[Senate Hearing 107-335]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 107-335
RECLAMATION RECREATION MANAGEMENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
on
S. 1480
TO AMEND THE RECLAMATION RECREATION MANAGEMENT ACT OF 1992 IN ORDER TO
PROVIDE FOR THE SECURITY OF DAMS, FACILITIES, AND RESOURCES UNDER THE
JURISDICTION OF THE BUREAU OF RECLAMATION
__________
OCTOBER 9, 2001
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
_______
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico, Chairman
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii FRANK H. MURKOWSKI, Alaska
BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico
BOB GRAHAM, Florida DON NICKLES, Oklahoma
RON WYDEN, Oregon LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho
TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming
EVAN BAYH, Indiana RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California CONRAD BURNS, Montana
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York JON KYL, Arizona
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware GORDON SMITH, Oregon
Robert M. Simon, Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Chief Counsel
Brian P. Malnak, Republican Staff Director
James P. Beirne, Republican Chief Counsel
Deborah Estes, Counsel
Colleen Deegan, Counsel
Howard Useem, Senior Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS
Page
Bennett, Hon. Robert F., U.S. Senator from Utah.................. 7
Bingaman, Hon. Jeff, U.S. Senator from New Mexico................ 1
Cantwell, Hon. Maria, U.S. Senator from Washington............... 7
Keys, John W., III, Commissioner, Bureau of Reclamation.......... 16
Kyl, Hon. Jon, U.S. Senator from Arizona......................... 12
Landrieu, Hon. Mary L., U.S. Senator from Louisiana.............. 4
Murkowski, Hon. Frank H., U.S. Senator from Alaska............... 2
Otis, Lee Liberman, General Counsel, Department of Energy........ 19
RECLAMATION RECREATION MANAGEMENT
----------
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2001
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m. in room
SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Jeff Bingaman,
chairman, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF BINGAMAN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW MEXICO
The Chairman. Good morning. The purpose of this hearing is
to receive testimony on S. 1480. Before I get into a very short
opening statement on that and ask Senator Murkowski to do the
same, let me advise folks we were planning to mark this bill up
tomorrow. Senator Mansfield's funeral is scheduled for tomorrow
morning, and they are taking quite a few Senators to that, so
we will postpone that markup until Thursday morning instead of
tomorrow morning.
As I indicated, the purpose of the hearing today is to
receive testimony on S. 1480, a bill to amend the Reclamation
and Recreation Management Act of 1992 in order to provide
security for dams, facilities, and resources under the
jurisdiction of the Bureau of Reclamation, and to consider
other proposals related to energy infrastructure security.
S. 1480 was submitted to Congress by the administration and
introduced by request on October 1, the committee has also
received suggestion from the Department of Energy and from
various energy industry groups regarding legislation that they
believe would improve the security of our critical energy
infrastructure. Based on this input, the committee has
developed some draft language which has been made available to
witnesses for their comments.
The attacks of September 11 have made assuring the security
of energy and water infrastructure an urgent priority. The
legislation we are considering would provide law enforcement
authority as requested by the administration to the Bureau of
Reclamation, which has the responsibility for the operation of
some 347 dams and reservoirs in the West. The draft language
developed by staff would provide law enforcement authority to
the power marketing facilities as well.
We have also included provisions to facilitate criminal
background checks for certain energy industry employees. Those
provisions are to protect our critical energy infrastructure
information and provisions addressing the sharing of
information between the Government and energy industry
companies. Pursuant to presidential decision directive 63, an
organizational structure designed to deal with threats to
critical infrastructure has been put in place by the Federal
Government and private industry.
However, the electric power information sharing and
analysis center, ISAC, only became operational in June, and the
oil and gas ISAC was formed this September. We urge the
Department of Energy and the industry to place a high priority
on making these organizations work well, and to come back to
the committee promptly if additional authority is needed.
Our first witness today is Senator Bennett from Utah.
Senator Bennett and Senator Kyl have introduced S. 1456, the
Critical Infrastructure Information Security Act of 2001. This
bill applies to all of the critical infrastructures, including
energy, banking, and financial communications, transportation,
and vital human services. A number of energy industry
representatives have indicated their interest in the
legislation, and we are very glad to hear about it today.
Before I call on Senator Bennett, let me call on Senator
Murkowski for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK H. MURKOWSKI, U.S. SENATOR
FROM ALASKA
Senator Murkowski. Thank you very much, Senator Bingaman
and Senator Bennett. If you will bear with me for a moment, let
me give you the Minority view on this proposed legislation
related to security and law enforcement capability at the
Bureau of Reclamation sites, namely our dams, reservoirs,
irrigation facilities, and other water delivery systems.
These facilities provide for the agricultural production,
power generation, flood control, and they form the basis for
the settlement of the West and are crucial to the economy--the
existence of communities west of the Mississippi River. While
other Federal agencies have clear authority for law
enforcement, the Bureau of Reclamation apparently does not. We
want to satisfy ourselves to that, but that appears to be the
case.
