About Emily Holbrook

Emily Holbrook is a former editor of the Risk Management Monitor and Risk Management magazine. You can read more of her writing at EmilyHolbrook.com.
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TSA to Begin Swabbing Hands of Passengers

commercial airplane

U.S. airports will now be randomly swabbing the hands of passengers to check for traces of explosive materials. You may be familiar with this technique as it was previously used with carry-on baggage of some passengers.

Soon now, though, travelers can expect to see the increased random use of ETD [explosive trace detection] technology in different areas, including checkpoint lines and at boarding gates. Officers may swab a piece of luggage or passengers’ hands, then use ETD technology to test for explosives. The swab is placed inside the ETD unit which analyzes the content for the presence of potential explosive residue. To ensure the health of travelers, screening swabs are disposed of after each use. Since it will be used on a random basis, passengers should not expect to see the same thing at every airport or each time they travel.

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This measure has been put into place in response to the attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas day. Currently, the TSA has more than 7,000 ETD machines and has purchased 400 additional units with $16 million in federal stimulus money. The president’s fiscal 2011 budget calls for $60 million to purchase approximately 800 portable ETD machines.

But can’t terrorists wash off trace amounts of explosives with soap and water? Apparently not. The ETD can detect race elements “down to the nanogram — or billionth of a gram,” making it nearly impossible, no matter how many times hands are washed, to completely rid oneself of traces of explosives.

What exactly are the machines trying to detect? The official TSA list is classified. But it probably covers any commonplace explosive you can think of, including fertilizer, nitroglycerin (used in dynamite), C4, TNT, RDX, and PETN, the chemical used by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Christmas Day.

Other security measurers are also being implemented in airports across the country. Backscatter x-ray and millimeter x-ray machines are currently being used in a handful of airports, while hundreds are in the process of being put into place by the TSA.

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Privacy groups, however, are up in arms about the technology, which is part of the reason they are not more commonplace in American airports.

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For more on this discussion, check out the March issue of Risk Management in which we feature an article titled “Airport Security: Privacy vs. Safety.”

Treasury Secretary May Gain More Power

capitol building

It looks as though the Treasury secretary may soon have a role overseeing individual financial companies. In a move to help monitor systemic risk throughout the financial arena, Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn) is looking to release a bill next week that would overhaul financial regulation with sweeping reform.

Lawmakers and government officials have agreed that Washington should be working to identify risky activities that could threaten the entire system — a job no single regulator had during the lead-up to the financial crisis.

But because of the financial crisis, that job may now fall under the Treasury secretary’s duties, an idea both Dodd and Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala), both of the Senate banking committee, favor since “the Treasury secretary has a higher international profile than most regulators” and because that position is more accountable to Congress.

Dodd’s new proposal represents a shift for the senator.

Last fall, he introduced a bill that would have created a separate Agency for Financial Stability. Dodd envisioned an agency responsible for identifying, monitoring and addressing systemic risks and with the authority to break up large, complex companies if they posed a threat to financial stability. He called for it to be governed by an independent chairman, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, as he said, “to provide insulation from political manipulation.”

Shelby and other conservatives did not completely support the idea of a new agency. Dodd then “embraced the idea of a council of regulators, with the Treasury secretary at the head.

” But this bill will, and has, drawn criticism referring to the opportunity for political influence to play a part in the position.

If the bill should pass, it would mark significant milestone by granting a Cabinet member a measure of regulatory authority. For even more on this topic, don’t forget to check out the April issue of Risk Management, in which we will feature an in-depth piece on banking regulation and risk and what is being proposed by the Basel committee.

Big Companies Not Managing Water Scarcity Risks

water scarcity

Despite recent scrutiny of some large corporations that rely heavily on water resources, it seems many companies are still falling short in managing and disclosing water scarcity risks. That’s according to a recent report issued by the Ceres investor coalition, the financial services firm UBS and financial data provider Bloomberg.

The report evaluates and ranks water disclosure practices of 100 publicly traded companies in eight key sectors exposed to water-related risks. The report shows that many companies are not including material water risks and performance data in their financial filings, nor are they providing local-level water data, particularly in the context of facilities in water-stressed regions. Moreover, none of the 100 companies are providing comprehensive water data on their supply chains, an especially glaring omission given that the vast majority of many corporations’ water footprint is in the supply chain.

