U.S. Representative Mark Souder used, in the extended remarks released by the Library of Congress yesterday, a good number of terms and phrases that progressives would not feel comfortable with. Souder complained of a looming “government take over of the private sector”, worried that the“government could impose mandates” and whined about a growing role for “trial lawyers”.

As alienating as this anti-government, anti-trial language might be, Souder was adopting a position that many progressives could essentially agree with: He was speaking in opposition to H.R. 2868, the proposed Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act, a piece of legislation attempting to impose excessive Homeland Security regulations. H.R. 2868 would require that an array of chemicals typically used in industry and agriculture to be restricted just in case terrorists might want to exploit them in an attack.

Has anyone used these chemicals for a terrorist attack in the United States? Rarely, if ever. Yet, the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act would ask Americans to sacrifice their everyday activities, just in case. It’s a pursuit of safety from a threat that probably doesn’t exist.

The legislation warns, “The Nation’s chemical sector represents a target that terrorists could exploit to cause consequences, including death, injury, or serious adverse effects to human health, the environment, critical infrastructure, public health, homeland security, national security, and the national economy. Chemical facilities that pose such potential consequences and that are vulnerable to terrorist attacks must be protected.”

The standard of security expressed in the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act is almost impossible to meet. It demands that all targets that terrorists “could” attack be fundamentally transformed now, and that their integrity be sacrificed because of “potential consequences”. If we want to go down that path, we can identify all sorts of targets that could be attacked, and we can identify an infinite variety of potential consequences. Is your coffee maker protected from terrorist attack? Do you have a Homeland Security contingency plan for going to the shopping mall?

A reasonable level of fear is based upon threats that have been demonstrated in fact, not rambling guesswork about threats that could exist in the future, in theory. Mark Souder’s anti-government criticisms are unwelcome in tone, but right on target on identifying the need to begin to restrain the still-expanding politics of fear.