Business Roundtable Congratulates Janet Napolitano on Confirmation as Secretary of Homeland Security.

WASHINGTON -- "Business Roundtable member CEOs congratulate Janet Napolitano on her official confirmation as Secretary of Homeland Security. President Barack Obama's selection of Napolitano signals that the protection of U.S. citizens is a top priority for the new administration.

In her first official days in office, Secretary Napolitano issued a series of action directives, including a commitment to improving how the nation responds to disasters, highlighting the need to involve the private sector in these efforts. Through its Partnership for Disaster Response, Business Roundtable has actively supported disaster response, recovery and rebuilding efforts since 2005 by leveraging its partnerships and many resources of our member companies, including generators, ice, water, trucks, fuel cards for emergency response vehicles, and other supplies. As part of this support, the Partnership has developed key resources to help the business community better prepare for disasters, including www.respondtodisaster.org, the first clearinghouse of information on disaster preparedness and response, which features other valuable tools, such as case studies from leading companies on best practices in disaster response and a directory of relief agencies.

The Partnership looks forward to working with Secretary Napolitano to strengthen communications among the federal government, business community and relief agencies to facilitate a coordinated disaster response and to develop a plan on how to efficiently deploy the private sector's resources," said John J. Castellani, president of Business Roundtable.

For more information on Business Roundtable's Partnership for Disaster Response, please visit http://www.respondtodisaster.org.

Business Roundtable is an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies with more than $5 trillion in annual revenues and nearly 10 million employees. Member companies comprise nearly a third of the total value of the U.S. stock markets and pay nearly half of all corporate income taxes paid to the federal government. Annually, they return $133 billion in dividends to shareholders and the economy.

Business Roundtable companies give more than $7 billion a year in combined charitable contributions, representing nearly 60 percent of total corporate giving. They are technology innovation leaders, with more than $70 billion in annual research and development spending - more than a third of the total private R&D spending in the U.S.