The report uses a scoring scale of 0 to 100 with the three highest scoring companies being UK beverage company Diageo, Swiss mining company Xstrata and U.S. electric power company Pinnacle West (owner of Arizona Public Service).

“Most companies provide basic disclosure on overall water use and water scarcity concerns, but their focus and attention so far is not nearly at the level needed given the enormity of this growing global challenge,” said Mindy S. Lubber, president of Ceres. “Our global economy runs on water and in many parts of the world this finite resource is under threat. Companies must do more to disclose their potential exposure from this issue and their strategies for responding.”

The report assesses companies in eight different sectors: beverage, chemicals, electric power, food, homebuilding, mining, oil and gas and semiconductors. The report found the following:

The mining sector scored highest overall, followed by the beverage industry. Companies in the homebuilding sector had the lowest overall scores.
Only 21 companies disclose targets to reduce water use, and even fewer – just 15 companies – had goals to reduce wastewater discharge.
Only 17 companies report local-level water data and only a handful provide the information in the context of operations in water stressed regions.
  • The mining sector scored highest overall, followed by the beverage industry. Companies in the homebuilding sector had the lowest overall scores.
  • Only 21 companies disclose targets to reduce water use, and even fewer — just 15 companies — had goals to reduce wastewater discharge.
  • Only 17 companies report local-level water data and only a handful provide the information in the context of operations in water stressed regions.
The findings in this report do not bode well for companies with the highest scores. Investors have been increasingly critical of companies that do not disclose environmental, social and governance risks they may face. It is nice to see that this report offers a bit of guidance for those companies wanting to be more transparent with such risks. It recommends companies:
  • include material water risk factors and performance data in their financial filings;
  • provide water performance data broken down to the facility level for operations in water-stressed regions;
  • outline actions and policies for assessing and managing water risks, including quantified targets for reducing wastewater and water use;
  • disclose how they are collaborating with stakeholders and suppliers on water risks, including setting performance goals for key supply chains;
  • outline specific strategies for developing water-related products with strong market potential in a water-constrained world.

For more about water scarcity, check out the cover story we ran in our June 2009 issue. And please, let us know how your company is managing water scarcity risks.

Snowfall’s Impact on the Economy

blizzard

Snow days are fun for most everyone and maybe that’s because people don’t immediately realize the economic impact of snowfall on the areas hardest hit. Let’s take D.C. for example. The area is still digging out from snowstorms that dumped a total of 54.9 inches of snow (as measured at Reagan Airport) — breaking a record last set in 1899.

As one could imagine, when a major city shuts down almost completely for more than four days, the financial repercussions are far-reaching. Washington, D.C.’s Office of Personnel management has said each snow day costs taxpayers $100 million in lost productivity from federal workers, not to mention lost productivity for state and local governments.

Then there’s the cost of removing the snow.

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Maryland, Virginia and D.C. will likely ask for emergency federal aid to cover the cost of the massive cleanup. Though it’s too early to put a number on the cost of the cleanup, we can compare it to the 1993 blizzard that struck the East Cost and cost more than $6 billion. As for New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said that each one inch of snowfall this week cost the city $1 million.

And as thousands of flights were cancelled due to the storm, an untold number of business meetings were also nixed, representing a loss of potential business. And it almost goes without saying that grounding planes for an extended period of time also hurts the airline companies’ bottom line.

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These points have been floating around the news since the snow began to fall on the East Coast in December. But what has not been mentioned quite as much is what happened recently at Dulles airport that has the potential to severely affect the aircraft insurance market. Saturday’s heavy snowfall in the D.C. area caused a roof collapse at a Dulles Airport hangar.

The bill to general aviation from last weekend’s massive snowstorm on the east coast could hit tens of millions of dollars and most of that could come from the partial collapse of one building at Dulles International Airport. As we reported Saturday, part of the roof of Dulles Jet Center came down under the weight of the snow. At the time, all that was known was that there were aircraft inside but photos provided to AVweb by a reader show a scene that is enough to make any insurance executive shiver. Two Bombardier Global Express jets and a Gulfstream 550 appear to be in takeoff attitude inside the hangar, their tails pushed to the floor under the weight of the crushed structure of the building. It’s not immediately known whether they can be repaired and it might be tricky getting them out from under the twisted steel.

For an already tight and volatile aircraft insurance market, the incident at Dulles will undoubtedly severely affect premiums as millions in claims are paid out for this incident.

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And as more snow is expected to blanket the East Coast once again early next week, the total economic loss continues to add up.