Supporting the White House with “Tough Love” for the Electric Power Industry

The Center for Security Policy, through its sponsorship of the Secure the Grid Coalition, continues to shape federal, state and local level initiatives to protect critical electric grid infrastructure.   These efforts received a major boost in March when President Trump signed what is perhaps one of the most important orders of his administration – Executive Order 13865 on Coordinating National Resilience to Electromagnetic Pulses.

The Center for Security Policy has played a critical role in countering the rhetoric of “EMP deniers” and continues to provide timely advice and support to those civil servants in the Government who are working hard to achieve the goals of President Trump’s EMP Executive Order.   The number of current government employees who are committed to this initiative are limited, however. For this reason, the Secure the Grid Coalition continues to provide support to the one government Task Force designed to bring together the nations’ leading experts and strategists working to counter the threat from EMP:  the U.S. Air Force’s “Electromagnetic Defense Task Force” (EDTF).

Frank Gaffney & Tommy Waller at the White House after meetings with key leaders helping supervise the execution of President Trump’s EMP Executive Order.

In January, the Secure the Grid Coalition facilitated an educational briefing for members of the Texas legislature that featured grid security experts from around the nation, including those within the USAF EDTF.  Subsequently, Texas State Senator Bob Hall and State Representative Tony Tinderholt both filed strong and effective legislation to establish a Grid Security Council to address all hazards to the Texas electric grid, including nuclear EMP and its natural counterpart – Geomagnetic Disturbance (GMD.) This legislative effort was the third of its kind over the past six years in Texas.

Frank Gaffney briefing alongside Air Force Major David Stuckenberg at the 2019 Texas Energy Security Summit in Austin at the State Capitol.

Unsurprisingly, the electric utility lobby in Texas fought diligently to prevent passage of these bills. The industry has historically veered away from focusing on the EMP & GMD threats. The utility lobby pressured a Texas Senator to author a bill which would create a Grid Security Council void of an EMP/GMD focus. Tommy Waller, representing the interests of the Secure the Grid Coalition, testified against this legislation during its hearing in the Senate Committee on Business and Commerce and informed legislature of this dangerous omission. Unfortunately, despite a valiant effort on the part of the Coalition to shape the battle in a way that would result in a Grid Security Council focused on an all-hazards, the problematic legislation was passed.  The Secure the Grid Coalition is still working hard to encourage the state of Texas to harden its infrastructure against EMP & GMD. This latest battle won’t be its last in the Lone Star state.

Tommy Waller testifying on behalf of the Secure the Grid Coalition against problematic legislation related to grid security in the Texas legislature.

Fortunately, despite electric power industry opposition, the Coalition is making progress on numerous additional fronts.  For example, over the past several years, the Coalition has conducted an organized effort to influence the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to enhance the security of the grid.  One such effort involved the Coalition calling on FERC to enhance its reporting requirements for cybersecurity incidents since there was a massive disconnect between the number of incidents reported by “the grid” (only 3 cybersecurity incidents in 2014 and none (zero) in 2015 and 2016),  and the fact that the Department of Homeland Security has reported that the energy sector is the target of more than 40% of all reported cyberattacks.   The Coalition highlighted that under previous regulations, cybersecurity incidents had been reported only if they had ‘‘compromised or disrupted one or more reliability tasks.” The Coalition subsequently proposed that FERC strengthen regulations to require reporting of certain incidents regardless of assumed impact.

Predictably, the usual suspects from the industry (including lobbyist Edison Electric Institute—whose members include the government of the People’s Republic of China) levied their own comments on the Federal docket that this would all be “unduly burdensome” and “unnecessary.” Thankfully, on June 20, 2019, FERC approved the electric grid cybersecurity reliability standard CIP-008-6 (Cyber Security—Incident Reporting and Response Planning), which resulted in an improved Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Standard—a victory for electric grid cybersecurity, citizen activism and the American people – all made possible by the Secure the Grid Coalition.

Perhaps the most important contribution made to supporting President Trump’s EMP Executive Order and thwarting the industry lobby’s efforts to derail this order are in conjunction with exposing the industry-funded “Junk Science” being used to justify under-protecting the electric grid (and thereby every other critical infrastructure) from EMP.   On April 30, 2019, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) released a report titled: “High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse and the Bulk Power System: Potential Impacts and Mitigation Strategies.”  Although EPRI represents itself as an independent scientific think tank, it is funded by the electric utilities and has a history of providing plausible sounding scientific rationales that support the public policy preferences of the electric power industry.  Since the industry has fought EMP-protection for more than a decade, it was not surprising to Secure the Grid Coalition experts that this most recent EPRI report was dishonest about the EMP threat and sought to overturn more than 60 years of prior DOD, government, and contractor research and findings on EMP, system effects, and hardening.

Therefore, immediately following the release of the EPRI EMP report, the Secure the Grid Coalition executed a live and video-recorded press conference on the steps of the Alabama state capitol to expose the EPRI report for what it is – junk science.  The Coalition went about assembling the free world’s foremost experts on EMP to conduct a thorough and detailed technical review of the EPRI research.  This review will be informing important decision-makers in government and industry to ensure that the erroneous EPRI research is not used to justify the type of suboptimal EMP-protection standards sought by the industry.

Pictured above: Secure the Grid Coalition leaders, including Frank Gaffney and the Coalition’s honorary Co-Chairman Ambassador R. James Woolsey, at the “EPRI Junk Science” press conference on the steps of the Alabama state capitol.

In conclusion, it is important to note that the Secure the Grid Coalition appreciates the fact that there are numerous patriotic Americans who work in the electric power industry that want to secure this infrastructure against all hazards.  In his testimony, Tommy Waller always thanks these personnel first and foremost.  But the industry’s top-level leaders have used hundreds of millions of dollars annually to lobby against regulations that would result in this infrastructure protection.  Therefore, the Coalition continues to seek out opportunities to create real financial incentives for the industry to “do the right thing.”  Until such time as it becomes evident that the industry is responsibly protecting its infrastructure, this Coalition – led by the Center for Security Policy – will remain the few, but proud, patriots willing to apply the “tough love” necessary to get the industry to Secure the Grid.

(Note from Tommy Waller:  The Secure the Grid Coalition’s efforts are a true “David vs. Goliath” struggle and this particular project is in need of resources to continue its important work.  If you would like to learn more about the effort, visit www.SecureTheGrid.com and if you would like to speak with Tommy about fundraising for the Coalition, please contact him at: [email protected] )