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The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) today urged thrifts in areas affected by Southern California wildfires to consider all reasonable steps to meet customers’ financial needs. OTS will work with thrifts to identify ways to assist in the recovery efforts of their customers and communities. To facilitate recovery efforts while maintaining standards of safety and soundness, OTS encourages all thrifts in affected areas
This GAO announcement has highlights of GAO-08-36, a report to congressional requesters. An outbreak of pandemic flu would require close cooperation between the public and private sectors to ensure the protection of our nation’s critical infrastructure, such as drinking water and electricity. Because over 85 percent of the nation’s critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector, it is vital that both sectors effectively coordinate to successfully protect these assets. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is responsible for coordinating a national protection strategy and government and private sector councils have been created as a collaborating tool. GAO was asked to assess how the federal and private sectors are working together at a national level to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure in the event of a pandemic, the challenges they face, and opportunities for addressing these challenges. GAO reviewed 5 of the 17 critical infrastructure sectors. These 5 sectors are energy (electricity), food and agriculture, telecommunications, transportation (highway and motor carrier), and water.
The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Region V office examiners stationed in California have contacted all credit unions located in the fire damaged areas of Southern California and at noon (Pacific time) today most credit unions have returned to operations as normal.
The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) has activated its disaster relief policy to assist credit unions and their members affected by the wildfires in California. President George W. Bush has declared an emergency exists in the state of California and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts.
Nearly All Participants Find Critical Gaps in Plans The Treasury Department, the Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council for Critical Infrastructure Protection and Homeland Security, and the Securities Industry and Financial Management Association today released the preliminary results of the industry-wide pandemic flu exercise.
Hurricane Preparedness, Safety and Soundness of Credit Unions Discussed with Ranking Member of Financial Services Committee National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Vice Chairman Rodney E. Hood met with Congressman Spencer Bachus last week on Capitol Hill. Congressman Bachus serves as the ranking member of the House Committee on Financial Services. In recognition of President Bush’s declaration of last week as National Hurricane Preparedness Week, the Vice Chairman and ranking member Bachus discussed the action taken by NCUA in order to prepare the credit union community for hurricanes and other weather related emergencies.
President Bush has declared May 20 through May 26 as National Hurricane Preparedness Week. This week is an opportunity to raise awareness of measures Americans can take to protect their families and finances in the event of these weather related emergencies.
NCUA is continually making strides to strengthen its readiness in the event of a hurricane. Recently, the agency improved its contingency processes for information reporting and communication based upon lessons learned from government-wide exercises, contingency operations, and cross-agency working groups. Additionally, the agency will continue to train its staff to ensure they are prepared, knowledgeable, and ready. NCUA updated its examination program last year to ensure all credit unions are prepared for potential emergencies.
NCUA proposes to amend its regulations to address a federally-insured credit union’s obligation to maintain a records preservation program. The proposed rule draws from existing guidance to clarify requirements for preserving vital records and to suggest important items for consideration in restoring vital member services. NCUA believes the revised language and new appendix will facilitate the recovery of essential operations after a catastrophic act resulting in continued member confidence in the credit union system. The agency also proposes to amend its regulations to clarify the meaning of catastrophic act.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed homes and displaced millions of individuals. While federal and state governments continue to respond to this disaster, GAO has identified significant control weaknesses-specifically in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)'s Individuals and Households Program (IHP) and in Department of Homeland Security (DHS)'s purchase card program—resulting in significant fraud, waste, and abuse. In response to the numerous recommendations GAO made, DHS and FEMA have reported on numerous actions taken to address our recommendations. Lessons learned from GAO's prior work can serve as a framework for an effective fraud prevention system for federal and state governments as they consider spending billions more on disaster recovery. These lessons are particularly important because funding that is lost to fraud, waste, and abuse reduces the amount of money that could be delivered to victims in need.
Computer security incident response has become an important component of information technology (IT) programs. Security-related threats have become not only more numerous and diverse but also more damaging and disruptive. New types of security-related incidents emerge frequently. Preventative activities based on the results of risk assessments can lower the number of incidents, but not all incidents can be prevented. An incident response capability is therefore necessary for rapidly detecting incidents, minimizing loss and destruction, mitigating the weaknesses that were exploited, and restoring computing services. To that end, this publication provides guidelines for incident handling, particularly for analyzing incident-related data and determining the appropriate response to each incident. The guidelines can be followed independently of particular hardware platforms, operating systems, protocols, or applications.
Why GAO Did This Study
Today's testimony will address whether FEMA provided improper and potentially fraudulent (1) rental assistance payments to registrants at the same time it was providing free housing via trailers and apartments; (2) duplicate assistance payments to individuals who claimed damages to the same property for both hurricanes Katrina and Rita; and (3) IHP payments to non-U.S. residents who did not qualify for IHP. This testimony will also discuss (1) the importance of fraud identification and prevention, and (2) the results of our investigation into property FEMA bought using DHS purchase cards.
Why GAO Did This Study In the wake of the 2005 hurricanes in the Gulf Region, GAO and the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG) initiated a number of audits and investigations addressing the federal government's response to those events. On July 19, 2006, GAO testified on the results of its purchase card work. This report summarizes the testimony and provides recommendations. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cardholders made thousands of transactions related to hurricane relief operations. GAO analyzed transactions between June and November of 2005 to determine if (1) DHS's control environment and management of purchase card usage were effective; (2) DHS's key internal control activities operated effectively and provided reasonable assurance that purchase cards were used appropriately; and (3) potentially fraudulent, improper, and abusive purchase card activity existed at DHS.
Why GAO Did This Study In 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused unprecedented damage. FEMA’s Individuals and Households Program (IHP), provides direct assistance (temporary housing units) and financial assistance (grant funding for temporary housing and other disaster-related needs) to eligible individuals affected by disasters. Our objectives were to (1) compare the types and amounts of IHP assistance provided to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita victims to other recent hurricanes, (2) describe the challenges FEMA faced by the magnitude of the requests for assistance following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and (3) determine the vulnerability of the IHP program to fraud and abuse. GAO determined the extent to which the program was vulnerability to fraud and abuse, by conducting statistical sampling, data mining and undercover operations.
Why GAO Did This Study Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma (the Gulf Coast hurricanes) caused more than $118 billion in estimated property damages across the Gulf Coast region in 2005. The Small Business Administration (SBA) helps individuals and businesses recover from disasters through its Disaster Loan Program. GAO initiated work to determine how well SBA provided victims of the Gulf Coast hurricanes with timely assistance. This report, the first of two, focuses primarily on the Disaster Credit Management System (DCMS) and disaster loan process. Here, GAO evaluates (1) what affected SBA's ability to provide timely disaster assistance and (2) actions SBA took after the disasters to improve its response to disaster victims. In conducting this study, GAO analyzed data on loan applications and assessed key aspects of SBA's acquisition and implementation of DCMS. What GAO Recommends GAO recommends four actions including reassessing DCMS's maximum user capacity based on such things as lessons learned from the Gulf Coast hurricanes, a review of information available from catastrophe risk modeling firms and disaster simulations, and related cost considerations. In comments on a draft of this report, SBA generally agreed with our recommendations but said more credit should have been given to its improvement efforts.
Highlights of GAO-06-954T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on Management, Integration, and Oversight, Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives Why GAO Did This Study
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