I was reading an article last week about the expansion of a hydrogen peroxide manufacturing facility in Texas, and I thought about the security implications of such expansions, the need for an updated security plan and security planning for the construction process. That inevitably brought me back to thinking about the problems the Senate imposed on chemical manufacturers by not reauthorizing the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program last July. If the CFATS program were still up and functioning, CISA would be a partner in the security planning process for the expanding facility.
Expansion of Security Measures
Under the CFATS program, any time a covered facility (and a hydrogen peroxide manufacturing facility would almost certainly be a covered facility) made material changes to operations at the facility they would have to ensure that their site security plan was upgraded to address those changes. Processes were in place in the CFATS program to allow companies to work with the Office of Chemical Security (the office responsible for the CFATS program) early on in the planning process to identify what changes in security processes and equipment would be needed for the expanded facility. This would allow the company to integrate security planning into the expansion planning process, thus capturing and minimizing the costs of the added security.
Additionally, the company would be able to use the CISA risk assessment process to determine if the planned security measures were adequate. This could be especially helpful to companies that did not have inhouse security-engineering capabilities as a check of the cost-effectiveness of the security measures recommended by outside contractors or consultants by a system that did not have a financial interest in the design.
Construction Security
Major construction at or adjacent to any facility is a time of increase confusion and traffic. Both have an adverse impact on security. Under the CFATS programs, covered facilities would have been required to have these security changes vetted through OCS. Again, the chemical security inspectors have the experience necessary to help facilities plan for the security modifications that would be required to ensure adequate security during these disruptions.
One of the big problems during any major construction project is ensuring that the influx of construction personnel does not allow terrorists or thieves access to the facility. While construction companies may be able to do basic background checks, they cannot check these employees, many of them transient employees hired just for the project, against terrorist screening lists. The now expired CFATS program allowed such companies, when working with a covered facility, to vet those employees against the TSA’s terrorist screening database.
Security Verification
One of the problems attendant to establishing a new security program, is the validation that the security measures, as actually installed and integrated, are adequately performing their intended function. Again, facilities that can afford to have a professional security engineering team will probably have the personnel trained to perform this validation process. Most facilities, however, will have to rely on consultants or vendors to condict the validation. But all of those checkers would have the same problem of looking at a security system that they had a hand in designing or installing, having a natural bias to accept the designed intent of the system instead of seeing the actual performance.
Once again, CISA chemical security inspectors, as part of the site security plan approval process, are trained to conduct such security validation checks. They have no personal stake in the installation and integration process, so they are able to look at the performance of the system in a dispassionate manner.
Moving Forward
These are just some of the chemical security issues that the Senate caused by their failure to take up and approve HR 4470, the Protecting and Securing Chemical Facilities from Terrorist Attacks Act of 2023, that was passed in the House by a vote of 409 to 1. The Senate can solve these problems by passing HR 4470. The longer they wait, the longer it is going to take CISA to get the program back into smooth operation.