Now, the administration has proposed legislation that would
enable the Bureau to contract with State, local, and Federal
officials, as well as law enforcement agencies, for law
enforcement on Bureau of Reclamation lands and at Bureau of
Reclamation facilities. What we want to be careful of is to not
create a new law enforcement agency. This legislation, as I
understand it, does not increase or diminish authorities that
already exist. We want to make sure that this does not inhibit
in any way access to Bureau of Reclamation lands for the
general public enjoyment.
I understand the House Resources Committee has already
reported a companion measure. It is my hope we could deal with
this matter in a timely fashion. In the energy sector there are
numerous facilities, each with a varying degree of
vulnerability and consequences of attack, whether it be oil and
natural gas pipelines, refineries, electric transmission,
substations, control facilities, hydroelectric dams, and
certainly nuclear powerplants.
For some of these, such as Federal powerplants and
hydroelectric dams, the Federal Government already plays an
important role in ensuring safety and security. For others,
however, such as oil refineries, electric transmission lines,
currently there is little, if any, Federal role.
Now, before we jump headlong into directing the Federal
Government to protect each and every infrastructure facility,
we need to ask some basic questions. What is their
vulnerability? What is their risk? What is the private sector
already doing to safeguard facilities? Most major corporations
obviously, whether they have specific sites associated with
processing, refining and so forth, maintain their own security
capabilities.
It is my understanding that last week one major oil company
received a bomb threat on one of its facilities here in
Washington, D.C. As a matter of fact, the threat was that three
bombs were in the building. They were evacuated--fortunately it
was a nice day--but nevertheless, private security is
maintained by those corporations, and we do not want to
duplicate that.
Now, clearly there are some things that can and should be
done immediately. I think we have been ignoring far too long
the issue of nuclear waste, and we have simply got to come to
grips with it on a bipartisan basis. We should immediately
complete Yucca Mountain so that our high level radioactive
waste can be stored safely. It is not being stored safely
because the facilities where it is located were not designed to
store it beyond a reasonable period of time, and that time is
past.
Securing our Nation's waste in one central, secure, and
remote facility is far safer than our current scatter-shot
approach of leaving waste at 103 nuclear sites Nation-wide, in
some 30 States. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should remove
from its web site detailed information about the location and
the safety features of individual powerplants of a nuclear
nature. I cannot imagine that the public needs to know the
exact longitude and latitude of the location of our nuclear
plants.
We need to review existing Federal reporting requirements
in the Freedom of Information Act to prevent the disclosure of
sensitive information. We must make sure that we never again
allow for the release of sensitive nuclear weapon data through
bulk declassification.
We must also be careful about expecting too much from the
Federal Government. The FBI, or our intelligence agencies will
play key roles, but we cannot station Federal troops along
every mile of pipeline or at the front of every refinery. State
and local police will remain the frontline law enforcement
agency, and the industries will have primary responsibility for
security of those facilities. As we review what should be done,
it should be proportionate to the public risk. That means
somebody is going to have to measure that risk.
We look forward to hearing from the witnesses this morning
and hearing their ideas that they are sharing with us.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Since we have a very sparse attendance right
now, and this is a subject of great interest to members, let me
just see if either Senator Campbell or Senator Landrieu would
like to make any kind of opening statement. If they would, I
would call on them right now.
Senator Campbell. No, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. All right.
Senator Landrieu.
STATEMENT OF HON. MARY L. LANDRIEU, U.S. SENATOR
FROM LOUISIANA
Senator Landrieu. I do, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
calling the hearing this morning, and I welcome our colleague
to testify. I am looking forward to hearing his testimony, and
I have reviewed the outline, Senator, of your bill, and I think
it has a lot of merit, and clearly an area that we need to move
in, and I would like to just share a few points in this opening
statement, and I will reserve some time for questions, because
I think this whole issue, Mr. Chairman, is of critical
importance to our Nation.
Not only did the September 11 events refocus our attention
on some of the most immediate needs that our Nation is facing,
but I think it has made more clear the necessity for us to
reevaluate much of the infrastructure in this Nation and look
at it, unfortunately, in a different light. The dangers that it
presents to communities, et cetera, as well as the benefits of
this infrastructure system, and when we talk about energy that
is, I think, particularly crucial.
Now, last week, we know that an individual was able to
cause about 150,000 gallons of oil to spill from the 800-mile
trans-Alaska pipeline with a bullet from a high-powered rifle.
That is just one example of the points that I am hoping to make
in the next few minutes.
I want to commend you, Mr. Chairman and our ranking member,
for moving quickly on this energy security infrastructure
issue. I know that the bill that you have put down for us to
consider today, and the testimony that we will be hearing
contains a lot of important parts. Law enforcement authority
for Bureau of Reclamation Power Marketing Administration
facilities, criminal background checks of employees at critical
energy infrastructure facilities, all of these are important.
These items are significant, but we need to do more.
I think we need to expand on this concept, and our
colleague has brought forward his ideas about sharing
information, but I would like to add a couple of things to this
discussion now that we are engaged in an operation to combat
terrorism which will take considerable time. Some of the
emergency measures put in place at energy facilities throughout
the country in response to the September 11 attacks can only be
maintained for so long.
