Secretary Napolitano highlighted the Department's progress in 2011, emphasizing the major steps the Department has taken this year to enhance America's capabilities to guard against terrorism, and prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters.
- DHS published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register, creating the Ammonium Nitrate Security Program—part of the Department's ongoing efforts to secure potentially dangerous chemicals and ensure those chemicals do not fall into the hands of those who could cause harm.
- The DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD) Office of Infrastructure Protection released the Protective Measures Guide for Outdoor Venues, which is an overview of protective measures designed to assist owners and operators in planning and managing security at their facilities while providing examples of successful planning, organizing, coordinating, communicating, operating, and training activities that result in maintaining a safe environment for guests and employees.
- The USCG announced an additional layer of risk-based security for mobile offshore drilling units (MODUs) operating on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf as part of an ongoing review of marine safety policies following the April 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. As part of the safety inspection regimen, USCG marine inspectors will determine the risk posed by foreign-flagged MODUs by examining accident history and flag state performance to identify those vessels requiring additional oversight.
- The Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies (SAFETY) Act Program, administered by the Science & Technology Directorate (S&T), completed its most successful year in program history with more than 100 approved applications to develop and deploy anti-terrorism security technologies at critical infrastructure sites and nationally significant venues.
- In 2011, the DHS Federal Protective Service (FPS) responded to 53,000 incidents, made 1,975 arrests, and interdicted more than 680,000 weapons/prohibited items during routine checks at federal facilities. In addition, FPS investigated and mitigated over 1,300 threats and assaults directed towards federal facilities and their occupants.
- The NPPD Office of Infrastructure Protection assessed more than 680 critical infrastructures sites and conducted Regional Resiliency Assessments on clusters of high consequence critical infrastructure to coordinate protection efforts in major metropolitan areas. In 2011, this program was expanded to include the first international cross-border assessment in Maine and New Brunswick, Canada.