ar – dhs risk analysis – solves tism

Utility regulation is probably the most technically complex function of government. Properly done, regulation involves the interdisciplinary efforts of financial analysts, accountants, lawyers, engineers, economists, public relations experts, and administrators. This technical work is the bread and butter of regulation.4 For example the U.K. energy regulator’s plans for 2011‐12 emphasize the completion of rate cases, deciding funding for various infrastructure projects, and reforming market processes.5 The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s strategic plan identifies regulatory ratemaking, market oversight, and infrastructure development and siting among commission’s primary instruments for achieving its goals.6 In performing their work, regulatory agencies often imitate the practices of other agencies in addition to following expert analysis. A former PURC student, Troy Quast, researched this issue in his dissertation and found that regulatory decisions of small U.S. states are heavily influenced by the decisions of the largest states in their respective regions even when the small states’ circumstances are dissimilar to the large state’s circumstances.7 Similarly, a spot check of regulatory training programs and webinars shows that many emphasize best practices and experiences of practicing or former regulators.

As Congress seeks to privatize more aviation security, airport officials described their difficulties Tuesday in getting the Transportation Security Administration to hire contractors. A small airport in Montana is about to get screeners after a four-year application process, the House Homeland Security subcommittee on transportation heard Tuesday. And the Kansas City airport director told lawmakers he is worried about a roughly four-year-long contract dispute that prevented a contract extension. The question for airports seeking private screening and the lawmakers who advocate it is how to improve TSA's application process to work faster and easier. The TSA was created to standardize and improve airport security after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But the agency has the Screening Partnership Program for airports that prefer to hire private contractors, so long as they maintain the same level of security as the TSA. Congress would like to expand the program beyond the current 18 airports — the largest in San Francisco and Kansas City — that handle a combined 4.5% of all passengers nationwide. But after a 2012 law made the application process easier so more airports could participate, lawmakers say the results are still balky. "There is no reason why (the program) cannot be expanded to create even greater efficiencies under a risk-based system," said Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., and the panel chairman. William Benner, the program's director, said the agency promoted the program by meeting in January with about 100 contract companies. The TSA also met with vendors at two industry meetings in June. Benner said the agency's goal is now to get from application to contract award within a year. "That is a very aggressive timeline," Benner said. "Are we getting better? I'm convinced we are."

Ms. Shanti Sundharam, Chairperson CBEC underlined the urgent need to benchmark with the most modern customs administrations of the world and that the Department was watchful of the responsibilities entrusted to it, as a border Control agency, for preventing activities inimical to our national interest, like trafficking in drugs, flora, fauna, fake currency, weapons of mass destruction, dual use chemicals, arms, etc. Therefore, she said that the aim is to modernize the ports, airports and land customs operations with installation of more scanners, baggage X ray equipment, deployment of sniffer dogs, upgrading physical infrastructure etc. She said that this shall address the heightened security concerns of the nation, expedite cargo clearances, and thereby enable our manufacturing to remain competitive in international trade. She said that CBEC recognizes the importance of providing a non adversarial regime and a tax design for our taxpayers, which complements the country's economic realities and business practices. She said that we have initiated steps to reduce litigation in line with the National Litigation policy, and institutionalize consultative mechanisms.

To accept that the snail darter, harelip sucker, or Dismal Swamp southeastern shrew 74 could save [hu]mankind may be difficult for some. Many, if not most, species are useless to[hu]man[s] in a direct utilitarian sense. Nonetheless, they may be critical in an indirect role, because their extirpations could affect a directly useful species negatively. In a closely interconnected ecosystem, the loss of a species affects other species dependent on it. 75 Moreover, as the number of species decline, the effect of each new extinction on the remaining species increases dramatically. 4. Biological Diversity. -- The main premise of species preservation is that diversity is better than simplicity. 77 As the current mass extinction has progressed, the world's biological diversity generally has decreased. This trend occurs within ecosystems by reducing the number of species, and within species by reducing the number of individuals. Both trends carry serious future implications. 78 [*173] Biologically diverse ecosystems are characterized by a large number of specialist species, filling narrow ecological niches. These ecosystems inherently are more stable than less diverse systems. "The more complex the ecosystem, the more successfully it can resist a stress. . . . [l]ike a net, in which each knot is connected to others by several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than a simple, unbranched circle of threads -- which if cut anywhere breaks down as a whole." 79 By causing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially simplified many ecosystems. As biologic simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desert in Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild examples of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new animal or plant extinction, with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects, could cause total ecosystem collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction increases the risk of disaster. Like a mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an aircraft's wings, 80 [hu]mankind may be edging closer to the abyss.

This scenario, as frightening as it is, pales in comparison with what could overtake us by 2007 if the highly pathogenic form of bird flu “H5N1” becomes transmittable human to human; all it would take for this to happen is a simple gene shift in the bird flu virus, which could happen any day. In a globalized world linked by rapid air travel, the disease would spread like a raging forest fire. If it did, it would overwhelm our public health system, cripple our economies, and wipe out a billion people within the space of a few months—a 60 percent mortality rate is estimated.

