DHS Leadership Journal Moves

Ran into a brief notice today when I went to check on the DHS Leadership Journal. The location for this blog has changed to http://journal.dhs.gov/. There is currently an automatic re-direct to take people from the old URL (http://www.dhs.gov/journal/leadership/) to the new URL. There is no telling how long that will remain in place; so go ahead and change your Favorites to reflect the new URL.

Critical Infrastructure Protection Page Update 04-09-10

Late last week the Department of Homeland Security updated their Critical Infrastructure Protection landing page. While they have yet to make their planned change of adding a change date on the bottom of the page, they did add a number of new links to the page. Those links included: Bomb-Making Materials Awareness Program (BMAP) Protective Security Advisors Federal Building Security Bombing Prevention Training BMAP The Bomb-Making Materials Awareness Program is mainly addressed at retailers that sell chemicals that can be used to make improvised explosive devices. While this may not seem to have much to do with high-risk chemical facilities, I think that CFATS covered facilities that deal with production/sales of such commercial chemicals should ensure that any commercial distributors that they deal with are actively involved with this program. Protective Security Advisors Protective Security Advisors assist owners and operators of critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR) by coordinating requests for Department-provided services such as training, grants, and vulnerability assessments. While this is not a substitute program for CFATS covered facilities, chemical facilities that are not covered under CFATS may find some assistance from this program. Bombing Prevention Training The Office for Bombing Prevention (OBP) develops and maintains the training and works with state homeland security officials and state training offices to coordinate course delivery. This web page states that “critical infrastructure owners and operators can request courses through the Department’s Protective Security Advisors”. It would seem to me that someone at the Department’s Infrastructure Security and Compliance Division should be coordinating the development/deployment of this type training for CFATS covered facilities, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Congressional Hearings Week of 4-12-10

Congress is returning from their two-week Easter Recess this week. There is only one hearing currently scheduled that looks like it may be of concern to the chemical security community. Surprisingly this will not be the hearing on the progress of CFATS inspections that was promised by Rep. Jackson-Lee (D, TX); that would still take some time to set-up. No the hearing that might be of interest will be before the Homeland Security Sub-Committee of the House Appropriations Committee on the 15th at 11:00 am EDT. The hearing will look at “DHS Cyber Security Programs – What progress has been made and what still needs to be improved?” Undersecretary Rand Beers (NPPD) and Assistant Secretary Greg Schaffer (Cyber Security and Communications), are scheduled to testify. There is a remote possibility that industrial control system security will be mentioned (briefly if at all) at this hearing.

DHS Open Government Plan

Yesterday Secretary Napolitano announced the publication of the Department’s Draft Open Government Plan (DOGP), in both a press release and in a post on the DHS blog. Both can be found on the DHS web site. Reader’s of this blog will know that I have been pretty complimentary of how the Office of Infrastructure Protection runs the various web sites that impact on chemical security matters. Having said that (on numerous occasions) I am more than a little disappointed in how much that office has apparently been ignored in the DOGP. First I understand why there may not be ‘Data Sets’ (para 2.4) available from this office; too much of the information collected here is classified or restricted access. I would like to see some generic tabulated data on CFATS participation; things like number of initial Top Screens, SVA and SSPs. Data could be made available on the types of industries reporting and things of that sort without compromising any SSI or CVI information. I was very surprised not to see an NPPD or IP Reading Room (para 3.1.4) discussed in the DOGP nor can I find one on the net. If there were one constructed I would like to see it contain copies of unclassified reports from DHS to Congress on the status of rules and regulations required by legislation. I was also upset to see a complete lack of information about this DOGP on the Open Homeland Security Share Your Ideas web page. This was where we commented last month on what we (the public) wanted to see included in the DOGP. In fact that site still says “Check here on April 7 to comment on the draft plan”. It now seems that comments will not be accepted until April 30th through May 10th (para 3.2.1). Unfortunately, there is nothing on the Share Your Ideas page that reflects that; very confusing. All is not negative; I like the plan going forward for increasing the reply rate and reduce the reply time for Freedom of Information Act requests (para 3.1.6). If the 10% annual reduction in outstanding requests is achieved it will be a significant step forward in providing additional transparency in the Department’s operations. Editing Problem With so many comments about Web 2.0 and utilizing the internet to communicate with the public, I was very disturbed to see the DHS Open Government Plan utilize a web link convention (blue print and underlined) when referring to other parts of the document, but not providing actual links. This is a turn-off to serious netizens and must be more than a little confusing to the general public.

Oh well, enough of these comments for now, I’ll save the rest for April 30th and the start of the official comment period. Everyone interested in homeland security issues should read the DOGP. It is a good first effort.

