New US site security rules may apply overseas

02 October 2007 21:53  [Source: ICIS news]

BALTIMORE, Maryland (ICIS news)--New US chemical plant security regulations may impose some reporting and compliance obligations on non-US companies at their foreign locations, a ranking federal security official said on Tuesday.

 

Dennis Deziel, deputy director for chemical security compliance at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said the department may have to require background checks and other compliance measures of foreign personnel if they control cyber traffic, IT operations or product disposition at a “high risk” US chemical facility.

 

The department is just beginning to roll-out enforcement of mandatory site security rules designed to prevent terrorists from using a chemical facility as an improvised weapon of mass destruction.

 

In addition to setting federal standards for such plant security measures as perimeter control and facility access, the new regulations also govern cyber security and seek to prevent the theft or diversion of chemicals that could be used to make improvised weapons of mass destruction.

 

The rules will apply initially only to so-called “high risk” chemical facilities where the nature and quantity of on-site hazardous materials could cause large-scale fatalities, widespread environmental damage or severe economic dislocation if they were detonated or otherwise released into a surrounding community.

 

“If a regulated high-risk facility is located in Texas but that site’s cyber traffic is controlled by the company’s corporate headquarters in Vermont, then we would likely want to ensure that there are adequate cyber security controls at that headquarters,” Deziel said. 

 

Those security controls could, for example, include background checks for headquarters employees who have access to electronic data concerning operations or product distribution at the Texas facility, he said.

 

Speaking to chemical industry security executives at a conference, Deziel was asked if his department’s potential regulatory interest in headquarters operations would apply if the management site was in a foreign country. 

 

“If the headquarters office was outside the US, then technically it would be out of our jurisdiction,” he said.  However, he conceded, the department may have effective jurisdiction because it has statutory authority to shut down any US high-risk chemical facility that fails to meet the department’s security standards.

 

Consequently, even if not legally obliged to do so, a foreign corporate headquarters might have to submit to US regulatory jurisdiction or risk seeing its US plant shut down for non-compliance with federal security regulations.

 

“We haven’t gotten there yet,” Deziel said of the possible extraterritorial reach of the department’s new site security rules.  “But it is something we are going to have to look at and come to a decision.”

 

“This is a new area of regulation, and there are aspects of it that are subject to interpretation, so we’re going to have to work those out,” he said.

 

Deziel spoke on the second day of a three-day conference on chemical security, sponsored by the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association (SOCMA).

By: Joe Kamalick
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