Our body is in constant competition with a dizzying array of viruses, bacteria, and parasites, many of which treat us simply as a source of food or a vehicle for reproduction. What’s troubling is that these microbes can mutate and evolve at fantastic speed – the more so thanks to the burgeoning human population – confronting our bodies with new dangers every year. HIV, Ebola, bird flu, and antibiotic-resistant “super bugs” are just a few of the pathogenic threats to humanity that have surfaced over the past few decades. Our soaring numbers, ubiquitous international travel, and the increasing use of chemicals and biological agents without full knowledge of their consequences, have increased the risk of unstoppable pandemics arising from mutant viruses and their ilk. Bubonic plague, the Black Death, and the Spanish Flu are vivid examples from history of how microbial agents can decimate populations. But the consequences aren’t limited to a high body count. When the death toll gets high enough, it can disrupt the very fabric of society. According to U.S. government studies, if a global pandemic affecting at least half the world’s population were to strike today, health professionals wouldn’t be able to cope with the vast numbers of sick and succumbing people. The result of so many deaths would have serious implications for the infrastructure, food supply, and security of 21st century man. While an untreatable pandemic could strike suddenly and potentially bring civilization to its knees in weeks or months, degenerative diseases might do so over longer periods. The most common degenerative disease is cancer. Every second men and every third women in the western world will be diagnosed with this disease in their lifetime. Degeneration of our environment through the release of toxins and wastes, air pollution, and intake of unhealthy foods is making this problem worse. If cancer, or some other form of degenerative disease, were to become even more commonplace and strike before reproduction, or become infectious (as seen in the transmitted facial cancer of the Tasmanian Devil, a carnivorous marsupial in Australia) the very survival of our species could be threatened.

Last week on Capitol Hill, we joined a diverse group of leaders from Congress, the State Department, the NGO community and other sectors to shine a light on the crisis that the global community faces from the meteoric rise of wildlife crime in recent years. The illegal poaching and trade of ivory and rhino horn, as well as other wildlife products, has exploded over the last decade, creating an illicit trade in wildlife that is now valued at up to $10 billion per year. The victims of these crimes are many. First and foremost, wildlife crime poses an existential threat to animal species, and at the current rate of poaching there will be no rhino and elephant populations to speak of on the African continent in the coming years. Wildlife crime is also destabilizing communities, countries and whole regions throughout Africa. Criminal and extremist organizations profit from the trade as a tool to fuel their violence and to expand their sphere of influence. Local communities are losing their vital wildlife habitats and the underlying eco-tourism economies that are vital to many African countries.

Brendan Moyle, an economist at New Zealand's Massey University who studies wildlife trafficking, says ivory smuggling tactics are essentially business decisions. Because ivory is bulky and must travel thousands of miles, smugglers are usually keen to ship it as cheaply as possible. And when shipping costs plummet, as they did following the global financial crisis of 2008-09, the incentive to ship ever-larger quantities increases dramatically. In a forthcoming paper in the journal Ecological Economics, Moyle analyzed ivory seizure data from the Elephant Trade Information System, a CITES-affiliated database. He found that, between 2008 and 2011, the number of ivory seizures weighing more than 1,000 kilograms rose roughly eightfold, whereas seizures of smaller amounts rose only marginally. Choosing where to bring ivory is also a business decision. Larger ports are typically attractive to smugglers because there's less risk of detection by customs officials, Moyle says. Also, Southeast Asia's climate is perfect for storing large quantities of ivory without temperature-control systems--the kind that would be necessary in a place like, say, northern China. Tusks can be stockpiled and then slowly sold to investors or leaked into the legal ivory trade over a period of months or years. "If I was doing this, I would have some stockpiled in Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand," Moyle told me. "Safe places to keep it hoarded." Some ivory smugglers ship by air. That may sound anachronistic in the post-9/11 era of heightened airport security. Yet an ivory shipment typically begins its journey at an African airport with lax customs infrastructure, and, much like a passenger's luggage during a series of connecting flights, it may not be inspected much during its long journey to Asia. The tusks themselves can be well concealed, and they certainly aren't listed on customs declarations forms. In 2011, a shipment of 118 elephant tusks and three rhino horns discovered at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport had been labeled as "craft work." This April, Thai authorities seized four tons of ivory that had been hidden inside of bean sacks shipped from Congo.

I've listened with the opening statements, and I can say from the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport we have many of the same problems. But I still believe that the airport security screening activities are inherently a federal responsibility, and I think people feel more secure with TSA screeners than with private screeners, besides encountering poor customer service. In many cases, I think the federal screeners are doing a respectful job. We have huge numbers of complaints in DFW about the attitude. It is important that we keep a standard uniform security program for all airports, but we need to improve the way TSA staff hires and trains its screeners. Specifically, we need more local control of staffing and training at our airports. Currently, the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport is losing 60 screeners per month. This adds up to 720 screeners that DFW is losing per year. Unfortunately, DFW's TSA federal security director has only replenished the screener workforce once since he has been at the airport. With passenger volumes for Fiscal Year 2004 and 2005 projected to result in DFW's second and fourth highest years ever, it is imperative that we have enough screeners to process this increase in passengers. This is clearly a problem that can and should be remedied by decentralizing screener hiring practices. As I've said time and time again throughout the highway bill reauthorization process, we have to got to devolve authority to those more directly impacted by the problem. Those closer to the problem are best able to fix it. Local control would provide better security and customer service for our nation's airports.