Industry’s willingness to use homeland security as an excuse to expand secrecy and limit public access to information is apparent in the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) comments on the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) proposed Critical Infrastructure Information (CII) rule. While DHS has yet to decide on when to allow access to the docket of public comments on the proposed CII rule, OMB Watch was able to obtain a copy of ACC’s comments. The comments from this industry association demonstrate the importance of allowing the public to understand the input it received from special interests. ACC first professes their support for the CII Act, being a proclaimed part of the nation’s critical infrastructure. The Council asserts that adequate information sharing does not occur because of concerns about information release under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), state open record laws, antitrust, tort or compliance liability, and Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) applications. ACC emphasizes its support for the extension of CII submission to other agencies, the presumption of protection of information, the reliance on submitter discretion, destruction of non-CII information, and DHS’s intent to protect CII to the fullest extent of the law. All of these items are new developments in the proposed rule which OMB Watch and other access advocates expressed strong objections to in comments submitted to DHS. ( Read OMB Watch’s comments on CII.) The issues for which ACC expressed concern reveal industry’s preference that government limit their use of the information submitted. First, they object to the CII Program Manager’s ability to determine the “good faith” of submissions without notifying submitters of the outcome. The Council suggests that the final rule should create an automatic preemption of state and local open record laws. ACC is concerned that the requirement for disclosure agreements between government and industry is not enough to keep the information secret. Lastly, the Council believes that, should CII status be lifted from information, the submitter should be contacted in order to determine if he or she wishes the information destroyed. These suggestions would make information sharing within the government harder, and would undermine the usefulness of CII information in addressing critical infrastructure vulnerabilities. ACC also offers a number of suggestions for implementation of CII in its comments. ACC believes that making the CII provision effective immediately is the most urgent action. . The Council worries that information currently held by the government is not protected. The comments also address other technical concerns such as where exactly the CII program will be located, how DHS will interact with the Chemical Sector Information Sharing and Analysis Center, and if the Defense Production Act will protect industry from antitrust lawsuits relating to CII. In addition to its suggestions on the CII rule, ACC uses it comments as an opportunity to advance some unusual and alarming recommendations completely outside of the CII process. These comments relate to Subtitle I of the Homeland Security Act, which addresses the safeguarding of “sensitive but unclassified” information. ACC encourages the administration to implement this statute immediately. The Council also advocates for the creation of a “Facility Security Officer” (FSO) program, which would grant the chief security officers of CII companies secret security clearance under a special status within Subtitle I. This suggestion, ludicrous at best, would unfairly grant corporations unrestricted access to all CII information, while maintaining severe restrictions on access by other federal agencies, state and local authorities and the general public. OMB Watch continues to urge DHS to release all public comments before the final CII rule is published.