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Fertilizer bill OK'd years after bombing.

Doug Huffman

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http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_7848191?nclick_check=1

More than 12 years after Timothy McVeigh used ammonium nitrate fertilizer to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building, Congress quietly passed legislation this month to regulate sales of the explosive.

But the Secure Handling of Ammonium Nitrate Act of 2007, placed within an appropriations act and signed by President Bush on Wednesday, falls far short of the strict law that some in the counterterrorism community and federal law enforcement were hoping for.

"The bill really does not guarantee anything for the security of the citizens of the United States," said Bill Albright, a Defense Department consultant who spent his career at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The law, which the fertilizer industry supported, leaves the United States with weaker controls on ammonium nitrate than Britain, Germany, Australia, Israel, Saudi Arabia and many other nations. Such materials have been used in terrorist bombings around the world, including the attacks on U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998.

A series of last-minute revisions to the legislation has left federal officials, outside experts and even some in Congress uncertain about exactly what it mandates.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said Saturday that "at this time, DHS is still reviewing the new law and considering how to harmonize it with existing chemical facility rules."

The new measure creates requirements for the licensing of ammonium nitrate facilities, registration for purchasers and a framework for establishing what kinds of ammonium nitrate will be regulated - but leaves the specifics up to bureaucrats to decide later.

Clamping down on ammonium nitrate has been a difficult security decision, taking years longer than actions to tighten controls on other explosives, nuclear materials, airport security and a range of other potential security weaknesses.

U.S. consumers account for the use of about 8 billion pounds of ammonium nitrate annually. About half of that goes to the explosives industry and agriculture uses the rest, according to industry and government figures.

What kinds of ammonium nitrate to regulate has been a major sticking point. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Defense Department officials have pushed for stricter rules on any potentially explosive blends of fertilizer.

The main sponsor of the bill was Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee and has jurisdiction over DHS. Mississippi is one of the nation's largest producers of ammonium nitrate, according to the Fertilizer Institute.

In October, the House passed Thompson's bill that controlled sales of ammonium nitrate fertilizer containing 33 percent or more nitrogen - and left it to the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to set lower limits.

In last-minute revisions, however, the 33 percent threshold was removed from the bill and the decision of what to regulate was left entirely to DHS.

Tests conducted by the Defense Department since the Oklahoma City bombing have demonstrated that the fertilizer can blow up with as little as 10 percent to 25 percent nitrogen content, according to ATF and defense officials.
First of all, AN is no more an explosive than is air so the first sentence sets the bill-shiite tone for the rest. Safety is a tyrant's tool; no one can be against safety.
Any one else remember the bat-shiite and frootloops b0mbs of the Sixties?

I am amused that even the Mercury News (once upon a time my hometown newsrag) virtually catagorized this BS as politics. Ben Franklin is spinning in his grave. RIP
 

imperialism2024

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Doug Huffman wrote:
First of all, AN is no more an explosive than is air so the first sentence sets the bill-shiite tone for the rest. Safety is a tyrant's tool; no one can be against safety.
Any one else remember the bat-shiite and frootloops b0mbs of the Sixties?
Be careful not to let Washington known. I wouldn't really be surprised to see air being regulated...
 

Wynder

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imperialism2024 wrote:
Doug Huffman wrote:
First of all, AN is no more an explosive than is air so the first sentence sets the bill-shiite tone for the rest. Safety is a tyrant's tool; no one can be against safety.
Any one else remember the bat-shiite and frootloops b0mbs of the Sixties?
Be careful not to let Washington known. I wouldn't really be surprised to see air being regulated...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAA :) :)
 

Citizen

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Doug Huffman wrote:
SNIP First of all, AN is no more an explosive than is air
Oh, yes it is.

I think the military uses a stick or block of strongerstuff toset it off; but it does go off.
 

Citizen

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The real problem with the article is that it doesn't tell us anything useful.

Lots of verbiage, but now we're left wondering whether the government has this stuff under control or not.
 

Doug Huffman

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Citizen wrote:
Doug Huffman wrote:
SNIP First of all, AN is no more an explosive than is air
Oh, yes it is.

I think the military uses a stick or block of strongerstuff toset it off; but it does go off.
Please. Don't confuse ANFO with AN. Ammonium nitrate is an oxidant, like air. Fuel Oil (FO) is a fuel, like grain-mill dust. Yes, ANFO needs a detonator.

In large enough applications ANFO is made with a (small) tanker-truck of FO, a trench and a 20' flatbed of AN. The bags are ripped open and dumped into the trench. When the truck is empty a small charge is set off in the slurry. And a large hillside of gravel will hit the bottom of the quarry fast enough to splash tens of yards.
 

Doug Huffman

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Citizen wrote:
The real problem with the article is that it doesn't tell us anything useful.

Lots of verbiage, but now we're left wondering whether the government has this stuff under control or not.
Like anhydrous ammonia, 'control' will cost us all by way of the farmers' expenses using ever more dilute products. Safety is the tyrant's tool; no one can be against safety.

We were never told why they had to shift to a Soylent economy. Maybe they regulated production into impracticality - but eco-sensitivity. What does it mean that we eat ever further down the food chain? In the limit we gnaw our toes.
 

Citizen

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Doug Huffman wrote:
Don't confuse ANFO with AN. Ammonium nitrate is an oxidant, like air. Fuel Oil (FO) is a fuel, like grain-mill dust. Yes, ANFO needs a detonator.


I don't know, Doug.

I wonder if there is some missing info. I recall seeing an article around the time of the Murrah bombing that fuel oil was added to get greater energy. As opposed to oil beingan essential element.

I did a quick Google search. None of the references for military explosives mentioned that there was anything more than ammonium nitrate inside the military charge, except a military explosive, TNT or C4 added as as a booster in one end or the other.

Here is one I found: http://tinyurl.com/3a47pc This one even mentions that the container cannot be assumed to water tight, cautioning that it be detonated as soon as possible in wet situations so moisture doesn't get into the case. I'm guessing that if water can get in, oil can get out.

I wonder if they use a different material than fuel oil in military cratering charges with the AN acting as the oxidizer?
 

Doug Huffman

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Citizen wrote:
I don't know, Doug.
That's OK. I do know.

This is the difference between empirical and received knowlege; the the risk of egalitarian education in which the student is taught just what the powers-that-be think is needed - to be a compliant worker.

Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANFO Its primary attribute is that it is cheap!
 

Citizen

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Doug Huffman wrote:
Citizen wrote:
I don't know, Doug.
That's OK. I do know.

This is the difference between empirical and received knowlege; the the risk of egalitarian education in which the student is taught just what the powers-that-be think is needed - to be a compliant worker.

Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANFO Its primary attribute is that it is cheap!
Thanks for the link, Doug. Here might be the information I thought was missing. It looks like we're both right. Neither knowing the other's information. http://tinyurl.com/326zp7

From Wikipedia:

"Chemistry

ANFO under most conditions is considered a high explosive: it decomposes through detonation rather than deflagration and with a high velocity.....

Discovery

Unmixed ammonium nitrate can decompose explosively and has been responsible for industrial disasters such as the Texas City disaster in Texas City, Texas in 1947 and the Ryongchon disaster of Ryongchon, North Korea in 2004. However, it is considered a somewhat inefficient explosive as it exhibits only (0.44) TNT equivalency." (bold red emphasis mine--Citizen)
 
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