Chemical plant safetyHalt of CFATS work disrupts debate over program’s merit

The budget impasse-related halting of monitoring and enforcing compliance with the 2007 Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) comes at a time of growing criticism of the measure by GOP – but not only GOP – lawmakers, who complain that there are too many problems with CFATS and the way it has so far been implemented.

On 22 July 2013, House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Fred Upton (R-Michigan), Homeland Security Committee chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), and Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Carter (R-Texas) wrote to DHS secretary regarding the Chemical Facilities Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program. Given what they described as the program’s shortcomings, the congressional leaders expressed “serious reservations” about extending funding for the program unless significant progress is made.

They wrote:

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General, and the DHS Office of Infrastructure Protection itself have all recognized that, over the past five years, DHS’s ineffectual management and implementation of the CFATS program has frustrated the Department’s critical mission to secure America’s facilities containing chemicals of interest. As the authorizers and appropriators of this program, we write to you to express serious reservations about continuing to extend CFATS funding without evidence of substantial programmatic improvement. The basic programmatic building blocks of CFATS are missing, and we are running short on both patience and confidence with regard to the Department’s ability to correct its deficiencies.

The three lawmakers pointed to flaws in the program’s risk evaluation system, compliance hurdles, implementation delays, and the failure of the program to identify vulnerable facilities as highlighted by the West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion.