"The Special Event Working Group (SEWG) is a group of representatives of various federal entities who may be involved in planning for or coordinating federal activities for a special event. To paraphrase, a special event is defined as a function that draws a large public crowd to the host city or venue in combination with political importance and local, regional or international significance. The SEWG was formed in April 2004, to validate a methodology for identifying and categorizing special events (other than those designated as National Special Security Events (NSSE) ), and coordinating Federal support to those events. The mission and purpose of the SEWG is to support a unified interagency planning and coordination effort for Special Events and to ensure coordination of Federal support to the designated event. The SEWG identifies events that may require a coordinated Federal response and collectively coordinates Federal assets to bridge any capability gaps identified by state and local partners that have not already been addressed by exhausting local mutual assistance agreements. The SEWG consists of several elements: (1) the five Co-chairs of the SEWG who consist of senior or executive level (GS-15/SES) managers from OPS, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the United States Secret Service (USSS) and DHS Office of Risk Management & Analysis (RMA), (2) the SEWG General Membership itself, and (3) the DHS programmatic, coordination and administrative staff dedicated to SEWG which is housed in OPS. The membership of the SEWG consists of representatives designated by their respective Federal Departments, Agencies and/or Components. These representatives are traditional federal agencies with missions that are related to Special Events planning, coordination, and execution, and span the four pillars of the National Response Framework: Prevention, Protection, Response and Recovery. Presently, there are upwards of fifty Federal Departments/Agencies and their Components with representatives assigned to the SEWG..." (DHS, Statement of Roger Rufe, July 9, 2008, pp. 1-2)