The House Homeland Security Committee in late February and March took its initial steps toward developing legislation to reauthorize DHS’ Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program, holding a pair of oversight hearings that were used to collect testimony from federal officials who oversee program implementation and stakeholders engaged with its requirements. Notably for the water sector, the prepared statements delivered at each of the hearings avoided any discussion of potentially expanding CFATS to include coverage or regulation of drinking water or wastewater treatment facilities – an indication that the current CFATS exemption for these facilities is likely to remain in place.
Congress last extended CFATS in January, keeping the program operating in its current form for another 15 months – a timeframe intended to give lawmakers an opportunity to explore a longer-term program extension. Members of the House Homeland Security Committee had previously been open to extending CFATS for longer, but the chairman of the Senate panel charged with CFATS oversight rejected a longer extension in the hopes of ensuring continued congressional oversight of the program.
In his statement at the outset of the February 27 hearing, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said the panel “is acting early this Congress to get a reauthorization bill across the finish line.” However, he said he does “not plan to let reauthorization become an excuse to water down regulatory requirements or diminish the overall security value of the program.”
He made similar comments during a subsequent March 12 hearing where witnesses from stakeholder groups largely focused on increasing worker participation in security planning and decision making and improving whistleblower protections, and not on expanding the universe of facilities subject to regulation. At the later hearing, Chairman Thompson again reiterated that “reauthorization will not become an excuse to water down the program.”
In the past Chairman Thompson and other members of the Homeland Security panel had called for CFATS to apply to water systems, but that idea ran into strong resistance from water sector stakeholders as well as the leaders of the House committee with oversight over EPA and water systems. Based on the lack of focus on this point during the years’ two initial CFATS hearings, the status quo is likely to remain in the next reauthorization bill. The current CFATS program is scheduled to expire in April of 2020, so Congress will aim to approve a program extension before that date.