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Title 42, The Public Health and WelfareRelease 119-110

§5195c Critical Infrastructures Protection

Title 42 › CHAPTER 68 — DISASTER RELIEF › SUBCHAPTER IV–B — EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS › § 5195c

Last updated Sep 22, 2026|Official source

Summary

Creates the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC) as a national expert center to help protect and keep critical infrastructure working. NISAC must make and run computer models to study physical and cyber systems, collect needed data from state and local governments and private companies, teach government leaders about system behavior and how disruptions happen, and give recommendations to government and private groups on how to reduce risks and respond to incidents. Its modeling and analysis must be shared especially with federal, state, and local groups responsible for infrastructure protection. Congress found that businesses, government, and national security depend on linked physical and information systems and that a continuous national effort is needed to keep them reliable. The law sets a goal that any disruption to critical infrastructure should be rare, short, small in area, manageable, and cause minimal harm to the economy, services, and security. It also says protection should be done with public-private partnerships and that the federal government must have a program to keep essential functions running in all situations. Critical infrastructure means physical or virtual systems whose loss would badly hurt security, the economy, public health, or safety. The law authorizes $20,000,000 for fiscal year 2002 for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to support NISAC.

Full Legal Text

Title 42, §5195c

The Public Health and Welfare, Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)Short title
This section may be cited as the “Critical Infrastructures Protection Act of 2001”.
(b)Findings
Congress makes the following findings:
(1)The information revolution has transformed the conduct of business and the operations of government as well as the infrastructure relied upon for the defense and national security of the United States.
(2)Private business, government, and the national security apparatus increasingly depend on an interdependent network of critical physical and information infrastructures, including telecommunications, energy, financial services, water, and transportation sectors.
(3)A continuous national effort is required to ensure the reliable provision of cyber and physical infrastructure services critical to maintaining the national defense, continuity of government, economic prosperity, and quality of life in the United States.
(4)This national effort requires extensive modeling and analytic capabilities for purposes of evaluating appropriate mechanisms to ensure the stability of these complex and interdependent systems, and to underpin policy recommendations, so as to achieve the continuous viability and adequate protection of the critical infrastructure of the Nation.
(c)Policy of the United States
It is the policy of the United States—
(1)that any physical or virtual disruption of the operation of the critical infrastructures of the United States be rare, brief, geographically limited in effect, manageable, and minimally detrimental to the economy, human and government services, and national security of the United States;
(2)that actions necessary to achieve the policy stated in paragraph (1) be carried out in a public-private partnership involving corporate and non-governmental organizations; and
(3)to have in place a comprehensive and effective program to ensure the continuity of essential Federal Government functions under all circumstances.
(d)Establishment of national competence for critical infrastructure protection
(1)Support of critical infrastructure protection and continuity by National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center
There shall be established the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC) to serve as a source of national competence to address critical infrastructure protection and continuity through support for activities related to counterterrorism, threat assessment, and risk mitigation.
(2)Particular support
The support provided under paragraph (1) shall include the following:
(A)Modeling, simulation, and analysis of the systems comprising critical infrastructures, including cyber infrastructure, telecommunications infrastructure, and physical infrastructure, in order to enhance understanding of the large-scale complexity of such systems and to facilitate modification of such systems to mitigate the threats to such systems and to critical infrastructures generally.
(B)Acquisition from State and local governments and the private sector of data necessary to create and maintain models of such systems and of critical infrastructures generally.
(C)Utilization of modeling, simulation, and analysis under subparagraph (A) to provide education and training to policymakers on matters relating to—
(i)the analysis conducted under that subparagraph;
(ii)the implications of unintended or unintentional disturbances to critical infrastructures; and
(iii)responses to incidents or crises involving critical infrastructures, including the continuity of government and private sector activities through and after such incidents or crises.
(D)Utilization of modeling, simulation, and analysis under subparagraph (A) to provide recommendations to policymakers, and to departments and agencies of the Federal Government and private sector persons and entities upon request, regarding means of enhancing the stability of, and preserving, critical infrastructures.
(3)Recipient of certain support
Modeling, simulation, and analysis provided under this subsection shall be provided, in particular, to relevant Federal, State, and local entities responsible for critical infrastructure protection and policy.
(e)Critical infrastructure defined
In this section, the term “critical infrastructure” means systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters.
(f)Authorization of appropriations
There is hereby authorized for the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2002, $20,000,000 for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency for activities of the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center under this section in that fiscal year.

Legislative History

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Codification Section was enacted as the Critical Infrastructures Protection Act of 2001 and also as part of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 or USA PATRIOT Act, and not as part of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act which comprises this chapter.

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Transfer of Functions

For

Transfer of Functions

, personnel, assets, and liabilities of the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center of the Department of Energy, including the functions of the Secretary of Energy relating thereto, to the Secretary of Homeland Security, and for treatment of related references, see section 121(g)(4), 551(d), 552(d), and 557 of Title 6, Domestic Security, and the Department of Homeland Security Reorganization Plan of November 25, 2002, as modified, set out as a note under section 542 of Title 6.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

42 U.S.C. § 5195c

Title 42, The Public Health and Welfare

Last Updated

Sep 22, 2026

Release point: 119-110