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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 27, 2007
Schumer Backed Amendment to Secure Purchases of Chemical Used in World Trade Center & Oklahoma City Bombings Clears Senate -First Ever Fed Regulations on Sale of Ammonium Nitrate
In May, Schumer Revealed Feds Had No Regulations Governing Sale of Ammonium Nitrate - A Common Fertilizer That Can Be Easily Turned Into a Powerful Explosive
Amendment Requires Buyers & Sellers to Register With Department of Homeland Security, Names Are Checked Against Terrorist Screening Database
Devotes $45 Million to Keep Chemical Out of the Hands of Terrorist
Today, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) announced that legislation that would for the first time ever have the federal government regulate the purchases of the chemical Ammonium Nitrate, which can easily be made by terrorists in to a bomb, was approved by the United States Senate late last night. Ammonium nitrate is a commonly used fertilizer that can be combined with fuel oil and a detonator to create a powerful explosive. More than a decade after the first World Trade Center attack and the Oklahoma City bombing, a key ingredient in those explosions – ammonium nitrate – has been left largely unregulated by the federal government, leaving a gaping hole in our nation’s homeland security. “Ammonium nitrate has legitimate uses, but it’s the illegitimate uses that should keep us up at night,” Sen. Schumer said. “It’s too easy for people bent on doing harm to get a hold of this chemical. This legislation will for the first time attempt to close this gaping security hole.” Schumer has long advocated for legislation to require all ammonium nitrate producers, buyers and sellers to register with the Department of Homeland Security. Under the new provisions, in order to register, ammonium nitrate purchasers’ identities must be checked against the terrorist screening database to ensure that the potentially explosive ingredient doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Any entity that sells ammonium nitrate to someone who is unregistered faces up to $50,000 in civil fines. Ammonium nitrate facilities are also required to report any theft or unexplained loss to federal law enforcement officials within one day. The legislation would also require buyers to provide identification at the point of sale and mandate that sellers keep sales records for at least two years. Currently, any individual can purchase ammonium nitrate without presenting any identification throughout most of the United States. The bill authorizes $45 million over five years to administer the program and appropriates $2 million to get it started. Schumer is a cosponsor of the ammonium nitrate amendment to the Fiscal Year 2008 DHS Appropriations bill. The amendment was authored by Senators Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Thad Cochran (R-MS) with Schumer’s strong support and cosponsorship, and is nearly identical to a bill that Schumer has been pushing with the same senators. In June, a Staten Island man was arrested after local and federal authorities uncovered about 3,000 pounds of potentially explosive potassium nitrate stored in a Graniteville home and nearby storage facility. Potassium Nitrate is similar to ammonium nitrate as it can easily be used as an explosive. Authorities were able to locate and arrest the man who purchased the chemical only because potassium nitrate is regulated and tracked by the federal government. However, similar purchases of ammonium nitrate are not tracked at all. Last September, in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Richard Falkenrath, the NYPD’s top counterterrorism official, outlined just how easy it is to secure the materials to make an ammonium nitrate bomb. In an undercover operation dubbed “Operation Kaboom,” NYPD officers purchased over a ton of ammonium nitrate, mixed a small amount of fuel oil with the fertilizer to render it combustible and detonated it on the NYPD firing range. “The NYPD’s sting was not the wake up call it should have been,” said Sen. Schumer. “There's an old saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Ammonium nitrate is available, it's easy to get, and it's relatively easy to make into a bomb. We shouldn't be stopping people from selling it, but it shouldn't be so easy to get either.” Instructions for turning ammonium nitrate fertilizer into a bomb are widely available on the Internet. It is suspected that ammonium nitrate was used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the truck bomb that destroyed the Alfred R. Murrah Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, killing 168. Ammonium nitrate was also used in the 2002 bombing of a nightclub in Bali.
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