The US has lost a critical tool for handling chemical emergencies — let's get it back

Seven months ago, the United States lost its cornerstone tool that has helped to prevent terrorists’ acquisition and use of dangerous chemicals during the past 15 years. 

Statutory authority for the Chemical Facilities Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program expired on Jul. 28, after Congress failed to reauthorize it.  Without the CFATS program, chemical facilities, first responders, and communities are at greater and unnecessary risk of chemical terrorism.   

CFATS was established in 2006 as a direct response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The program enabled the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to help keep dangerous chemicals out of terrorists’ hands by identifying high-risk chemical facilities and working with those facilities to institute critical security measures. Hundreds of the high-risk chemicals previously covered under the program have the capacity to release toxic gases or cause explosions that could kill thousands of people. 

Thanks to the efforts of CISA employees and the partnership of the chemical industry that it regulated, the CFATS program was a huge success. Chemical security inspectors conducted an average of 160 site inspections per month across the nation, and more than one in three of those inspections led to security improvements. Critically, the program also provided a mechanism to conduct background checks — including screening for links to terrorists — on employees, contractors, and visitors who have access to these chemicals within these facilities. Absent the program, we remain unable to vet the average of 300 new names per day to determine whether these individuals have ties to terrorists.   

Additionally, the CFATS program also helped protect first responders, who are uniquely at risk for deadly chemical exposure. This happens to be a subject near to my heart: I spent the first 13 years of my career as a first responder. CFATS helped and can again help prevent dangerous or life-threatening situations. It can help ensure that all of our first responders go home at the end of the day, and that innocent lives are not lost.

More than six months since the CFATS program expired, CISA can no longer say with certainty exactly where these dangerous chemicals are in your community, or who has access to them.  There is currently no mechanism to conduct checks for terrorist ties on individuals who seek access to these facilities, leaving them vulnerable to terrorist attacks. And if there is an emergency at a chemical facility, first responders could be delayed or harmed for lack of information as they try to save innocent lives.

Yet despite broad bipartisan support in Congress and from chemical companies, first responders, and others, the program remains unauthorized. The reauthorization bill overwhelmingly passed the U.S. House of Representatives in July, 409 to 1, but the bill remains stalled in the Senate.

Across the country, more than 7,000 schools, colleges, and universities are located within a mile of a high-risk chemical facility. More than 300 hospitals are also within that range.  Every single one of them was safer and more secure because of CFATS. So were the first responders who live in those communities and are responsible for protecting them.

This is a critical national security issue that affects more than 3,200 high-risk chemical facilities and communities across the country. Congress must act now to reauthorize this vital program and keep Americans safe and secure.

Nitin Natarajan is Deputy Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.