Plum Island: New Yorkers Hail Plan to Keep Animal Diseases Lab
Ted Purlain, BioPrepWatch, 17 February 2012; www.bioprepwatch.com
New Yorkers have hailed the Obama administration's halt of plans to move a Cold War-era animal diseases lab from a tiny New York island to a new $650 million facility in Kansas. Proponents of the lab say it is needed to protect the nation's livestock industry, while its skeptics argue that such an investment during an economic crisis is unwise.
New Yorkers have been fighting to keep the 200 jobs where they are, according to the Wall Street Journal. "The prospect of taking a wrecking ball to a multimillion-dollar Homeland Security investment in the study of foot-and-mouth disease at Plum Island to accommodate another several hundred million-dollar research lab right in the middle of cattle country has always seemed like the height of irresponsible government spending," Bob DeLuca, the president of the Group for the East End, a Long Island environmental group, said, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Adrienne Esposito, the executive director of the New York-based Citizens Campaign for the Environment, agrees. "If nothing is broken, why are they trying to fix it?" Esposito said, the Wall Street Journal reports. "I think even the president realized it would be a big mistake to move. This is nothing but a boondoggle, a money grab that the president has stopped."
President Obama recently announced that he had recommended no additional funding for construction of a new biosecuirty lab. He also directed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to reassess the construction of the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility planned to be built near Kansas State University.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently told a House appropriations subcommittee that the lab is necessary and that Obama's budget request includes $8 million for research in Kansas. She said that the project will move forward if Congress is willing to provide the funding.
"We've had trouble with getting the money for the NBAF for the last three years," Napolitano told the subcommittee, according to the Wall Street Journal. "It has been peer-reviewed and put in Kansas, near a lot of other resources. That makes sense to put it there."
Vessel Used in CW Destruction in Kentucky
Associated Press, in The Lexington Herald-Leader (KY), 17 February 2012; www.kentucky.com
A large empty vessel used in chemical weapons destruction is set to make its way to the Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant in Richmond, Kentucky. Over the weekend, law enforcement agencies will escort a 200-foot-long tractor trailer carrying the vessel from Lexington to Richmond. Blue Grass Army Depot officials say the vessel is nearly 50-feet tall and weighs about 100 tons.
During plant operations, the vessel will house inert nitrogen gas while the chemical weapons stockpile is destroyed. The vessel has traveled about 1,800 miles from southeastern Idaho to Kentucky. The pilot plant is being built to destroy a stockpile of chemical weapons currently in storage at the Blue Grass Army Depot. The under construction plant will destroy 523 tons of munitions containing blister and nerve agents.
South Africa: Basson ("Dr. Death") to Tell His Side of the Story
Ted Purlain, BioPrepWatch, 17 February 2012; www.bioprepwatch.com
Dr. Wouter Basson, the former head of South Africa's apartheid-era chemical and biological weapons programs, recently promised to tell his full story at a fundraising dinner for disabled children. All of the proceeds for the event will go to Amado, a South African non-profit organization dedicated to helping physically disabled and traumatized children though the use of animal therapy, IOL.co.za reports.
Amado's founder, M'Lani Basson, reportedly of no relation to Dr. Wouter Basson, said that she asked the man formerly known as Dr. Death to speak because he is controversial. "He is an excellent speaker," M'Lani Basson said, according to IOL.co.za. "He doesn't usually accept many speaking engagements but I've got a personal connection with him."
Dr. Basson is currently facing a conduct inquiry by the Health Professions Council of South Africa for his role in Project Coast, the apartheid government's biological and chemical weapons program. His case is set to resume in March.
"From the Army to the case, the number one reason to come to the event is to hear what he has to say," M'Lani Basson said, according to IOL.co.za. "We've had a lot of interest. But when it comes to buying tickets, not a lot of people have booked. If this event doesn't succeed for us, then nothing will. I chose him because we really need funds for our charity. We don't have any paying children. We needed it to be something different." The Amado founder said that she hopes at least 100 people will attend the fundraiser. Tickets are on sale for approximately $65 and include dinner and wine, as well as an auction.
