On July 21, APGA staff participated in the summer meeting of the Oil and Natural Gas Subsector Coordinating Council (ONG SCC). On Thursday morning, just a few representatives from oil and natural gas companies, as well as staff from the major trade associations in this sector, met; that afternoon, the ONG SCC participated in a briefing with pertinent personnel within President Biden’s Department of Energy (DOE) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The ONG SCC represents the industry interests of oil and natural gas companies in a government-industry partnership. It provides a forum to coordinate activities across the sector to support America’s homeland security mission.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), a division of DHS, shared the release of an updated security directive (SD-02C), which provides cybersecurity rules for critical facility operators. There are still plans to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) as SD-02C is temporary and will need to be replaced with a regulation. Encouragingly, SD-02C is performance-based, meaning TSA is setting targets and allowing individual companies to achieve the most appropriate way for their operation. This is much different than previous prescriptive security directives.
In addition to the conversation with TSA on SD-02C, there was conversation with DOE on preparing for a potential hurricane. Given that the Ukraine-Russia conflict is straining energy supplies, it is critical to think through that impact and how a hurricane hit could cause even more stress in the natural gas supply chain. Support from the federal government will be crucial to ensure Americans have continued access to the energy they need in the event that a major storm hits the coast combined with ongoing geopolitics.
Throughout all the conversations at the ONG SCC, APGA staff and the others from the industry stressed the importance of maintaining trust between industry and the government, including the need to seek input from the pipeline operator subject matter experts. Additionally, with so much activity from multiple government agencies, the pipeline operators encouraged harmonization of security efforts. With any new developments, APGA staff will be engaging with its Security Task Group.
For questions on this article, please contact Stuart Saulters of APGA staff by phone at 202-544-1334 or by email at
ssaulters@apga.org.