ILTA, CFATS Coalition Prod House, Senate Panels on Reauthorization

ILTA, as part of the CFATS Coalition, sent identical leaders to the chairman and ranking members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, House Homeland Security Committee and Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. Both letters are attached. Pasted immediately below is the letter to the Senate committee leaders:

January 28, 2020

The Honorable Ron Johnson 
Chairman Ranking Member
Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs 
United States Senate 
Washington, D.C. 20510 

The Honorable Gary Peters
Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Chairman Johnson and Ranking Member Peters:
The Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) Coalition comprises a diverse group of trade associations and companies impacted by the CFATS regulations. Coalition members represent major sectors of the American economy, including chemical production, chemical distribution and storage, manufacturing, oil and gas refining, utilities, mining, and agricultural goods and services. The businesses we represent are vital to the American economy.

The CFATS program will sunset on April 18, 2020, and we strongly support bipartisan efforts to ensure the continuity of the program without interruption. We urge you to work together to move a bipartisan CFATS reauthorization bill forward that further strengthens the program. However, if Congress is unable to produce a bipartisan reauthorization in the near-term, we would support a five-year reauthorization of the current law authority. A five-year reauthorization would provide our industries with the regulatory certainty necessary to efficiently meet compliance requirements and enable the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to effectively run the CFATS program. We believe that preservation of the CFATS program is essential to the continued security of our nation’s high-risk chemical facilities.

The CFATS program has focused our industries on security, helping to make our nation more secure. Since its establishment in 2007, our industries have invested millions of dollars and instituted thousands of new security measures at our facilities. The “Protecting and Securing Chemical Facilities from Terrorist Attacks Act” of 2014 (P.L. 113-254), which for the first time provided CFATS a four-year authorization, further enhanced these efforts by providing regulatory certainty to both industry and DHS. This stability allowed DHS to increase efficiencies in the program while streamlining the information submission process for regulated facilities.

With less than three months before the program sunsets, Congress should act with all deliberate speed to move CFATS reauthorization through the legislative process. Doing so will enhance the security of our products, our people, and our nation against acts of terrorism.

Sincerely,
Agricultural Retailers Association
American Chemistry Council
American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers
American Gas Association
American Petroleum Institute
Edison Electric Institute
International Warehouse Logistics Association
International Liquid Terminals Association
National Association of Chemical Distributors
Interstate Natural Gas Association of America
Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates
National Association of Manufacturers
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
National Mining Association
The Fertilizer Institute