Pueblo Chemical Depot's Future
John Norton, The Pueblo Chieftain (CO), 16 February 2012; www.chieftain.com
The executive director of the agency overseeing the transformation to civilian use of the Pueblo Chemical Depot received the blessing of his board Wednesday to explore ways of using the base.
Russell DeSalvo ran a number of ideas past the Pueblo Depot Activity Development Authority board at its regular meeting, suggesting that the agency partition a warehouse for boat, trailer and RV storage. It also could enter into partnerships with Colorado State University-Pueblo and Fort Collins to develop solar energy and work with another entity that hopes to set up a regional recycling center.
DeSalvo also has been in talks with John Vukich, dean of the economic and workforce development division at Pueblo Community College, about setting up a manufacturing incubator for startup businesses. He also has spoken with Jeff Shaw, director of the Veterans Initiative National Sustainment program, which already has one operation at the airport industrial park.
The authority's role is finding civilian tenants for the igloos, warehouses and other space no longer used by the Army. DeSalvo said that the agency also has an economic development role and can help ease the shock to Pueblo's economy when the depot's stockpile of chemical weapons is destroyed, as early as the end of 2017.
While the weapons destruction is under way, there will be more than 1,000 highly-skilled people working at the depot. "There is an increasing interest in what we're doing at the depot," DeSalvo said, "because of the finite time that those jobs are going to be out there. "We really need to start thinking of ourselves as developers and not just landlords. We have to have a different market strategy for the development side of the business."
DeSalvo said 122 double-door igloos are now rented and there is a waiting list of three potential tenants. There are four more of the igloos that the authority has asked the Army to turn over, he added. The double-door igloos are popular because it's possible to drive a vehicle into them with their 8-foot-wide clearance. The authority has about 600 single-door igloos.
Shchuchye: Nerve Agent Destruction Halfway Finished at Russian Depot
Global Security Newswire, 16 February 2012; www.globalsecuritynewswire.org
A major Russian chemical weapons depot has destroyed 50 percent of its nerve agent, U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) said on Wednesday.
In addition, the disposal plant at the Shchuchye complex on Wednesday finished rendering ineffective and treating with bitumen all chemical warfare materials emptied from stockpiled munitions, Lugar said. The site last July wrapped up the elimination of projectiles and shells that once held the substances.
Lugar commended the achievements by the Shchuchye facility, which was built to dispose of nerve agent and 2 million chemical munitions accounting for 14 percent of Russia's chemical arsenal. The site launched in 2009 and has received financial support from the U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction program, which was established in 1991 to secure and eliminate weapons of mass destruction in former Soviet states.
"The experience of the Nunn-Lugar program in Russia has demonstrated that the threat of weapons of mass destruction can lead to extraordinary outcomes based on mutual interest," Lugar said in a press release. "As new dangers emerge in third countries, the United States and Russia must work together around the world and aggressively pursue any nonproliferation opportunities that appear. Together, we can utilize the Nunn-Lugar concept to address global threats."
"Our own national security is bolstered by a vigorous international campaign to contain and eliminate all chemical weapons stockpiles. Global terrorists remain on the prowl, looking for new targets and, no doubt, new weapons. Destroying the huge cache of weapons at Shchuchye will make Americans safer," Lugar said in the statement.
[The Chemical Weapons Convention,] an international treaty, obligates Russia and the United States to each destroy their entire chemical warfare stockpiles.
Fort Detrick Watchdog Seeks State Licensure, Regulation for Biolabs
Paul Tinder, BioPrepWatch, 16 February 2012; www.bioprepwatch.com
The Containment Laboratory Community Advisory Committee, a Fort Detrick watchdog group, is seeking legislation that would require academic, nonprofit and private laboratories in Maryland to be licensed and regulated by the state. The legislation would focus on laboratories that work with potentially hazardous materials.
