The Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee approved legislation yesterday that would provide a short-term extension to a program intended to guard chemical facilities against terrorism and theft.

With little objection, the subpanel approved the Department of Homeland Security's $41 billion spending package for fiscal 2012. The measure should fund a one-year extension of DHS's Chemical Facilities Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program.

The full Senate Appropriations Committee will take up the bill today.

CFATS was launched in 2006 and requires certain chemical facilities to develop security plans. The program has relied on one-year funding allotments since its inception. Without an extension, it would run out of cash next month.

How much money CFATS will receive in the Senate appropriations package is unclear because the full bill has not been released.

The subcommittee discussion focused broadly on DHS cuts. The spending bill is $2.6 billion smaller than President Obama's request and $666 million below the department's fiscal 2011 budget. However, the measure includes a $4.2 billion increase above the president's request for the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Disaster Relief Fund and it is $408 million larger than the House-passed appropriations package.

With the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks this week and recent devastation from Hurricanes Irene and Lee, subcommittee Chairwoman Mary Landrieu (D-La.) emphasized the importance of DHS programs.

"Our nation continues to face evolving threats," she said.

Landrieu also blasted House Republicans for their "shortsighted approach" to the DHS budget, specifically noting cuts to the budgets of first responders and the Coast Guard.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who has introduced legislation to make CFATS permanent and more far-reaching, was particularly critical of cuts to rail and port security programs.

Notably, the Senate appropriations bill makes changes to three programs designed to guard against chemical weapons.

The measure includes $115 million for DHS's BioWatch program, a $14 million increase from fiscal 2011. That also matches Obama request for the program. Launched after the September 2001 anthrax attacks, in which letters containing anthrax spores killed five people and infected 17 others, BioWatch uses a complicated system of nationwide sensors to test air for the release of such substances.

The appropriations bill also includes $5.4 million for DHS's chemical defense program, an increase of $3 million.

But the subcommittee made significant cuts to the National Biosurveillance Integration Center (NBIC), a program aimed at synthesizing disparate information over several agencies to create an early detection system for chemical and biological attacks.

NBIC, which was launched in 2007 following a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, has been criticized as ineffective by lawmakers and the Government Accountability Office (E&E Daily, March 18).

DHS and lawmakers have sought to remove the CFATS program from the appropriations process with a more lengthy extension. In the House, H.R. 901 and H.R. 908 would both reauthorize CFATS for seven years. Both bills cleared their committees, the Homeland Security and Energy and Commerce panels, respectively.

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee ranking member Susan Collins (R-Maine) has introduced similar legislation (S. 473), which would extend CFATS for three years. That measure has also been passed out of committee.