CFATS Outreach Goes Bilingual

Today the DHS Infrastructure Security Compliance Division (ISCD) published a news item on the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) Knowledge Center announcing that they were publishing some of the CFATS outreach documents in a Spanish language version. The four documents published today were:

• CFATS Tiering Methodology/Metodología para asignar niveles

• RBPS 9 Response/RBPS 9 Respuesta

• CFATS Overview/Resumen

• CFATS First Steps/Primero Pasos

• Report a CFATS Violation/ Denuncie Una Infraccion

This is an interesting move from the Trump Administration. I do not know how large a business audience there is for Spanish language CFATS information, but three of the first four documents listed above would be appropriate for the initial outreach to potentially affected facilities where the management is more comfortable working in Spanish rather than English. The one outlier is the RBPS 9 fact sheet; I am not sure why it was included in this translation effort unless the intention is to provide all CFATS fact sheets in a Spanish language version.

The last document frankly makes the most sense to translate into Spanish. With the increasing size of the bilingual work force, it is certainly appropriate to ensure that those workers have full access to the whistleblower information provided in this flyer. An interesting counterpoint question to this announcement is whether there are bilingual personnel manning the CFATS Tipline? Failure to appropriately provide that type of support will nullify the effort being made today.