WASHINGTON, June 6 (UPI) -- U.S. lawmakers have renewed a push to regulate sales of ammonium nitrate fertilizer after a terror cell planning to use it in bombs was busted in Canada.
The Secure Handling of Ammonium Nitrate Act is a bipartisan bill unanimously approved by the House Committee on Homeland Security that would give the Department of Homeland Security power to regulate entities and individuals that produce, sell or distribute ammonium nitrate-based fertilizer.
The 17-strong terrorist cell that Canadian authorities say they arrested at the weekend had bought three tons of such fertilizer -- sold to them by undercover police officers, according to some accounts.
Mixed with diesel or other fuel oils, ammonium nitrate-based fertilizer can be the basis for powerful homemade explosives, such as those used in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City.
Despite this, the sale of such fertilizer is unregulated in the United States.
"It is very likely that a terrorist cell seeking to recreate the devastation wrought by the Oklahoma City bombing can do so without much deterrence," wrote Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Penn., to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., at the weekend.
Weldon urged the speaker to bring the bill to the floor without delay, adding that a companion measure had been proposed in the Senate by Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss.
Under the proposed law, only those registered with homeland security would be able to legally access ammonium nitrate, and retailers would be required to keep records of its sale for at least three years. The department would monitor these records and violators would be subject to a fine of up to $50,000 per violation.
