Subcommittees

Policy Subcommittee

Introduction

The TBWG Policy Subgroup was established to give added push to specific initiatives under the TBWG Action Plan.

The Action Plan reflects goals agreed to by our countries' leadership: the 2000 Memorandum of Understanding, the Smart Border Declaration, and the Security and Prosperity Partnership to name a few. Many of these objectives, which cover federal programming, infrastructure, and system operations, cannot be fully advanced through communication and coordination alone. Meeting the challenges addressed by these initiatives often entails detailed evaluations of operational environments and the regulatory environments of our countries, and our states and provinces.

Realizing such mandates will regularly require determinations that relevant laws and regulations support a specific outcome or, determinations that finishing the job will entail coordinated modifications in law.

Neither the Policy Subgroup nor the TBWG as a whole will be proposing changes to law or regulations. Assessments of laws and regulations relevant to specific Action Plan items will be undertaken as needed. Completed assessments will be availed as information for TBWG and for the parts of our governments that can consider and propose modifications in law.

A second function that TBWG has vested in the Policy Subcommittee is to liaise with research organizations doing work of interest to the TBWG. In addition to a facilitated dialog with these institutions, the Policy Committee expects to provide a forum for proposing research topics to these bodies and, from time-to-time, facilitating information exchange via presentations at TBWG meetings and other media.

Products & Resources

Issues and Status List: The Policy Subcommittee periodically updates this table of current TBWG-related policy issues. The table includes links to related reports and other products of the Policy Subcommittee.

Conference Call and Meeting Summaries

*New - FAST Roundtable (Oct. 27, 2010): Summary of the subcommittee-sponsored roundtable discussion which took place during the TBWG's fall 2010 plenary meeting in Quebec City.

For further information contact:

Hugh Conroy, Whatcom Council of Governments (hugh@wcog.org)

Tony Shallow, Ontario Region, Transport Canada, (tony.shallow@tc.gc.ca)