PROTECTING THE ELECTRIC GRID FROM THE POTENTIAL THREATS OF SOLAR STORM

San Francisco CA

Description

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin Chairman One, perhaps two pointed observations by Texas State Senator Robert Hall, a former Air Force colonel and himself an EMP expert, characterizes the behavior of the Texas electric utilities and their lobbyists on this matter, Mr. Chairman, as ``equivalent to treason.'' I was first made aware of the potential threat of electromagnetic pulse (EMP), disruptions to our electrical grid and geomagnetic disturbances (GMD) well before I ever became a United States Senator. But I think like most members of the public, it is one of those scary things that is, ``Ah, that is just science fiction. What are the chances of that?'' When I became a United States Senator, I was briefed by a couple gentlemen who gave me a booklet that I read that made me pretty concerned. This was probably a couple of years ago, and I started talking to other Members, and a lot of those Members never really even heard of this threat. First of all, the Earth has been being bombarded by electromagnetic pulses for about 4\1/2\ billion years, so in one sense, this is not a new issue. And I am not going to get into the details of the difference between the different wavelengths from electromagnetic pulses versus those created by the Sun and the like, but will generalize more in the interest of time. We have a very serious problem with exactly what you described: lack of willingness to admit or understand at the beginning that this could be as serious as it is given how horrible it is. People tend to want to shove those types of issues aside. But, in fact, there are ways in which electromagnetic pulse threats are more serious than a conventional version of a nuclear threat. For example, deterrence may not work at all with respect to electromagnetic pulse. The reason is we may not know where the pulse came from. If everything goes dark, it may be a solar event, and it may be North Korea. Furthermore, a satellite can be launched into orbit with a southern trajectory, so it misses, at least initially, all of our radars and other sensors that are focused north. And, second, it could be launched--a Scud with a warhead could be launched from a freighter off one of our coasts. We recently had a North Korean freighter picked up by the Panamanians that had two air defense missiles in it, each capable of putting something into orbit. So we have a very serious problem from the point of view of deterring particularly a country such as Iran or North Korea that is not playing by anywhere close to the standards of rationality that one would see even in, let us say, China or Russia when we are having tense relations with one another. So I think that is the first and biggest problem. We do not just have a probability issue the way one would have if we were only worried about the solar EMP events. That could be bad enough because we are due for a very large pulse event. The last one occurred over a century and a half ago, and we are due for another. But that could come anytime or not come for some time. The decision by a North Korean leader or an Iranian leader that it is time to destroy the electric grid of the United States is a different matter. We do not know what they are going to do and when. People say, ``Well, they are not crazy.'' But sometimes individual government leaders such as Adolf Hitler are mad north by northwest. They have horrible objectives, and they pursue them very diligently. The objectives are not something any of us would sympathize with. The same could well be true of an Iranian missile, which they have now, and an Iranian nuclear weapon, which I think even under this agreement they are likely to have or be able to have within months to perhaps a year or two. The use of electromagnetic pulse has been embodied in writings in the East, Russian and Chinese particularly. I would call everybody's attention to the work of the Russian General Vladimir Slipchenko in his military textbooks which focus on EMP together with cyber as the new mode of warfare. An EMP for the North Korean, Iranian, Russian, and Chinese point of view is part of cyber and a particularly deadly part. There have been a number of efforts for us to find some way to take positive steps to do something about electromagnetic pulse, whether from a nuclear weapon or from the sun, and they have all been thwarted. Washington is completely dysfunctional on this issue and has been for some time. The amount of money involved is relatively small by infrastructure need standards. According to the EMP Commission, about $2 billion, about what we give in foreign aid to Pakistan every year for dealing with the essentials of the electric grid, $10 to 20 billion, according to the Commission, would protect all of the critical infrastructures from nuclear EMP attack. From the point of view of the cost of improvements in our infrastructures that are badly needed, that is not a great deal of money. But so far the resistance in the North American Electrical Reliability Corporation (NERC), and in industry has been solid and total. They have been able to prevent steps by individual States that have wanted to take action, and they have done everything they possibly can to keep the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act (CIPA) and the reestablishment of the congressional EMP Commission and the SHIELD and GRID Acts all bottled up and not being able to be passed by the Congress. One, perhaps two pointed observations by Texas State Senator Robert Hall, a former Air Force colonel and himself an EMP expert, characterizes the behavior of the electric utilities and their lobbyists on this matter, Mr. Chairman, as ``equivalent to treason.'' Thank you. Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Ambassador Woolsey.