DHS Announces PCII Listening Sessions

Today the Department of Homeland Security published a meeting notice in the Federal Register (81 FR 29799-29800) for a series of public listening sessions looking for input on their recent advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) for updating the Protected Critical Infrastructure Information (PCII) program. The three listening sessions will be held in Arlington, VA. The dates will be May 12^th, May 17^th, and May 19^th.

The Information Sought

DHS is specifically looking for information on (note this is a slightly different list that proposed in ANPRM):

• Automated submissions and an expansion of categorical inclusions;

• Marking PCII;

• Sharing PCII with foreign governments;

• Regulatory access;

• Safeguarding;

• Oversight and compliance;

• Alignment with other information protection programs; and

• The administration of PCII at the State, local, tribal, and territorial level

Public Comments

With five hours on each day available for public oral comments there should be plenty of time for everyone to get their say. Written comments may also be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # DHS-2016-0032). Yes, this notice did include the docket # and it is the same as I provided in an earlier blog post. The deadline for written comments is still July 20^th, 2016.

Commentary

I’m not sure why this notice was delayed in publication, but it certainly makes someone look silly for announcing a meeting for a date that has already passed. The remaining two dates are also fairly short notice, but then again I don’t suspect that DHS really expects anyone to make travel plans to attend these three sessions. These dates are almost certainly targeted at organizations with physical (or at least a lobbyist) presence in the Washington area.

I will be extremely disappointed if there are not more listening date announcements associated with this ANPRM and even more disappointed if they are not scattered across the country.