Saturday, December 15, 2012

DHS Publishes Three ICR Renewal Notices for CFATS


DHS published three information collection request (ICR) 60-day renewal notices in Monday’s Federal Register (available on-line today) supporting documentation requirements for the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program; Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (77 FR  74677-74678), CFATS Chemical-Terrorism Vulnerability Information (77 FR 74685-74686), and Chemical Security Assessment Tool (77 FR 74678-74685). These would renew the current information collection authorities that expire on March 31, 2013.

Burden Information


Each of the ICR notices provides data on the burden the information collection request would place on the participants in the program. The table below summarizes the data presented in the three notices. It looks like there were errors made in the ICR preparation in two instances; I have included the apparently correct data in parentheses and the ‘correct’ data is used in my ICR total calculations (the notices do not provide summation data). The ‘previous ICR’ data comes from the OMB web site (links provided) for the latest approved version of the ICR, all dated March 19th, 2010.

OMB#
Instrument
Respondents
Time
Cost Burden
Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS)
 
Request for Redetermination
625
156.25
$13,437
 
Request for Extension
185
46.25
$3,977
 
Notification of New Top Screen
1,250
468.75
$40,312
 
Request for Technical Consult
185
69.37 (46.25)
$5,966 ($3,977)
 
Total for ICR
2,245
3,269.5
$61,703
 
Previous ICR - 2010
10,200
2,552
$897,700
CFATS Chemical-Terrorism Vulnerability Information (CVI)
 
CVI Authorization
30,000
30,000
$2,580,000
 
Determination of CVI
300
75
$6,450
 
Determination of Need to Know
14,200
3,550
$305,300
 
Disclosure of CVI
300
75
$6,450
 
Notification of Emergency
300
75
$6,450
 
Tracking Log
30,000
30,000 (2,499)
$2,580,000 ($214,914)
 
Total for ICR
75,100
36,274
$2,929,564
 
Previous ICR - 2010
321,323
35,387
$731,800
Chemical Security Assessment Tool (CSAT)
 
CSAT Top Screen
2,500
25,600
$2,203,700
 
SVA
740
43,400
$3,730,900
 
SSP
486
145,900
$9,675,200
 
CFATS Helpdesk
15,000
2,250
$219,300
 
CSAT User Registration
625
1,250
$107,500
 
Request for Information
329
129 (329)
$10,500 ($28,294)
 
Total for ICR
19,680
218,729
$15,964,694
 
Previous ICR - 2010
45,937
764,995
$13,000,000

 

The only ICR notice that provides any sort of details about the methodology that was used in preparing the data was for the CSAT ICR. There is a detailed discussion about how DHS NPPD compared actual historical data to the original ICR (from 2007 for this particular ICR notice, not the latest ICR). I’m not sure that I specifically agree with the reasoning presented in every case, but the assumptions are all reasonably made.

It is interesting to note that each of the ICRs show a significant drop in the total number of estimated responses for the program. The total time required burden shows a relatively minor increase for two of the programs (CFATS and CVI) but a significant reduction in the number of hours for the CSAT program. Since the OMB files don’t show a breakout for the individual collection instruments it is difficult to make any judgments on the significance of these differences.

There is one internal discrepancy shown in my table. All of the currently approved ICRs show zero annual cost burden for these ICRs. This is very typical for the OMB site and I have objected to this in many of my blog posts about ICR approvals. These ICR renewal requests provide specific annual burden costs to industry (based upon $86.00 per hour salary for facility security officers according to the CSAT ICR notice) and I have summed those for the ‘Total for ICR’ line. The data for the ‘Previous ICR’ line comes from the OMB site as the “Annual Cost to Federal Government” on each ICR notice. This is certainly an apples and oranges comparison and must be viewed as such.

New Collection


The CSAT notice reports that the last information collection ‘instrument’ in the notice, “Request

for Information To Improve Program” (77 FR 74684), is a new instrument in the collection. It appears to be (from a very brief comment in the notice) a survey type thing where ISCD will email CSAT registrants some sort of questionnaire about CSAT documents (manuals and forms apparently). This will be done to improve the program. I’m not sure that OMB will approve a vague collection request like this, but it does sound like a reasonable (and appropriate) program. I certainly would like to see more information about this program published by ISCD.

Public Comments


As is always required by 5 CFR 1320.8 DHS NPPD is soliciting public comments on each of these ICRs. Comments on all three may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov) at the docket numbers listed below:

• CFATS Program ICR – Docket # DHS-2012-0059

• CFATS CVI Program ICR – Docket # DHS-2012-0057

• CFATS CSAT Program ICR – Docket # DHS-2012-0058

Comments on each need to be submitted by February 15th, 2013

En Passant

 

None of these ICRs deal with the very long overdue CFATS Personnel Surety Program; just saying.

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