Department of Homeland Security Chemicals of Interest

On October 4, 2006, President George W Bush signed the Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2007. This Act gave the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) authority to regulate the security of facilities that contain high risk chemicals. On April 9, 2007, the Department of Homeland Security issued the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS). Under these standards the University must maintain an inventory of chemicals that are subject to this regulation. The chemicals subject to this regulation are more commonly known as chemicals of interest or COIs. In order to ensure the University of Northern Iowa remains compliant with this regulation, departments who come into possession of any of the chemicals listed on the following pages must immediately inform the Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) Office of the name of the chemical or chemicals that were acquired, their respective amounts and storage location. Departments must also submit annual inventories of their chemicals to the EH&S office so an annual review of the amounts of COIs the University has on campus can be completed. If at any time it is found the amount of one or more of the COIs on campus exceeds the regulatory level (designated as threshold quantity by the DHS), the University must submit a report to the Department of Homeland Security (referred to as a “Top-Screen” by the DHS) within 60 days. Failure to report this information could result in fines to the University of $25,000 per day. The EH&S Office is responsible for gathering of campus chemical information and for submitting the Top Screen Report to the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of the University.