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 The bill, passed by voice vote, orders producers, sellers and some purchasers of ammonium nitrate to register with the Department of Homeland Security and makes producers and sellers maintain sales records.
The department would check purchases against terrorist watch lists while retailers who refuse to sell to customers would receive civil liability protections.
"We all know the devastating impact that fertilizer bombs can have," said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. He cited the Oklahama City blast, equal to 4,000 pounds of TNT, that killed 168, the 2002 attack in Bali that killed 202 and separate attacks in Istanbul in 2003 that killed 57.
Ammonium nitrate, a widely used agricultural fertilizer, was also the source of the bomb attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
While the sale of ammonium nitrate-based explosives is regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the fertilizer is not currently subject to federal regulation.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that there are about 2,000 producers and sellers of ammonium nitrate in the nation, and that the DHS will need to hire about 60 people to carry out field inspections and audits.
The House also voted 404-6 Tuesday to create a national commission to study the causes and the means to prevent homegrown terrorism. The commission is to look into the social, criminal, political, psychological and economic roots of domestic terrorism, said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., sponsor with Rep. David Reichert, R-Wash.
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 "Free speech, espousing even very radical beliefs, is protected by our Constitution
-- but violent behavior is not," she said. "Our plan must be to intervene before a person crosses that line separating radical views from violent behavior."
The bill also directs the Homeland Security Department to establish a university-based Center of Excellence for the Study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism to coordinate research on terrorism.
Both bills require Senate consideration.
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The ammonium nitrate bill is
H.R. 1680.
The homegrown terrorism bill is
H.R. 1955.
On the Net:
Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov/
[Associated Press; by Jim Abrams]
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.
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