Author Description

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proposed security regulations for chemical facilities, implementing the statutory authority granted in the Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2007 (P.L. 109-295, Section 550). The proposed regulations (71 Federal Register 78,276 - 78,332 (December 28, 2006)) require chemical facilities possessing amounts and types of substances considered by the DHS Secretary to be hazardous to notify DHS and undergo a consequence-based screening process. The Secretary would then determine what chemical facilities are high-risk, and thus need to comply with additional security requirements. The proposed security requirements would be performance-based, rather than prescriptive, and tiered, with facilities in higher tiers having more stringent requirements than those in lower tiers.