ISCD Publishes Meeting Notice

Today the DHS Infrastructure Security Compliance Division of NPPD published a notice in the Federal Register (76 FR 62311-62312) officially announcing the upcoming series of public meetings on the proposed Ammonium Nitrated Security Program (ANSP). This is the same series of meetings that has been unofficially reported on the ANSP web site and this is the Notice that I had predicted would be published in writing about that list.

The notice also provides a title (but no name for some reason) for the point of contact telephone number listed on the web page. The POC is the Ammonium Nitrate Security Program Manager at (703) 235-5263.

ANSP Presentation

Today’s Notice notes that ISCD will begin each of these meetings with a presentation outlining the ANSP. They also report that a copy of the presentation will be made available “in mid-October” (next week?) on the ANSP web site. I suspect that this will be just a copy of the slide presentation about the program.

As is usual, I would like to suggest that DHS should instead make a video copy of the actual presentation made at the Jackson, MS meeting and make that available on the web site. This video would provide more information than the slide presentation. Actually, if I was running the program I would produce a scripted and rehearsed video of the presentation and use that at each of the meetings as well, but it’s probably too late for DHS to do that.

Public Input

The Notice informs us that DHS is looking for public comments about the ANSP in general and specifically about four major issues. The Notice lists those issues along with some specific information DHS is looking for concerning each issue. The four major issues are:

• Ammonium nitrate use and characteristics;

• Registration processes;

• Identity verification processes; and

• Recordkeeping requirements.

DHS again emphasizes in this Notice that people that are not able to attend one of these presentations may make written comments on this proposed ANSP program via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket #  DHS-2008-0076). The Notice fails to report that such comments need to be submitted by December 1^st, 2011.