My Article on HazmatShip.com

One of the things that I have been trying to do with this blog is to expand awareness of the rule making process for the rules and regulations that affect the chemical industry. This is one of the reasons that I have been periodically reporting on comments posted to various proposed rules. Yesterday I had the good fortune to have an article placed on HazmatShip.com, the web site for HAZMAT Packager & Shipper Journal. For subscribers to that Journal the article is “Public Comments on PHMSA’s Enhanced Enforcement Rule”. This article is a in depth look at an idea I briefly discussed in a blog on this site. I had planned on looking at the ideas in more depth here, but it would have required too much space. So when I was asked to write this article I jumped at the chance as it gave me a chance to cover the idea in a more appropriate length. Of course, the fact that I got paid for it was also a good thing. As a free lance writer by profession I will continue to write for other publications about some of the same issues that I cover here on my blog. When I can, I will provide links in this blog to the sites where the article is published. Sometimes those links will only be useable by subscribers; that is the way of the publishing world. More often than not, my articles on chemical facility security and chemical transportation security will be more in depth looks at issues that I have already raised here in this blog. The blog format provides a lot more immediacy, a quicker response to issues and incidents. Magazine articles, take more lead time, but provide for more time for consideration and research and allow for more expansive writing. Both of these venues provide me a chance to comment on, and perhaps influence the ongoing efforts of the chemical industry and its observers to prevent terrorists from using the chemicals necessary for commerce as weapons against our society. I expect that this will be a long career.

First Chem Security Bill in 111th Congress

Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (D, TX) has submitted the first bill of the 111th Congress specifically dealing with Chemical Facility Security. HR 261 was introduced yesterday and referred to the Homeland Security Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee. No reporting dates have yet been assigned by the Speaker. The bill was co-sponsored by Chairman Thompson of the Homeland Security Committee. Ms Jackson-Lee serves as a sub-committee chair on the same committee. The only other data available this morning on Thomas.Loc.gov, the Library of Congress site that covers all matters congressional, is the title of the bill. The title for HR 261 is “To provide that no Federal funds may be used by the Secretary of Homeland Security to approve a site security plan for a chemical facility, unless the facility meets or exceeds security standards and requirements to protect the facility against acts of terrorism established for such a facility by the State or local government for the area where the facility is located, and for other purposes.” This sounds like an interesting way to increase the influence of the States of New Jersey and California. It might also be a creative way to require IST implementation. Until we can see the actual wording of the bill, it is hard to tell just what is required. Needless to say I’ll report more when I have more information.

