CFATS Top-Screens

BY: TIM KORNEGAY, VICE PRESIDENT - HOMELAND DEFENSE DIVISION

A few months ago the Department of Homeland Security Estimated that 40,000 facilities would be required to submit Top-Screens to comply with the CFATS requirements. As was recently reported by Congress Quarterly, only 22,000 Top-Screens were received by the due date, January 22, 2008. Why the inconsistency?

One blanket extension was issued, primarily for farmers, accounting for some of the inconsistency with the DHS estimate, but the key difference was in the thousands of chemical facilities that registered but did not submit a Top-Screen. From January 2nd until the deadline, a large number of user registrations were received by DHS. Due to the magnitude of user registrations, DHS could not generate user names and passwords quickly enough. The result -- a large number of facilities were ready and willing to comply, but could not do so because they could not log on to the CSAT portal.

It is not surprising that the number of Top-Screens did not meet the expected benchmark, given that DHS has been working within a limited timeframe, and with a rather complex regulation. Further, Appendix A was released on November 20 in the Federal Register, starting the 60 day timeframe... just before Thanksgiving, and DHS released the revised Top-Screen Users Manual on the DHS website on December 20... just before Christmas. And, the revised Top-Screen Users Manual did not clarify how to count Release/Flammable mixtures with 2 or more chemicals of interest at or above the screening threshold quantity. This particular detail was clarified on January 8th to include a specific provision (27.203(B)(i)(v) thereby subjecting many of the fuel terminals to the requirements - with less than 2 weeks from the Top-Screen due date.

DHS has said that they will consider these facilities to have met the deadline even though they have not submitted final Top-Screens because they have begun the process by registering. With the upcoming election and the consideration of additional regulations, the outlook for Chemical plant security regulation remains unclear. However, it is clear that DHS is committed to the implementation of CFATS regardless of regulatory complexities, or other obstacles in the way of meeting CFATS deadlines.





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