Overview[]
The Department of Homeland Security's Office of Infrastructure Protection (abbreviated as OIP or just IP)) within the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD) leads the coordinated national program to reduce risks to the nation's critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR) posed by acts of terrorism, and to strengthen national preparedness, timely response, and rapid recovery in the event of an attack, natural disaster, or other emergency.
The IP is responsible for working with public- and private-sector CIKR partners and leads the coordinated national effort to mitigate risk to the nation's CIKR through the development and implementation of the CIKR protection program.
Using a sector partnership model, IP’s Partnership and Outreach Division (POD) works with owners and operators of the nation's CIKR to develop, facilitate, and sustain strategic relationships and information sharing, including the sharing of best practices. The POD also works with public and private partners to coordinate efforts to establish and operate various councils intended to protect CIKR and provide CIKR functions to strengthen incident response.
These councils include the SCCs, which coordinate sector-wide CIKR activities and initiatives among private sector owners, operators, and trade associations in each of the 18 sectors, and the GCCs that represent federal, state, and local government and tribal interests to support the effort of SCCs to develop collaborative strategies for CIKR protection for each of the 18 sectors.
The partnership model also includes various cross-sector councils, including the CIKR Cross-Sector Council, which addresses cross-sector issues and interdependencies among SCCs; the NIPP Federal Senior Leadership Council, which focuses on enhanced communication and coordination between and among federal departments and agencies responsible for implementing the NIPP and HSPD-7; and the State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial Government Coordinating Council, which promotes coordination across state and local jurisdictions. The model also includes a Regional Consortium Coordinating Council, which bring together representatives of regional partnerships, groupings, and governance bodies to foster coordination among CIKR partners within and across geographical areas and sectors.