DHS Announces NIAC Meeting – 11-21-13

The DHS National Protection and Programs Administration (NPPD) published a meeting notice in today’s Federal Register (78 FR 65657-65676) for a meeting of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC) on November 11^th, 2013. The public meeting will be held in Washington, DC.

Two working group presentations will be made updating the Council on progress being made by the Regional Resilience Working Group and the EO-PPD Working Group. The Council will discuss both reports. Topics that will be addressed will include:

• Final recommendations to be included in the Regional Resilience Study;

• The role and impact of critical infrastructure in regional resilience;

• The working groups recommendations on the implementation of EO 13636 (cybersecurity);

Public comments are being solicited on both reports (which will be available, according to the notice, at least one week before the meeting on the Council’s web site. Limited opportunities (3 minutes each no more than 15 total) will be made available after each of the working group presentations for oral comments by the public (advanced registration to comment required). Written comments may be submitted by email (NIAC@hq.dhs.gov).

DHS Announces NIAC Resilience and Cyber Meeting

On Friday the DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD) published a meeting notice in the Federal Register (78 FR 40487-40488) for the National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC) on July 29^th, 2013. The public meeting will be held in Washington, D.C.

According to the notice there are two items on the agenda:

• A presentation from the NIAC Regional Resilience Working Group documenting their work to date on the Regional Resilience Study; and

• Federal officials will update the members on the Federal inter-agency implementation planning for the recently issued Executive Order 13636 and Presidential Policy Directive 21.

The Council will discuss both presentations and prepare recommendations for the Secretary on how to proceed with each. A copy of the Working Group presentation will be available on the NIAC web site one week before the meeting. The Department will also provide guidance to the Council on potential new topics for discussion.

NPPD is soliciting public input on the agenda topics. Written comments may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # DHS-2013-0033).  Comments need to be submitted by July 22^nd to be considered by the Council. There will be a short public comment period during the meeting; registration at the meeting site will be required.

Really Late NIAC Meeting Notice

DHS NPPD is posting a meeting notice (78 FR 20934) in Monday’s Federal Register (available on line today) for a meeting Monday of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC); so much for the required 15-day notice.

Tardy Excuse Rejected

This is not the first time that the NIAC meeting notice has been well short of the ‘timely notice’ requirement of 5 USC §10(a)(2). And what was the excuse this time?

“The Federal Advisory Committee Act requires that notices of meetings of advisory committees be announced in the Federal Register 15 days prior to the meeting date. However, this notice of the NIAC meeting is being published in the Federal Register on April 8, 2013, zero days prior to the meeting due to an immediate need by DHS to receive advice on the new implementation of Executive Order 13636 and Presidential Policy Directive 21. Both mandate comprehensive consultation with stakeholders in very short time lines for implementation. Although the meeting notice was published in the Federal Register late, the date of the meeting has been posted on the Council's public Web site on www.dhs.gov since January 2013. Additional outreach will be accomplished through trade and professional associations.”

So the meeting has been planned since January, but the DFO can’t get a notice into the Federal Register until the day of the meeting; that is really sad or should I say incompetent? I can’t even buy the EO/PPD excuse since those have been out for over a month. Even if a month were not enough time for NPPD to realize that NIAC might need a briefing on the topic, the meeting notice should have already been published and this would be an addition to the agenda.

Fortunately for NIAC there is no one that enforces this particular federal law, so they can give notice, or late notice, or probably no notice at all and nothing would happen. It just does not inspire confidence in the leadership at NPPD or DHS.

Agenda

The meeting notice provides the following agenda list for this meeting:

• NIAC Presentation on Regional Resilience Working Group

• Public Comment: Discussion Limited to Meeting Agenda Items and Previous NIAC Studies

• Regional Resilience Working Group Discussion

• Briefing and Discussion on Executive Order 13636 and Presidential Policy Directive 21 by the Department of Homeland Security

• Identification of Potential Areas to Recommend for Next NIAC Study

I would guess that the ‘potential area’ for the next NIAC study will be something to do with EO 13636 even though NIAC was not mentioned in the EO (the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council was - §6 - though but we all know that there is no room for petty institutional jealousy in the federal government).

