The Automation Federation and ISA joined nineteen other energy- and technology-oriented organizations in presenting a National Energy Policy Goals Proclamation to the 111th Congress. The proclamation calls on the new President and Congress to act quickly to establish National Energy Policy Goals to help ensure the nation's economic and national security and to guide the development of energy technology for the 21st Century.

The proclamation recommends the following goals:

• Maximize the use of electric power generated by sustainable, economic, and environmentally-acceptable technology
• Modernize the Nation's electric transmission grid
• Maximize electrification of the transportation sector
• Establish visible and substantial national energy efficiency and conservation goals
• Employ indigenous raw material to manufacture liquid and gaseous fuels
• Build and deploy generating capacity to supply reliable electric service
• Provide a long-term commitment to energy research, development, and demonstration

The proclamation was developed through collaboration between American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE-USA), and the energy policy alliance—focused on providing information on energy legislation and serving as a resource to the engineering community—these two societies have created. The Automation Federation and ISA are members of this energy policy alliance.

In the beginning of this year, the Automation Federation created an Energy Committee, chaired by Leo Staples of OG&E, to work on the Automation Federation SmartGrid/Cybersecurity initiative currently underway. In conjunction with the 2009 Engineering Public Policy Symposium held in April, Automation Federation volunteers met with Members of Congress in Washington D.C. to discuss the importance of the automation professional and the automation standards and certifications that will play an important role in attaining these proposed National Energy Policy Goals.

A POWID SmartGrid exploratory committee met in Chicago at the POWID Symposium in May to discuss the continuing strategy for moving the SmartGrid/Cybersecurity initiative forward.

Leo Staples, chair of the Automation Federation energy committee stated, "By adding our names to this Proclamation, the Automation Federation and ISA are showing our support for the adoption of these energy policy goals and demonstrating that we are active players in the development of a National Energy Policy. As these National Energy Policy Goals are discussed by Congress, the Automation Federation will serve as a technical and expert resource to the Members."

Learn more about the National Energy Policy Goals Proclamation at www.automationfederation.org/energy.

The Automation Federation will be honored at the Progressive Manufacturing Awards Gala on 11 June 2009, at the Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota, FL, for the development of the Automation Competency Model with the U.S. Department of Labor.

In November 2008, Steve Huffman, serving as Chairman of the Automation Federation at that time, was interviewed by representatives from Managing Automation to discuss the Automation Competency Model; its impact on individuals, educational institutions, and industry; and it's establishment of a discipline critical to the success of manufacturers attempting to compete globally in the 21st century. Huffman led a team of Automation Federation volunteer subject matter experts, working with representatives from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), in building the completed Competency Model. This body of work and its future potential was the basis for the Automation Federation being named a winner of this prestigious Progressive Manufacturing Award. The Automation Federation invites you to visit www.automationfederation.org/model to learn more about this award winning body of work.

For the complete article, visit ISA.org.

Interesting article by Gary Mitchell from Automation World about technology that drives the Apple iPhone gesturing touchscreen being applied to industrial applications:

"Ocular Display Systems, based in Dallas, announced two advances in the past week. The first was its development of "projected capacitive" touchscreens for device sizes larger than the smartphone market that has driven development thus far. The second was the integration of gesture touch systems within this screen technology. These advances could herald a significantly better user experience for many industrial applications."

For the complete article, visit AutomationWorld.com.

The chairpersons of the ISA99 Industrial Automation and Control Systems Security committee have announced plans to establish ISA99 Working Group 7 (WG7): Safety and Security of Industrial Automation and Control Systems. This is a joint working group between the ISA99 committee and the ISA84 functional safety standards committee, as well as other international standards programs and related interest groups, to promote greater awareness of the impact of cyber security issues on the safe operation of industrial processes.

The next logical step for the ISA99 standards committee is to investigate how to protect industrial processes against systematic and intentional threats. These cyber security threats against industrial automation and control systems can result in dangerous failures, making the challenge of protecting these systems unique from traditional IT security. As technologies such as wireless, Ethernet, and computer information systems gain increased acceptance in industrial automation, the need for design strategies and methodologies to identify and mitigate risk is clear. Leveraging expertise found in both the ISA84 and ISA99 committees is a solid strategy to address these challenges.

The ISA84 committee represents one of the most significant efforts in functional safety, and has been foundational in the downward trend of dangerous failures in industrial automation. "The ISA84, and subsequent work in IEC 61508 and IEC 61511, identifies cyber security as a potential threat to safe operation, but our scope focuses mostly on hardware faults and device reliability," says William Johnson, chair of the ISA84 committee. "The ISA99 joint working group with ISA84 represents a significant complement to our work as it addresses faults and emerging threats today that jeopardize safe operations in ways that many were less concerned, even a few years ago."

ISA99 Working Group 7 will be chaired by Mike Boudreaux of Emerson Process Management and ISA99 co-chair Bryan Singer, of Kenexis Security. James Gilsinn of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will serve as the technical editor. The working group's initial tasks include:

• Completing a Security Assurance Level methodology for cyber security, similar to that of the current Safety Integrity Levels (SIL) defined in ISA84, and
• Defining and developing processes for identifying intentional and systematic threats that can expose process hazards.

"Today when we consider only the probability of hardware failures in a hazards analysis, we can miss significant sources of risk to process safety," says ISA99 co-chair Eric Cosman. "This can be a dangerous assumption, in the modern interconnected and software-driven plant, when considering intentional threats such as viruses, malware, and hackers, but also unintentional systematic faults like poor network performance or network failures. This working group is important to helping engineers solve the problem of cyber security in industrial process safety systems."

To get involved in the working group, please contact either of the WG7 co-chairs: Mike Boudreaux (mike.boudreaux@emerson.com), or Bryan Singer (bryan.singer@kenexis.com).

On 17 April leaders of the Automation Federation and representatives from the U.S. Department of Labor met to complete the work of the Automation Competency Model.

Steve Huffman, chairman of the Automation Federation government relations committee, led the dedicated group of seventeen assembled Automation Federation and DOL representatives through a day of nonstop work to complete the upper Competency Tiers of the Model. Staff from the Department of Labor is working to finalize the work of this group; consequently, once the language is finalized, the Automation Competency Model will be the first completed Competency Model that the Department of Labor has produced.