DHS Publishes New ICR for IP-SSARSAT

Today DHS published a 60-day Information Collection Request (ICR) notice in the Federal register for a new ICR to support the NPPD’s IP Sector Specific Agency Risk Self Assessment Tool (IP-SSARSAT). This is the first step in the Department’s efforts to get approval from the Office of Management and Budget for the voluntary collection of information from private sector entities to support the operation of this program.

This program is administered by the Office of Infrastructure Protection’s Sector Specific Agency Executive Management Office (SSA EMO). It is an automated information collection and assessment tool (apparently existing) that allows owner/operators of critical infrastructure and key resource (CIKR) facilities to ‘assess the risk of the evaluated entity’. It allows for the:

• Calculation of a vulnerability score by threat;

• Evaluation of protective/mitigation measures relative to vulnerability;

• Calculation of a risk score; and

• Reporting the threats presenting highest risks.

The only information that is required to be shared with DHS in this evaluation process is “venue identification information (e.g., point-of-contact information, address, latitude/longitude, venue type, or capacity)” (76 FR 81956). The results of the risk assessment may be shared with the SSA EMO at the discretion of the owner/operator.

I’m pretty sure that this is an existing program, but I cannot find any mention of it, or link to it on the Department’s web site. The ICR notice provides point of contact information (Jay Robinson, jay.robinson@hq.dhs.gov) but that POC is typically about the ICR submission not the associated program.

The ICR claims that the start-up costs for this program are $0 with annual operating costs of $14,400. This would tend to support my supposition that this is an existing program. The ICR estimates that there would be 4,000 respondents annually and that each assessment would take about 8 hours to complete.

Public comments on this ICR can be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # DHS-2011-0069). Comments should be submitted by February 27^th, 2012.