Today, CISA’s Office of Chemical Security, updated their CFATS Monthly Statistics website to provide information on the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program. The statistics reported involve activities for the Chemical Security Inspectors in support of the program during the month of February 2023 and the status of the facilities in the program at the end of the month. There was a sharp increase in the number of reported CSI activities and a small increase in the number of covered facilities.
CSI Activities
The table below provides a summary of the data that OCS has been reporting for the last four months concerning the activities conducted by CSI.
This month there was a small decline in the number of Authorization Inspections. Given the small number of facilities in ‘Tiered’ status at the start of the month, this is not surprising since that is the pool from which AI’s originate. The sharp increase in the number of Compliance Inspections is harder to explain. This is because at this point in the program history, most of the CI’s are periodic re-inspections used to ensure facilities remain in compliance. The number of Compliance Assistance visits is a complicated measure of the transition of facilities from Authorized to Approved status, not all facilities request such inspections and some facilities require multiple such visits.
Facility Status
The table below shows the status of facilities covered by the CFATS program at the end of the month.
Just when you think that the CFATS outreach efforts must have found all of the high risk chemical facilities in the country you see a 30 facility increase in the number of tiered facilities. The outreach effort continues. That increase masks a continuing decline in the number of facilities in the program that we can only really see in the decline in the number of facilities with approved site security plans. The decline in the number of Authorized Facilities generally reflects facilities transitioning to Approved Status. That makes the modest decline in the number of approved facilities even more important.