The Secretary, acting through the Under Secretary for Preparedness and in coordination with the Commandant of the Coast Guard, shall establish a Port Security Exercise Program (referred to in this section as the “Exercise Program”) for the purpose of testing and evaluating the capabilities of Federal, State, local, and foreign governments, commercial seaport personnel and management, governmental and nongovernmental emergency response providers, the private sector, or any other organization or entity, as the Secretary determines to be appropriate, to prevent, prepare for, mitigate against, respond to, and recover from acts of terrorism, natural disasters, and other emergencies at facilities required to submit a plan under section 70103(c) of title 46.

The Secretary shall ensure that the Exercise Program—

conducts, on a periodic basis, port security exercises at such facilities that are—

(A) scaled and tailored to the needs of each facility;

(B) live, in the case of the most at-risk facilities;

(C) as realistic as practicable and based on current risk assessments, including credible threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences;

(D) consistent with the National Incident Management System, the National Response Plan, the National Infrastructure Protection Plan, the National Preparedness Guidance, the National Preparedness Goal, the National Maritime Transportation Security Plan, and other such national initiatives;

(E) evaluated against clear and consistent performance measures;

(F) assessed to learn best practices, which shall be shared with appropriate Federal, State, and local officials, commercial seaport personnel and management, governmental and nongovernmental emergency response providers, and the private sector; and

(G) followed by remedial action in response to lessons learned; and

assists State and local governments and facilities in designing, implementing, and evaluating exercises that—

(A) conform to the requirements of paragraph (1); and

(B) are consistent with any applicable Area Maritime Transportation Security Plan and State or Urban Area Homeland Security Plan.

The Secretary shall establish a port security exercise improvement plan process to—

(1) identify and analyze each port security exercise for lessons learned and best practices;

(2) disseminate lessons learned and best practices to participants in the Exercise Program;

(3) monitor the implementation of lessons learned and best practices by participants in the Exercise Program; and

(4) conduct remedial action tracking and long-term trend analysis.

(Pub. L. 109–347, title I, § 114, Oct. 13, 2006, 120 Stat. 1896.)