State Senator Ron Young introduced the legislation this month, which would consolidate the licensing and regulation of biosafety level three and four labs under the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the Frederick News-Post reports. "It is my understanding that there are at least four labs in our area, but due to their exemption from the Freedom of Information Act, we cannot be sure of their numbers or locations," Young said, according to the Frederick News-Post.
People working in BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs frequently handle toxic and contagious agents such as Ebola and anthrax. While the labs are regulated by several federal agencies, members of the committee are worried that the labs are not operating with sufficient scrutiny to protect workers and the public. "We need to somehow convey that this is not an albatross around progress," Ray Hunter, a committee member, said, according to the Frederick News-Post. "We should have put in place what should have been there a long time ago."
The bill would extend to existing and new facilities that grow by at least 10 percent while other labs would be grandfathered in. The bill is currently not sponsored in the state House and some worry that it would deter business growth. "This is not cumbersome," Karen Young, a committee member and city of Frederick alderwoman, said, according to the Frederick News-Post. "This is just giving the state some responsibility for oversight."
China Concerned over Abandoned Japanese Arms
Xinhua, in China Daily, 16 February 2012; www.chinadaily.com.cn
China's Foreign Ministry said in a Thursday statement that China is "seriously concerned" about Japan's failure to destroy its abandoned chemical weapons in China on schedule. Chinese and Japanese authorities have been negotiating over the destruction of the weapons since last September.
The two sides recently reached consensus on the signing of a memorandum of understanding, establishing the details of the destruction plans and a timetable, the statement said. Japan has committed to continuing the destruction of its abandoned chemical weapons in China after April 29, 2012, the deadline for completing the eradication specified in the Chemical Weapons Convention, the statement said.
China and Japan on Tuesday submitted a report on the destruction plans to the executive council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons at the 67th meeting of the council, the statement said. The council passed a resolution regarding the delay. Japan has promised to continue to fulfill its obligations after April 29, 2012 in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention and complete the destruction work as soon as possible under international supervision, the statement said.
President's Budget Boosts Funds for CW Disposal at Bluegrass
Richmond Register (KY), 15 February 2012; www.richmondregister.com
The 2013 budget request President Obama sent to Congress on Monday would boost spending for chemical weapons (CW) disposal at the Bluegrass Army Depot by $277 million. The budget would spend $778.7 million on projects underway at the depot in Madison County and another in Colorado where CW will be "demilitarized" via chemical neutralization. The Blue Grass depot's share would be $411 million.
"The funding request reflects a continued commitment by the Pentagon to accelerate efforts ridding us of these weapons," said Craig Williams, director of the Berea-based Chemical Weapons Working Group. "This funding level, if approved by Congress, will maintain aggressive progress toward completing this important project." Funding amounts have fluctuated drastically over the past decade, hitting a $33 million low in 2005, which virtually halted disposal efforts in 2006, Williams noted.
A renewed effort to pick up the pace of the project took place in 2008 when funding began to increase, he said. "Over the past three years, excellent accomplishments have been seen with facility construction now near 50-percent completion," said Madison Judge/Executive Kent Clark, who co-chairs the local project's citizen advisory board with Williams. "This year's numbers will make a big difference in the project. I'm happy to see we'll be getting what we need to keep going," Clark said.
The $411 million proposed for the Blue Grass mission includes $296 million for research, development, test and evaluation with $115 million for construction, Williams said. At last year's international Chemical Weapons Convention meeting in The Netherlands, the United States pledged to vigorously pursue completion of the disposal project, "in the shortest time possible," he said. "This year's budget request underscores the seriousness of that commitment by our government and I believe it will be viewed very positively by the international community," Williams said.
U.S. Representative Ben Chandler, D-Sixth District, who was in Berea on Tuesday morning to visit the Veterans Affairs Clinic there, said he was hopeful the funding request would be approved even as Congress is looking for funds to cut. The bi-partisan nature of the effort led by U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, gives it greater likelihood of success, Chandler said.
