Even more Information on Tomorrow’s ISCD Hearing

Yesterday the House Energy and Commerce Committee took the unusual step of publishing the written testimony of the primary witness to tomorrow’s subcommittee hearing looking as the current situation in the implementation of CFATS. Typically the written testimony is provided to Committee members and staff the day before the hearing, but the testimony is not made public before the witness appears before the committee.

The Program to Date

Much of the ten page testimony by Rand Beers, Under Secretary for National Protection and Programs Directorate is the standard DHS rehash of the CFATS program; how it was started and the steps taken to get where it is at. It does provide some new numbers about the implementation. They include:

• 4,458 facilities currently covered under CFATS

• 180 preauthorization inspections have been completed

• 53 facilities have had their SSP authorized (less than ½ of Tier 1 facilities)

• 10 authorization inspections have been completed

• 0 facilities have had their SSP approved since May 2009

• 66 Administrative Orders have been issued

Very little is said in the statement about the personnel and procedural issues that have hampered the ICSD’s efforts to more effectively move forward with the SSP implementation process. Beers blames growth problems with a new agency for some of the issues and this must certainly be a contributing cause to the problems. He does use all of the current management buzz terms (“a Division mission statement, vision statement, and statement of core values”) as if establishing these window dressing tools can possibly change the culture of an organization.

The Real Questions

Here are some of the questions that I would like to see posed to Beers and Anderson (in no particular order):

• What has been the total turnover rate for all ISCD personnel since June 2008?

• What has been the turnover rate for Chemical Facility Security Inspectors (CFSI) since June 2008?

• How many people in ISCD have been with the program since June 2008?

• How long does the hiring process take from the time a job is posted on USAJobs.gov until the new employee reports to work?

• Has the site specific pay rate problem been resolved?

• Have the travel pay problems been resolved?

• How many of the 1600 facilities that have removed their COI have replaced them with nearly identical chemicals with miniscule improvements in safety/security (for example replacing 20% Aqua Ammonia with 19% Aqua Ammonia)?

• How many of the 700 facilities that have reduced their on-site inventory by increasing the number of shipments of the COI, thereby increasing the transportation security risk?

• How many of the CFSI (or ISCD staff personnel) are qualified to assesses blast protection information?

• How many of the CFSI (or ISCD staff personnel) are qualified to conduct control system security assessments?

• How many of the CFSI (or ISCD staff personnel) are qualified to assess processes for neutralizing released chemical?

• Has ISCD signed a memorandum of understanding with ICS-CERT to receive support in the evaluation of the security protections provided to critical control systems?

• Has any ISCD facility evaluation (of any sort) included contacting local emergency response personnel to see if their support for emergency response to a successful terrorist attack had been discussed with facility management?

• Has any ISCD facility evaluation (of any sort) included contacting local law enforcement personnel that would be the first armed responders on the scene have been briefed about which areas of the plant it is unsafe to discharge a firearm?

Given access to the internal report from ISCD I’m sure that I could come up with even more biting and pertinent questions to ask this panel. But, it still doesn’t appear that the Subcommittee will be asking any serious questions tomorrow. There is none of the political posturing and grandstanding preceding this hearing that would indicate that anyone seriously cares about these problems. I challenge Chairmen Shimkus (R,IL) and his Subcommittee to prove me wrong

CSSS Web Page Update

Yesterday afternoon some time DHS updated their web page for the Chemical Sector Security Summit. It no longer shows the pre-Summit information. Instead it provides a very high-level summary of what went on. As I mentioned in last night’s blog post I expect that this will be updated again in the near future to provide a link to a new web page (like the ones for the 2008 and 2009 Summits) that will provide more information on many of the presentations made at this year’s Summit.

DHS Private Sector Office Page Update 06-22-10

DHS updated the web page for their Private Sector Office. Readers of this blog will probably recognize that this office is the one that is responsible for publishing (and maintaining) the Private Sector Resources Catalog that I wrote about last month. The web page for that catalog was also updated. There were not any real new changes in information on either site; DHS just added a link to sign up for notifications when those pages change. While there have been some holes in this notification system, if you are interested in keeping updated on this catalog, it seems to me to be worth the very minor effort to get signed up for this notification. If they miss notifying you (and it has happened to me a couple of times) you aren’t out anything. If they do email you the notification, then you’ll probably get it before you read about the change in here in my blog. Of course, you could just wait for my notification. I add editorial comments and typically point out obscure bits of information of interest to the chemical security community.

HSIN Advisory Committee Meeting 05-12-09

The DHS Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN) Advisory Committee announced today that they would be holding a public meeting on May 12th thru 14th in Potomac, MD. The meeting is open to the public, but participation in the discussions is limited to Committee Members and DHS personnel. Advance registration is required to attend. Requests to make oral presentations or submission of written material to be distributed to Committee Members must be made by May 5th, 2009. According to the Federal Register Notice, the agenda includes:

An update and discussion on efforts concerning the improvement of HSIN; Discussions on federal, state, and local information sharing and portal consolidation; A briefing and discussion on the HSIN Mission Operators Committee and Business Case; and Discussions pertaining to HSIN community best practices and the HSIN law enforcement and fire services communities.

PHMSA Public Meeting to Prep for UNSCOE TDG Meeting

The Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration announced in today’s Federal Register that they would be holding a public meeting on June 17th to get public input about issues that will be discussed at the United Nations Sub-Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods (UNSCOE TDG) to be held June 22-26, 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland. Interested personnel will be able to attend the PHMSA meeting in person or participate in the ‘conference call’ coverage. The meeting will be held in the DOT Headquarters building in Washington, D.C.

Whitehouse.gov

Chris Battle has a blog today on SecruityDebrief.Adfero.com that looks at the Homeland Security page that has appeared on the Whitehouse.gov web site. Chris has some interesting comments about the content of that page that are worth reading. Unfortunately he fails to note that the page is a direct copy from the Homeland Security page on Change.gov, the Obama Transition web site that I briefly discussed last November. Expanded Communication That White House web site has been around for a while, but it has changed, as you would expect, since the new President has taken office. It does look like the Obama White House will use this site more as a communication tool than George Bush ever did. This is not surprising since use of the internet was a hallmark of the Obama campaign. The site provides a wide variety of communication tools, including a request public feed back via the Office of Public Liaison page. Executive Orders While I agree with most of the points that Chris makes in his blog, I was more disappointed in fact that the two Executive Orders that are being reported in this morning’s news are not shown on the Executive Orders page on the site. Instead there is the place holder message that “The President has not yet issued any Executive Orders.” Either the press has got their information wrong (and that is always possible) or the White House is being slow to update their web site (and that would be disappointing). The two orders that I am talking about are ones that I heard reported on NPR this morning as I drove into town. They called for an immediate review of the status of all of the prisoners at Gitmo and a pause in the rule making process to allow for an Obama administration review of those rules-in-progress before any other actions are taken. The way they were reported sounds reasonable and expected, but I would like to be able to read them myself. Good Move In any case, I like the look of the new White House web page and will add it to the list of sites that I periodically check. It is nice to see the more of the government moving into the age of communication.