Manufacturers, oil refineries and other businesses that use or store hazardous chemicals will soon confront another new regulation and one from an unlikely agency.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is preparing a rule aimed at protecting tens of thousands of facilities with chemical stockpiles from terrorist attacks or thefts. The rule, eased somewhat in its latest version, requires facility operators that use or store any of 300 chemicals to report their use online.

The department will then screen the information and determine what additional steps the facility will need to take to secure the chemicals.

“This is a critical piece of the federal effort to increase security at high-risk facilities,” said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Nov. 2 in releasing the revised rule.

Among the 300 chemicals targeted are widely used ones like propane, ammonia and chlorine, as well as more specialized ones like formaldehyde (used for industrial resins and adhesives) and phosphorus trichloride (used to make plasticizers and flame retardants). Of these, propane is probably the most ubiquitous, since thousands of facilities in the L.A. area have propane storage tanks for use to fuel vehicle fleets.

When exploded or released, these chemicals can cause significant damage or have serious health impact. For example, in Iraq, insurgents and terrorists have attached bombs to liquid chlorine containers to create toxic clouds. Ammonium nitrate was one of the components used in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.

The American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group representing major chemical manufacturers such as Dow Chemical Co. and big chemical users, has generally supported the crackdown.

Spokesman Scott Jensen said the council had some concerns about the department’s initial regulation, including just how total chemical amounts should be calculated. He said that most of the concerns have been addressed with the revised rule.

Other objections arose, especially from agricultural interests that use propane in small containers and didn’t want to be subjected to the program. The department acquiesced and raised the reporting threshold from 7,000 pounds to 60,000 pounds, thereby exempting most of those small containers.

For more information, log on to the Department of Homeland Security’s Web site at www.dhs.gov/chemicalsecurity.

Tax Scofflaws

The California Employment Development Department and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service last week agreed to share tax data to improve their prosecution of employers who avoid paying taxes or concoct fraudulent tax-filing schemes.

The aim of the “Questionable Employment Tax Practices Memorandum of Understanding” is to combine the resources of both agencies to increase the level of compliance with federal and state regulations that govern employment and unemployment taxes.

The agreement is also intended to reduce fraudulent filings, schemes and worker misclassifications. In recent years, there’s been considerable controversy over some employers classifying their workers as independent contractors, thereby avoiding paying benefits, unemployment insurance and other taxes. Another goal of the agreement is to reduce the inconsistencies between federal and California tax codes.

Coincidentally, the agreement comes just a couple weeks after state Attorney General Jerry Brown launched an aggressive campaign to combat wage and hour violations and schemes by some employers to avoid paying workers’ compensation insurance and taxes.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

As companies throughout California brace for regulations requiring them to cut greenhouse gas emissions, a key step is determining how much they emit. From that baseline, companies will then have to figure out ways to cut back by as-yet-unspecified percentages.

Under AB 32, the law passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the state Air Resources Board must pass by Jan. 1, 2008, a regulation requiring all significant greenhouse gas emitters to document just how much carbon they actually release into the atmosphere.

On Dec. 6, the air board staff will hold a hearing in El Monte to hear comments on drafting the regulation. Among the sectors the board is targeting are manufacturing facilities that emit over 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. The panel plans to provide electronic monitors to assist facilities in documenting their carbon emissions.

For more information, log on to the air board’s Web site at www.arb.ca.gov.

Staff reporter Howard Fine can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 227, or at

[email protected]

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