Senator calls for utility plant worker background checks

NEW YORK—Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) arrived fashionably late to a press conference Sunday morning at his office in Midtown Manhattan, held up by bumper-to-bumper traffic on the flooded Long Island Expressway on his way from Long Island.


One of the orders of business in his customary Sunday presser was announcing proposed legislation to tackle the threat of al-Qaeda’s infiltration of the nation's power plants.


“Do you know where the greatest threat comes from?” asked Schumer. “Terrorists who seek to infiltrate these plants by assuming jobs inside them and the recruitment of disgruntled employees already in the plants.”


When asked if any of New York's power stations were under threat, the senator did not elaborate on any specific cases but reiterated that it is a course of action the terrorists are taking throughout America. He cited a Department of Homeland Security report released several weeks ago titled “Insider Threat to Utilities.”


Suspected al-Qaeda member Sharif Mobley was apprehended in Yemen in March 2010, after having worked at five nuclear power plants in the United States. Legislation requiring nuclear plants to run background checks on employees with access to sensitive areas was enacted after his arrest.

Other utilities remain unprotected, however, and Schumer said terrorists could wreak havoc if they got access to these stations.


Control of energy sources means control over economy and lives, noted the senator. Many medical devices depend on electricity; production depends on electricity; and businesses, trains, and many other things that keep the wheels of prosperity running all depend on electricity.


Schumer gave the example of an employee at a power plant in Arizona who shut down operating systems to cause a methane buildup. The employee had no terrorist affiliations, but this case provides a glimpse at what employees of power plants are capable of.


Power plants and utilities present a tempting and potentially catastrophic target to extremists who are bent on wreaking havoc on the United States," Schumer said.


"Thorough background checks on all workers with access to the most sensitive areas of these operations are a must," he said, calling the DHS report "a wake-up call that we must ensure those with access to our most critical infrastructure -- and our power supplies -- are not compromised by extremist influences."


Currently only nuclear power plants are required to conduct FBI background checks on employees with unescorted access to facilities.


The New York Democrat said he would introduce legislation making it mandatory for all major utilities and critical infrastructure plants to run FBI background checks on workers with access to sensitive areas within utilities, when Congress reconvenes next month.