US homeland security agency to release infrastructure plan Nov 10

Washington (Platts)--4Nov2004

The US Homeland Security Dept plans to release its National Infrastructure
Protection Plan, which will detail the Bush administration's strategy for
protecting electricity, natural gas and oil facilities, on Nov 10, a DHS
official said Thursday. Evan Wolff, of DHS' Infrastructure Analysis and
Protection division, told an Energy Bar Association conference the broad plan
would be released Wednesday Nov 10. 

DHS, created by Congress after the Sep 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, pays
special attention to critical infrastructure--nuclear power plants, major
dams, and certain transmission lines and pipelines. 

Officials from the American Petroleum Institute and the Transportation
Department said that industry had worked well with the federal agencies since
Sept 11 to shore up oil and gas pipelines, and former Nuclear Regulatory
Commission chairman Richard Meserve asserted that nuclear power plant security
was comprehensive and "formidable." Still, experts said more can and should be
done.

Robert Cupina, deputy director of the US Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission's Office of Energy Projects said the agency may revise a June 2003
critical energy infrastructure information order, which restricted public
access to technical information that could be used by a potential attacker. He
said changes to the order might allow the agency to decline requests for
disclosure, even to discreet parties, when security of critical energy sites
was clearly at stake.

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