OMB Disapproves CISA CFATS Personnel Surety ICR Renewal

Yesterday, the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had disapproved an information collection request renewal from CISA for “Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) Personnel Surety Program”. The 60-day ICR notice was published on June 23^rd, 2021. The 30-day ICR notice was published on February 11th, 2021. A single, apparently unrelated, public comment was submitted on this ICR.

In disapproving this information collection request, OIRA noted that:

“The agency will resubmit this form for approval when the underlying program has been reauthorized by Congress, following an appropriate public comment period.”

In the unlikely event that the CFATS program is reauthorized before the end of the year, CISA will not technically be able to collect information for their CFATS personnel surety program vetting against the TSA’s Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) as that ICR collection authorization expires on November 30^th, 2024. A new ICR approval request would have to be initiated to allow the data collection after that date.

The CFATS program will not be reauthorized in the 119^th Congress because its most vocal opponent, Sen Rand Paul (R,KY), will be the Chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and that Committee would be required to act on any original Senate bill reauthorizing the program or acquiesce to the Senate’s consideration of a House bill doing the same. While the House has been generally more supportive of the program than the Senate, the leadership would be unlikely to consider a CFATS reauthorization bill next session due to President Trump’s expected continued opposition to the program.

Yesterday’s announcement by OIRA is an admission by the current administration that the program is probably dead for the foreseeable future, and possibly a last minute plea for the Senate to take up HR 4470 and pass HR 4470 over Paul’s objections. The Senate leadership is unlikely to try to do that as it would interfere with their efforts to approve as many judicial appointments as possible before the end of the session.