The House of Representatives on July 8 approved legislation to extend the Department of Homeland Security’s Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program for three years, while leaving in place a provision that exempts drinking water and wastewater facilities from the program’s regulations. The House passed the measure by voice vote, though debate on the bill exposed a major difference of opinion on the topic among House lawmakers.
House members approved the legislation (H.R. 4007) under a floor procedure known as “suspension of the rules.” This procedure prohibits the consideration of amendments to a bill but requires a two-thirds majority for passage. As approved by lawmakers H.R. 4007 would largely continue the current structure of CFATS while authorizing $87.4 million per year for DHS to operate the program through 2017. The bill also lacks any new “inherently safer technology” directives.
Despite the easy approval of H.R. 4007 several Democratic House members pointed to the drinking water/wastewater exemption as a “fundamental weakness” in the bill that Congress should revisit in the future. For example, Homeland Security Committee Democrats added language to the panel’s committee report on the bill calling the exemption “hastily agreed to” by lawmakers in 2006 and citing opposition to the exemption from former Homeland Security secretaries.
Speaking on the House floor during debate, Homeland Security Committee ranking Democrat Bennie Thompson (Miss.) expressed disappointment that the bill does not regulate water facilities, though he praised the inclusion of a study in the legislation that will feature a third-party “security assessment” of the water and wastewater exemptions. The results of the study, Thompson said, will leave lawmakers “better informed” on risks to water facilities when Congress revisits CFATS in the future.
Other members of Congress remain firmly in support of keeping water facilities out of CFATS. The Republican majority of the House Homeland Security Committee used the committee report to note Sections 1433-1435 of the Safe Drinking Water Act already cover drinking water facilities through what they called “a mature regulatory scheme that is working well.” They went on to label as “misguided” the idea of drastically expending CFATS to cover as many as 70,000 water facilities at a time when the program “is working to successfully manage its basic responsibilities.”
The bill will now advance to the U.S. Senate, where that chamber’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is working on its own five-year CFATS reauthorization bill. Draft versions of the Senate measure circulating on Capitol Hill would continue the drinking water and wastewater exemption for the duration of that proposal, but also include similar third-party assessment provisions.
Separately, lawmakers have a backup plan to keep CFATS operational in case Congress is unable to pass a multiyear extension before the program expires on October 4. Versions of FY15 Homeland Security appropriations bills under consideration in each chamber include language to temporarily extend the current CFATS – including the water and wastewater exemption – for another year.