Critical Releases in Homeland Security: October 20, 2021

From the Overview: "The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) developed the Infrastructure Resilience Planning Framework (IRPF) to provide an approach for localities, regions, and the private sector to work together to plan for the security and resilience of critical infrastructure services in the face of multiple threats and changes. [...] This Framework provides methods and tools to address critical infrastructure security and resilience through planning, by helping communities and regions: [1] 'Understand and communicate' how infrastructure resilience contributes to community resilience; [2] 'Identify' how threats and hazards might impact the normal functioning of community infrastructure and delivery of services; [3] 'Prepare' governments, owners and operators to withstand and adapt to evolving threats and hazards; [4] 'Integrate' infrastructure security and resilience considerations, including the impacts of dependencies and cascading disruptions, into planning and investment decisions; and [5] 'Recover' quickly from disruptions to the normal functioning of community and regional infrastructure[.] For the purpose of this document, 'community' should be understood to include not just individual cities or towns, but also multijurisdictional regional authorities conducting planning and stakeholders with common interests or working on a common corridor to enhance the resilience of related infrastructure systems."

From the Foreword: "The scientific evidence on climate change has grown increasingly stark. Continued warming will further destabilize our climate and produce more frequent and intense storms, wildfires, and heatwaves as well as more damaging droughts and more extensive ecosystem losses. In August 2021, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report in which 234 of the world's leading scientists, citing over 14,000 different studies, concluded with high confidence that the climate crisis is a 'code red for humanity.' [...] This report lays out a strategy to advance a whole-of-government effort that safeguards workers and families from financial loss and positions the United States for success in the fight against climate change. It includes a roadmap for a long-term effort to build climate resilience throughout the U.S. economy and drive better long-term investment outcomes for ordinary Americans. Specifically, this report pushes forward on a broader economic strategy that invests in the country's physical and human infrastructure, reimagines public procurement policy as a tool to strategically shape markets and spread innovation, embeds resilience within supply chains critical to the clean energy transition, leverages the full talent and creativity of all Americans by elevating equity as a top priority in all policy decision-making, and restores the United States' relationship with key allies internationally, finding common ground to meet the global goals of the Paris Agreement."

From the Executive Summary: "On January 22, 2021, the 'New York Times' reported that Jeffrey Bossert Clark, the former Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Civil Division, sought to involve DOJ in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and plotted with then-President Trump to oust Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, who reportedly refused Trump's demands. On January 23, 2021, the 'Wall Street Journal' reported that Trump had urged DOJ to file a lawsuit in the Supreme Court seeking to invalidate President Biden's victory. These reports followed Trump's months-long effort to undermine the results of the election, which culminated in the violent insurrection at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. [...] The report makes six primary findings: FINDING 1: President Trump repeatedly asked DOJ leadership to endorse his false claims that the election was stolen and to assist his efforts to overturn the election results. [...] FINDING 2: White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows asked Acting Attorney General Rosen to initiate election fraud investigations on multiple occasions, violating longstanding restrictions on White House-DOJ communications about specific law-enforcement matters. [...] FINDING 3: After personally meeting with Trump, Jeffrey Bossert Clark pushed Rosen and Donoghue to assist Trump's election subversion scheme--and told Rosen he would decline Trump's potential offer to install him as Acting Attorney General if Rosen agreed to aid that scheme. [...] FINDING 4: Trump allies with links to the 'Stop the Steal' movement and the January 6 insurrection participated in the pressure campaign against DOJ. [...] FINDING 5: Trump forced the resignation of U.S. Attorney Byung Jin ('BJay') Pak, whom he believed was not doing enough to address false claims of election fraud in Georgia. Trump then went outside the line of succession when naming an Acting U.S. Attorney, bypassing First Assistant U.S. Attorney Kurt Erskine and instead appointing Bobby Christine because he believed Christine would 'do something' about his election fraud claims. [...] FINDING 6: By pursuing false claims of election fraud before votes were certified, DOJ deviated from longstanding practice meant to avoid inserting DOJ itself as an issue in the election."