[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 120 (Monday, June 22, 2020)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 37393-37394]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-13147]


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 Proposed Rules
                                                 Federal Register
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 This section of the FEDERAL REGISTER contains notices to the public of 
 the proposed issuance of rules and regulations. The purpose of these 
 notices is to give interested persons an opportunity to participate in 
 the rule making prior to the adoption of the final rules.
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  Federal Register / Vol. 85, No. 120 / Monday, June 22, 2020 / 
Proposed Rules  

[[Page 37393]]



DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

6 CFR Part 27

[Docket No. DHS-2014-0016]


Retrospective Analysis of the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism 
Standards

AGENCY: Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, DHS.

ACTION: Announcement of availability; request for comments.

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SUMMARY: Through this document, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure 
Security Agency (CISA) is making available a retrospective analysis of 
the data, assumptions, and methodology used to support the 2007 interim 
final rule for the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) 
program. The purpose of the retrospective analysis is to provide an 
updated assessment of the costs and burdens of the CFATS program. Based 
on data observed by the program for over ten years, CISA estimates that 
the actual costs of the CFATS program is 83 percent lower than 
estimated in 2007. The retrospective analysis has been added to the 
docket for the CFATS Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) 
published in 2014.

DATES: Comments are due by September 21, 2020.

ADDRESSES: You may send comments, identified by docket number DHS-2014-
0016, by any of the following methods:
     Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. 
Follow the instructions for sending comments.
     Mail: DHS/CISA/ISD/OCS, ATTN: DHS Docket No. DHS-2014-
0016, 245 Murray Lane SW, Mail Stop 0610, Arlington, VA 20528-0610.
    Instructions: All comments received for the public docket will be 
posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov, including any 
personal information provided.
    Do not submit comments that include trade secrets, confidential 
commercial or financial information, Chemical-terrorism Vulnerability 
Information (CVI), Protected Critical Infrastructure Information 
(PCII), or Sensitive Security Information (SSI) to the public 
regulatory docket. Comments containing this type of protected 
information should be appropriately marked as containing such 
information and submitted by mail to the address provided above. CISA 
will not place comments containing protected information in the public 
docket and will handle them in accordance with applicable safeguards 
and restrictions on access. Additionally, CISA will hold them in a 
separate file to which the public does not have access and place a note 
in the public docket that CISA has received such protected materials 
from the commenter. If CISA receives a request to examine or copy this 
information, CISA will treat it as any other request under the Freedom 
of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552, and the Department's FOIA 
regulation found in part 5 of Title 6 of the Code of Federal 
Regulations (CFR).
    Docket: For access to the docket and to read the retrospective 
analysis or the comments received, go to http://www.regulations.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Lona Saccomando, (703) 603-4868, 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Department published an ANPRM on August 
18, 2014 seeking public comment on the CFATS interim final rule (IFR) 
published in 2007 (72 FR 17687) and a final rule for Appendix A to the 
CFATS regulations published in 2007 (72 FR 65395). The 2014 ANPRM was 
an initial step towards maturing the program. See 79 FR 48693 (August 
18, 2014). To better inform the ongoing rulemaking process, CISA has 
performed a retrospective analysis of the costs and burdens of the 2007 
CFATS IFR on regulated facilities.\1\ The retrospective analysis 
updates cost estimates from the 2007 CFATS IFR with new estimates based 
on data observed from the implementation and operation of CFATS over 
the last decade. CISA intends to use the retrospective analysis: (1) To 
improve the accuracy of cost estimates incurred by regulated facilities 
since 2007; (2) as a basis for future regulatory changes to the CFATS 
program; and (3) to perform cumulative impact analysis on the full 
costs of the program as it evolves.
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    \1\ The original regulatory impact assessment for the IFR may be 
viewed at https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=DHS-2006-0073-0116 
and the IFR published on April 9, 2007 may be viewed at https://www.federalregister.gov/d/E7-6363.
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    Based on the retrospective analysis, CISA believes that the 
regulatory impact assessment (RIA) for the 2007 CFATS IFR overestimated 
the costs of the program imposed on chemical facilities and that the 
actual costs are 83 percent lower than previously estimated. Because 
CFATS was a new regulatory program that was developed under a six-month 
Congressional deadline, there was limited time to conduct economic 
studies and collect data to establish the pre-statutory security 
baseline at high-risk chemical facilities.\2\ As CFATS was a new 
program, there was no historical data that could inform the analysis. 
In order to meet the Congressional deadline, the Department relied 
heavily on the elicitation of subject matter expert (SME) judgment to 
estimate the cost of the regulation in the 2007 RIA. Now that CISA has 
fully implemented CFATS, CISA was able to replace the SME judgments 
with historical data provided by industry through the Chemical Security 
Assessment Tool, CFATS compliance data, and lessons learned. As a 
result, the retrospective analysis provides a more accurate estimate of 
the cost that the CFATS program imposed on chemical facilities between 
2007 to 2017. The retrospective analysis resulted in a decrease in the 
estimated 10-year cost, discounted at 7%, of CFATS from $9.84 billion 
to $1.68 billion. The main drivers of this substantial reduction in 
cost were the 2007 CFATS IFR's overestimation of: (1) The number of 
chemical facilities that would be covered by CFATS; and (2) the costs 
of security measures implemented by CFATS covered facilities.
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    \2\ On October 4, 2006, the President signed the Department of 
Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2007, which provided DHS 
with the authority to regulate the security of high-risk chemical 
facilities. See Public Law 109-295, sec. 550. Section 550 required 
the Secretary of Homeland Security to promulgate interim final 
regulations ``establishing risk-based performance standards for 
security of chemical facilities'' by April 4, 2007. See also 72 FR 
17689 (Apr. 9, 2007).
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    CISA encourages public comment on the retrospective analysis. 
Commenters

[[Page 37394]]

can find a copy of the analysis in the docket. Comments that will 
provide the most assistance to CISA will refer to a specific section, 
appendix, figure, and/or table of the analysis, explain the reason for 
any comments, and include other information or authority that supports 
such comments.
    This document is issued under the authority of 6 U.S.C. 621 et seq.

Todd Klessman,
Deputy Director, Office of Chemical Security, Infrastructure Security 
Division, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Department 
of Homeland Security.
[FR Doc. 2020-13147 Filed 6-19-20; 8:45 am]
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