Do we really need a new law to come down on bad refining practices?

The grave notion of better securing chemical facilities and their feedstocks from terrorist threats came into stark relief immediately after the September 11 attacks. So why again now?

The bill also follows on the heels of three hydrogen fluoride explosions at different US refineries and calls by the sector's leading workers' union to get HF out of the refining process. No surprise that API has responded by noting that alternatives to HF for alkylation units that produce gasoline components cost more and may not necessarily be all that safer.

The House bill, H.R. 2868, would have the DHS make calls on which chemicals to use and when to use safer alternatives. Republican opponents to the Democractic-drafted language have argued that DHS lacked the expertise and budget to get involved with making determinations about so-called "inherently safer technology."

But is a new law aimed at this concern needed? In 1990, the US Congress passed a provision in the Clean Air Act specifically written as a deterrent for chemical accidents after the disastrous Union Carbide accident in Bhopal, India.

That very provision was used to prosecute BP for the deadly 2005 accident at its Texas City, Texas, refinery, which killed 15 workers and injured 180 other people. BP ultimately settled that case, pleaded guilty to two criminal counts of the Clean Air Act for not sufficienly warning workers of possible dangers of toxic releases and fire as a unit was in startup mode, and not having certain written procedures for maintaining refinery process unit integrity.

Victims and survivors of the BP Texas City accident argued that the $50 million settlement it paid in its plea bargain hardly serves as a deterrent. But a judge found that the amount was properly calculated based on the costs involved with the particular unit that exploded and that a different tactical pursuit by the prosecution in that case of a higher amount could have blown up the settlement. The company was forced in the wake of the disaster to undertake a $1 billion recommissioning.

This should serve as the cautionary tale for the refining business, but yet there were those three HF blowups this year. In March, there was a HF release at Sunoco's 330,000 b/d refining complex in Philadelphia, followed by a July fire after an alkylation unit explosion at Citgo's 163,000 b/d refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas, and the August HF release from an alkylation unit at ExxonMobil's 238,600 b/d refinery in Joliet, Illinois. All three incidents are under investigation by the US Chemical Safety Board.

The Citgo incident drew out quintessential fears from one neighbor who told reporters that neither the refinery or Texas regulators seemed concerned with their well being despite the chemical release. Her response to apparent silence in the immediate aftermath of the fire is understandable. "The first thing we hear is the public was never in any danger. You can't say that. You never know when it could explode. It could pop out somewhere else. That's what fires do," the Citgo Corpus neighbor, Jean Salone, said during a July 30 press conference held by the Sierra Club and a local environmental group. "You've got to be kidding."

That is not to say the industry blithely does nothing. For instance, Sunoco said in September it is spending $125 million on a process improvement project involving HF storage.

But, does the pending bill come face-to-face with such issues? Having the Department of Homeland Security somehow come up with a means of deciding refining processes to avert chemical disasters, even if laudable, does not seem realistically doable. Perhaps the spotlight should go back to the Department of Justice, Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Chemical Safety Board, who already maintain scrutiny over refinery safety. If there are shortcomings in those agencies, then such gaps should be addressed in these existing areas. Anyone in favor of giving CSB penalty authority for refinery accidents, which it lacks under current law?