Damon Paul Nelson and Matthew Young Pollard Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Years and 2020

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CARTER of Texas. Madam Chair, I thank my friend for yielding.

Madam Chair, today I rise in strong support of the Ruppersberger- Carter amendment to help secure the energy infrastructure. Now is the time to address electrical grid security. Grid attacks are a powerful weapon in the cyber toolkit of really bad actors.

As the two previous speakers said, a cyberattack in Ukraine wiped out their power grid, and over 225,000 people were without power. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence in their 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment makes numerous mentions of our adversaries' mapping out grid systems, identifying our weaknesses, and developing the very real and deadly capacity to attack our grid system. A targeted attack on our Nation could be devastating.

Securing our energy infrastructure is especially critical in Texas which maintains an independent electric grid.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CARTER of Texas. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, although I do not oppose the amendment.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CARTER of Texas. Madam Chair, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas is located in Taylor, Texas, which is about 19 miles from my house, and it manages 90 percent of my home State's electrical load. Understanding where our system's weak spots are will enhance ERCOT's work to ensure that we have the most stable and secure energy network in the world.

Our amendment addresses the serious topic of electrical grid security by leveraging the unique aspects of national laboratories to establish solutions to defend the United States energy grid from attacks and to ensure the resiliency of operation during and after an event.

It establishes a 2-year pilot program to study and identify new classes of security vulnerabilities, and research and test technologies that could be used to isolate the most critical systems from cyberattacks.

It creates working groups to develop a national cyber-informed strategy to protect our energy grids.

This amendment is a commonsense approach to solving grid security. I am proud to work across the aisle with my good friend and colleague, Dutch Ruppersberger, on this important issue.

Madam Chair, I urge support of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source