Impacts of New DHS Chemical Facility Security Rules

The chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate committees on Homeland Security (Joe Lieberman, Bennie Thompson, et al) recently received some info on the impacts of the new DHS rules for chemical plant security. Here are a few brief notes:

How many facilities are affected, and what's the cost?

DHS estimates the costs to be $3.6 billion over the period 2006-2009 and $8.5 billion over the period 2006-2015. DHS estimates that between 1,500 and 6,500 chemical facilities will be impacted by this interim final rule and uses the estimate of 5,000 impacted facilities to generate the cost estimates. According to DHS, this interim final rule gives chemical facilities considerable flexibility...

What's the effect on small facilities?

DHS estimated that as many as 41 percent of the chemical facilities impacted by this rule could be small entities. DHS concluded that this interim final rule may have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.

What's the added burden on state and local governments?

According to DHS, it does not have enough information regarding the specific facilities that will be required to comply with the interim final rule to conclude whether this interim final rule will impose an enforceable duty upon state, local, and tribal governments of $100 million or more. DHS has concluded that this interim final rule may impose costs on some municipalities, but DHS does not know the extent of the financial impact.

It will be interesting to watch the effects of these new rules as they go into effect.

Cross-posted at the Institute for Preventive Strategies.