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Associated Press Newswires
Copyright 2001. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Wednesday, October 10, 2001
Appeals to Congress to finance security measures climb as more targets for
terrorists are seen
By JOHN HEILPRIN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Worries about terrorist attacks against the
nation's reservoirs, dams and power and chemical plants have government
and industry clamoring for billions of dollars in new aid from Congress.
Lawmakers were told Wednesday the FBI has found no credible threats
to any of those facilities. But Mike Parker, administrator for civil
projects for the Army Corps of Engineers, replied that "the answer can
only be a reluctant, sobering yes" to the question posed by the hearing
on whether America's water resources were at risk.
The Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, whose members supply
about 160 million people, told the House Transportation and
Infrastructure subcommittee on water resources and environment that
Congress should spend up to $5 billion to protect drinking water and
wastewater plants.
They also advised giving the Environmental Protection Agency $155
million more - a 62-fold increase - for security planning.
"We now realize that we will have to plan for the unimaginable," said
Patrick Karney, Cincinnati's sewer director and spokesman for the
Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies.
Major worries include concern that an explosion at a sewage plant
along a river could contaminate the drinking water of millions
downstream or that the destruction of major dams could wreak havoc on
cities in the flow's path.
A bipartisan group of 11 senators on the Environment and Public Works
Committee sent Senate leaders a letter Tuesday proposing the $5 billion
among other billions of dollars in spending for security and economic
reasons.
The nation's food supply also is at some risk of a terrorist attack
because of the government's fragmented inspection system, according to
the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress.
"We believe there is reason to doubt our ability to detect and fully
respond to an organized bioterrorist attack," the GAO's Robert Robinson
told a Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee.
Food inspection programs now are divided between the Agriculture
Department and the Food and Drug Administration. Officials at the
agencies say they are coordinating their efforts to prevent or deal with
an attack.
Meanwhile, the insurance industry, after being socked for billions of
dollars in losses from the Sept. 11 attacks, is lobbying Congress to
make the government the insurer of last resort in future terrorist acts.
U.S. insurance companies that write policies protecting property
could end up paying an estimated $30 billion to $40 billion for the
damages in New York and northern Virginia. Life insurers are expected to
pay much less for individuals: some $2 billion to $5 billion.
"We have a crisis brewing," Dean O'Hare, chairman and CEO of Chubb
Corp., told the House Financial Services Committee.
O'Hare and the other executives said they could handle the claims
arising from the Sept. 11 terror assaults and weren't seeking a bailout
akin to the $15 billion rescue package for the airline industry that was
enacted last month. But to cover possible future terrorism losses, they
said they want a government-backed, industry-funded insurance pool
similar to one established in Britain in response to attacks by the
Irish Republican Army.
American Chemistry Council spokesman Randy Speight warned the House
subcommittee that federal and state agencies are still making readily
available through the Internet some information on managing
environmental risks that intelligence agencies have warned could be used
by terrorists.
Among the critical links identified by the House subcommittee were
dams overseen by the Corps of Engineers and nuclear, coal-fired and
hydroelectric power plants operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Despite the potential for harm, the FBI and intelligence sources have
turned up "no specific credible threats to major waterways or
distribution networks at this time," said Ronald L. Dick, director of
the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center.
The House panel's chairman, Rep. John Duncan, R-Tenn., said he hopes
to prod cities and municipal service providers to look more seriously at
some of their potential vulnerabilities. But he cautioned that Congress
must slow the stampede of agencies trying to get hold of more funding
for security.
"Even if we spent the entire federal budget on security, we still
couldn't make the country 100 percent safe from every danger or every
nut that's out there," Duncan said.