Chapter Appendix A - Recommendations
Section Critical Infrastructure and Impact Assessment
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Critical Challenge: Critical Infrastructure and Impact Assessment
Lesson Learned: The Department of Homeland Security, working collaboratively with the private sector, should revise the National Response Plan and finalize the Interim National Infrastructure Protection Plan to be able to rapidly assess the impact of a disaster on critical infrastructure. We must use this knowledge to inform Federal response and prioritization decisions and to support infrastructure restoration in order to save lives and mitigate the impact of the disaster on the Nation.
Recommendations:
78. DHS should revise the National Response Plan to:
a. Provide for a stronger Infrastructure Support Branch in the National Operations Center. The Infrastructure Support Branch will coordinate among the appropriate ESF’s to ensure that the guidance developed by the Critical Infrastructure Policy Coordinating Committee is followed for infrastructure protection and restoration after an event. In addition, this branch will coordinate with critical infrastructure sectors, provide senior leaders with a summary of reports and modeling, and develop recommended preemptive and responsive actions to remediate or mitigate the impact of the loss of critical infrastructure. These optional actions will be based on reports from the Impact Assessment Working Group, the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC), Sector Coordinating Councils, and consultation with DHS/IP.
b. Strengthen the role and responsibility of the Infrastructure Liaison. Currently, the Infrastructure Liaison is designated by DHS/IP, to serve as the principal advisor to the JFO Coordination Group regarding all national and regional level critical infrastructure and key resource incident-related issues. This role should be more clearly defined, and have greater responsibility which should include a designated group of trained critical infrastructure staff from Federal departments and agencies including DHS staff versed in infrastructure protection that are available for immediate deployment to the JFO to fill the role of the expanded Infrastructure Liaison group. The liaison should: (1) Gather and fuse relevant data about private infrastructure operational status; (2) Coordinate overall Federal response efforts for infrastructure restoration and recovery; and (3) Strengthen direct communications with private infrastructure owners and operators. This expanded Infrastructure Liaison will incorporate the Private Sector Liaisons to ensure unity of effort.
Policy and Planning
79. DHS should revise the National Preparedness Goal to require the collaborative development of regional disaster plans (such as those required by the DHS Urban Area Security Initiative) with the private sector. This activity will not only prepare the Federal government to respond, but will set private sector expectations of specific actions the government will take in response to a disaster.
80. Set basic criteria for private sector preparedness against which these regional plans can be measured. There is a lack of a clear and agreed upon prioritized implementation plan to address the coordinated restoration and protection of critical infrastructure during times of limited resources and competing demands. Basic levels of private sector preparation similar to those outlined in the National Preparedness Goal should be set and used to measure progress in restoration planning.
81. DHS should review, revise, and finalize the Interim NIPP within 90 days to:
a. Standardize Federal government policy to link the prioritization of both protection and restoration. Linking prioritization for protection to prioritization for restoration will motivate private sector participation in the effort to prioritize critical infrastructure and to develop disaster response plans.
b. Require the use of a systems and resiliency approach to determine the global consequence of the loss of each asset. Using a systems approach will clearly identify the assets in each region whose loss has the greatest potential to cause a national impact.
c. Address cross sector dependencies in the systems approach. As outlined in the National Strategy for the Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructures and Key Assets, critical infrastructure restoration and protection efforts should take into account the five cross-sector security priorities.
d. Add an annex to the interim NIPP to describe how those policy considerations that are learned in the prioritization for protection will be used to develop restoration priorities. The Federal government can develop priorities for restoring critical infrastructure using much of the same information used to prioritize protecting it. Having restoration priorities will allow the Federal government to make crisis decisions informed by clearly established restoration priorities.
Information
82. DHS should expand the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center’s (NISAC) Modeling and Analysis capability to allow more robust and accurate systems modeling. Sector specific agencies should provide the NISAC with any modeling available to their department for their assigned sector, and all NISAC analyses should in turn be shared with sector specific agencies. In addition, as directed in HSPD-7 the Department of Homeland Security will work with other appropriate Federal departments and agencies to geospatially map, image and analyze critical infrastructure.
83. The National Economic Council should form an Impact Assessment Working Group to provide an overall economic impact assessment of major disasters, including the Departments of Homeland Security, Treasury, Commerce, Energy (Energy Information Administration) and Labor as well as the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Since Hurricane Katrina, NISAC has significantly improved their capability to provide reports detailing the cascading impact of major disasters on the Nation’s infrastructure but it does not include a robust assessment of the economic impacts. The various economic modeling expertise of the members of the Impact Assessment Working Group should be incorporated into the NISAC models.
84. The Department of Commerce should lead, in cooperation with the Department of Treasury, Homeland Security, and other sector specific agencies as appropriate, the development of a proposal to the Department of Homeland Security for incentives and other mechanisms to motivate private sector cooperation and participation in efforts to prioritize infrastructure protection. This group should review the Defense Production Act, the Protected Critical Infrastructure Information Act, as well as financial incentives. These incentives should then be incorporated into the articulation of a business case for private sector participation in infrastructure protection. This business case should discuss protection and prioritized restoration as well as encourage private sector infrastructure resiliency and redundancy. In addition, States are encouraged to share best practices regarding financial incentives to motivate private sector cooperation and participation in infrastructure protection and restoration efforts.
85. DHS should share the plans and policy for Federal response and delineated roles and responsibilities with the private sector. The National Response Plan urges businesses to develop disaster contingency plans. Businesses have been unable to develop completely effective contingency plans without understanding the actions Federal, State, and local governments will take in response to a disaster. Furthermore, the Federal government has been unable to develop agreed upon response plans for prioritized restoration. The first step to establishing a collaborative planning and exercise program with the private sector is to, with appropriate protections, share relevant sections of the NRP with key private sector partners.
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