Although a relatively small amount in the national military budget, a project of great interest mainly only to two states may not be able to withstand a general effort to reduce spending, the congressman said.
Homeland Security Chief Says Bio, Agro-Defense Facility Needed
Associated Press, in The Washington Post, 15 February 2012; www.washingtonpost.com
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says a national biological and agricultural defense laboratory in the U.S. remains necessary despite the Obama administration's decision not to include construction funding in its budget request.
Napolitano says President Barack Obama's budget request for the next fiscal year includes $8 million for research in Kansas, where the $1 billion National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility has been planned. Napolitano tells members of Congress that project is not dead. But because Congress last year cut the White House recommendation for $150 million to only $50 million, the administration now is taking a step back to review the scope and cost of the project. She predicts the project will move forward.
Obama Cuts Won't Hit Chem Demil
John Norton, The Pueblo Chieftain (CO), 15 February 2012; www.chieftain.com
Expected cuts in defense spending won't affect the [chemical] weapons destruction program at the Pueblo Chemical Depot. The president's 2013 budget calls for a $778.7 million for the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives [ACWA] program, the amount that the agency had requested for the next fiscal year. The ACWA program oversees the efforts at the Pueblo depot and the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky to destroy the last stockpiles of chemical weapons.
Of the amount budgeted, $340 million would go to the Pueblo program and $36 million of that was designated for construction, most of which is nearly finished. The Blue Grass allocation was $411 million with $115 million for construction. The remaining $27.7 million will cover costs of work at the ACWA headquarters.
The Pueblo depot houses 780,000 artillery shells and mortar rounds containing 2,611 tons of mustard agent. Most of the work now is developing and testing the systems that will be used to destroy it with actual destruction of the agent expected to begin in 2015 and finish by the end of 2017 if there are no major problems. Blue Grass has mustard agent but also holds nerve agent rockets, which are expected to take longer to destroy.
Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group in Berea, Kentucky, said that the budget numbers were good news. His group led the effort to use water neutralization at the two depots instead of incineration, which was the Army's preferred method.
"The funding request for the Kentucky and Colorado disposal projects reflect the continued commitment by the Pentagon to the accelerated effort to rid us of these weapons. This funding level, if approved by Congress, will maintain aggressive progress toward completing this important project."
Obama Requests $17.7M for FDA Biodefense Site
Global Security Newswire, 14 February 2012; www.globalsecuritynewswire.org
The Obama administration on Monday requested a $17.7 million outlay for preparing and performing checks on a U.S. Food and Drug Administration biological defense center planned in Silver Spring, Maryland, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reported.
The administration's $3.5 billion funding proposal for the agency, included in President Obama's fiscal 2013 budget request for the Health and Human Services Department, also seeks $3.5 million in FDA appropriations to develop drug treatments for use following a potential chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attack.
The funding would "support science and partnerships to improve [medical countermeasure] development time lines and the success rates for [medical countermeasures]," the agency said in a statement. The office said it would also boost technical support to producers of the response tools with an emphasis on the treatments considered most important.
Ethics Commission to Study Readying Bio Countermeasures for Children
Global Security Newswire, 9 February 2012; www.globalsecuritynewswire.org
A special presidential commission has accepted a request from the Health and Human Services Department to study the ethical implications of developing biological agent countermeasures for minors and will begin examination of the matter in the spring, Slate reported on Monday. Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues Chairwoman Amy Gutmann last week in San Francisco said the panel would accept a request made in early January by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, according to an official commission blog post.
"The safety of our children is paramount, and it is vital that we thoroughly address any and all ethical considerations relative to having adequate and available safety and immunogenicity data on our medical countermeasures to protect them before, during and after an event," Sebelius said in her written request to the commission. The department's National Biodefense Science Board last fall concluded that additional assessments should be pursued before any testing of anthrax countermeasures on children is begun.
