Critical Infrastructure Protection Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. CLARKE of New York. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3410, the Critical
Infrastructure Protection Act, of which I am a cosponsor.
Mr. Speaker, recently, there has been increased interest in
bolstering the resilience of our Nation's electrical power distribution
and delivery system. In particular, there is growing interest in
looking at the damage that could naturally occur to that system through
powerful weather storms and geomagnetic disturbances, as well as
through intentional and malicious physical and cyber attacks.
Earlier this Congress, the House approved legislation authored by my
committee colleague and neighbor, Mr. Payne, to broadly research the
threats to our electric grid. Today, we have an opportunity to foster
progress on low-probability but high-consequence threats to the grid:
electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, and geomagnetic disturbances, or GMD.
Today, our Nation's power system operates at such a high level of
reliability that any major outage, either caused by heavy weather
storms, operational errors, or sabotage, makes headlines. Our
transmission system is the most complex and extensive of any system on
the globe, consisting mainly of transformers, switches, transmission
towers and lines, control centers, and computer controls.
The main risk for weather-related damage or a terrorist attack is a
widespread power outage that lasts for an extended period of time. The
damage that such an outage could have to the welfare of our citizens
and economy is hard to measure, but it would certainly be very
significant.
With that in mind, H.R. 3410 seeks to gain ground against this
homeland security challenge. It does so by directing the Department of
Homeland Security to include EMP and GMD in national planning
scenarios; conduct outreach to critical infrastructure owners and
operators, emergency planners, and emergency responders on the threats
posed; conduct targeted research; and develop a strategy for addressing
the threats.
I am disappointed that the bill provides no new resources to the
Department to carry out these activities, but I am appreciative of the
majority's willingness to work with me to refine the language to
provide needed flexibility to the Department in how it carries out
these activities.
That said, since H.R. 3410 had to bypass regular order to be
considered here today, we did not have the time to include some small
but key refinements. Specifically, the definitions in this bill for
electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, and geomagnetic, or GMD, would benefit
from further fine-tuning down the line so risk of these two distinct
events being conflated is avoided.
An EMP is an electromagnetic pulse caused by intentional means, such
as an act of war or terrorism. A GMD is a geomagnetic disturbance
caused by solar storms or other naturally occurring phenomena. While
some have gotten in the habit of calling them both EMPs, they are not
the same, thus requiring differing mitigation and resiliency responses.
Like my colleagues Mr. Meehan and Mr. Franks, I am very concerned
about the potential impact and the types of threats posed by EMPs and
GMDs. However, I think we should take care to make clear the distinct
differences between the two.
We also know that public-private partnerships are essential to
addressing the challenge of fully understanding the threats caused by
EMPs and GMDs, especially because the overwhelming majority of our
electric grid is privately held by large investor-owned utilities, or
is part of the rural electric cooperatives systems or members of the
American Public Power network that represents not-for-profit,
community-owned electric utilities.
I would note that the Department currently has a variety of planning
efforts for solar weather geomagnetic disturbance events and other
electromagnetic pulse damage under its all-hazards risk planning,
including research on technologies to improve resiliency in the
electric grid sector.
Additionally, the Department's science and technology directorate has
cosponsored with private utilities an exercise in a fast-turnaround
transformer replacement project. This effort is known as the Recovery
Transformer Project, and it hopes to increase the resiliency of the
transmission power grid through the use of more mobile and modular
transformers.
Again, I want to thank Chairman McCaul and Chairman Meehan for
working with me. I also thank Representative Franks, who has been a
tireless and relentless proponent of this legislative measure to
protect our Nation's electrical infrastructure. He is internationally
known for his unwavering pursuit of this critical concern, and over the
past few years has been viewed as a go-to legislator on protecting our
Nation's infrastructure. It has been a real pleasure to engage in a
moment of bipartisan interaction, particularly on a matter of such
great import nationally and internationally, and I thank the gentleman.
As we enter the waning days of the 113th Congress, I sincerely hope
this measure gets enacted into law. But in the event that it does not,
I look forward to working with the majority on advancing this bill
through regular order next Congress to ensure a more robust examination
of the bill's impact on the Department and on industry.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. CLARKE of New York. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
Mr. Speaker, while the threat of an EMP or GMD event is real, I
believe we need to use fully informed risk-based, scientific, and,
frankly, commonsense plans and exercises to give us a clearer picture
of how to prevent and respond in the event of an EMP or GMD incident.
This bill will give Congress a more complete understanding of
preparedness, response, and recovery activities related to any type of
EMP or geomagnetic disturbance incident, and could provide a thoughtful
background that can assist the Nation's response and resiliency if
high-impact, grid-related events do occur.
With that, I urge Members to support H.R. 3410, the Critical
Infrastructure Protection Act, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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