The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed a bill to protect critical infrastructure as NRECA urged lawmakers to keep the complexity of the electric grid in mind as part of the legislation.
The committee cleared the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, S. 1846, on July 29.
The legislation, introduced by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., the committee chairman, calls for the federal government to develop a strategy to protect critical infrastructure from geomagnetic disturbances caused by solar storms, and electromagnetic pulses, which are caused by nuclear and non-nuclear devices.
The bill included an amendment by Johnson that “addressed industry concerns around conflating [electromagnetic pulses] and [geomagnetic disturbances] threats in planning, preparing or mitigating efforts by pulling the terms apart and defining them separately,” said Bridgette Bourge, NRECA senior principal on homeland security.
Bourge added that current legislation in the House combines the two types of threats. They should be addressed separately because they require distinctly different planning, preparation, mitigation and recovery efforts, she said.
“We continue to work with the House to address this issue,” Bourge added. The House Homeland Security Committee passed its version of the legislation on June 25.
As an industry expert on protecting the grid from the threats of electromagnetic pulses and geomagnetic disturbances, Bourge told Johnson’s committee during a July 23 hearing how the power sector practices “defense in depth” to balance preparation, prevention, response, and recovery for various hazards to electric grid operations.
The industry’s priorities are to protect the most critical grid components against the most likely threats, build in system resiliency, and to develop contingency plans for response and recovery, she said.
“When considered as part of the broader spectrum of potential threats to the electric grid, nuclear-induced [electromagnetic pulse] is considered an extremely low-likelihood, high-consequence event. That doesn’t mean the electric industry disregards or ignores its significance, but that it is considered appropriately as part of a broader risk management strategy,” Bourge said.
Bourge urged avoidance of a situation where a single mitigation plan is required for both types of threats.
“These events and threats of these events are very different and should be treated that way,” said Bourge. “They are unique in how and what they impact.
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