Critical Infrastructure: The National Asset Database (CRS Report for Congress)
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| Release Date |
Revised Aug. 17, 2007 |
| Report Number |
RL33648 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
John Moteff, Resources, Science, and Industry Division |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
| Older Revisions |
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Summary:
The Office of Infrastructure Protection (OIP) in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been developing and maintaining a National Asset Database. The Database contains information on over 77,000 individual assets, ranging from dams, hazardous materials sites, and nuclear power plants to local festivals, petting zoos, and sporting good stores. The presence of a large number of entries of the latter type (i.e., assets generally perceived as having more local importance than national importance) has attracted much criticism from the press and from Members of Congress. Many critics of the Database have assumed that it is (or should be) DHS's list of the nation's most critical assets and are concerned that, in its current form, it is being used inappropriately as the basis upon which federal resources, including infrastructure protection grants, are allocated.
According to DHS, both of those assumptions are wrong. DHS characterizes the National Asset Database not as a list of critical assets, but rather as a national asset inventory providing the âuniverse' from which various lists of critical assets are produced. As such, the Department maintains that it represents just the first step in DHS's risk management process outlined in the National Infrastructure Protection Plan. DHS has developed, apparently in parallel with the National Asset Database, a list of about 2,200 assets that it has determined are critical to the nation. Also, while the National Asset Database has been used to support federal grant-making decisions, according to a DHS official, it does not drive those decisions.
In July 2006 the DHS Office of the Inspector General released a report on the National Asset Database. Its primary conclusion was that the Database contained too many unusual and out-of-place assets and recommended that those judged to be of little national significance be removed from the Database. In his written response to the DHS IG report, the then-Undersecretary for Preparedness did not concur with this recommendation, asserting that keeping these less than nationally significant assets in the Database gave it a situational awareness that can assist in preparing and responding to a variety of incidents.
Accepting the DHS descriptions of the National Asset Database, questions and issues remain. For example, the National Asset Database seems to have evolved away from its origins as a list of critical infrastructures, perhaps causing the differences in perspective on what the Database is or should be. As an inventory of the nation's assets, the National Asset Database is incomplete, limiting its value in preparing and responding to a wide variety of incidents. Assuring the quality of the information in the Database is important and a never-ending task. If DHS not only keeps the less than nationally significant assets in the Database but adds more of them to make the inventory complete, assuring the quality of the data on these assets may dominate the cost of maintaining the Database, while providing uncertain value. Finally, the information currently contained in the Database carries with it no legal obligations on the owner/operators of the asset. If, however, the Database becomes the basis for regulatory action in the future, what appears in the Database takes on more immediate consequences for both DHS and the owner/operators.
