How the EPA Helps Terrorists
Protecting their “right to know” how to blow up your community.

By Jonathan H. Adler, is assistant professor of law at Case Western Reserve University. His website is here.
September 27, 2001 12:30 p.m.

n the past, terrorists built their own bombs in secret hideaways or safe houses. This made terrorists somewhat easier to track, as officials could monitor purchases and transfers of bomb-making equipment and other activity that would suggest potential terrorism. When someone other than a farmer purchased large amounts of fertilizer, for example, it could arouse suspicion. For more exotic weapons, including from high-grade explosives to chemical or biological weapons, the chances of detection would be even greater.

That was then, this is now. Twenty-first century terrorists need not make their own bombs. Instead, they can rely upon turning more mundane items into tools of terror. The bombs of September 11 were fuel-laden passenger jets. Future attacks could rely upon crop-dusting planes or trucks hauling hazardous wastes, according to recent reports. Some speculate terrorists might also target nuclear plants or other facilities where a small explosion could trigger catastrophic results. Most federal agencies are devising procedures to frustrate such attacks. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), on the other hand, oversees a program that could make such attacks easier to carry out.

Under section 112r of the Clean Air Act, companies that use potentially dangerous chemicals are required to develop "risk-management plans" (RMPs) and submit them to the EPA. Chemicals covered range from highly toxic industrial chemicals to more mundane substances, such as ammonia and propane. An RMP must identify the chemicals used at the facility and the safety measures implemented to prevent industrial accidents. More ominously, an RMP must also detail "worst-case scenarios" for accidental releases of chemical substances and the likely impacts in the surrounding communities. A facility that stores propane, for example, must detail the sort of propane explosion that would cause the most harm, including how many people could be affected by such an accident, no matter how remote the possibility. Thus RMP data could serve as handy means for aspiring terrorist to identify potential targets. Want to cause a nasty chemical fire near Atlanta or a gas explosion in Phoenix? RMP data could point the way. It's no wonder the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Angela Logomasini dubbed Section 112r the "Federal Terrorist Assistance Program." (See www.cei.org.)

The EPA initially sought to post RMP data online, for any "concerned" citizen to examine. Web access to this information would most readily facilitate the public's "right to know" about chemical dangers, a high priority for the EPA. Yet web posting of such sensitive information could also facilitate terrorist attacks against industrial facilities. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and International Association of Fire Chiefs, among others, warned. Congress responded with legislation requiring the EPA and Justice Department to limit distribution of RMP information about potential offsite impacts of industrial accidents. The EPA agreed not to post such information online, but the full RMPs would still be available for public inspection at 50 or more federal reading rooms nationwide. Shortly before then-EPA Administrator Carol Browner left office, the EPA proposed easing reading-room access to RMP information by providing searchable "read-only" databases of RMP data in addition to printed copies.

Congress may have prevented the EPA from posting sensitive RMP information online, but environmental groups have rushed to fill the void. OMB Watch, a liberal advocacy group, posts RMP executive summaries at www.rtknet.org. Thanks to their efforts, it only takes a few minutes online to discover potential targets for terrorist activity. A quick perusal of the listings for Ohio — from the AC Humko Columbus facility to the Zanesville Water Treatment Plant — reveals information about propane storage facilities, pharmaceutical plants, chemical factories, and other inviting targets. At one facility, for example, the listed worst-case scenarios are: 1) an acrylonitrile spill exposing all within five miles to exposure levels above those deemed safe by EPA; and 2) a butadiene explosion in a rail car affecting 0.43 miles. Another RMP notes that nearby schools and churches will be within the radius of a worst-case chemical release. Although OMB Watch has only posted the executive summaries thus far, this information could be used to identify a list of facilities for which the full RMPs are available at the various public-reading rooms. And OMB Watch is not alone. Other groups, such as Greenpeace, are collecting and distributing RMP data as well.

It may be impossible to prohibit self-proclaimed "public interest" groups from posting RMP data online, but the EPA need not give them a hand. There is no reason for the federal government to force companies to disclose sensitive information about facility operations and vulnerabilities to the public at large. It is one thing to require industrial facilities to file information about chemical use and potential accidents with local fire departments and emergency preparedness officials. It is quite another to make such information readily available to any wannabe terrorist or anyone else with a mind to commit mayhem. In New Jersey, for example, government officials only disclose facility data about worst-case scenarios to interested citizens who ask for it, monitoring requests so as to identify potential terrorist activity. This allows people to learn about potential risks in their own community without endangering the public at large.

The EPA needs to reconsider its insistence on the public's "right to know," and Congress needs to revise Clean Air Act section 112r. This program has done little to inform the public about genuine environmental risks, but it could lead terrorists to inviting and vulnerable targets. Once the government forces information about potential accidents to be disclosed, there is no controlling the use to which it could be put.