Wednesday, August 21, 2002

PNWER Homeland Security Recommendations The Pacific Northwest Economic Region recently sponsored a regional homeland security exercise called Blue Cascades.  The exercise resulted in a long list of recommendations.  A few of these are listed below.  I'm not going to comment on the recommendations individually.  Utah is refining its strategic plan currently which I'm sure will have a regional component to it.  Utah also has some important ties to the other states in the PNWER. Identify the range of federal civilian and defense resources that can be brought to bear to address regional response and recovery needs. Seek legislative support for necessary policies and technical assistance programs to meet regional protection, mitigation, response and recovery needs, including training, exercises; also , information sharing (e.g., relief from freedom of information act and sunshine law requirements). Explore options for, and establish, a secure, region-wide common communications network with sufficient redundancy and alternative systems. Develop procedures to facilitate the dissemination of outage-related information expeditiously to key infrastructures. Establish stockpiles and procedures for prioritized access to electric power generators, other emergency back-up equipment, and also critical components that would be difficult to obtain in the short-term. Work with appropriate government organizations to put in place a common, public-private sector, continent- wide, alert system with threat levels that have standardized actions required. Develop a secure, regional clearinghouse for interdependencies issues and related preparedness information, including data on all regional exercises and training opportunities. Undertake the development of analytic tools to provide credible damage assessments for use in preparedness planning and to assist in response and recovery Develop a regional nuclear/radiological preparedness program that takes intoaccount private and public sector security and response/remediation needs. Utilize the Partnership for Regional Infrastructure Security to develop a common terminology and preparedness plan for the region, facilitate exchange of information and monitor the progress of implementation. Consider the need for a Utilities Regional Security Association (URSA) under the auspices of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region modeled along the lines of the California Utilities Emergency Association. URSA would provide a list of regional points-of-contact in all state/provincial, local, law enforcement organizations and utilities, as well as a forum for planning and coordination. More recommendations are found in the full report 12:53:31 PM

Marginal Cost of Goods The Utah legislature's executive appropriations committee spent a lot of time yesterday talking about the cost associated with tuition waivers for graduate students at Utah's two research institutions (University of Utah and Utah State University).  These graduate students, most of whom are teaching assistants or research assistants are granted in-state tuition.  Legislators are concerned that the State is paying too much to support out-of-state students.  About 25% of the graduate students at each school are from other states.  The deal is that educating additional students is MUCH cheaper assuming that you already are determined to invest in a program.  To increase a graduate student class-size from 10 to 15 students may cost you nothing on the margin, so if you bring in $2000 a semester per student and add five students it is much better than limiting the class to 10 students through restrictive policies that you think are designed to save you money.  We need a full blown class on economics here.  The same principles often apply to the management of internal service funds. 8:31:01 AM

© Copyright 2002 David Fletcher.