White House Issues Memo on Critical Infrastructure Security
A National Security Memorandum (NSM) was signed by President Biden in an effort to secure and enhance the resilience of U.S. critical infrastructure. The NSM replaces a decade-old presidential policy document on critical infrastructure protection and launch a comprehensive effort to protect U.S. infrastructure against all threats and hazards, current and future.
According to The White House, Thanks to the President’s Investing in America Agenda, as well as the emergence of new technologies like artificial intelligence, America has a historic opportunity to build for the future. Good investments require taking steps to manage risk, and for our infrastructure, that means building in resilience to all hazards upfront and by design. Through the President’s Investing in America Agenda, the Biden-Harris Administration has announced $448 billion in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding – including over 51,000 infrastructure projects – and spurred $825 billion in private sector investment in industries including clean power, biomanufacturing, and clean energy manufacturing. Under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law alone, the President has delivered $50 billion for infrastructure resilience specifically, including $8.7 billion from the PROTECT program to improve the resilience of transportation infrastructure and $4.5 billion through FEMA to fortify a range of infrastructure against hazards. Through this $50 billion in resilience funding, the Administration has launched over 4,000 infrastructure resilience projects nationwide.
The NSM will help ensure U.S. critical infrastructure can provide the Nation a strong and innovative economy, protect American families, and enhance our collective resilience to disasters before they happen – strengthening the nation for generations to come.