Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) has called on the Bush administration to beef up security at Distrigas of Massachusetts’ liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Everett, MA, in the wake of reports that Al Qaeda terrorists may attack high-profile targets in the United States this summer.

“The Bush administration should strengthen LNG security standards and improve federal-state coordination on issues affecting LNG…The Bush White House is not doing enough to reduce terrorists threats against LNG facilities,” said Markey, a senior member of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, in a prepared statement issued Wednesday.

He criticized a Department of Energy-commissioned study of LNG safety that was done after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, saying it “seriously understated the risk to the citizens of Boston, Everett and surrounding communities in the event of a terrorist attack against an LNG tanker” entering the Port of Boston to unload at the Distrigas facility in Everett.

In April, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed the federal government has known for several years that illegal aliens smuggling drugs have stowed away on Algerian-flagged LNG tankers entering Boston Harbor, and that it had “some suspicion of possible associations” between the stowaways arriving in Boston and the terrorists indicted for their role in the so-called “Millennium Plot” to blow up Los Angeles International Airport and other U.S. landmarks in late 1999 (see Daily NGI, April 29).

However, the U.S. Coast Guard “has never possessed credible information indicating either a threat to attack an LNG tanker in Boston Harbor, or to use an LNG tanker to conduct an attack on the city of Boston,” said Pamela J. Turner, Homeland Security’s assistant secretary for legislative affairs, at the time.

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