Anthrax is considered a likely candidate for a feared bioterrorism attack. The only Food and Drug Administration-approved vaccine for anthrax has to date been tried solely on adults, leaving a deficit of understanding on the countermeasure's effectiveness on children, appropriate dosage levels and any possible side effects.
Critics of testing the vaccine on children contend there is not a high enough probability of a naturally occurring outbreak or an attack to justify testing the vaccine on minors if there is a chance it could cause negative health effects. Some adults who have received the vaccine have reported experiencing muscle tenderness, headaches, and tenderness near the site of the inoculation. More rarely, severe allergic reactions have been reported. Another ethical concern is that children cannot decide for themselves whether to be tested; parental consent must be given. Sebelius has asked the commission to study "how best to obtain clinical data on medical countermeasures in children".
Separately, U.S. epidemiologist Donald Henderson told the Huffington Post he does not believe the United States is equipped to respond to a large-scale biological weapons attack, despite more than 10 years of considerable effort at the federal, state and local levels. "I've kept quiet about this for a long time, but I'm deeply concerned," said Henderson, who headed the international program to wipe out smallpox and formerly managed the HHS Public Health Preparedness Office.
Issues that remain unresolved include whether mass evacuations or directing residents to remain in their homes would be the more appropriate response to a bioterror attack and who exactly should receive medical countermeasures following an event, Henderson said. "This has been discussed for years. It's still not decided – what do we recommend?" said Henderson, who is now at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Biosecurity.
"I've come to the point I really have to talk about it," Henderson added ahead of a presentation he is scheduled to deliver this month . "We've really got to crack this thing loose and get people on it. They will say they have the report, the plan is made, it's ready to go. That's what I was told a year and half ago".
Release of Bird Flu Data Likely Won't Speed Vaccine Work
Global Security Newswire, 9 February 2012; www.globalsecuritynewswire.org
Publication of sensitive data from two controversial studies that boosted the capacity of avian flu to spread between mammals is not expected to lessen the time line for developing new vaccines to the altered virus in the event of a breakout, the scientific journal Nature reported on Wednesday.
The scientific community is still in a furor over whether technical information on how the H5N1 virus can be altered to become more transmissible should be made available to the public. Biodefense experts are concerned that bad actors could use the data to produce a highly infectious airborne virus and release it in a bioterrorism attack. Other researchers, though, believe this worry is over-hyped and that censoring the data will only hinder the development of vital vaccines and other countermeasures.
Nature was set to publish the H5N1 study by the University of Wisconsin (Madison) but has held off after the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity late last year advised against releasing specific information from the research findings. The journal Science has also refrained for now on publishing a similar Dutch study, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reported.
"I think the research is important, but not for vaccine purposes," Richard Webby, a virologist with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, said in an interview with Nature. Countries are not expected to pour significant resources into developing a vaccine for a virus variant that has yet to emerge in nature. "Nobody is going to ramp up production of a prepandemic vaccine based on these two experimental viruses. That's 100 percent sure," Webby said.
Bram Palache, global government affairs director for vaccines at Netherlands-based Abbot Biologicals, took a similar view that the pharmaceutical sector would hold back on developing vaccines until it receives government signals to take that step.In an accompanying Wednesday editorial, Nature concurred with the specialists: "Research to create mammalian-transmissible strains is vital basic science that could deepen our understanding of flu viruses, and of what allows a virus to jump from other species and spread easily in humans. But scientists need to be more modest and realistic with their claims about the short-term public-health benefits of such research."
The journal pointed to the global health community's response to the 2009 swine flu outbreak: "Vaccines only became available months after the outbreak began, and after the first wave peaked in many countries. Health systems were stretched despite the relative mildness of the pandemic. The mutant-flu research does nothing to prevent a repeat of this situation".
