Secretary of Homeland Insecurity: The Headline Says It All

Secretary of Homeland Insecurity

There isn't anything new in this criticism of Secretary Chertoff, but it's worth re-stating:

Sometimes it's hard to understand just how Michael Chertoff understands his title, secretary of homeland security. Take this week, when Mr. Chertoff appeared before executives of the chemical industry, whose plants remain one of the nation's greatest vulnerabilities more than four years after 9/11. Mr. Chertoff did not chastise the industry for failing to protect chemical plants adequately. He proposed weak federal safety standards. He did not even fully embrace a recently introduced bipartisan Senate bill that would create meaningful standards.

Instead, Mr. Chertoff seemed perfectly content to defer on key security matters to an industry that contributes heavily to Republican campaigns but has proved to be dangerously unwilling to take public safety seriously.

A terrorist attack on a chlorine plant could put hundreds of thousands of lives at risk. Yet, incredibly, the federal government has failed to enact reasonable safety standards for chemical plants. Despite all of the nice things the administration has been saying about the industry lately, it has not taken care of the problem on its own. Many plants lack perimeter fencing, lights and security guards. Too often, they use extremely dangerous chemicals close to high-density populations, when safer substances could be substituted.