Critical Infrastructure Discussion-How is criticality defined in terms of critical infrastructure; that is, what makes a critical infrastructure critical?
At the latest DHS Senior Leadership staff meeting, there was a round-table discussion about the concept of “criticality” in the context of the U.S. infrastructure and, subsequently, the status of U.S. critical infrastructure capabilities from both a national and state-by-state perspective. This discussion was raised based on the DHS Secretary reviewing the latest quadrennial release of the 2021 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure document authored by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
Based on the round-table discussion, the DHS Secretary thought the senior staff members could use a brief white paper that discusses America’s critical infrastructure from the perspective of “criticality” as well as a national/state perspective. The white paper would then serve as a tool to broaden DHS senior leadership’s awareness of the U.S. critical infrastructure in support of upcoming DHS representation at Congressional testimonies, budget meetings, requirements and priority ranking negotiations, etc. Since the DHS Secretary believes the national perspective has been covered with the 2021 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure document, the Secretary has requested the CIRRUS Division Team point paper focus on the state perspective that will serve as some illustrative real-world, present-day examples of U.S. critical infrastructure status from a state-level perspective.
As a result, the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) Director has tasked the
CIRRUS Division to develop a point paper that provides our team’s brainstorming thoughts in response to the DHS Secretary’s tasking action.
I’ll use your discussion inputs and comments to develop our CIRRUS Division point paper back to the CISA Director’s staff for action closure.
RAPID RESPONSE TASKER #1
Part 1: From a national perspective, discuss the concept of “criticality” as it relates to critical infrastructure.
How is criticality defined in terms of critical infrastructure; that is, what makes a critical infrastructure critical? Do you agree that all of the current 16 critical infrastructure sectors make sense in terms of meeting the criticality definition, or is it time to delete and/or add to the current 16 critical infrastructure sectors?
Part 2: From a state perspective, review the infrastructure report for one of the 50 U.S. states of your choice. (See the link below where you can select your chosen state to access that state’s latest infrastructure report.) After your review, provide two (2) key highlights/takeaways of your chosen state infrastructure report that you believe DHS senior leadership should be aware of as background information for future testimonies, meetings, discussions, etc. For this part, the DHS Secretary has only asked that several U.S. state reports be addressed – not necessarily all 50 U.S. states.
The following links serve as starting points for some potentially relevant information to this tasking.
2013 National Infrastructure Protection Plan, Chapter 3