Copies of the EO Brief and the Regional Resilience WG presentation are available on the NIAC web site.

Public Comments

Public comments are being solicited, kind of. There will be time after the Working Group presentation for oral comments from the public, but the notice states: “We request that comments be limited to the issues listed in the meeting agenda and previous NIAC studies.” Written comments may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # DHS-2013-0004), but they must be submitted by noon on Monday.

 OOPS, there is no such docket number on www.Regulations.gov as of 7:00 am CDT, 4-6-13; maybe they don’t really want your comments after all. Maybe you should try email ( NIAC@hq.dhs.gov) or fax {(703) 603-5098} and there is even a snail mail address given (yep, that will get there by noon on Monday).

DHS Announces HSSTAC Meeting – 3-21-13

DHS posted a meeting announcement in (78 FR 14101-14102) Monday’s Federal Register (available online today) for a meeting of the Homeland Security Science and Technology Advisory Committee (HSSTAC) on March 21^st, 2013 in Washington, DC. This will be one of the relatively rare HSSTAC meetings that is open to the public.

According to the notice the “committee addresses areas of interest and importance to the Under Secretary for Science and Technology, such as new developments in systems engineering, cyber-security, knowledge management and how best to leverage related technologies funded by other federal agencies and by the private sector”.

The Agenda

The agenda for the meeting includes:

• Discuss proposed areas for study and receive taskings from the Department;

• DHS S&T collaboration with industry, and the Department's request for HSSTAC input on how to improve that collaboration;

• Cyber Security and the evolution of the Cyber Security Division of DHS S&T; and

• Briefing and discussion regarding the recent creation of a Resilient Systems Division at DHS S&T

While not mentioned in the notice, the third item may be important in the context of the implementation of the President’s cybersecurity executive order. Come to think of it, so might the first item.

Public Participation

The public is invited to attend the Committee’s meeting. Pre-registration is required and may be done on the Committee’s web site. Actually I don’t see the ‘Click here to register’ button referenced in the notice, but I may not be up yet since the notice isn’t official until Monday. Alternatively contact Mary Hanson (mary.hanson@hq.dhs.gov) the HSSTAC Executive Director. No registration deadline is provided in the notice, but the earlier the better is always the best policy.

Public comments on the agenda items are being solicited. Written comments may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # DHS-2013-0014). These comments must be submitted before March 19^th, 2013 to allow for distribution to Committee members and posting on the Committee web site. Brief oral comments will be allowed after each agenda item is discussed by the Committee, but advance registration for making such comments is required.

Another Short Notice NIAC Meeting

DHS has posted a meeting notice in Monday’s (available on-line today) Federal Register (77 FR 62521-62522) announcing yet another short notice meeting of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council on October 16^th, 2012 in Washington, DC. The Council will receive and discuss a presentation by the Regional Resilience Working Group.

Delayed Notification

The notice states that: “The Federal Advisory Committee Act requires that notices of meetings of advisory committees be announced in the Federal Register 15 days prior to the meeting date.” That’s not entirely true the Act states {§10(a)(2)} that:

“Except when the President determines otherwise for reasons of national security, timely notice of each such meeting shall be published in the Federal Register, and the Administrator shall prescribe regulations to provide for other types of public notice to insure that all interested persons are notified of such meeting prior thereto.”

I’ll accept that 15 days is ‘timely notice’, but I doubt that anyone would believe that 1 day (officially this notice isn’t published until Monday) constitutes timely notice of a physical meeting (as opposed to a teleconference). Even four days (it was published on the Federal Register Inspection page on Friday) doesn’t come close to constituting ‘timely notification’ by anyone’s definition.

Now, what is the ‘reasons of national security’ that allows the avoidance of the ‘timely notification’ requirement? The notice states:

“This notice of the NIAC meeting is published in the Federal Register with less than 15 days notice due to the complexity of the issues within the current study. Due to the complexities, the NIAC Working Group was not able to complete the interim finding of the report within this aggressive time line. Waiting for the full 15 day notice period to conduct the meeting will delay the discussion of the report. In order to not delay the continuation of this important study, this meeting is being announced with less than 15 days notice.”

I certainly see the national security tie there (Severe Sarcasm Warning).

