Movement on CFATS Authorization?

There was a brief note today on SmartBrief.com about some possible movement on passing a CFATS authorization bill. It referenced an article on EENews.net that claims that Sen. Collins (R,ME) “will seek to have the full Senate vote on her bill reauthorizing the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards program for three years”. Unfortunately EENews.net is a subscription only service so there are few details supporting that claim.

Politics

While Sen. Collins’ support for CFATS is well known, and she managed to get S 473 through the Senate Homeland Security Committee without and IST provision, I doubt that she has the political power to get her bill considered on the floor of the Senate. Too many liberal Democrats won’t back a bill that doesn’t include one or more of the following:

• Inherently Safer Technology (IST) language beyond the bill’s voluntary program;

• Worker protection against unreasonable use of security background checks;

• Worker participation in the security planning process;

• Enhanced whistleblower protection; and

• More public information about high-risk chemical facilities.

Interestingly there is no mention of her CFATS bill on her official web site and no recent mention of the bill on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs web site that she prominently shares with Sen. Lieberman (I,CT). That certainly doesn’t mean that she isn’t working behind the scenes to push for consideration of her bill, but one would expect at least some public mention on one or both of those sites.

Riders

The SmartBrief.com piece briefly mentions another option; it notes that she “may also consider attaching the bill as an amendment to other legislation”. This is certainly how the CFATS program came into being in the first place. But that was as a compromise measure while the political process could put together a more comprehensive program. With the CFATS program in place, it would be harder to justify a one-sided compromise as an alternative to the current one-year extensions of the CFATS authority.

Having said that there are two possible bills that are large enough to make CFATS a minor provision and would have some chance of garnering enough non-CFATS support to make it difficult to remove the language from the bill. Those are the DHS Authorization bill (which has yet to make to the floor in either house since 2003 when the Department was formed) or the DHS spending bill which this year will probably be added to another spending bill since the original House bill (HR 1700) was used for the Continuing Spending Act.

The problem with this process is that the attempt to add it to either bill would have to come on the Senate floor with all of the debate limitations that that entails. The Senate DHS Authorization Bill has already been marked up in the Senate Homeland Security Committee so Collins cannot attach it in Committee to that bill and her Committee does not get involved in the markup of spending bills.

There is no rule that says that the CFATS rider would have to be attached to either of these two bills, but it would be difficult (though certainly not impossible) to find another bill that is close enough in subject matter to not fly in the face of even the Senates rather loose rules about legislative subject matter. But, unless it is added during a Senate Homeland Security markup hearing, she would still have to face the debate rule problem in adding the CFATS language to another bill.

Finally, I don’t think that the Committee would let her attach the current CFATS language from S 473 to another bill. Too many people, including Chairman Lieberman, wanted to see IST language added to that bill, but acquiesced to be able to report a bipartisan bill from Committee. They went along because they knew that they could attempt to add their pet provisions (and vowed in the mark-up hearing to do so) on the floor or, failing that, they could block passage by manipulating Senate debate rules.

Possible Compromise

As I have said numerous times, I don’t think that a comprehensive CFATS authorization bill with a realistic expiration date can pass in current political climate without significant compromise between last sessions’ HR 2868 and just about any of the bills under consideration in the House or Senate (Lautenberg’s bill, S709 doesn’t count; no one is considering it even in the friendly Senate Environment and Public Works Committee).

Readers might remember that I proposed just such compromise language back in November of last year. It might be a good time for people to take a look at that as starting point for putting together a workable compromise for a long-term CFATS extension bill.

New CFATS Legislation

A long time reader just emailed me a press release from a staff member representing Sen. Collins (R, ME) announcing the bipartisan introduction of a Senate bill that would extend the current CFATS authorization until October 4th, 2015. The copy of the bill that was included in the email includes two other provisions (a chemical security training program and a chemical security exercise program), but certainly the most significant is the CFATS authorization extension. The press release says that there are three co-sponsors for the bill; two Democrats {Senators Pryor (D,AR) and Landrieu (D,LA)} and a Republican {Senator Voinovich (R,OH)}. I have checked the web sites for all four Senators and the Senate Homeland Security Committee, but the press release has yet to make it to any of their sites. I won’t be able to confirm the introduction of the bill until the Congressional Record is published in the morning, so I don’t yet have a bill number. According to the press release: “The ‘Continuing Chemical Facilities Antiterrorism Security Act’ would reauthorize the law that is now set to expire in October, providing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with sufficient time to fully implement the Chemical Facilities Anti-Terrorism Standards program.” Sen. Collins had previously expressed her dissatisfaction with the IST mandate provisions in the HR 2868 and had announced her intention to introduce alternative legislation. The support of Pryor and Landrieu provides some indication of the problems that the supporters of HR 2868 might have in getting the current bill through the Senate. Support (or opposition) to the house bill does not fall strictly along party lines so it is hard to predict how the bill will fare in the Senate. A lot depends on the final wording of some of the more controversial sections in the bill. Still to be heard from is Senator Lautenberg (D, NJ) who also vowed to introduce his own version of a chemical security bill last fall. Lautenberg’s version of such a bill would be expected to include stricter rules on mandating IST implantation and expanded states rights to legislate on chemical security issues. This expansion of the controversy surrounding legislation to make CFATS authorization permanent provides support to the Administration’s inclusion of a one year extension of CFATS authorization in the DHS budget. The more involved this political battle gets, the less likely Congress is to resolve the issues before the current October 4th, 2010 deadline passes.