SOCMA and IST

The Specialty Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association (SOCMA) recently posted a brief news item about the re-authorization of the CFATS rules. It related back to a “public forum on homeland security priorities of the 111th Congress hosted by the George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI)” upon which I have previously reported. The SOCMA article referenced back to an IST page on their web site. It took a little searching (I hate it when people reference a web page without providing a link), but I found the SOCMA IST page.

The page does provide a definition of IST that is intellectually unsatisfying (“IST is a conceptual framework that covers chemical processing procedures, equipment, protection, and, when feasible, the use of safer substances.”) in its brevity and generality. Of much more use is a bibliography of web based resources on the SOCMA position on IST. Anyone that is going to be involved in the IST discussion needs to be familiar with these documents.