Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are a type of unconventional explosive weapon that can be deployed in a variety of ways, and can cause loss of life, injury, and property damage in both military and civilian environments. Terrorists, violent extremists, and criminals often choose IEDs because the ingredients, components, and instructions required to make IEDs are highly accessible. In many cases, precursor chemicals enable this criminal use of IEDs because they are used in the manufacture of homemade explosives (HMEs), which are often used as a component of IEDs. Many precursor chemicals are frequently used in industrial manufacturing and may be available as commercial products for personal use. Guides for making HMEs and instructions for constructing IEDs are widely available and can be easily found on the internet. Other countries restrict access to precursor chemicals in an effort to reduce the opportunity for HMEs to be used in IEDs. Although IED attacks have been less frequent in the United States than in other countries, IEDs remain a persistent domestic threat. Restricting access to precursor chemicals might contribute to reducing the threat of IED attacks and in turn prevent potentially devastating bombings, save lives, and reduce financial impacts. Reducing the Threat of Improvised Explosive Device Attacks by Restricting Access to Explosive Precursor Chemicals prioritizes precursor chemicals that can be used to make HMEs and analyzes the movement of those chemicals through United States commercial supply chains and identifies potential vulnerabilities. This report examines current United States and international regulation of the chemicals, and compares the economic, security, and other tradeoffs among potential control strategies.

In response to the rising concern of the American public over illegal bombings, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms asked the National Research Council to examine possible mechanisms for reducing this threat. The committee examined four approaches to reducing the bombing threat: addition of detection markers to explosives for pre-blast detection, addition of identification taggants to explosives for post-blast identification of bombers, possible means to render common explosive materials inert, and placing controls on explosives and their precursors. The book makes several recommendations to reduce the number of criminal bombings in this country.

Industrial Environmental Performance Metrics is a corporate-focused analysis that brings clarity and practicality to the complex issues of environmental metrics in industry. The book examines the metrics implications to businesses as their responsibilities expand beyond the factory gateâ€"upstream to suppliers and downstream to products and services. It examines implications that arise from greater demand for comparability of metrics among businesses by the investment community and environmental interest groups. The controversy over what sustainable development means for businesses is also addressed. Industrial Environmental Performance Metrics identifies the most useful metrics based on case studies from four industriesâ€"automotive, chemical, electronics, and pulp and paperâ€"and includes specific corporate examples. It contains goals and recommendations for public and private sector players interested in encouraging the broader use of metrics to improve industrial environmental performance and those interested in addressing the tough issues of prioritization, weighting of metrics for meaningful comparability, and the longer term metrics needs presented by sustainable development.