Progress in Developing the National Asset Database

assets as part of Operation Liberty Shield. 16 Later that year, under pressurefrom Congress to produce a prioritized list, IP identified more assets andexpanded the list to 1,849. 17 IP identified assets in specific sectors—chemical, hazardous material, nuclear, business and finance, electric, oil andnatural gas, transportation, commercial, and government facilities—that itdetermined required additional protection or mitigation against terroristattacks. It was called the Protected Measures Target List (PMTL). 18Subsequently, the Office of Domestic Preparedness (ODP) asked state andlocal governments to provide critical infrastructure data as part of a state selfassessmentprogram. 19 By February 2004, that data was combined with thePMTL to become a national asset list of 28,368 assets. The list did notadequately represent the nation’s 13 critical infrastructure sectors and 4 keyresources (see Appendix D).In July 2004, IP initiated a data call to states and territories for criticalinfrastructure and key resource information. Between July 2004 and July2005, states identified and submitted data for 48,701 assets. States tried tofollow DHS’ criteria for identifying national critical infrastructure and keyresources, but their submissions were inconsistent and often delayed. IPincluded every submitted asset in the NADB in order to make it ascomprehensive as possible. IP went to considerable effort to process, format,and verify this information, even eliminating 3,846 duplicate submissionsbetween the two data calls. The NADB is considered the official database andthese initiatives combined generated a total of 77,069 assets (see chart 2). 20However, IP has access to, and is pursuing, asset information in other federaland commercial repositories that it can link to the NADB, which couldincrease the number of assets in the NADB by hundreds of thousands.16 Operation Liberty Shield was a comprehensive national plan to protect critical infrastructure while Operation IraqiFreedom was executed overseas. IP selected the assets based on a risk assessment. The risk assessment considered sitesthat if attacked could produce consequences of national scale, primarily significant loss of life or catastrophic damage tothe economy. Then-DHS Secretary Ridge asked governors to protect these assets.17 Officials both in and out of DHS frequently referred to the “list of 1,700.” Based on feedback from States, IPsubsequently expanded the list to 1,849.18 The 1,849 assets became the focus of, and a starting point for, IP’s Buffer Zone Protection Program.19 Last year RMD began adding the source of each entry in the NADB. We learned late in our review that many sourcesof data were culled as part of the state assessments and to help prepare the national inventory list. Examples includedseveral “DHS Lists,” the “Chemical Sites List,” “GSA Buildings,” “ME Critical Assets, Systems, and Infrastructure,”and “Largest Water Utilities.”20 The NADB is housed at a national laboratory.Progress in Developing the National Asset Database6