CRS Reports – Week of 7-8-23 – Chemical Security

This week the Congressional Research Service (CRS) published a short (3 pages) report on “Chemical Security: Regulatory Implications of Terrorism Risk Assessment Methodology”. It provides a broad discussion about the risk assessment methodologies used to determine facility involvement and risk tiering in the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS)program. Since no one can talk about the actual risk assessment methodology used by the CFATS program for security reasons, the discussion is rather vague.

The report does make an important point about the risk assessment process model:

“Statistical methods used to assess risk of frequently recurring events such as natural disasters are difficult to apply to terrorism for several reasons, according to experts. Terrorist attacks on chemical facilities are rare, and so do not provide enough data for ordinary statistical analyses. Further, they involve adaptive human behavior that complicates independent measurement of threat and vulnerability. Quantification of consequences is similarly difficult, given that the effects of terrorist attacks are often unquantifiable experiences of collective fear, anxiety, and grief. Finally, critical infrastructure tends to be multitiered and networked, creating complex interdependencies between single facilities and broader systems.”

This report does not contain the typical ‘issues of concern or Congress’ section. Instead, it notes briefly at the end of a middle paragraph that: “As Congress considers reauthorization of CFATS, it may consider risk methodology issues, available oversight options, and whether current program authorities should be extended, modified, or allowed to expire. Current program authorization will expire on July 27, 2023, absent congressional action.”

NOTE: 12 days until the CFATS program dies for lack of reauthorization. This report is a tad bit late in the process.