S 4197 Introduced – CFATS Extension

Earlier this month Sen Johnson (R,WI) introduced S 4197, a bill to extend the Chemical Facility6 Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program through July 25^th, 2027. This was the third in a series of bills introduced by Johnson to extend that program without legislative changes in the program. This bill was introduced on the same day that the Senate passed S 4148, a shorter-term extension of the CFATS program that was subsequently passed by the House and signed by the President.

Bill Comparison

All three bills were ‘clean’ extensions of the program, with no policy or regulatory changes included in the language. The table shows the two areas of major differences between the three bills.

CFATS Bills	S 4096	S 4148	S 4197
Extension Date	7-27-23	7-27-23	7-25-27
Cosponsors	3-R, 2-D	3-R, 2-D	3-R

As I noted in my post on S 4096, the only difference between that bill and S 4148 was the removal of some minor, unnecessary effective-date language that had been included in S 4096.

The extension date for both S 4096 and S 4148 were far enough down the road that the affected businesses were appeased because they had some regulatory certainty about the program. More importantly, this date was the soonest that Johnson and his fellow Republicans had a reasonable chance that they might yet again ‘control’ both the House and Senate. The 2027 date would, however, give a much more likely date for that to have occurred.

The extension date is important because Congress has shown little appetite for addressing the CFATS program until the program nears its expiration date. Even with an expiration date fast approaching it has been difficult to get consensus on what changes are necessary. Without the impetus of pending termination, there is little incentive for the different factions to come together on a legislatively workable revision to the program.

S 4096 Introduced – CFATS Extension

Last month Sen Johnson (R,WI) introduced S 4096, a bill that would extend the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program through July 27^th, 2023.

Two days after this bill was introduced Johnson introduce a second CFATS extension bill, S 4148. That bill would also extend the CFATS program through July 27^th, 2023. S 4148 was passed by the Senate the same day it was introduced.

The bill the Senate passed was the same as S 4096 except that it added a second paragraph:

“(b) EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendment made by subsection (a) shall take effect on the date that is 1 day after the date of enactment of this Act.”

The House passed their own clean extension of the CFATS program (HR 6160) back in March. It would extend the CFATS program authorization through October 18^th, 2021. Technically, the wording of HR 6160 was made obsolete by the passage of HR 748 as that bill replaced the old “5 years and 3 months” language with an actual date; “July 23, 2020”.

Both the House and the Senate will be back in Washington next week in time to address the pending expiration of the CFATS program authorization on July 23^rd. While the Democrats in the House really want a chance to make some changes to the CFATS program, I suspect that they will go along with the three year extension as they hope to be in a stronger position to send legislation to the President in the 117^th Congress.

Interestingly, after this bill was introduced, Johnson introduced a third CFATS extension bill, S 4197. The language of that bill has not yet been printed, but it did not have any Democratic Senators as cosponsors.