Stepping up to the plate in the ever-present battle for national security, President Biden just swung for the fences with a fresh initiative meant to toughen up America's critical infrastructure. In a move announced today, the Biden-Harris Administration released details of a new National Security Memorandum (NSM) set to replace a ten-year-old policy and aiming to shield the nation's essential services from a slew of threats and hazards.
Under the President's "Investing in America Agenda," which has drummed up $448 billion in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding across some 51,000 projects, the Administration is looking to hit a home run with over $50 billion earmarked specifically for toughening up the country's infrastructure. According to a statement from the White House, the investments include $8.7 billion from the PROTECT program, which aims to boost the resilience of transportation infrastructure, and $4.5 billion funneled through FEMA to safeguard a variety of infrastructures against hazards.
The latest NSM announces a comprehensive effort to protect critical infrastructure against all threats and hazards, current and future. It confers responsibilities onto the Department of Homeland Security to steer a whole-government approach to secure U.S. critical infrastructure, with the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) spearheading as National Coordinator for Security and Resilience. The Secretary of Homeland Security now has the task of delivering a biennial National Risk Management Plan to the President, assessing the collective push to bolster the nation's essential systems.
The Biden-Harris Administration isn't pulling any punches with this mandate, expressly mandating intelligence agencies to gather, share, and utilize critical information to fortify defenses against those aiming to disrupt American society. The NSM underscores that "private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure are often our first line of defense," against nefarious acts targeting key American assets and systems. Furthermore, it stresses the significance of setting up baseline security and resilience benchmarks in line with the National Cyber Strategy. The strategy acknowledges the limits of a voluntary approach given the growing pressures of the current threat landscape.
In this chess match of global proportions, the NSM addresses growing concerns of how nation-state actors, as well as non-state assailants, may target vital U.S. systems in times of crisis to undercut the economy and military prowess. With climate change reshaping the battlefield, affecting the severity of natural disasters, and supply chain issues adding to the pressure, the Biden-Harris Administration's NSM bats for a future where critical infrastructure can endure, securing the prosperity and safety of the nation for generations to come.
