Chertoff announces seventeen sector-specific plans

DHS chief Michael Chertoff this week, speaking before a friendly audience at the Chamber of Commerce, announced an important step forward in the protection of critical infrastructure in both the public and private sector. His agency, he told attendees, has finally completed seventeen sector-specific plans (SSPs) in support of the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP). Each SSP (.pdf) is tailored to the unique “risk characteristics” of that sector to promote greater consistency by cataloging existing security authorities, institutionalizing existing security partnerships, and developing a sector-specific risk-reduction consultation network to exchange best practices and facilitate rapid threat-based information sharing among the federal, state, local, tribal and private sectors.

The effort is prompted by HSPD-7, which identified seventeen critical infrastructure and key resource sectors that require protective actions to prepare for, or mitigate against, a terrorist attack or other hazards. The sectors are: agriculture and food; banking and finance; chemical; commercial facilities; commercial nuclear reactors, including materials and waste; dams; defense industrial base; drinking water and water treatment systems; emergency services; energy; government facilities; information technology; national monuments and icons; postal and shipping; public health and healthcare; telecommunications; and transportation systems including mass transit, aviation, maritime, ground or surface, rail and pipeline systems.