Indiana Anhydrous Ammonia Leak

I haven’t commented on the continuing story of a methamphetamine related anhydrous ammonia leak last week; I figure I’ve probably beat that drum enough. A recent story on 14WFIE.com on the story does bring up another aspect of the problem that deserves some discussion, the Top Screen exclusion for farmers. On January 9, 2008 DHS published a notice in the Federal Register granting farmers and other agricultural users an indefinite extension on their requirements to submit a Top Screen if they had any of the COI listed in Appendix A to 6 CFR Part 27 at or above the screening threshold quantity (STQ) listed in that document. Part of the reason that this was done was because of the pressure applied by the Farm Lobby to grant a full CFATS exemption. This ‘indefinite extension’ (still in effect) effectively removed CFATS compliance responsibility from these facilities while DHS worked out a method to identify the high-risk Ag facilities without bothering the low-risk facilities.

Part of the justification for allowing this exemption to be put into place was that farms and such were removed from the urban centers that would be high priority terrorist targets. Thus any attacks on these facilities would have little practical effect on the nation; making them poor terror targets. Unfortunately this reasoning ignores a problem that urban and suburban planners have been dealing with for decades now, the boundaries of suburbia and urban areas are pushing further and further out into the hinterland. In the transition zones around most urban centers there is a patchwork of active agricultural land surrounded by suburban housing and strip malls. The Channel 14 news story reports that this farm anhydrous ammonia tank leak “triggered the evacuation of hundreds of people from their homes”. Now, the evacuation area was probably over-done as a matter of precaution in this instance; that is always the right thing to do on any chemical release. And, I’m not sure that, even if ‘hundreds of people’ were really at risk for a catastrophic leak at this site (which this wasn’t, it was a leaky valve), this would have raised this farm to the level of a high-risk facility if a Top Screen had been submitted. What the story certainly does show, however, is that agricultural facilities are found near population centers and thus may become ‘legitimate’ terror targets. I understand that DHS has been trying to work with the Ag Community to come up with a better way of identifying the truly high-risk Ag facilities without burdening the vast majority of the farm community with unnecessary paperwork. My late father, who owned a small ranch in California, would certainly have appreciated that effort. But, tens of thousands of other businesses were able to complete ‘needless’ Top Screens without going bankrupt. And we do need to identify any farms that are high-risk facilities to ensure that they are required to take appropriate action to prevent terror attacks on their facilities from having tragic off-site consequences. It is time to repeal the agricultural facility exemption for filing Top Screens. Only then will we be able to determine the true scope of the potential problem.

Reader Comment 04-03-10 CG Inspectors II

Last Saturday Anonymous left a response to a blog post written back in February about Coast Guard Inspectors. Based upon the lengthy observations about CG Inspectors, it is clear that Anonymous has some experience at MTSA facilities. I certainly appreciate those observations since I have little personal experience with these types of facilities, so I depend on Reader input. For CFATS facilities the final comment by Anonymous is most important; Anonymous wrote:

“Bottom line: Whether the industry is looking forward to new CFATS regs and the inspectors which come with them or not, it will be refreshing to have a cadre of inspectors who have undergone fairly extensive (and specific) training in the regulations, have ‘real-world’ experience (hopefully), and who are empowered to 'change gears’ based on what they are seeing in front of them during the inspection (ie. type of facility, location of facility, etc).”

Actually, the Infrastructure Security Compliance Division (ISCD) of DHS has gone even further than this; they don’t allow Chemical Facility Inspectors to ‘change gears’, they require it. Each facility will be inspected according to its compliance with its submitted and approved Site Security Plan (SSP). Inspectors might have an informal checklist of what to check at the facility, but it will be based upon that facility’s SSP, not some national standard. Some people at DHS have described the approved SSP as a ‘security contract’ with the individual facility. The negotiations of the provisions of that facility unique document is one of the reasons that DHS is having problems getting their inspection program moving forward as fast as some would like to see it move. Inspectors cannot go out and inspect a facility until there is an agreed upon SSP to inspect.

NRP Comments

Yesterday I tried to post a copy of my previous National Rail Plan (NRP) blog as a comment at the www.Regulations.gov web site for the NRP (Docket Number FRA-2010-0020). There was a problem with the system there; the docket existed, but it was not accepting comments. I left a ‘complaint’ with the Help Desk and they have fixed the problem. My comment is now posted as FRA-2010-0020-0002.1.

If you tried to post a comment to this docket yesterday, re-try soon. The system is now working the way it should.

Make your views known. Anyone associated with the shipment of rail security-sensitive materials {49 CFR §1580.100(b)} that is concerned that the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is ignoring the security of the rail shipment of those materials during the development of their NRP should share that concern with the FRA. Anyone that has concerns about these hazardous materials traversing their communities and the fact that the FRA is ignoring the security of those shipments during the development of their NRP should post a comment to this docket. Finally, anyone that has concerns about the Federal government developing a plan dealing with improving the rail transportation system in this country while ignoring the associated security risks should post a comment to this docket.

After all, the FRA did ask for our input.