Reducing the Threat of Improvised Explosive Device Attacks by Restricting Access to Explosive Precursor Chemicals (2018) / Chapter Skim
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5 Assessing Possible Control Strategies
5 Assessing Possible Control Strategies
Pages 89-112
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From page 89... ...
attacks, without undermining legitimate commerce and use. This chapter focuses on tradeoffs among possible control strategies, derived largely from domestic and international experience, for mitigating vulnerabilities and gathering information.
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From page 90... ...
One might describe the exercise as a notional analysis of benefits and costs and a starting point for a more detailed and rigorous analysis of policy options, but not as a BCA per se. Noteworthy among the deviations from a conventional BCA are the following: the committee did not attempt to identify all the benefits or costs associated with each control strategy; the committee lacked the data and resources to monetize or otherwise quantify the benefits and costs that it did identify; and the committee framed most of the benefits as pathways to attaining policy objectives (e.g., the capability to restrict access to precursor chemicals, the capability to track and correlate suspicious behavior)
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From page 91... ...
A retail-level ban, licensing, or registry could apply to all or a just subset of retail-level sales, with the subset depending, for example, on the type of transaction or product market. Given concerns about the potential for commercial disruption, the committee chose to focus on applications of those controls to noncommercial sales and exempt commercial transactions, but policy makers could include commercial sales within any of the frameworks.
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From page 92... ...
Moreover, any strategy, even BAU+, could include a provision that grants retailers the right to refuse suspicious sales, but this might require additional legal or regulatory action. Other Retail-Level Measures and Activities Different combinations of other measures, involving either legal mandates or voluntary participation, could accompany a ban, licensing, a registry, or BAU+: • training of retailers to, for example, request and verify evidence of com mercial status, licenses, or government-issued IDs; identify suspicious behavior, fraud, theft, or loss; or fulfill responsibilities for reporting and documentation; • reporting of suspicious behavior and fraud, theft, or loss to federal authori ties and local law enforcement, respectively; and • documentation of transactions, which could involve electronic record keeping and data analytics.
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From page 93... ...
The extra layer of interaction and engagement might provide retailers with an opportunity to assess whether the purchase is suspicious and should be reported or denied, if they have the right to refuse a sale. Building a Control Strategy from Controls, Measures, and Activities The committee assembled three control strategies as packages of policy mechanisms, with each strategy featuring either a ban on noncommercial sales, l icensing for noncommercial sales, or a registry for noncommercial sales, ogether t with an unspecified limit on the quantity of noncommercial sales and a right to refuse sales to anyone, under suspicious conditions.
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From page 94... ...
would be expected to meet a standard of performance rather than a standard of design or behavior. Performance standards express requirements in terms of outcomes, not the means to achieving outcomes, and give regulated parties the flexibility to achieve regulatory objectives as cost-effectively as possible.231 For example, a retailer might be expected to train its employees to know when a product is subject to a control; when to ask for and how to check a purchaser's credentials; and how to identify and report suspicious behavior, fraud, theft, and loss; but the retailer would be given the flexibility to conduct the training by whatever means it deemed best.
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From page 95... ...
Thus, an uncertainty is akin to an unknown risk.232-234 The committee categorized anticipated effects, whether direct, ancillary, or unintended, as either benefits or costs, but treated particular uncertainties, including displacement, separately. As noted previously, the committee also diverges from OMB guidance by framing most of the benefits of the control strategies as pathways to attaining policy objectives -- or capabilities -- and not as actual policy outcomes.
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From page 96... ...
ASSESSING TRADEOFFS AMONG CONTROL STRATEGIES In this section, the committee presents the results of the analytical exercise, which illustrates one possible approach to examining, qualitatively, the benefits, costs, and uncertainties of strategies and the tradeoffs among them. The committee does not intend to suggest that this is the only possible approach to assessing tradeoffs or that these are the only possible strategies.
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From page 97... ...
Assessment of Benefits The committee considered anticipated benefits relating to the capability to impede, deter, or reduce acquisitions of precursor chemicals for illegitimate purposes; the capability to increase awareness of chemicals, concerns, and requirements; the capability to track and correlate suspicious behavior; the capability to provide feedback on implementation; early warnings from vetting; better visibility of transactions and additional information for developing and improving policy; and noneconomic social benefits, some of which could be the same across strategies. These benefits, which include both direct and ancillary benefits, framed largely as pathways to attaining policy objectives or other outcomes, are described in Box 5-1.
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From page 98... ...
• Noneconomic social benefits, for example, from enhanced perceptions of safety. Moreover, in the case of a strategy with licensing, vetting for a license to purchase precursor chemicals could also draw early attention to malicious actors.
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From page 99... ...
