Review - CFATS is Dead – Whither Chemical Security

With the 118^th Congress effectively dead (the House and Senate meet today in pro forma session, and then again on Friday to adjourn sine die), the time has come to officially declare the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program dead. While the program authority expired on July 27^th, 2023 (see note 6 USC 621) the program has been kept on life support by CISA and Congress, hoping that it could be resurrected over the objections of Sen Paul (R,KY). On January 3^rd, 2025, Paul becomes the Chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, further increasing his power to block the program. CFATS will not be reauthorized.

Instead of trying to resurrect the CFATS program, chemical security supporters should instead try to expand the ChemLock program. First and foremost, the ChemLock program needs to be specifically authorized by Congress. One of the first things that the Trump Administration will attempt to do to reduce government spending will be to eliminate non-authorized programs. To avoid the death of this chemical security program, legislation needs to be introduced that establishes ChemLock as an official program under CISA’s Infrastructure Security Division.

Since ChemLock will need to continue to be a voluntary program (rather than a regulatory program) to obtain the support (or at least avoid the opposition) of members like Sen Paul, some method will have to included that provides an incentive for companies to actively participate in the program. While financial incentives would work best, they would run afoul of ‘reduce spending’ ethos of the 119^th Congress. A ‘no cost to the government’ incentive would be to apply Safety Act (6 USC 441 et seq) protections to participating organizations.

CISA and the chemical industry need to start discussing the authorization of the ChemLock program with their members of Congress. The quicker this legislation is introduced (and ultimately signed into law) the less likely it will be that this program will fall under the scrutiny of elements of the Trump Administration looking at cutting spending and reducing government.

 

For more details about how the Safety Act may be used in the ChemLock program, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/cfats-is-dead - subscription required.