Securing Community Upgrades for A Resilient Grid Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 7257, the SECURE Grid Act, is a bipartisan bill that renews and enhances a State's ability to consider cyber and physical security protections to their energy systems, and it promotes collaboration between partners as they develop State energy security plans.

These State plans are a part of DOE's State Energy Program, which provides financial and technical assistance to help States with energy planning. It was reauthorized and updated in the bipartisan infrastructure law in 2021. As part of that reauthorization, plans must include energy emergency planning to secure the United States against physical and cyber threats.

The State energy security plans are an important tool that ensures States are prepared for the worst. The planning process brings together stakeholders and enables a level of coordination across Federal and State actors. This bill helps enhance the parts of those plans that guard against physical and cyber threats by ensuring that they encompass more of our energy system, local power lines, as well as facilities critical to ensuring the supply chain of energy infrastructure-related components.

Finally, the bill also bolsters a State's ability to obtain assistance from the Department of Energy, something I hope they will take advantage of as they regularly update their energy security plans.

This bill also ensures that the Government Accountability Office will review how DOE and the States execute these programs, to ensure that Congress has the best information possible the next time the provision needs to be renewed.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say briefly that I think this is an important bill, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support it.

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