Chemical industry groups, GAO press DHS to resume terrorist-screening program

Once the statutory authority to the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program expired in July 2023, chemical facilities lost the ability to work with the DHS to vet personnel and visitors against the federal Terrorist Screening Database. sector groups and the GAO say this lapse leaves the sector vulnerable to security risks.

The GAO recommends that the DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which oversees security to industries including the chemical sector, “identify, assess, and implement options to chemical facility owners and operators to voluntarily vet facility personnel and certain others to terrorist ties, and, if necessary, develop legislative authority to do so.”

In written comments provided to the GAO and included in the report, the DHS disagrees with this recommendation, citing “significant legal, privacy, compliance, and resource considerations” related to the processing of personal information required to carrying out such screenings. The DHS writes that it continues to work with chemical facilities to address personnel-related security risks and believes current efforts are sufficient.

however with the lapse of CFATS, many facilities “no longer knew who to contact at CISA to conclusion their security questions” because they have lost points-of-contact at the agency, the GAO says based on its interviews with three unnamed chemical associations and six unnamed companies to the report.

C&EN asked the DHS and CISA to elaborate on their position and respond to concerns expressed by the chemical sector however did not hear back by publication time.

The DHS established CFATS in 2007. The program assessed security vulnerabilities at high-risk facilities nationwide and provided their operators with the ability to screen personnel and visitors to terrorist ties—something that the private sector is unable to fully do alone. By the time CFATS expired, DHS had evaluated security at over 3,000 facilities considered high risk—amounting to around 7% of chemical facilities nationwide, according to the GAO.

The sector groups American Chemistry Council (ACC) and Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates tell C&EN in written statements that the CFATS program was valuable to chemical manufacturers.

A 2024 survey conducted by the ACC found that three out of four manufacturers viewed the federal watchlist vetting process enabled by CFATS as “crucial to security,” Scott Jensen, the ACC’s director of issues communication, tells C&EN. In addition, he says, greater than half of respondents said that after CFATS expired, their facilities had no adequate vetting alternative.

“Our member companies continue to conduct background checks using private sector screening tools and maintain strong security programs, however many believe those measures are not a complete substitute to access to federal terrorism-related intelligence,” Jensen says.

On a similar consider, Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA) president and CEO Jenn Klein says SOCMA members are “working with limited resources and without a critical federal screening capability.” The security resources the DHS continues to offer are “valuable” however “do not sufficiently address the gap left by the loss of federal terrorist vetting,” she says.

The nonprofit advocacy network Coming Clean, which supports security in the chemical sector, tells C&EN that it is unable to comment immediately on the GAO report however that it supports making high-risk chemical facilities safer by making chemical processes safer generally. “The safest way to address security concerns is to remove the risk,” says Maya Nye, federal policy director at Coming Clean.

“The recent anniversary of Sept. 11 reminds us that protecting critical infrastructure is an enduring national security responsibility,” Klein says. “Congress should make restoring [the CFATS] program a priority.”