Sunday, August 18, 2013

Chemical Safety and Security EO – DHS CFATS Actions

This is part of a continuing series of blog posts discussing President Obama’s recently signed executive order on “Improving Chemical Facility Safety and Security”. The other posts in the series are:


Sharing CFATS Data

As I noted in the original blog post on the Chemical Safety and Security EO (EO 13650) there are two actions required by the DHS Secretary that will be taken in coordination with the Working Group, but are specifically required to be accomplished by the Secretary. One of those areas addresses the requirement to improve operational coordination with State, Local, and Tribal partners, the Secretary is specifically required (by November 5th) to “assess the feasibility of sharing Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) data with SERCs, TEPCs, and LEPCs on a categorical basis” {§3(c)}.

The main impediment to sharing CFATS information with these local officials is the fact that the appropriate information has been protected by the Chemical-Terrorism Vulnerability Information (CVI), a sensitive but unclassified program established by Congress in the §550 authorization for the CFATS program. A DHS web site outlines the requirements for information sharing with State, Local and Tribal agencies that have been established for that program. More detailed information is available on Page 12 of the CVI Procedures Manual.

There are two prerequisites that must be met before CVI information can be shared. First the personnel receiving the information must have completed the on-line training program that provides the information about the program and how the information must be protected. Second the person to whom the information is being given must have a need to know the information.

Having personally completed the training program there is little problem with meeting this requirement. The training program is relatively easy to complete and shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes for any individual to complete the training. Once the training is completed the individual is provided with a certificate and ISCD maintains a list of people that have completed the training so that facilities can verify that that prerequisite has been met.

What has not been established in this executive order requirement is whether a valid need to know exists that would support the categorical sharing of the CVI information. I am not questioning the need of these organizations to know about the emergency response plans for CFATS covered facilities; this is something that I have been preaching since the CFATS program was established. But emergency response plans are not covered under the CVI program, specifically because of the need to share those plans with a wide audience, much wider than the organizations listed in §3(c) of the EO.

In fact, there is no specific requirement in the CFATS regulations for having an emergency response plan. The requirement for that plan falls under the EPA’s Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA). That program requires that the facility notifies the State Emergency Response Commission within 60 days of receiving the first shipment of a qualifying amount of an extremely hazardous substance (40 CFR part 355).

The Part 355 list is not identical to the list of DHS chemicals of interest (COI) that define the CFATS program. Most of the EPA’s list can be found on the DHS list (this was one of the sources of information used by DHS in developing their COI list), but DHS added a number of other chemicals (including ammonium nitrate, for example) to their list.

While some of the DHS COI list should be added to the EPA’s extremely hazardous substance list (most notably ammonium nitrate), but a number of other chemicals, because of the extremely small quantities involved (various chemical weapon chemicals) of some of the  chemicals and because others are only dangerous when combined into improvised explosive devices or improvised chemical munitions, should not be added to the EPA list. The DHS coverage is not based upon release of these chemicals from the owning facility, but upon their theft and subsequent use as part of a terrorist weapon.

There is no clear need for facilities to share security information protected by the CVI program with emergency response personnel. Local law enforcement personnel and perhaps State law enforcement personnel, certainly need to be appraised of much of the security information protected under the CVI program. But emergency response personnel only need to be appraised of the emergency response planning information developed under EPCRA.

The Secretary needs to make a clear distinction between the two types of information and ensure that facilities understand the difference. Open sharing of EPCRA related emergency response information needs no special action by DHS; they do not own nor control the information developed under that program. There are no CFATS restrictions on sharing that information with SERCs, TEPCs, and LEPCs.

Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall identify a list of chemicals, including poisons and reactive substances, that should be considered for addition to the CFATS Chemicals of Interest list. §6(d)

Updating Appendix A

The second specific CFATS action required to be undertaken by the DHS Secretary is found in §6(d) of the EO. There the Secretary is required to “identify a list of chemicals, including poisons and reactive substances, that should be considered for addition to the CFATS Chemicals of Interest list”. This action also has a November 5th deadline.

Readers of this blog will certainly expect me to make my standard appeal for adding methyl bromide to the DHS COI list. I’ll make that here and get it out of the way. Methyl bromide was left of the COI list because DHS misunderstood the EPA program to phase out this chemical. If DHS had understood the process, methyl bromide probably would not have been removed from the list of COI in the first place; enough said.

One other chemical that has been repeatedly brought up as needing to be added to the COI list is sodium fluoroacetate a rodenticide that is produced in a single location in the United States and is principally manufactured for export. There is widespread concern with this product (with very limited us in the United States)  in the environmental activist community and that appears to be the driving force behind the COI listing of this material. It appears that the hope is that the additional security costs will drive the current manufacturer out of the business. Sodium flouroacetate does not meet the requirements of any of the current CFATS chemical categories as a potential terror weapon.

There are a couple of other categories of chemicals that were not listed or listed under unusually large quantities on the current COI list for political reasons. The most obvious example is propane. All other listed flammable gasses have a screening threshold quantity of 10,000 lbs. The STQ was set at 60,000 lbs at the insistence of the agricultural lobby. The reason given was that large quantities of propane are used in the agricultural sector and the security requirements for the smaller amounts would have been prohibitively expensive for farmers. The fact that farmers would probably not have had to do anything more than file a Top Screen report to have DHS decide that they were not at high-risk of terrorist attack and thus exempt from any security planning requirements was completely ignored by the farm lobby.

Similarly, gasoline and ethanol have all but been exempted from the CFATS program based upon political influence rather than risk assessment.

The EO specifically addresses adding poisons to the COI list. The DHS COI list currently includes toxic inhalation hazard (TIH) chemicals based upon their potential use as terrorist equivalents of chemical warfare agents. Most other poisons are excluded from the list. Potassium cyanide is an obvious exception, but it is listed as a sabotage hazard because when it is contaminated with water it produces a TIH chemical. Arsenic, on the other hand is not a listed COI.

Expanding the list of poisons beyond TIH chemicals or their precursors would add a huge additional burden to the CFATS enforcement program with little or no obvious benefit. One might as well add fireworks (used in the Boston Marathon IED) and commercial grades of peroxides and acetones because of their potential for use in IEDs. Reasonable lines must be drawn so that only chemicals at risk of use in terrorist weapons of mass destruction (and the FBI not withstanding, a pressure cooker bomb is not an WMD).
Overlooked DHS Mandate

There was a mandate that the President overlooked in his efforts to make chemical safety and security a broader area of executive responsibility. While OSHA were directed to look at the current PSM exemptions for retail facilities and commercial grade products, the current DHS CFATS exemption for agricultural production facilities was completely overlooked.

On January 9th, 2009 DHS published a letter in the Federal Register (73 FR 16400) establishing an “a time extension for farmers and other agricultural users who are required to submit information (known as the Chemical Security Assessment Tool Top-Screen) under federal chemical security regulations”. That exemption still stands and a large (unknown) number of agricultural facilities have not filed their required Top Screens for possessing COI at or above the screening threshold quantity.


A formal re-evaluation of this exemption needs to be accomplished (a preliminary record collection effort was undertaken a couple of years ago, but there were all sorts of problems with the questionnaire).

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