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Appendices Appendix 1: Infrastructure and the
American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) One way of using "infrastructure"
can be found in a document produced by the American Society of Civil
Engineers (ASCE, 2001). The ASCE focuses its concerns on what it deems
to be the most important elements of the nation's physical infrastructure and
the current status of these most important elements of the nation's
infrastructure. The ASCE is particularly concerned by the fact
that elements of the nation's physical infrastructure have not undergone
major improvement in many years. The ASCE has highlighted the status of
these major elements of infrastructure in a "report card" that they
released in 2001. (ASCE, 2001) The assigned grades are based on
"condition and performance, capacity vs. need, and funding vs.
need". ASCE 2001 Infrastructure Report Card D+ Roads The resulting grade point average is a
"D+" for "poor". Based on their evaluation, the ASCE
estimates that 1.3 trillion dollars needs to be invested in rebuilding the
nation's infrastructure over the next five years. The failure to do so,
they argue, will have a very deleterious impact on the nation's economy.
(ASCE, 2001) Appendix 2: The Bureau of
Economic Analysis of the U.S. Department of Commerce ~ Another Perspective on
Critical Infrastructure There are many different ways of viewing the
relative importance of specific kinds of infrastructure, some stated in terms
of a well defined context, others not. One approach might emphasize the
economic role that infrastructure sectors may be seen to play in contributing
to the domestic gross national product. The Bureau of Economic Analysis of
the U.S. Department of Commerce has provided an example of this
approach. In the year 2000, the Bureau rank ordered critical
infrastructure sectors in the following manner:
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Source: 2000 Bureau of Economic Analysis Another example of future costs that are not
reflected in current numbers have to do with the cost of taking action to
reverse deteriorating conditions that have occurred or that will inevitably
continue to occur over time, concerns that the ASCE has underscored. (See
Appendix 12.) The table is also misleading in that there are
other sectors that are not included in the list that may be seen as
contributing in an indirect, but essential ways to the placement of the
sectors on the list. Problems or failures involving sectors that are
not on the list could have devastating impacts on sectors that are on the
list. For instance, what would be the effect on business and industry
if the Internet became dysfunctional or computer security were to be widely
breached? What would be the effect on the financial sector, on maritime
and air transport, and on defense if GPS were to become dysfunctional? Viewed in this manner, it becomes apparent
there would be definite drawbacks in using the rank-ordered list to determine
what areas of critical infrastructure most merit attention. Appendix 3: The September 10, 2002 Washington
Post Assessment An interesting approach to defining
significant elements of the nation's infrastructure can be found in an
article by Eric Pianin, Marc Kaufman and others in the September 10, 2002
Washington Post entitled "How Experts Grade Homeland
Security". In this article, the authors report on the status
of the nation's homeland security efforts, including the nation's critical
infrastructure protection efforts. The categories of infrastructure used were
quite different from those used by the ASCE (Appendix 12). This is
partly explained by the fact that the context of their use is quite
different. The authors of the Washington Post article have their own
way of defining and categorizing the various kinds of "critical infrastructure". The following list includes all of the
categories and subcategories used in the Washington Post article.
Experts were selected by the Washington Post to provide brief assessments and
assign letter grades in each subcategory. Note: "INC"
stands for "Incomplete". The September 10, 2002 Washington Post
Assessment
F Airports Energy
Infrastructure
Counterterror B
Department of Justice Public Places D National
Landmarks Border B- INS/Border Patrol Cyberspace B- Internet, Computer
Networks In giving a letter grade to a subcategory, the designated expert provided a relatively brief paragraph explaining the reason for the grade. Each expert used his or her own set of criteria for grading. The criteria were often more implicit than explicit. Even so, it is evident that the criteria used for making the assessments varied greatly from expert to expert. Indeed ways of defining and understanding challenges and threats varied greatly. The apparent objectives that the expert thought needed to be achieved also varied greatly.
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