Sec. 3. Policy
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The Secretary of Homeland Security shall work with critical infrastructure owners and operators and SLTTs to take proactive steps to manage risk and strengthen the security and resilience of the Nation’s critical infrastructure against terrorist attacks that could have a debilitating impact on national security, economic stability, public health and safety, or any combination thereof. Such efforts shall seek to reduce vulnerabilities, minimize consequences, identify and disrupt terrorism threats, and hasten response and recovery efforts related to critical infrastructure.
The Secretary shall, in consultation with appropriate Federal agencies, establish terrorism prevention policy to engage with international partners to strengthen the security and resilience of domestic critical infrastructure and critical infrastructure located outside of the United States on which the Nation depends. The Secretary shall establish a research task force to conduct research into the best means and methods to address the security and resilience of critical infrastructure in an integrated, holistic manner to reflect critical infrastructure’s interconnectedness and interdependency.
The research task force shall provide the Secretary with— a list of critical infrastructure; the degree the critical infrastructure is reliant upon other infrastructure; the cyber preparedness of suppliers, contractors, or service providers of critical infrastructure; programs, projects, or professional development for persons responsible for the security and operation of critical infrastructure; and vulnerabilities and threats that are found in software systems, firewalls, applications, and methods of accessing systems.
The research task force shall consist of 19 members appointed by the Secretary. The Secretary shall appoint one member to represent each of— the National Institutes of Standards and Technology; the Association of Computing Machinery; IEEE (formerly the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers); Carnegie Mellon Cylabs; the Edison Electric Institute; the National Telecommunication and Information Administration; the Utilities Telecom Council; the US Oil and Gas Association; the American Chemistry Council; the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers; the Pharmaceutical Research Manufacturers of America; and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The research task force shall provide a research report to the Secretary on its findings and recommendations 180 days after its establishment. In this subsection, the term critical infrastructure means infrastructure of— energy capture, refining, manufacturing, and delivery systems; transportation and transportation systems; water and sewer capture, processing, and delivery systems; healthcare systems, with respect to preventing threats to the quality and safety of medicines, medical devices, and delivery of life-saving health care services; food production, processing, and delivery systems; virtual and physical communication systems; financial systems; and the electricity grid.
The Secretary shall establish the Strategic Research Imperatives Program, which shall have the responsibility of leading the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal civilian agency approach to strengthen critical infrastructure security and resilience. The duties of the program are the following: Collect data, refine and clarify functional relationships across the Federal Government to advance the national unity of effort to strengthen critical infrastructure, terrorism prevention, security, and resilience.
Investigate effective measures that support information exchange by identifying baseline data and systems requirements for the Federal Government. Recommend methods to implement an integration and analysis function to inform planning and operations decisions regarding the protection of critical infrastructure from terrorist threats. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall make available research findings and guidance to Federal civilian department and agency heads (or their designees) for the identification, prioritization, assessment, remediation, and security of their respective internal critical infrastructure to assist in the prevention, mediation, and recovery from terrorism events.