ISCD Publishes CFATS Update for March 2014

I thought it was an April Fool’s joke last night when I saw a listing for the April 2014 CFATS update on the DHS Critical Infrastructure: Chemical Security web page and it was reinforced by the fact that the link didn’t work. I contacted DHS this morning and it was a glitch not an April Fool’s joke that provided the bad link; the page is good and is now live.

The report shows continued incremental improvement in both the authorization and approval rates.

Table 1 shows the general continued improvement in both sets of numbers.

 Table 1: Total Program Numbers

Table 2 shows the average daily rate of both authorizations and approvals for the month of March. The authorization rate picked back up significantly and is the highest rate seen to date. The approval rate is still good and is the second highest seen to date.

 Table 2: Average Daily Rate

Everyone would like to see a dramatic increase in both rates so that the current backlog could get erased. I don’t think that we will actually see this as there is only so much that can be done by the current sized inspection force. Dramatic improvement will only come about through a significant change in the way that inspections are done and that would require a significant change in the regulations I’m afraid.

NOTE: ISCD continues to report declines in the number of covered facilities. This month it is down to 4,172 from 4,199 last month. Still no explanation of why the number is going down while we are expecting to see an increase due to some of the EO 13650 outreach activities.