Agricultural Groups Ask DHS To Revise Chemical List For Antiterrorism Rule

The National Grain and Feed Association (NGFA) and Grain Elevator and Processing Society (GEAPS) have joined in urging the Department of Homeland Security to make substantial revisions to a list of agricultural chemicals it proposes to use to determine whether facilities potentially are regulated under its chemical facility antiterrorism rule.

“The NGFA and GEAPS take the importance of agricultural facility security and food/feed defense very seriously, and have cooperated extensively with DHS in assisting the agency in accomplishing its mission -- to protect the homeland,” the statement said.

But the two organizations said DHS had erred in listing chemicals, as well as setting threshold quantity trigger levels for those chemicals, that would require “virtually all” U.S. grain, feed, processing and export facilities, as well as most farmers, to evaluate whether they constitute a “high-risk” chemical facility under the agency’s regulations.

“This clearly is beyond the scope of what Congress intended when…authorizing DHS to require high-risk chemical manufacturing facilities to conduct vulnerability assessments and implement security plans,” the statement said.

DHS proposed that any facility that “possesses or comes into possession” of any chemical listed among the hundreds specified as “DHS chemicals of interest,” at quantities exceeding specified threshold trigger levels, be required to register with the agency and complete what it calls a “Top Screen” web-based tool that would evaluate whether such facilities represent a “high-risk” chemical facility.

Facilities that fall under that category would be subjected to additional DHS regulation and would be required to conduct vulnerability assessments and implement additional facility security measures.

In a joint statement, the NGFA and GEAPS cited existing regulatory requirements and industry driven initiatives that already address facility security and the safety of chemicals used at grain handling, feed manufacturing, grain processing and export facilities.

The groups noted requiring these and other facilities to register with DHS and conduct the “Top Screen” process to determine whether they are “high-risk” chemical facilities would not be a judicious use of either the industry or agency’s resources.

Further, the NGFA and GEAPS said DHS’s chemical security regulations are “misguided,” because they would address myriad substances present at any -- or at very low -- quantities.

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