VIEW ARTICLE: http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/congress-told-u-s-life-unsustainable-after-emp/
WND
EXCLUSIVE
Member
warns worst case 'so bad we must prevent it at all costs'
Published: 09/12/2012 at 8:37 PM
F. Michael Maloof, staff writer for
WND and G2Bulletin, is a former senior security policy analyst in the office of
the secretary of defense.
WASHINGTON – Congress today was told
that the Department of Homeland Security hasn’t identified an electromagnetic
pulse, or EMP, event as a serious national security threat to the nation’s grid
system even though testimony revealed it could making living in the United
States “unsustainable” for 70 to 90 percent of the population.
And the few billion dollars it would
cost to harden systems against such an occurrence is hardly the tens of
billions or hundreds of billions it could cost to repair the damage.
Brandon Wales, director of the DHS
Homeland Infrastructure Threat and Risk Analysis Center, was unable to give a
cost breakdown so that Congress would know how much money needs to be provided
by the federal government in view of the tremendous costs of such hardening
defenses that the private utilities would incur.
He, along with other witnesses from
the federal government, testified on the consequences of either a natural or
man-made EMP event on the national grid before the House Homeland Committee’s
Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security
Technologies.
Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz, who is on
the House Armed Services Committee, also testified that the military is highly
vulnerable to an EMP event, since it relies some 99 percent on the national
grid to accomplish its functions.
Franks is sponsor of H.R. 668, known
as the Shield Act, which provides authority to protect transformers.
“The potential threat is damage to
the transformers” either from a solar storm or the effects of an
electromagnetic pulse from a high-altitude nuclear explosion.
The legislation has passed the House
of Representatives, but no action is planned at this writing in the U.S.
Senate.
At the time the legislation was
introduced in February 2011, Franks said that it was vital to secure the
high-voltage electrical infrastructure from lethal damage.
“The threat of an electromagnetic
pulse weapon represents the single greatest asymmetric capability that could
fall into the hands of American enemies,” Franks warned at the time.
“Should a nuclear weapon from a
rogue state such as Iran be detonated in Earth’s atmosphere at a sufficient
height above the continental United States, the blast of electromagnetic energy
could immediately cripple America’s electric power grid.
“Currently, the vast majority of the
United States’ infrastructure is unsecured and exposed,” he said.
Franks said that an EMP blast could
disable “so large a swath of American technology that between 70 percent to 90
percent of the United States’ population could become unsustainable.”
Franks also referred to the prospect
that some of the most intense solar storms are expected to hit Earth by next
year, according to scientists of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration and the National Academy of Sciences.
Natural EMP events happen during
solar storms, which are predicted to reach their 11-year cyclical peak during
2013.
He said that the United States may
have no more than 30 minutes to know the accuracy of where an intense solar
storm could strike or what the severity of that storm will be, even though
satellites do give some 24 hours of warning that such a storm is heading toward
Earth. And then, only one in three times such a storm may be severe.
The problem for industry, Franks
acknowledged, is not knowing whether to go to the expense of shutting down the
national grid system – an action that would have to be taken since the system
hasn’t been hardened sufficiently to handle either an intense solar storm and
certainly not the pulse effect of a much worse high-altitude nuclear explosion.
Franks said, however, that private
industry has provided no evidence that the national grid would not be subjected
to a catastrophic EMP event.
Rep. Dan Lungren, chairman of the
subcommittee, acknowledged that the private utilities are beholden to their
shareholders and rate payers and should have concerns about their capital
investments. For that reason, Lungren then wondered why the local utilities
aren’t taking more seriously the effects of an EMP event.
Franks said that there is a certain
“push-back” by the private utilities in that they don’t find the threat to be
all that serious.
For the most part, the utilities
have taken some action to harden against a lightning strike which doesn’t have
the intensity of a pulse either from an intense solar storm or a high-altitude
nuclear explosion.
“The potential liability is off the
charts,” Franks warned.
The Arizona congressman pointed out
that despite the military’s efforts to harden its systems, it still may be
unprepared for an intense EMP event. The military for the most part has begun
hardening its systems but, on the civilian side, it is unprepared.
In saying that the civilian side is
unprepared for such an event, Franks confirmed that the military is 99 percent
dependent on civilian sources of electricity, making the military ultimately
vulnerable.
“The military is in a no-win
situation,” he said, “since the military doesn’t have a say in hardening the
civilian grid. It could be done at minimal cost” compared to overall government
spending.
“Worst case scenario is so bad,”
Franks said, “that we must prevent it at all costs.”
Michael Aimone who is the director
of Business Enterprise Integration in the Office of the Undersecretary of
Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, told the subcommittee that
the Defense Department similarly is concerned about the military dependency on
the civilian grid and is experimenting with “mini-grids” that can kick into
action should the main grid collapse.
These mini-grids would work critical
operations without an interruption, so long as there is fuel to run the
generators. He added that his job is to locate that source of fuel to be used
by these mini-grids should the national grid be affected by an EMP event.
Joseph McClellan, director of the
Office of Electric Reliability in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,
sounded similar warnings of private utility unpreparedness to handle a
catastrophic EMP event, saying that the effects would be widespread on the
national grid system.
He pointed out that the FERC is
charged with developing reliability standards, but only industry can identify
and implement those standards. He added that the federal government lacks
authority to impose mandatory requirements on the private utilities to harden
their grid systems.
In his prepared testimony, McClellan
said that the FERC is considering actions to address national security threats
to the reliability of the U.S. transmission and power system from an EMP “which
undergirds our government and economy and helps ensure the health and welfare
of our citizens.”
He pointed out that the commission’s
jurisdiction is limited to the “bulk power system” under the Federal Power Act
and excludes local distribution facilities.
The FPA also excludes all of Alaska
and Hawaii, as well as any federal facilities located in these states.
In addition, it excludes all local
distribution facilities, including those facilities connected to the defense
infrastructure.
He added that his authority excludes
some transmission, including virtually all of the grid facilities in certain
large cities such as New York.
This has the effect, McClelland
said, of “precluding commission action to mitigate cyber or other national
security threats to reliability that involve such facilities and major
population areas.”
McClelland made it clear that the
challenge will be in getting local electrical distribution facilities to take
the threat of an EMP seriously and put up the capital investment.
“The question is how to do that,” he
said.
http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/congress-told-u-s-life-unsustainable-after-emp/print/
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