WASHINGTON, D.C. — Union Pacific Railroad president Dick Davidson was tapped by President Bush to serve as chairman of the newly created National Infrastructure Advisory Committee, Traffic World reported.
The purpose of the NIAC will be to “make recommendations regarding the security of the cyber and information systems of the United States’ national security and economic critical infrastructures,” according to the White House. “The Committee will also examine ways that partnerships between the public and private sectors can be enhanced to improve cyber security.”
The 24-member committee represents major sectors of the economy, including finance, transportation, energy, information technology, and manufacturing, in addition to representatives from academia, state and local government, and law enforcement.
Several companies represented on the committee are members of the National Industrial Transportation League, including DuPont, Pfizer and ConocoPhillips. “It’s well and good that the chairmen of these companies are on the committee,” said NITL president Ed Emmett, “but we want to be sure that the folks that are actually responsible for the freight get involved.”
Although the costs involved with various security initiatives over the past year has been an issue for shippers, “everybody knows there’s a cost involved in security,” Emmett said. “The real concern is, does it disrupt the flow of commerce? Shippers want to be sure we don’t do things in the name of security that don’t make sense.”
Emmett added that Davidson has “been in the transportation business a long time, and probably knows railroads as well as anybody else, and that’s a key piece of the infrastructure.”