DHS Announces ISAO Workshop

Today the DHS Office of Cybersecurity and Communications (OCC) published a meeting notice in the Federal Register (80 FR 38453-38454) for a public workshop concerning Information Sharing and Analysis Organizations (ISAO). The public meeting will be held in San Jose, CA on July 30th [date corrected, 07-03-15 10:20 CDT].

No agenda is currently available for this meeting. Advance registration is required, but the RSVP link mentioned in the notice does not yet exist. Public comments about this program may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # DHS-2015-0017).

Commentary

This will be the third ISAO workshop being held by DHS since the publication of  EO 13691; Promoting Private Sector Cybersecurity Information Sharing. I mentioned the second in an earlier post and noted that like this meeting announcement there had been no agenda provided in the meeting notice. Even though that meeting was held on June 9^th, there is still no meeting agenda provided for that meeting on the ‘ISAO Engagements’ page. There is more information available on the first meeting that was held in March.

All in all the OCC seems to be doing a really bad job of information sharing about this new program. It makes me wonder about how much commitment and support this program is receiving in DHS.

BTW: DHS does have an $11 Million dollar grant available for developing standards for ISAO’s. The application period closes on July 17^th, 2015. There is no direct link to the grant opportunity notice (DHS-15-NPPD-128-001), but here are the directions on how to get to the site:

A Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the ISAO Standards Organization Cooperative Agreement has been created and posted online to Grants.gov. To locate the NOFO and application package, please visit http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/search-grants.html and search “97.128” in the CFDA Number search bar on the top left of the page. The Funding Opportunity Number is DHS-15-NPPD-128-001.

CSB Announces Meeting on NPRM

The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) published a meeting notice in Monday’s Federal Register (on-line today; 80 FR 32339) for a public meeting to be held on June 18^th, 2015 in Washington, DC. The Board will discuss the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) published last month concerning proposed changes to Board governance.

This meeting is unusual because it is taking place after the comment period for the NPRM closes on June 12^th. If this is going to be a discussion by the Board about the public comments it will be one of the first times (actually the only one that I know of) that a Federal agency has taken this portion of the rulemaking public. I’m not entirely sure that this is a good thing because, like making sausage, much of the rulemaking process probably should take place behind closed doors because it can get ugly.

On the other hand, we have not been able to look at the public comments received to-date on the NPRM because the Board did not use the Federal eRulemaking Portal to receive and publish those comments. I would like to think that they will post the comments on the CSB web site before the meeting on the 18^th.

On a separate note, the timing of this notice is interesting because yesterday I received an email from a long time reader of this blog complaining about on-going problems within the CSB. Nothing that I can go public with at this point, but suffice to say that there are a number of Washington insiders that don’t think that all of the Board’s problems have been solved by removing Dr. Rafael Moure-Eraso.

On a different rumor note, I have heard that Vanessa Allen Sutherland was not the President’s first pick to be Chair of the CSB. Rumor has it that the first pick, Scott Berger, was vetoed by a chemical industry union. Berger has a background in chemical safety and Sutherland is a lawyer. Nothing specifically wrong with lawyers in government agencies, but CSB probably should be more of a technical person.

CSB Announces Public Meeting on US Ink Explosion

The Chemical Safety Board published a public meeting notice in today’s Federal Register (80 FR 1015) for a meeting on January 15^th in East Rutherford, NJ to review reports from the investigators looking at the explosion and fire that occurred at the US Ink Facility in East Rutherford on October 9^th, 2012.

The Accident Investigation web site lists the US Ink incident as a combustible dust explosion. That being the case I am pretty sure that the Board will take the opportunity of this meeting to excoriate the DOL’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for their continued lack of rulemaking on the combustible dust hazards.

If time permits the Board may also review reports on the anhydrous ammonia release that took place in Theodore, AL in August of 2010.

DOD Announces Counterfeit Parts Meeting

Today the DOD’s Defense Acquisition Regulations System (DARS) published a meeting notice in the Federal Register (79 FR 26725-26726) for a public meeting in Washington, DC on June 16^th, 2014 “to obtain the views of experts and interested parties in Government and the private sector regarding further implementation of the requirement for detection and avoidance of counterfeit electronic parts”. This is part of DOD’s ongoing effort to implement the requirements of  §818, “Detection and Avoidance of Counterfeit Electronic Parts,” of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (PL 112-81).

DOD is soliciting public participation in this process. Advanced registration is required and may be accomplished on the meeting web page. Registrations should be submitted by June 9^th, 2014. Individuals wishing to make a presentation at the meeting should submit an electronic copy via email (osd.dfars@mail.mil) by June 11^th, 2014.