Another Attack on Canadian Gas Wells

Earlier this week the Associate Press reported another explosive attack on a natural gas metering shed in British Columbia. As in earlier attacks, the site was in a remote location with no personnel present so no one was hurt. Apparently the RCMP has no suspects, but the first attack in the series was accompanied by a written demand for oil and gas companies to halt operations in the area. News reports have labeled these eco-terrorist attacks though that is not proven by any legal standard. It may just be someone with a personal grudge against Encana, the owner of the facilities that have born the brunt of the attacks. In any case, some one is willing and able to use violence against these facilities to affect a political-economic objective. As such it certainly fits the general definition of terrorism. Potential for Escalation? As in many eco-terrorist attacks the attacker is apparently taking pains not to hurt anyone during these attacks. In the minds of most people this lessens the seriousness of the attacks, in the opinion of many people it even might make the attacker something of a hero figure. The problem is that there is no guarantee that the attacker will not make a mistake or miscalculation that would result in serious injuries or the death of innocent bystanders or company employees. There is little reason for the oil and gas companies to acquiesce to the demands and every financial reason not to. As long as the damage inflicted is limited in scope and remains in remote locations, the companies will repair the relatively minor damage and little more. There will be periodic pressure put on the police to capture the criminal, but there will be no significant increase in security measures at these remote locations. Sooner or later the bomber will realize that continuing the current attack profile is not working. Either the attacks will stop, with the bomber accepting defeat, or the bomber escalates to achieve the objective. Once escalation starts there are only three possible outcomes: Success, the oil and gas companies close down operations and leave, or Failure, the bomber realizes the futility of the attacks and quits, or Capture, the bomber is captured or killed by security personnel. The first two outcomes are unrealistic and extremely unlikely due to the nature of the adversaries. That leaves the third with the realization that the escalation will likely continue to advance until that outcome occurs. The question then becomes, how long can the current attack pattern continue until frustration overcomes the apparent reluctance to hurt people. Unfortunately that question can only be effectively answered in hind sight. Lessons for High-Risk Chemical Facilities While oil and gas facilities may be considered chemical facilities in the broadest sense of the term, the remote production facilities being attacked by this bomber are fundamentally different from most chemical high-risk chemical facilities covered by CFATS. These are remote, stand-alone facilities with no routine personnel attendance. With that in mind we have to be careful when we try to extrapolate lessons to more conventional chemical facilities. Counter-surveillance Probably the most important lesson is that the lone-wolf bomber does exist as a potential adversary. This type terrorist is the one of the most difficult for law enforcement to detect before the first attack. There is little possibility of this terrorist contacting a police informant for assistance; the most common way that terrorist plots are brought to the attention of police or security personnel. This makes it all the more important for facilities to have an effective counter-surveillance plan in place to detect the lone-wolf bomber during the surveillance process. The individual working alone has to conduct personal reconnaissance to be able to effect a successful attack. National vs Facility Threat Level The other important lesson that needs to be addressed is that there may be a threat of terrorist attack against a facility that has nothing to do with the terrorist threat against the nation. These attacks in Canada appear to have nothing to do with Al Qaeda or other jihadist organizations. High-risk chemical facilities need to pay attention to all public and private grievances against the facility, company or industry as potential sources for growing lone-wolf attackers. All overt threats communicated to the facility need to be reported to authorities. Any facility should report such threats to local police. High-risk chemical facilities need to include the FBI and DHS in their reporting structure. Most of the threats received will lead to nothing. Failure to share all threats with government investigators may lead to an unexpected attack that could have been prevented. This means that facilities must have a procedure for receiving reports of threats and forwarding them immediately to facility security and management. There should also be a procedure in place for reporting these incidents to authorities. This includes identifying, in advance, points of contact with local police and FBI intelligence organizations. Establishing a relationship ahead of time will ensure that reports receive the appropriate attention. Lone-wolf terrorists are the most difficult to detect in advance of their initial attack. They can also be the most difficult to stop from conducting follow-on attacks. Fortunately, they are rare, but not so rare that high-risk chemical facilities can afford to ignore their potential existence.

SSP Questions Via Twitter

Adding Twitter® to my communications options was an experiment in trying to remain up-to-date with current technology. It looks like it may be useful. I got a couple questions from Bozongas about site security plans this morning. While the 140 character twitter message limit may seem restrictive, these two questions identified an important problem for high-risk chemical facilities that are trying to create their SSP’s. Twitter Exchange Those two questions were:

“How to craft a Site Security Plan?” “Is there a format for Site Security Plans per RBPS?”

My twitter reply was:

“No SSP Format available from DHS yet. Draft RBPS did not address format issue. SSP will be part of CSAT on DHS Web”

