I
106TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. R. 5623
To amend the Clean Air Act to ensure that adequate actions are taken
to detect, prevent, and minimize the consequences of accidental releases
that result from criminal activity that may cause substantial harm to
public health, safety, and the environment and to ensure that the public
has access to information regarding hazardous chemicals in the commu-
nity and the potential for accidental releases of those chemicals, and
for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
NOVEMBER 2, 2000
Mr. HOLT introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee
on Commerce
A BILL
To amend the Clean Air Act to ensure that adequate actions
are taken to detect, prevent, and minimize the con-
sequences of accidental releases that result from criminal
activity that may cause substantial harm to public
health, safety, and the environment and to ensure that
the public has access to information regarding hazardous
chemicals in the community and the potential for acci-
dental releases of those chemicals, and for other pur-
poses.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Chemical Security and
Right to Know Act of 2000’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds that—
(1) the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
believe that the possibility of terrorist and criminal
attacks on chemical plants poses a serious threat to
human health, safety, and the environment;
(2) limiting public access to chemical accident
information does not address the underlying problem
of the vulnerability of chemical plants to criminal at-
tack; on the contrary, providing public access to
chemical accident information may create substantial
incentives to reduce such vulnerability;
(3) there are significant opportunities to pre-
vent criminal attack on chemical plants by employ-
ing inherently safer technologies in the manufacture
and use of chemicals; such technologies may offer in-
dustry substantial savings by reducing the need for
site security, secondary containment, buffer zones,
mitigation, and liability insurance;
(4) chemical plants have a general duty to de-
sign and maintain safe facilities to prevent criminal
activity that may result in harm to human health,
safety and the environment; and
(5) if the Attorney General determines that
chemical plants have not taken adequate actions to
protect themselves from criminal attack, the Attor-
ney General must establish a program to ensure that
such actions are taken.
SEC. 3. PREVENTION OF CRIMINAL RELEASES.
(a) 
PURPOSE
AND
GENERAL
DUTY.—Section
112(r)(1) of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7412(r)(1)) is
amended by striking the second sentence and inserting the
following: ‘‘Each owner and each operator of a stationary
source that produces, processes, handles, or stores such
a substance has a general duty in the same manner and
to the same extent as the duty imposed under section 5
of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (29
U.S.C. 654) to identify hazards that may result from an
accidental release or criminal release using appropriate
hazard assessment techniques, to ensure design and main-
tenance of safe facilities taking such actions as are nec-
essary to prevent accidental releases and criminal releases,
and to minimize the consequences of any accidental release
or criminal release that does occur.’’.
(b) DEFINITIONS.—Section 112(r)(2) of the Clean
Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7412(r)(2)) is amended—
(1) by redesignating subparagraphs (B) and
(C) as subparagraphs (E) and (F), respectively; and
(2) by inserting after subparagraph (A) the fol-
lowing:
‘‘(B) 
CRIMINAL
RELEASE.—The 
term
‘criminal release’ means—
‘‘(i) a release of a regulated substance
from a stationary source into the environ-
ment that is caused, in whole or in part,
by a criminal act; and
‘‘(ii) a release into the environment of
a regulated substance that has been re-
moved from a stationary source, in whole
or in part, by a criminal act.
‘‘(C) DESIGN AND MAINTENANCE OF SAFE
FACILITIES.—The term ‘design and mainte-
nance of safe facilities’ means, with respect to
the facilities at a stationary source, the prac-
tices of—
‘‘(i) preventing or reducing the vulner-
ability of the stationary source to a release
of a regulated substance through use of in-
herently safer technology to the maximum
extent practicable;
‘‘(ii) reducing any vulnerability of the
stationary source that remains after taking
the measures described in clause (i)
through secondary containment, control, or
mitigation equipment to the maximum ex-
tent practicable;
‘‘(iii) reducing any vulnerability of the
stationary source that remains after taking
the measures described in clauses (i) and
(ii) by—
‘‘(I) making the facilities impreg-
nable to intruders to the maximum
extent practicable; and
‘‘(II) improving site security and
employee training to the maximum ex-
tent practicable; and
‘‘(iv) reducing the potential con-
sequences of any vulnerability of the sta-
tionary source that remains after taking
the measures described in clauses (i)
through (iii) through the use of buffer
zones between the stationary source and
surrounding populations (including buffer
zones between the stationary source and
residences, schools, hospitals, senior cen-
ters, shopping centers and malls, sports
and entertainment arenas, public roads
and transportation routes, and other popu-
lation centers).
‘‘(D) USE OF INHERENTLY SAFER TECH-
NOLOGY.—
‘‘(i) IN GENERAL.—The term ‘use of
inherently safer technology’ means use of a
technology, product, raw material, or prac-
tice that, as compared to the technology,
products, raw materials, or practices cur-
rently in use—
‘‘(I) reduces or eliminates the
possibility of release of a toxic, vola-
tile, corrosive, or flammable substance
prior to secondary containment, con-
trol, or mitigation; and
‘‘(II) reduces or eliminates the
hazards to public health and the envi-
ronment associated with the release or
potential release of a substance de-
scribed in subclause (I).
‘‘(ii) INCLUSIONS.—The term ‘use of
inherently safer technology’ includes input
substitution, process redesign, product re-
formulation, procedure simplification, and
technology modification so as to—
‘‘(I) use less hazardous or benign
substances;
‘‘(II) moderate pressures or tem-
peratures;
‘‘(III) reduce the likelihood and
potential 
consequences 
of 
human
error;
‘‘(IV) improve inventory control
and chemical use efficiency; and
‘‘(V) reduce or eliminate storage,
transportation, and handling of haz-
ardous chemicals.’’.
(c) DETERMINATION
AND REGULATIONS.—Section
112(r) of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7412(r)) is amend-
ed by adding at the end the following:
‘‘(12) PREVENTION OF CRIMINAL RELEASES.—
‘‘(A) DETERMINATION
OF
ADEQUACY.—
Not later than 1 year after the date of enact-
ment of this paragraph, the Attorney General,
in consultation with the Administrator, shall de-
termine whether the owners or operators of sta-
tionary sources have taken adequate actions, in-
cluding the design and maintenance of safe fa-