House Holds Oversight Hearing on Chemical Security Program at DHS

The Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy held an oversight hearing on the Department of Homeland Security’s Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Stands program (CFATS) on February 3.  The hearing came as a bill to reauthorize the program for seven years failed to make it to the House floor for a vote in December. The oversight hearing and failure of the house bill were brought about by a leaked DHS memo highlighting numerous problems with the CFATS program.

The contents of the memo and full deficiencies of the program remain classified but Congressman from both sides of the aisles were highly critical of DHS. Congressman were particularly upset because they felt mislead by DHS officials. None of the programs problems were mentioned when the committee was moving forward with reauthorization of the CFATS program.

Subcommittee Chairman John Shimkus (R-Ill.) said he was “surprised and disappointment “ to learn about the internal operations of CFATS. Rep. Henry Waxman (D – CA-XX), Ranking Member of the full Committee, said CFTAS “implementation stumbled” and “the challenges are serious and must be addressed”.

Some of the problems identified include: improperly classifying facilities as high risk when they were not; failure to take action on any of the 240 site security plans submitted to the program; improperly hiring employees; and employing unqualified personal.  According to the testimony provided at the hearing, DHS has developed an action plan to address CFATS short comings.

ACWA believes oversight of water facilities security should remain with EPA and opposes any effort to transfer responsibility for security at water facilities to DHS security program.