Homeland Security and the Bulk Liquid Supply Chain: Strengthening the Role of the Private Sector

A necessary condition to assure cargo security is the establishment of partnerships between the national government, state and local government and the private sector. In this paper we focus on one subset of cargo security, the bulk liquid/hazardous materials supply chain, and examine the private sector’s role with respect to guidance to workers and management. Bulk liquid cargo was selected because of its volume, pervasiveness, and the innate risk associated with its transport as evidenced by the large number of safety incidents that have impacts on mortality and injury. The private sector role was examined because the sector owns most of the mobile equipment and employs a large number of workers who would have direct opportunity to help prevent incidents and/or notice and notify suspicious activities. Our initial surrogate for investigating the participation of the private sector role is through their trade associations who also act as intermediaries with national and state governments. We asked: What guidance do the trade associations offer their members? Is the guidance sufficiently comprehensive? And is it being effectively implemented? These questions were addressed in the first instance by a survey of trade association websites and press information, to be followed by in-depth interviews of the trade associations. Our results showed clearly, that the participants in the survey fell into two categories: the trade associations that undertook guidance early-on, strive for continuous improvement. Those who did not become involved in preparing and promulgating security guidance still remain uninvolved or are moving very slowly. An important next step to assess the effectiveness of guidance from the trade associations as well as the federal government is to conduct in depth interviews of members of the industry. Of particular interest will be to find out how they have incorporated and used the guidance and have improved their security training and operations for bulk liquid cargo transport.