Anthrax Mailings Recovery Required $320M, Analysis Finds
Global Security Newswire, 9 February 2012; www.globalsecuritynewswire.org
The 2001 anthrax mailings resulted in $320 million in expenditures aimed at ensuring government and private facilities were free of the deadly bacteria, according to an analysis published on Tuesday. The anthrax-tainted letters addressed to congressional offices and media organizations killed five people and sickened 17, according to a previous report.
A years-long federal investigation identified microbiologist Bruce Ivins, who worked at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland as the attacker. Ivins killed himself in July 2008 before facing any charges, and the FBI formally closed the case in early 2010.
After reviewing U.S. Government Accountability Office information and other material, experts at Concordia University in Montreal determined the mailings resulted in follow-up detection efforts in 26 structures and cleansing operations in seven, including two mail service centers that required an expensive decontamination treatment, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reported. In addition, six business facilities required cleaning after the mailings.
Unnecessary expenditures probably resulted from the absence of a specific oversight entity, the analysts said. Meanwhile, a Defense Department-financed report made public on Monday suggests a body's genetic constitution plays a role in individual vulnerability to anthrax toxin, Scientific American reported.
The research "could lead to the development of novel treatment strategies, perhaps by blocking the interaction between the toxin and the receptor or by down-regulating its expression," said David Relman, who heads the Forum on Microbial Threats at the Institute of Medicine. "The findings could also provide a possible means for predicting who is likely to become seriously ill after exposure, which could be extremely useful when faced with a large number of exposed people," said the expert, who was not involved in the study.
LLNL Biological Weapons Research Center's Status Upheld
Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle (CA), 8 February 2012; www.sfgate.com
A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the continued operation of a biological weapons research center at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, rejecting opponents' claim that the government failed to consider fully the possible release of deadly organisms in a terrorist attack.
The center, which opened in February 2009, conducts research intended to detect biological pathogens such as anthrax, plague, brucellosis and Q fever. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had blocked the facility in 2006, saying the environmental assessment by the Department of Energy had failed to study the consequences of a terrorist attack.
The department took another look and found no significant danger from terrorism, a conclusion accepted by a federal judge and, on Tuesday, by the appeals court. Energy officials took a "hard look" at the potential impact and concluded that a deliberate explosion or other terrorist assault would cause no more harm than an accidental release from an earthquake or a centrifuge malfunction, the court said. The department had assessed accidental hazards in an earlier study and concluded the lab had adequate safeguards.
Tri-Valley CAREs, the antinuclear group that filed the original suit in 2003, said a separate Energy Department study recognized that an accident doesn't have the same impact as an intentional attack. But the court said it would not second-guess the department's reasonable evaluation of the Livermore facility.
"We must restrain from acting as a type of omnipotent scientist" and accept the researched findings of government experts, said Judge Milan Smith in the 3-0 ruling. He also upheld the department's finding that a terrorist's theft and release of lethal pathogens was too unlikely to be a significant danger.
Out of more than 1,300 laboratories nationwide that work with similar organisms, Smith said, Livermore is one of the most heavily guarded, and also conducts extensive screening for the small number of employees who have access to the pathogens.
Tri-Valley CAREs said it was disappointed by the ruling. "The big losers today are public health and public participation in government decision-making," said the group's executive director, Marylia Kelley. The ruling can be viewed at links.sfgate.com/ZLHB.
Lawmakers Knock DHS Chemical Plant Security Program
Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire, 07 February 2012; www.globalsecuritynewswire.org
Poor management has significantly undermined a U.S. Homeland Security Department initiative to safeguard chemical manufacturing and storage sites against terrorist attacks, raising questions about the viability of legislation to extend the program beyond its October expiration, members of a U.S. House of Representatives panel said on Friday.
The 5-year-old Chemical Facility Antiterrorism Standards [CFATS] program requires select plants that hold potentially harmful materials to meet security standards associated with one of four risk "tiers." Personnel with the Homeland Security effort have not completed approving any of the security plans submitted by roughly 4,200 high-risk facilities to verify their compliance with the rules, House Energy and Commerce Environment and Economy Subcommittee members said in an investigative hearing.
