. ARA said CFATS currently covers some 6,023 facilities, 3,507 of which are final tiered facilities and 2,516 preliminarily tiered facilities. ARA broke down the total number of facilities by tier as follows: Tier 1: 230; Tier 2: 563; Tier 3: 1,231; and Tier 4: 3,999.

The Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA) last week welcomed the introduction of S. 2996, saying the legislation “will allow chemical companies across the country to continue making important investments to safeguard themselves against a potential terrorist attack.”

“The bipartisan leadership shown by these four senators is precisely what our nation needs when it comes to securing the homeland,” said Bill Allmond, vice president of government relations and chem. stewards at SOCMA. “We applaud them for ensuring the continuation of the comprehensive Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act Standards. We hope this bill is the start of a new beginning toward a bipartisan solution to a permanent chemical security law.”

A TFI spokesperson expressed some reservations to Green Markets about the bill’s chances, however, saying Senate Democrats may have an added incentive to push through tougher chemical security legislation this year, particularly since other key legislation continues to languish in Congress.

Attendance up in Orlando; much talk, little action

Florida, News Briefs

Orlando-Attendance at TFI’s annual meeting in Orlando was up this year by about 12 percent from the year-ago meeting in San Diego. While final attendance numbers were uncertain, at last count some 640 had signed up. Sources cited a better economic climate and cold, wet weather elsewhere that prodded more people to sunny Orlando. Travel to and from the conference was one of the major topics, especially by those coming from the Mid-Atlantic states, who had to endure a major snowfall prior to leaving and another on the way home. TFI said it did lose a few attendees due to the weather. Overall, sources said there was a lot of talk at the meeting about business, but not a lot actually done. Sources said wet weather across much of the nation has halted movement, and that buyers are generally awaiting movement to the field before they restock their bins. Still, most were upbeat that that movement will eventually take place, and sellers saw no need to drop prices as the spring season approaches.

Two killed at CIL facility

India, News Briefs

Kakinada, India-Two employees of the Coromandel International Ltd. (CIL) Kakinada fertilizer complex were killed earlier this month due to an anhydrous ammonia leak. Several others were sent to the hospital. Production at CIL’s DAP and NPK complex was temporarily suspended. The employees were trying to stop a leak that occurred while imported ammonia was being offloaded to the facility, according to the local press. Indian authorities said CIL will not be allowed to resume production until repairs are made and a third-party inspection is completed.

Moranbah AN construction project to restart

Ammonium Nitrate, Australia, News Briefs

Melbourne-Incitec Pivot Ltd. (IPL) said Feb. 8 that construction of an ammonium nitrate complex in Moranbah in central Queensland will recommence in May, 2010. The project, scheduled for beneficial operation in the first quarter of calendar 2012, is expected to be completed within the previously announced budget of A$935 million. The project involves a 330,000 mt/y AN complex comprising ammonia, nitric acid, and AN plants, as well as utilities, power generation, and other infrastructure. IPL announced in February 2009 that the project would be slowed down due to the global financial crisis. At that time, it was 35 percent complete. According to IPL, the plant, in the heart of Australia’s coal country, already has some 90 percent of its production committed.

PotashCorp increases stake in ICL, again

News Briefs

Tel Aviv-PotashCorp continues to increase its stake in Israel Chemicals Ltd. On Friday, Feb. 5, the company purchased 18.5 million shares of ICL at a price of $12.68 per share. The additional shares represent 1.4 percent, increasing the company’s current stake to 13.9 percent. The cost of the most recent transaction was $234.6 million. PotashCorp now owns 176.1 million shares of ICL. In late January, PotashCorp spent $186.6 million for an additional 1.1 percent of ICL, bringing its stake up to 12.46 percent (GM Feb. 1, p. 10).

N.C. processor hit with $27,400 ammonia fine

Ammonia, News Briefs

Raleigh, N.C.-State air quality officials have fined Mountaire Farms’ chicken processing plant in Robeson County $27,410 for an anhydrous ammonia release on June 20, 2009, that killed one employee and injured three others. The fine was in addition to a $73,325 safety violation penalty assessed last year by the North Carolina Dept. of Labor. The Division of Air Quality found Mountaire Farms lacked both a risk management program and an emergency response plan and did not provide employee training on safe handling methods. Investigators found that the risk management program had not been developed despite a fine of $4,506 assessed in March 2008. The current fine levied by the Division of Air Quality constituted the maximum for a single violation, including $25,000 for the severity of the incident and previous problems at the facility and $2,410 for costs of the investigation. The death of the maintenance worker occurred when anhydrous ammonia leaked from a ruptured high-pressure refrigerant line while workers were doing maintenance on meat-processing equipment.

