National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program

Interagency Committee on Seismic Safety in Construction (ICSSC) Membership

ICSSC Membership Roster
Membership in the Interagency Committee on Seismic Safety in Construction (ICSSC) is open to all federal agencies that are responsible for any of the following activities:

1. design and construction of new buildings;
2. design and construction of alterations to existing buildings;
3. leasing an existing building, or space within (see below);
4. leasing a new building, or space within (see below);
5. financing, through grants or loans, or guaranteeing the financing, through loan or mortgage insurance programs, new building construction or acquisition of a newly constructed building; or
6. regulating the structural safety of a new or existing building.

Agencies are exempt from Items 3 and 4 if the agency does not have independent leasing authority or conditional delegation of leasing authority to lease an existing or new building, or space within these types of buildings. In this case, the agency only uses occupancy agreements to occupy space in a building that is owned by or leased to another agency.

Membership in the ICSSC has historically been agencies that have facility management, engineering/construction, or real property groups that are directly involved in any of the above listed items. Regarding seismic safety, these groups are generally focused on mitigation of potential earthquake-produced damage to their agency owned, leased, financed, or regulated buildings.

Activities of the ICSSC are conducted or supported by representation from each agency. Executive Order (EO) 13717 directs each agency covered by the order to designate one or more Seismic Safety Coordinator(s) to serve as point(s) of contact for agency compliance with EO 13717 and to represent the agency in the ICSSC.

Currently within the executive branch, there are 15 departments with 236 subsidiary organizations and 66 independent agencies with 39 subsidiary organizations (data compiled in late 2022 from https://www.usa.gov/branches-of-government). Not all agencies that are responsible for any of the activities listed above need representation in the ICSSC. Membership is generally not needed for agencies with a building portfolio under their purview that is not at risk for potential damage from an earthquake or the portfolio is exempt from specific legislation or executive order because of location. With that said, seismic safety is a government-wide effort and involvement by these agencies could enhance the ICSSC. Furthermore, seismic safety within the Federal Government holistically addresses response and recovery so that agency resilience is the primary focus. As such, membership in the ICSSC should also include those agencies that conduct or support post-earthquake response and recovery responsibilities, either for their agency, other agencies, or the public-at-large.

To address this government-wide effort towards seismic safety, the ICSSC will be working to expand membership to increase agency participation. For example, the table below provides a possible structure to bring together many different agencies to support seismic safety of the Federal Government.

NIST, as the lead agency of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) and thus Chair of the ICSSC, is continually interacting with and seeking out agencies to verify the applicability of the ICSSC to their agency and, if so, assisting them to get involved in the ICSSC to support their compliance with EO 13717 or general seismic safety programs. If you would like more information or would like to become active in the ICSSC by representing your agency, please email ICSSC@nist.gov.

A link to the list of agencies in the ICSSC and their designated Seismic Safety Coordinators and at-large members is provided above. The ICSSC membership roster gets updated every two years when agencies return the EO 13717 Compliance Data Call to NIST. In the interim, updates to the information provided in the document can be sent to ICSSC@nist.gov.

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