ACP UPDATE ON BC STANDARDS

DHS has been promising to publish via the Federal Register their call for comment on the first "standards" chosen for the PS-Prep program.
In the interim, DHS is meeting with their sectors committees in the 18 Critical Infrastructure areas and will likely announce (before or after the above mentioned selection) that each of the infrastructure groups will be able to follow their existing code of regulation (e.g. FFIEC, NERC, JCAHO, CFATS). Groups like the nuclear Industry, hospitals, bank and finance, electrical power, and chemical all have regulations in place that address large areas of preparedness. Progress on PS-Prep appears to have been hampered by the slow pace of political appointments to run DHS, FEMA, etc.

The Working Group (WG) developing the new ANSI/ISO standard on business continuity management through ASIS reviewed the initial draft standard at a meeting on July 28th. The group suggested several changes in the draft. The WG will meet again to review the second draft in late September. Once the WG approves, the draft would go to the larger Technical Committee for a similar review. Only then will the draft standard be released outside the two review groups. ACP is represented on both the WG and Technical Committee.

On May 26th, President Obama announced the merger of the White House staff that deals with international and domestic security with the already established National Security Council (NSC). The new “National Security Staff” will support all White House policymaking activities related to international, transnational, and homeland security matters under the direction of the National Security Advisor.
The old Homeland Security Council has been reorganized under the NSC. New directorates and positions will be established within the National Security Staff to deal with cyber-security, information sharing and resilience policy, including preparedness and response (e.g. PS-Prep). The new directors have not been announced. For further information, check out these links: