Pipeline Security Paper

503 Words2 Pages

One of the components of the United States Transportation Network is pipeline security. Nearly half of a million of pipeline transporting natural gas, oil, and other hazardous liquids crisscross the United States (Parfomak, 2012). Pipelines have been a typical target of terrorism throughout the world, and intelligence has found evidence that terrorists consider the United States pipeline system a high-value target. Also, accidents or other disruptions to the pipeline infrastructure can cause significant impacts to property and to humans, and the economic impacts may be far-reaching (Bullock, Coppola, & Haddow, 2013). Pipeline accidents in Marshall, Michigan, San Bruno, California, Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Laurel, Montana have caused congressional …show more content…

Department of Justice arrested members of a terrorist group planning to attack jet fuel pipelines and storage tanks at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York (Parfomak, 2012). According to TSA Pipeline Security Guidelines (2011), a risk-based corporate security program should be established and implemented by each pipeline operator to address and document the organization’s policies and procedures for managing security related threats, incidents, and responses. Procedures have been implemented to ensure pipeline safety through TSA such as ensuring sufficient resources, assigning a qualified primary and alternate staff member to manage the corporate security program, providing TSA with the 24/7 contact information, developing and maintaining a cyber/Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition security plan, or incorporate cyber/SCADA security measures in the corporate security plan, implementing appropriate threat level protective measures upon of an applicable National Terrorism Advisory System alert, and notifying TSA or all security incidents by phone or e-mail as soon as possible (TSA Pipeline Security Guidelines,

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