Wednesday, October 26, 2011

NMSAC Meeting Nov. 15

The Coast Guard posted a notice about the next NMSAC meeting in today’s Oct. 26 Federal Register, at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-10-26/pdf/2011-27724.pdf.

“The National Maritime Security Advisory Committee (NMSAC) will meet via teleconference on November 15, 2011 to discuss the results of a working group tasked with reviewing the Draft Certain Dangerous Cargo (CDC) Security Strategy. This meeting will be open to the public.The Committee will meet via telephone conference, on November 15, 2011. As there are only 100 teleconference lines, public participation will be on a first come basis. To participate via teleconference, please contact Mr. Ryan Owens, Alternate Designated Federal Officer (ADFO) of NMSAC, 2100 2nd Street, SW., Stop 7581, Washington, DC 20593–7581; telephone 202–372–1108 or e-mail ryan.f.owens@uscg.mil.”

“Agenda of Meeting

As a result of the report issued by NMSAC at its April 2011 meeting and public listening sessions held by the Coast Guard in August 2011, the Coast Guard has developed a Certain Dangerous Cargo (CDC) Security Strategy. A NMSAC working group was created to review the following five goals of the strategy. The committee will review the information presented on each issue, deliberate on any recommendations presented in the Work Group reports, and formulate the recommendations for the Department’s consideration.

a. Provide to internal and external stakeholders real-time national, regional, and local awareness of the risk of intentional attacks on the CDC Marine Transportation System.

b. Consistently assess vulnerability to threats of intentional attacks on the CDC Marine Transportation System and mitigate the vulnerability to an acceptable level.

c. Dynamically assess the potential consequences of an intentional attack on the CDC Marine Transportation System and capably mitigate, through coordinated response, the impact of a successful attack.

d. Lead the development of national, regional, and local resiliency/recovery capability from successful attacks on the CDC Marine Transportation System.

e. Establish the internal organization and processes, and external stakeholder relationships, to manage the national maritime CDC security program to an acceptable risk level.”

To facilitate public participation, the Coast Guard is inviting public comment on the issues to be considered by the committee as listed in the ‘‘Agenda’’. Persons may submit written materials and requests to make oral presentations no later than November 7, 2011, and identified by docket number[USCG–2011–0975] by the methods identified in the Federal Register notice.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Upcoming Regulation - Revision to TWIC Requirements for Mariners

On October 14, 2011 the Office of Management and Budget posted a notice of pending regulatory review of a regulation concerning a Revision to TWIC Requirements for Mariners. As Patrick Coyle points out about this notice in Chemical Facility Security News today (http://chemical-facility-security-news.blogspot.com,) details are very scant about this regulation and it was not listed in the Unified Agenda. The Unified Agenda often gives us a bit more information about what is contained in the upcoming regulation. However, we do note several details. This piece is in the “prerule” stage, meaning it is in the start of the regulatory process. There is no legal deadline assigned. The notice also lists the regulation as having no economic significance, but that’s a pretty high bar (annual effect of $100 million or more.)

The URL for the notice is: http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eoDetails?rrid=121017