Understanding Federal Homeland Security Documents

The federal government provides many reports, strategies, and plans to which states should refer when developing their own homeland security strategy. We have already discussed the 25 HSPDs that govern the federal government’s homeland security policy initiatives.

The National Incident Management System (NIMS) established in 2008 is a comprehensive, national approach to incident management that is applicable at all jurisdictional levels and across functional disciplines. It attempts to improve coordination and cooperation between public and private entities and provides a common standard for overall incident management.

Also in 2008, DHS released the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP), later revised in 2013, that provides a framework for identifying and protecting critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR). The plan’s goal is to strengthen national preparedness, timely responses, and rapid recovery of critical infrastructure in the event of a terror attack, natural disaster, or other emergency.

Issued in 2008, the National Response Framework (NRF) establishes a comprehensive, all-hazards approach to domestic incident response. NRF describes how communities, tribes, states, the federal government, private sector, and nongovernmental partners work together to coordinate a national response. It also describes best practices for managing incidents and builds on the NIMS that provide a template for managing incidents.

Released in 2010 and developed by DHS, the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) specifies key homeland security mission priorities, outlines goals for each of those mission areas, and lays the groundwork for next steps. The QHSR was conducted by department officials with the input of numerous stakeholders located throughout the country.

We will discuss these documents in detail in upcoming lessons. Please reference this page for the many acronyms used by DHS.