House appropriators yesterday pointedly examined a troubled Department of Homeland Security program designed to protect chemical facilities from attacks and thefts, a sign that they will be more intimately involved in setting funding levels for the program in the next Congress.

At issue is DHS's Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards program, or CFATS, which was created half a decade ago and has received nearly half a billion dollars in appropriations.

The program, however, has been beset with problems, most recently a December 2011 internal memo that revealed major managerial problems and a lack of progress (Greenwire, Dec. 23, 2011).

It's been "five years and hundreds of millions of dollars since the program was created," House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) said yesterday at the committee hearing. "Certainly I think this subcommittee will hold you to that and to monitor closely as we move forward in your progress."

The hearing underscores a renewed focus on CFATS since the leaked internal memo. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has also held hearings on the program recently, and appropriators last year proposed cutting the CFATS budget nearly in half. However, the continuing resolution spending measure making its way through Congress maintains CFATS funding levels.

DHS officials adamantly defended the program and progress it has made since the memo. They are working through a 95-item task list and have accelerated its pace. They have already signed off on plans for 84 so-called Tier 1 and Tier 2 facilities -- meaning highest priority. And the agency recently trained a new batch of inspectors.

"We are working very closely with those facilities that remain to be authorized," said David Wulf, deputy director of the Infrastructure Security Compliance Division at DHS. "Our goal is to work to get those facilities to approval."

He added that the program is working at a "significantly heightened pace" on authorizations and inspections and, when pressed by committee members, said the program plans to finish the process for Tier 1 and 2 facilities "before this time next year ... but probably significantly before."

Still, the program has fully approved security plans for just two facilities, and some appropriators expressed dismay at that statistic.

The program was defended in part by North Carolina Rep. David Price, the top Democrat on the subcommittee. He said now is not the time to cut the program's budget. Suzanne Spaulding, deputy undersecretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate at DHS, said the proposed cut would be "absolutely devastating."

"Given the substantial progress we've made," she said, "I hope you'll understand that we have turned a corner."