Presidential Policy Directive 21 – Part II

Last week I started my blog series on the Presidential Policy Directive 21 with an overview of the Directive and the policy impacts for those in Emergency Management. This week, I focus on the three Strategic Imperatives set out in the Directive. The imperatives will be rolled out over the next 2 years and hopefully they will make us more prepared as a nation to deal with challenges to our critical infrastructure.

Imperative one focuses on facilitating communication and collaboration between the Federal Government and critical infrastructure owners and operators. As part of this refined structure, there will be two national infrastructure centers operated by DHS- one for physical infrastructure and another for cyber infrastructure. The success of these national centers is dependent on the quality and timeliness of information and intelligence they receive from all of the integrated agencies.

The second imperative focuses on identifying baseline data and systems requirements for the Federal Government. The goal is to enable efficient information exchange through the identification of requirements for data and information formats and accessability, system interoperability, and redundant systems and alternative capabilities should there be a disruption in the primary systems.

The third and final imperative is implementing an Integration and Analysis function to inform planning and operational decisions regarding critical infrastructure. This imperative builds on the first two and calls for an analysis function that sits at the intersection of the two national centers identified in imperative 1. The description goes on to state that this function should not replicate existing analysis functions of the IC or National Counterterrorism Center.

Emergency Visions stands by to help any community with Critical Infrastructure that you need to protect and plan for as we deal with man-made and natural disasters. We believe in the “Whole Community” approach and our solutions in Disaster Resource Management can enhance your ability to connect with and define resources and capacities that will help save lives and property.