ISCD Updates CFATS Fact Sheet – 08-05-16

Today the DHS Infrastructure Security Compliance Division (ISCD) published their latest monthly update of their CFATS Fact Sheet, outlining the state of implementation of the site security plan (SSP) portion of the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS). The report shows continued increases in the number of approved SSPs and compliance inspections completed.

	June 2016	July 2016	August 2016
Covered Facilities	2,999	2,991	2,984
Authorized SSPs	3,370	3,390	3,410
Approved SSPs	2,562	2,595	2,645
Compliance Inspections	958	1,079	1,177

The report would seem to indicate that there are only 339 site security plans remaining to be approved, but because of the way that ISCD continues to report more authorized SSPs than there are facilities remaining in the program, there is no way of knowing how many more approvals we are expecting to see.

More disturbing is the continuing refusal of ISCD to report on the number of compliance inspections that are passed or failed. The last time that numbers were publicly available, the GAO reported that the failure rate for compliance inspections was very high, calling into question the efficacy of the CFATS program in its effort to help high-risk chemical facilities protect themselves from potential terrorist attacks.