State chemist rules out Indiana phos ban

News Briefs, Phosphate

Indianapolis-The state chemist’s office, exercising an authority unique to Indiana, has turned down a request by Steuben County in northeastern Indiana and the town of Clear Lake to ban lawn fertilizers containing phosphorous in order to improve water quality in the county, which calls itself the Land of 101 Lakes. The chemist’s office, located at Purdue University, held that testimony did not establish that the ban would effectively mitigate the further development of what the petitioners described as worsening algae blooms that give some of the waters a greenish cast. The petitioners insisted that the condition is discouraging the use of the waters by boaters, tourists, and summer residents, who generate an estimated $130 million in annual revenue. The final determination, signed by Dr. Robert Waltz, state chemist and seed commissioner, held that the ordinance would be unenforceable because local enforcement was not considered a highly desired outcome and no other strategy was presented to achieve the outcome. Steuben Commissioner Ron Smith noted that the water quality of the lakes has improved over the past 20 years as many farmers have taken steps to reduce field runoff. “Our lakes are much cleaner, but this ban was another attempt on the part of the county to improve the quality of our waters,” Smith said. He believes the Indiana State Chemist Office rejected the county’s request for a waiver for its ban because approving it would have set a precedent, opening the door for other counties to follow with their own laws. Waltz told Green Markets that “the provision that the state chemist specifically identified as the official response to these requests is probably unique to Indiana {whereas} in most states other officials and agencies may be given the same or very similar responsibilities.”

Washington state eyes ban on lawn phos

News Briefs, Phosphate

Seattle-Landscapers and others support the idea of reducing phosphorus runoff, but think the bill currently in the Washington state legislature has too many flaws. For one, the Washington Assn. of Landscape Professionals is concerned that jurisdiction over fertilizer would be shifted from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Ecology, which the group insists is not the right location. The association’s legislative chair, Rick Longnecker, who owns Buds & Blades Landscape Co., pointed out that enforcement would be put at the local level, making it difficult for businesses to operate with several different municipalities or counties in the mix. Heather Hanson, who represents farm groups and landscapers, said phosphorus occurs naturally in the environment and that it is impossible to separate it from some organic fertilizers. The bill requires expensive soil tests and ties enforcement actions to neighbor complaints, she said. Longnecker added, “Based on studies abroad and locally, we aren’t convinced that the phosphorus runoff is caused by fertilizers. It’s our position that phosphorus binds to the soil, in the root zone, until it is used by the plant for uptake. Very little, if any, is actually runoff caused by fertilizer.” The current bill comes on top of state-imposed restrictions for laundry and dishwasher detergents that would require low- or no-phosphorus fertilizers for lawns but would not restrict golf courses or farms. Washington banned phosphate laundry detergents in 1993, and imposed similar conditions on dishwashing detergents in 2008 starting in Spokane, Clark, and Whatcom counties that take effect this year in the rest of the state.

Waste Management eyes more organic fert

News Briefs

Houston-A business move made by Waste Management, Inc. (WM) with waste recycler Harvest Power is expected to result in significant increases in the supply of organic compost and fertilizers in U.S. and Canada. With this aim in mind, WM has announced plans to invest in Harvest Power to help the company expand its organics recycling facilities to generate more renewable energy along with high-quality nutrient-rich compost and bio-fertilizer products. “Combining Waste Management’s industry leadership and expertise in the collection and management of a wide range of segmented waste streams with Harvest’s leading technologies and industry knowledge will be key to developing new, higher value-added end markets for organic materials and accelerating the growth of organics recycling across North America,” reported Tim Cesarek, managing director of organic growth at Waste Management. Harvest Power of Waltham, Mass., with offices in Seattle and Richmond, B.C., has significant expertise in organic waste management, from building and operating large-scale organics recycling facilities to marketing compost products. Harvest Power owns and operates a facility located in Richmond, B.C., that it describes as the largest and most efficient food and yard waste composting facility in North America. With WM’s help, Harvest Power will be expanding to more cities, starting with the East and West Coasts, and provide raw material for its composting process – and, in the near future, its biogas and syngas production systems.

Agrium comes out with Spread it & Forget it

News Briefs

Loveland, Colo.-Agrium Advanced Technologies claims its new controlled-release Spread it & Forget it fertilizer now available feeds lawns and professional turf for six months or more with just one application, enabling turf professionals to spread just once and keep turf lush, green and healthy for a full growing season. The new line utilizes DURATION CR controlled-release fertilizer technology to ensure steady nutrient release made possible by advanced-generation polymer coatings. The coatings gradually release nutrients as plants need them, at the same time protecting the environment against nitrogen loss and enabling up to 40 percent less total nitrogen to be applied per year. Each Spread it & Forget it blend is formulated with 90 percent or more of its nitrogen from DURATION CR and up to 10 percent of a quickly available nitrogen source for immediate greening. Products will be available with and without pre-emergent herbicides for added convenience and efficiency. Agrium reported that commercial and residential test groups in 2009 gave positive ratings to the new product for promoting healthy, green turf while saving on labor and fuel costs.