State will promote cybersecurity guidelines. The State Department is endorsing the development of a "culture of security" as described in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) new guidelines for protecting information systems. The OECD, an economic analysis agency in Paris, was founded after World War II to coordinate international development and is supported by the US, Western Europe, Australia, Canada, and Japan. In recent years, however, the European Union, the Association of South East Asian Nations, and the G-7, a group of seven leading democratic economies, have overshadowed it. The State Department said it will encourage businesses, the public, and governments to use the guidelines to bolster IT security. It is currently developing outreach plans to promote the guidelines. (Government Computer News, 12 Aug) Government creates new Washington evacuation plan. The federal government has created a new procedure for evacuating federal employees in Washington, DC in the case of terrorist attacks. The protocol, which took effect in May, tells who can decide to evacuate federal employees from agencies and how the government will communicate the decision to employees and to city and state agencies that would be affected by a mass exodus of civil servants from Washington. Under the new process, evacuation decisions will be made jointly by the heads of three agencies: Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the General Services Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Officials will then notify the White House, Office of Homeland Security, Secret Service, and a host of state and local agencies, including the mayor of the District of Columbia and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which runs the Metro subway system. Media outlets will also be tapped to broadcast evacuation announcements, a step that means officials will not have to personally contact every state and local agency that could be affected by an evacuation. Certain scenarios may require officials to inform agencies before alerting the media, according to Scott Hatch, OPM's director of communications. Agency heads can still disregard closure announcements under the new protocol, although most followed OPM's lead when the agency released federal employees on 11 September. (Govexec.com, 9 Aug) Fearing theft, US plans to relocate nuclear fuel. The US is moving toward shipping tons of bomb-grade plutonium and uranium out of a laboratory in New Mexico, according to Energy Department officials. Experts said it would be the first time the government has moved nuclear weapons fuel to reduce the risk of terrorists stealing it. The plutonium and uranium would be moved from an area near Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory to the Nevada Test Site, 90 miles outside of Las Vegas. The director of Los Alamos wrote on 28 June to a deputy administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration that the laboratory supported moving the material as "the best overall decision to meet the post-September 11th challenges for the long-term security of nuclear activities." (New York Times, 12 Aug) Transportation Secretary Mineta announces $8.9 million in grants for South Carolina airports . Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta announced $8.9 million in federal grants for South Carolina airports on 11 August. These grants will help South Carolina airports maintain the highest levels of safety, security, and efficiency in the years ahead. Rep Lindsey Graham said "Transportation infrastructure is a very important consideration for businesses contemplating building a new plant or factory in our state. If we want to continue being competitive in attracting new business, we've got to have efficient and secure transportation systems in place. These grants will help ensure the airports in our state are ready to meet the transportation needs of our communities and state in the years ahead." (Department of Transportation, 11 Aug) Pipeline safety: initiatives finally moving. A Bush administration official responsible for pipeline safety enforcement acknowledged that the Office of Pipeline Safety's record is not good. A study in 2001 by The Austin (Texas) American-Statesman found that the agency was understaffed and underfunded, and that oil and gas pipelines across the nation lose an average of at least 6.7 million gallons daily. Congress is now beginning to take action to remedy the apparent weaknesses in pipeline-safety regulation. Legislation has passed both the House and Senate that better protects the public and the environment from accidents related to unsafe oil and gas pipelines. If signed into law, the result would mean more frequent inspections and stiffer penalties for those companies that don't pass. (PowerMarketers.com, 11 Aug) Water's flow from private hands. Private companies may begin to take on operations at aging municipal water systems, as well as play new roles in storing, managing and transferring water, and sell water outright from farms to cities. Farmers too may increasingly forgo crops and instead sell water to cities, and coastal cities may begin to invest in costly desalination plants to turn seawater into tap water, and recycled gray water will be employed to green lawns and agricultural lands. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the largest wholesale water supplier in the nation, is engaged in an almost perpetual search for new sources of drinking water. It has agreed to a preliminary deal that would use the aquifer beneath desert farms to store surplus water pumped from the Colorado River via a still-to-be-constructed $150 million, 35-mile pipeline. The pipeline will be used during wet years and the water sold back to the district during dry ones. The company would also mine its own "native" water and sell it to the water district. (Washington Post, 12 Aug) Tainted water puts New Jersey towns on alert. The discovery in recent years of a new form of radium in underground water supplies is forcing towns throughout New Jersey to spend millions of dollars to remove the element from public drinking water. Throughout New Jersey public water suppliers are shutting down contaminated wells and drilling new ones; constructing radium-treatment plants; buying water from outside sources; and, in some cases, supplying customers with bottled water, as well as building removal systems. Eric Evenson of the US Geological Survey said radium has been the focus of government studies throughout the country and that recent actions by New Jersey go a long way toward protecting the public health. (Philadelphia Inquirer, 11 Aug) California on heightened security alert after potential threat to Golden Gate Bridge . On Sunday, 11 August, state and federal law enforcement agencies boosted security patrols on and around the Golden Gate Bridge after officials learned of a potential terrorist threat. The bridge was placed on a "super-heightened" state of alert. Specific details of the threat or the source of the threat are not available. (Associated Press, 12 Aug) _______________________________________________ NIPC-daily mailing list NIPC-daily@private http://mailman.ops.nipc.gov/mailman/listinfo/nipc-daily
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