The Presentation

According to the notice this meeting is to receive a presentation “from the NIAC

Regional Resilience Working Group documenting their work to date on the Regional Resilience Study”. This will not be a final report, just a report on work in progress. The notice goes on to explain that “The presentation will be posted no later than one week prior to the meeting [emphasis added] on the Council's public Web page on www.dhs.gov/NIAC.”

Well, the presentation is there as of 07:00 EDT, but JQ Public cannot access it. We just get an “Access Denied” message (“You don't have permission to access ‘http://edit.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/NIAC%20niac-region-resile-wg-presentation-2012-10-16_1.pdf’ on this server.”). I suppose that Council members and DHS staff and other special people have access to the document as well as to the following documents listed on the NIAC web page as being “meeting resources”:

• Research Compendium; and

• Chair and Vice Chair Letter to President Barack H. Obama

Note that neither of these is listed in the Federal Register notice about the meeting.

Public Comment

The Federal Advisory Committee Act requires that {§10(a)(3)}:

“Interested persons shall be permitted to attend, appear before, or file statements with any advisory committee, subject to such reasonable rules or regulations as the Administrator may prescribe.”

The notice does state that “we are inviting public comment on the issues to be considered by the Council as listed in the SUMMARY section below. Comments must be submitted in writing no later than October 11, 2012 [emphasis added]”. I’ll get my time machine out so that I can get these comments in in a timely manner (More Sarcasm). Fortunately, persons who wish to make oral comments to the Council have until 15 minutes prior to the start of the meeting to register their intent to speak.

I’ll provide the pro forma details for submitting written comments; comments may be submitted electronically via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # DHS-2012-0056).

Reality Check

Okay, I’ll admit that in the great scheme of things, even in the not-so-great Washington scheme of things, this meeting is a non-issue. The final report of this working group will not be issued until sometime next year, so this meeting is just a chest-beating exercise to allow Under Secretary Beers and supporting NPPD politicians to ‘give direction’ to NIAC big shots. Even the final report will be a relative non-issue, rating just short news reports read by Washington insiders and quickly forgotten.

The larger issue here is that DHS is flaunting their refusal to play by the rules. There is absolutely no reason that this meeting could not have been held on October 30^th or later; allowing for the 15-day notice. But the current political management at DHS would rather ignore the rules to make themselves seem more important than they really are. And that is sad because they do hold important positions in the government, and they do wield a certain amount of political power. That they have to stoop to such petty political gamesmanship is a commentary on their political ineptitude.

DHS Announces NIAC Meeting

DHS will have a notice in Monday’s Federal Register (77 FR 39234-39248; currently available on the web) concerning an upcoming meeting of the National Infrastructure Advisory Committee (NIAC). The public meeting will be held in Arlington, VA on July 17^th.

The purpose of the meeting is to discuss a report being submitted by their Regional Resiliance Working Group. According to the Notice the report will be posted on the NIAC web site by July 12^th. Public comments on the report will be accepted at the close of presentation and written comments on the report can be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # DHS-2012-0027). Written comments must be submitted by July 6^th; almost a full week before the report is available for public viewing. The Notice does acknowledge that comments submitted to Nancy Wong (NIAC@dhs.gov; include Docket # in subject line) after that date may be considered by the Committee.

There is nothing in the Notice about advanced registration for the meeting. It is, however, being held in a Federal Government building so ‘appropriate’ photo ID is almost certainly going to be required.

NIAC Meeting Announcement

Today the DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD) published a notice in the Federal Register (77 FR 19300-19301) about the upcoming meeting of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC). The meeting will be held in Arlington, VA on April 17, 2012. The Council will receive a presentation on the next phase of the infrastructure resilience study being conducted by the NIAC Working Group (previous NIAC studies can be found at: www.dhs.gov/NIAC).

The public is invited to attend the meeting and provisions have been made to allow comments by the public (limited to 3 minutes) on the infrastructure resilience study at the end of the meeting (Note: registration for making public comments is required and may be done just before the start of the meeting). Written comments on the topic may also be submitted by April 6^th (which seems to be just a tad bit early, typically this date is set just a day or two before the meeting) via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # DHS-2012-0012).