On January 9, the House passed a fast-track legislation to extend the US Department of Homeland Security’s Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) for two years. CFATS was scheduled to expire this month.

The CFATS program is designed to ensure that facilities that utilize, store and distribute chemicals have security measures in place to reduce the risk of certain hazardous chemicals from being exploited in an attack. Under CFATS, DHS requires facilities determined to be high-risk to develop, implement and report one of two types of security plans: a Site Security Plan (SSP) or an Alternative Security Program (ASP).

For details, visit www.dhs.gov/chemicalsecurity

Reported by Helen Gillespie, Chemical-Matters.com