Facilities covered by the program must submit plans for dealing with 18 areas of risk including physical protections, control of access, materials security, insider attacks and computer infiltration, Rand Beers, undersecretary for the Homeland Security Department's National Protection and Programs Directorate, said in prepared testimony. The program involved 4,458 high-risk sites as of January 6, he noted.
Beers said his department had originally planned to finish reviewing all plans for high-risk sites before 2011, according to a December report by Fox News. "The industry has invested billions of dollars to upgrade security to CFATS requirements. This is beyond disappointing," said Representative Joe Barton (R-Texas), adding Beers had "totally mismanaged this program."
Representative Henry Waxman (D-California) blamed program faults on a lack of congressional action since 2007 to flesh out the initiative's goals and authorities. "The program was not established with carefully crafted legislation that defined its mission and forged a vision for its implementation," Waxman said. "It did not have adequate enforcement authority, enforceable deadlines or clear procedures for approving or disapproving site security plans."
Representative Frank Pallone (D-New Jersey) said chemical facility security shortcomings could have "dire" repercussions in his state, and Representative John Dingell (D-Michigan) pointed to the potential for the release of toxic materials from a plant to cause "significant numbers of casualties and enormous hardship."
The CFATS initiative has provisionally authorized security plans for 53 sites following the completion of a departmental probe of the program late last year, David Wulf, deputy chief of the department's Infrastructure Security Compliance Division [ISCD], said in sworn testimony. Failure to complete plant security reviews was among a litany of shortcomings described by Wulf and ISCD Director Penny Anderson in the internal investigation. A summary of the findings was issued within Homeland Security in November.
The document, provided to committee staff one week ago, describes numerous faults stemming from insufficient preparation of program personnel; unsuitably high dependence on contracted specialists; poor accommodation of incoming staff; doubts linked to brief, incremental extensions to the initiative; and complications linked to formal task assignments and a unionized workforce, to a panel memorandum.
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RCAs: U.K. Scientists Worried Gov't May Develop Incapacitating Agents
Global Security Newswire, 7 February 2012; www.globalsecuritynewswire.org
British scientists have raised concerns that the government of the United Kingdom could be preparing to authorize the creation of "incapacitating chemical agents" for use by police, the London Independent reported on Tuesday. A new expert report by the Royal Society concludes London has seemingly changed its posture on a clause in the Chemical Weapons Convention [CWC] that permits the governmental use of "riot control agents" [RCAs] as a tool of law enforcement but not in warfare.
Previously, London had accepted that only low-level materials that cause eye irritation and coughing are permitted under the accord and then only for "peaceful" means such as taming rowdy crowds. In 2009, however, government ministers offered a more expansive interpretation of the CWC clause that indicated stronger types of chemical agents could be used in police activities if they met particular standards.
There has been a growing concern about such material, particularly in the wake of the 2002 siege at a Moscow theater in which more than 100 hostages died after apparent exposure to a suppression agent. The CWC prohibits the creation, production and utilization of chemical warfare materials such as mustard agent and sarin nerve gas by armed forces.
The Royal Society called on the government to release a statement explaining its reasoning for its seeming shift to permit the development and use of materials that would incapacitate a subject. "The development of incapacitating chemical agents, ostensibly for law-enforcement purposes, raises a number of concerns in the context of humanitarian and human-rights law, as well as the CWC," the report reads. More broadly, member nations to the CWC "should address the definition and status of incapacitating chemical agents under the CWC at the next review conference in 2013," the report says.
It adds: "In addition to the review conference process, states parties should initiate informal intergovernmental consultation on the status of incapacitating chemical agents under the CWC" and "the implementing bodies of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and CWC should improve coordination to address convergent trends in science and technology with respect to incapacitating chemical agents".