TABLE 5-1 Strategies Ranked by Benefit Type, Excluding Uncertainties Capability to Increase Capability to Awareness of Capability Impede, Deter, Chemicals, Capability to Provide Better Visibility or Reduce Concerns, and to Track and Feedback on Early Warning of Transactions Noneconomic Acquisitions Requirements Correlate Implementation from Vetting for Policy Social Benefits Most Beneficial C C, C+L, C+R C+L C, C+L, C+R C+L C+L C Intermediate C+L C+R C+R C+L Least Beneficial C+R C C C+R NOTE: C, C+L, and C+R correspond to three different strategies, featuring a ban, licensing, and a registry, respectively, on noncommercial purchases. For a dditional details, see text and Table H-1 (Appendix H)
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From page 100... ...
is ambiguous; in some instances, the ban strategy ranks above the licensing or registry strategies and, in others, it ranks below them. The differences hinge largely on the relative stringency of the strategies, as noted above, on non economic social benefits, and on flows of information.
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From page 101... ...
Looking only at the costs shown in Table 5-2, none of the strategies clearly dominates any other. The committee considered anticipated costs relating to public-sector expenditures on administration and implementation; public-sector expenditures on law enforcement; private-sector expenditures on administration and implementation; forgone sales and surplus; forgone use and surplus; additional transaction time; and noneconomic social costs.
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From page 102... ...
and Surplus Surplus Transaction Time Social Costs Most Costly C+L C+R C+L C C C+R C Intermediate C+R C+L C+R C+L C+L C+L C+L Least Costly C C C C+R C+R C C+R NOTE: C, C+L, and C+R correspond to three different strategies, featuring a ban, licensing, and a registry, respectively, on noncommercial purchases. For a dditional details, see text and Table H-1 (Appendix H)
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From page 103... ...
• Additional transaction time at the point of purchase, stemming partly from requirements to present evidence of commercial status, a license, or a government-issued ID. • Noneconomic social costs, for example, from perceived losses of per sonal or societal freedom.
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From page 104... ...
Consideration of Uncertainties The committee explored separately the potential for noncompliance among retailers, institutional amnesia and employee turnover, outright circumvention, unintended knowledge transfer, displacement, over-implementation, commercial disruption, and discriminatory profiling as relative unknowns that could affect the benefits and costs of controls. Had these consequences been less uncertain, they would have been incorporated into the foregoing benefit and cost assessments as either offsets to benefits or additional costs.
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From page 105... ...
• Unintentional knowledge transfer would occur if adopting a control alerts terrorists to the potential utility of a chemical as a precursor or confirms suspicions of utility. • Displacement refers to the possibility that terrorists will adopt new modes of attack if obtaining precursor chemicals becomes too costly or difficult.
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From page 106... ...
Third, concerns about over-implementation might differ for commercial and noncommercial purchasers. For a commercial purchaser, a ban on noncommercial sales might be the most worrisome control and the registry the least, not because bans are more likely to result in more over-implementation than registries, but because the consequences could be more serious.
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From page 107... ...
Summary of Assessments and Tradeoffs At the start of this chapter, the committee indicated that it would consider tradeoffs among control strategies in relation to three policy objectives, namely restricting malicious actors' access to precursor chemicals, gathering information that could be used to prevent future attacks or investigate prior attacks, and minimizing burdens on industry, commerce, and legitimate users. The foregoing assessments illustrate just one possible approach to comparing strategies; nevertheless, they shed light on potential economic and noneconomic tradeoffs and the conditions that might affect them.
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From page 108... ...
In addiion, the otential for commercial disruption -- which bears directly on t p sales and use -- might increase with stringency, which would reinforce the negative results, whereas the potential for over-implementation could push in either d irection, depending on commercial status. Licensing occupies the middle ground on enforcement expenditures, forgone sales, forgone use, noneconomic social costs, and transaction time, but ranks poorly on implementation and administration expenditures.
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From page 109... ...
Among the three control strategies, the assessment suggests a tradeoff between cost types: The strategies that rank well on the direct costs (expenditures on implementation, administration, and enforcement) rank less well on the u nintended consequences (forgone sales, forgone use, noneconomic social costs, and transaction time)
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From page 110... ...
have had difficulty reaching all retail outlets because precursor chemicals are constituents of wide-ranging, broadly distributed products that are sold at brick-and-mortar outlets and online. Although European officials have been working with trade associations and engaging with internet retailers to address potential vulnerabilities, it might not be possible to reach everyone or address all the gaps fully.
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From page 111... ...
The committee offers three final comments on policy design and analysis: more specifically, on providing flexibility to leverage experience, on harvesting lessons-learned to leverage experience, and on the need for future analytical efforts. First, experience that is fed back into policy design and implementation can be used to improve both of these dimensions of policy, but only if policy makers can revisit or even re-craft some aspects of whatever control strategies they choose initially.
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From page 112... ...
could, eventually, help to support a more complete assessment of possible controls. Third, this report constitutes a starting point, not an ending point, for analyzing possible control strategies.
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