United Suppliers Inc. is no longer in the ammonium nitrate business. The company, based in Eldora, Iowa, decided to stop selling AN at the close of this year’s spring planting season due to continuing concerns about liability and security.
United Suppliers joins a growing list of agronomy companies that have exited the AN market due to similar concerns. Earlier this month, Green Markets reported the decision by Terral River Services Inc. in Alexandria, La., to drop AN from its fertilizer line because of burdensome federal security regulations enforced by the U.S. Coast Guard (GM July 2, p. 1).
Laws to track AN sales are also being considered at the federal level, and are already in place in several states. A bill went into effect July 1 in Kansas requiring AN dealers to maintain logs of AN sales for three years. The logs must include the name, address, driver’s license number, date of purchase, and amount purchased for each sale.
According to the Kansas Agribusiness Retailers Association (KARA), which supports the legislation and worked for its introduction, the state department of agriculture will have authority to inspect records to make sure dealers are complying with the law. If the AN is purchased by a third party, the same information is required to be logged for both the end-user and the third party. The law also gives the agriculture department authority to charge up to $25 to AN registrants unless the registrant is also a registered custom blender.
“KARA supports securing AN in a reasonable fashion so that regulatory compliance does not price the product out of the market,” the trade association said. Kansas joins several other states, including Oklahoma, Nevada, South Carolina, Maryland, California, and New York, that have either already approved or are in the process of approving similar bills to track AN sales to keep it out of the hands of those with criminal intent.
At the federal level, companion bills are under consideration in the House and Senate to create a regulatory system that would require all AN producers, sellers, and purchasers to register with the Department of Homeland Security to be checked against federal terrorism watch lists.
The Secure Handling of Ammonium Nitrate Act of 2007, which has the support of industry associations such as The Fertilizer Institute and the Agricultural Retailers Association, would require producers and sellers to maintain records of all sales for two years. The records must include the producer’s name, address, phone number, and registration number, as well as the date and quantity of AN sold. The bill, which does not preempt state law, would also require all thefts or unexplained losses to be reported to federal law enforcement within 24 hours.
Lawmakers said the federal AN sales provisions could be added to a bill that would implement the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission (HR1), which is currently awaiting conference with the Senate version (S4). Kathy Mathers of The Fertilizer Institute, however, told Green Markets that “given what we have heard from the Hill, the likelihood is slim at this point that the AN language from the Senate bill will be added to the Sept. 11 bill.”