NOTE: I am certainly not intending to broaden the scope of this blog to detailed coverage of the DOD acquisition process, but DOD is a very large purchaser of electronics. That means that these counterfeit parts processes could be a large influence on the entire industry, including control system vendors.

Rail Energy Transportation AC Meeting – 9-19-13

The Surface Transportation Board (STB) published a meeting notice in Tuesday’s Federal Register (78 FR 54370, available on-line Saturday) for a public meeting of the Rail Energy Transportation Advisory Committee (RETAC) on September 19^th, 2013 at the STB Headquarters in Washington, DC.

According to the notice the agenda  may include:

• Rail performance;

• Capacity constraints;

• Infrastructure planning and development;

• Effective coordination among suppliers, carriers, and users of energy resources;

• Introduction of new members;

• Performance measures review;

• Discussion of domestic oil production and transportation;

• Industry segment reports by RETAC members; and

• Presentation on the U.S. Energy Information Agency's annual energy outlook.

While not directly listed as part of the agenda, the recent FRA emergency order on hazmat rail transportation issues and the associated joint FRA-PHMSA safety advisory will certainly color the discussions of the rail transportation of ethanol, biofuels and crude oil. RETAC is not directly concerned with transportation safety issues, but safety restrictions may influence availability and scheduling of transportation assets.

The meeting will be open to the public and there are no registration requirements listed in the meeting notice. Written comments may be submitted via Michael Higgins (Michael.Higgins@stb.dot.gov).

CG Announces Third TWIC Reader Meeting

The Coast Guard published a meeting notice in today’s Federal Register (78 FR 20558-20559) for a TWIC Reader NPRM meeting in Seattle, WA on May 2^nd, 2013. This is the third meeting announced (4-18-13 Arlington, VA; 4-25-13 Houston, TX) to allow members of the affected public to comment on the provisions of the notice of proposed rulemaking.

East Coast, Gulf Coast, and West Coast; I suspect that there will be at least one more announcement of a meeting in the Great Lakes region.

CG Announces TWIC Reader Meeting

Today the Coast Guard published a notice in the Federal Register (78 FR 20289-20290) announcing a public meeting to receive comments about the recently published TWIC Reader NPRM. The meeting will take place in Houston, TX on April 25, 2013. Public comments, both oral and written, are being solicited at this meeting.

There is nothing in the notice that would indicate that the public meeting will be web cast or made available by other electronic means.

CG Announces TWIC Reader Meeting – 4-18-13

Today the Coast Guard published a meeting notice in the Federal Register (78 FR 18534-18535) for a public meeting on April 18^th, 2013 in Arlington, VA concerning the recently published TWIC Reader NPRM. According to the notice “provide an opportunity for oral comments. Coast Guard personnel will accept written comments and related materials at the public meeting as well.”

There is nothing in the notice that would indicate that the Coast Guard is intending to provide a presentation about the NPRM. It appears that this is just an opportunity for public comment. This probably explains why there is no mention in the notice of the electronic sharing (web cast or telephone bridge, for instance) of this meeting that we have come to expect from Coast Guard sponsored meetings. A written summary of the meeting and the oral comments will be posted to the rulemaking docket (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # USCG-2007-28915).

It does not appear that the Coast Guard intends to engage in a discussion about the publicly received comments at this meeting. Any official response to the comments will be found in the preamble to the final rule when it is published.

The notice does mention that there is a possibility that the Coast Guard may hold another public meeting on the NPRM before the comment period ends on May 21^st, 2013. A separate Federal Register notice would be published if that occurs.

TWIC Reader Meeting Update

Last week I noted that the Coast Guard would be holding a public meeting on their TWIC Reader ANPRM on May 6th, but that they had not yet identified the exact location in the Washington, DC area for that meeting. In today’s Federal Register the Coast Guard announced that the meeting would be held at the the Sheraton Crystal City Hotel, 1800 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington, Virginia 22202. The meeting is scheduled to run from 9:00am to 5:00pm EDT, though it may end sooner if all public comments are received before that time.

TWIC Reader ANPRM Public Meeting – 05-06-09

Today the Coast Guard announced in the Federal Register that it would be holding a public meeting to discuss and get feed back on their recent advance notice of proposed rule making (ANPRM) on TWIC Readers. The meeting will be held on May 6th in the Washington, DC area. The exact location will be published in a later Federal Register notice. The Coast Guard expects to accept public comments at that meeting. The Coast Guard will have personnel present to accept written comments to be posted to the ANPRM docket (Docket # USCG-2007-28915). Additionally, the Coast Guard intends to publish a transcript of this public meeting and post it to the docket for public viewing. The Coast Guard is publishing this early notice, without the exact location, to allow people to make necessary travel plans to the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.