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“Secure Handling of Ammonium Nitrate Act of 2005”
December 14, 2005
Statement of Representative John Linder, Chairman
I would like to thank and welcome our witnesses for appearing before the Subcommittee today.
On April 19, 1995, the world looked in horror at the images of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which was decimated when nearly 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate mixed with motor fuel was delivered in a rental truck and detonated in the building’s parking lot. On that day, 167 lives, including the lives of 19 children at the building’s day care facility, were lost in what was, at the time, the worst terrorist attack on American soil.
The ammonium nitrate used in that attack is an inexpensive and easily-accessible fertilizer used around the world and is very popular with farmers due to its high nitrogen content. In fact, 2.7 million tons of agricultural ammonium nitrate alone was traded internationally in 2001. It is also utilized as an explosive agent by miners looking to blast coal out of rock.
Ammonium nitrate is also used, unfortunately, as a popular compound for terrorist bombings, including Oklahoma City, the 1998 East African Embassy bombings, the November 2003 bombings in Istanbul, Turkey, and was suspected in the October 2002 Bali bombing.
Countries with histories of terrorism, including the Philippines, Colombia, and Ireland have banned the use of ammonium nitrate completely. A number of European Union countries have either banned or restricted its use. Turkey joined the EU in regulating sales of ammonium nitrate in 2004 in the wake of the ammonium nitrate bombings there. There appears to be no doubt as well in the minds of Australian officials in the wake of the Bali bombings and the bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jarkata [although neither attributed to AN] that if Al-Qaeda were able to acquire and deploy any weapon to cause mass devastation it would do so. Considering this, they have also agreed to place restrictions on ammonium nitrate fertilizers within Australian borders.
Here at home, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Nevada, have implemented their own regulations of ammonium nitrate. Ten years after Oklahoma City, however, the United States government has done little to prevent a repeat of this horrific tragedy. It is still too easy to acquire ammonium nitrate for terrorist use in this country.
Later today, this Subcommittee will mark-up H.R. 3197, the “Secure Handling of Ammonium Nitrate Act of 2005,” which authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security to regulate the purchase of ammonium nitrate by registering sellers and buyers of this potentially dangerous material. This represents the first serious effort on the part of the Federal government to prevent future attacks of this nature on the American people.
I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses on the implications of this regulation, whether they agree that we should regulate ammonium nitrate fertilizer, and whether this bill represents a positive step toward preventing future terrorist acts. I am hopeful that these and other questions will be answered as we review this very important U.S. homeland security issue.
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