Background Information The big problem that DHS has had with the whole CFATS process is that they have been trying to craft a complicated security assessment scheme for a very diverse ‘industry’. When people think of the ‘chemical industry’ they think of classical petrochemical production facilities or big producers of commodity chemicals. In actual practice, just about any manufacturing facility could fall under the purview of the CFATS regulations as everybody uses ‘dangerous chemicals’. The genius of the DHS plan (and the individual that came up with the original concept for this scheme should be given the governmental equivalent of the Nobel) is a secure on-line tool for providing information to DHS, the Chemical Security Assessment Tool. To understand the importance of this tool you need to look no further than the initial Top Screen. DHS took data submissions from over 30,000 facilities across the country in a period of 60 days, crunched the numbers, and identified the 7,000 highest-risk chemical facilities out of that total. And they did it with less than 100 people in the program, and they did it in less than six months. It was an absolutely remarkable accomplishment. The problem is that it took DHS six months to design the Top Screen Tool and they are still refining it. The next tool in CSAT was the Security Vulnerability Assessment Tool. This tool took longer to design (it actually pre-dates CFATS), but again it is allowing DHS to take a great deal of security information from 7,000 facilities and permitting DHS to use that information to make a detailed assessment of the security situation at those facilities. The result (probably coming out in the next couple of months) will be letters to facilities identifying which security threats they actually have to address in their site security plans. Site Security Plan I am sure that DHS has been hard at work on the next CSAT tool that will be required, the Site Security Plan Tool. What form that tool will actually take is probably known only to a few personnel in DHS. I suspect that they will continue to try to use the fill in the blank or check the box format that they have successfully used for Top Screen and SVA. It will be a little more difficult on something as varied as the SSP, but I suspect that that will be the format. I would not be surprised to see the RBPS being utilized to format the data entry. Some of the 18 performance standards would be repeated for each COI identified in the SVA response letters. Others, like perimeter security, cyber security, and personnel surety would be in a separate section covering the entire facility. The big question is when can we expect to see the SSP and the final version of the RBPS Guidance Document? If DHS expects to receive and review SSPs and still have time for inspecting facilities implementation plans before October when CFATS expires, we will probably need to have the SSP format and RBPS guidance document available before Valentine’s Day.

Phase II of Campaign for New Chemical Security Legislation

On Monday Greenpeace initiated the second phase of their campaign to influence the legislation that will presumably make the CFATS regulations permanent. They instituted a letter writing campaign to members of Congress advocating support for HR 5577, the bill introduced during the last session of Congress by the Chairman Thompson of the House Homeland Security Committee. Greenpeace was a member of a coalition of special interest groups that collectively sent a letter to each member of the House and Senate last October urging the same thing. Those letters and the current letter writing campaign specifically address the inherently safer technology (IST) provisions of HR 5577 as their main focal point. No Mention of Chemical Security 101 I was disappointed not to see a mention of the Center for American Progress report, Chemical Security 101, in Rick Hind’s article or in the form letter that is provided on the site. I thought that that report did a good job of outlining the IST arguments that the proponents want the public and Congress to consider. Specifically, it brought home to 303 communities across the United States the risks that they faced from a successful terrorist attack on a local facility. Psychologically, it is hard to beat that kind of argument. Timing Issue I have a minor complaint about the timing of this article and the start of the letter writing campaign. Officially, HR 5577 is a dead bill, it no longer exists. While one would expect that members of Congress will know what these letters are talking about, if Greenpeace had waited a couple of days until the new Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act is introduced by Chairman Thompson, some confusion could have been avoided. This will be particularly true if, as I suspect might happen, there are multiple bills introduced in the 111th Congress that address the issue of making the current CFATS program permanent. I would be very surprised if at least one bill wasn’t submitted along the lines of HR 5533 that was proposed during the 110th Congress. That bill had no IST provisions. As I have noted in a number of recent blog postings, it is obvious that both sides of the IST debate figure that this is an issue that will be resolved in one way or another early in the session of Congress. I’ll be watching closely and reporting frequently on the progress of this legislative battle.

HSIN Teleconference 01-13-09

DHS published a notice in today’s Federal Register that the Homeland Security Information Network Advisory Committee would be conducting a teleconference at 2:00 pm EST on January 13th, 2009. The purpose of the call is “to discuss implementation efforts associated with the Next Generation of the Homeland Security Information Network” (74 FR 722). The actual discussion of these issues will be limited to invitees, but the public is welcome to listen to the discussions. The phone number is: 1-800-882-3610; the PIN is: 1782344. There are only a limited number of lines available and they will be given out on a first come first serve basis on the day of the teleconference.

Administrative Note – Twitter Coverage

I have opened up a Twitter Account (PJCoyle) and will post a twit when I post a blog entry here or on my personal blog on MySpace. For those of you on-the-go types that have to stay connected, here is a new tool. We’ll see how it works out.