For example, off the coast of my State, in Louisiana, the
Nation's largest port for off-loading crude oil was being and
has been patrolled by military vessel. While a kind of safety
zone around such areas makes sense, should we expand our
military, or expend our military resources in order to continue
to do so? Merely using our present available resources to
operate at such high levels of alert for the duration of what
all indications are will be a long-term effort does not seem
realistic. There is an urgent need for substantial commitment
to protect our country's infrastructure, energy infrastructure
both in scope and duration.
Although 90 percent of the infrastructure in this country
is privately owned, the bill before us directs resources to
those entities that are publicly owned. The industry has an
obligation to provide security, but there is sufficient
evidence that the Federal Government should make additional and
significant contributions to this effort. Not only for the
people's safety in communities, but also for the safety of our
economy, which has its foundation on a reliable, safe source of
energy for this Nation.
And I do not need to put into the record a number of ideas
which would lead us to indicate that our economy is not as
strong as it could be and potentially should be, and what a
disruption might cause.
First, our country is now experiencing an economic downturn
of some significance. Prices for oil and gas are low. It is
imperative for the industry to continue to focus its attention
on production measures to keep our domestic supply of energy
steady, instead of diverting considerable financial resources
to protection.
Secondly, the actual impact of infrastructure located in
one State more often than not extends beyond a particular
State. Three of the country's top 10 gasoline-consuming States
are in the Midwest. The Midwest imports 25 percent of its total
demand from the gulf coast. Our gulf coast refining centers are
handling half the total barrels produced in the United States
today. There are only two pipeline systems moving the product
from the South to the Midwest.
This is, Mr. Chairman, a tremendous amount of pressure on
gulf coast refining. Not only are refineries under pressure,
the pipelines are under pressure, and now I think there is
evidence that there could be some threat, not specific
evidence, but clearly in the light of September 11 we have got
to look at this infrastructure with a different light. What
happens if one or both of these systems are disrupted?
In addition, the only off-shore terminal in the whole
continental United States is the loop facility which is off the
shore of Louisiana. 13 percent of all the imported oil comes
through that one facility.
So in conclusion, whether we are talking about pipelines,
transmission lines, refineries, nuclear plants, as Senator
Murkowski indicated, ports, rigs, platforms, the Federal
Government has a clear and compelling interest in providing
necessary resources to ensure that our energy infrastructure is
sufficiently protected.
I am going to propose legislation today which will do four
things, and I want to get this on the record this morning and
look forward to working with my colleagues on this.
One, it will establish a multi-year national energy
infrastructure program to provide funding annually to all 50
States in order to make sure that all appropriate measures from
the monitoring and detection of potential threats to mitigate,
respond and recover are in place against hostile and natural
threats.
Two, to create two funds, one for the protection of energy
infrastructure located in coastal zones of oil and gas-
producing States, the other for energy structures,
infrastructure of all 50 States, including those in oil and
gas-producing States.
Three, provide funding based on a formula related to the
amount of energy infrastructure a State has, as well as to the
contribution of the State's infrastructure to the rest of the
Nation.
Finally, the Governor of each State would consult with
Federal, State, and local law enforcement public safety
officials, industry and other relevant persons or agencies to
put together this security plan to submit to the Secretary of
Energy detailing what measures might be necessary to protect
the infrastructure to the best of our ability and within the
framework of the resources provided, and within, I might say, a
public-private partnership, which clearly will be necessary.
In order to pay for this program, we should use a
percentage of off-shore revenues from oil and gas development
on the Outer Continental Shelf. We need to increase production
in that area as well as on-shore, and use those additional
dollars to help protect our Nation and to provide the resources
necessary to do the things that, Senator, you are going to be
speaking about this morning, the chairman has suggested in his
legislation.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me, because I will
be introducing this bill today and offering it as an amendment
to our markup tomorrow. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Senator Landrieu follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Mary L. Landrieu, U.S. Senator Louisiana
The vulnerability of our country's energy infrastructure became
more clear last week when an individual was able to cause about 150,000
gallons of oil to spill from the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline with a
bullet from a high powered rifle.
I want to commend the Chairman for moving to focus our attention on
the issue of security of our energy infrastructure. You have put
forward a legislative proposal that addresses some of the matters of
importance to us: law enforcement authority at Bureau of Reclamation
and Power Marketing Administration facilities; criminal background
checks of employees at critical energy infrastructure facilities; and
protection of critical energy infrastructure information. While all of
these items are significant, I believe the events of September 11 have
proven that we need to do more legislatively to make sure our nation's
energy infrastructure is adequately protected from both hostile and
natural attacks.
We are now engaged in an operation to combat terrorism which will
take considerable time and resources. Some of the emergency measures
put in place at energy facilities throughout the country in response to
the September 11 attacks can only be maintained for so long. For
example, off the coast of my state of Louisiana, the nation's largest
port for offloading crude oil was being patrolled by a military vessel.
While a kind of safety zone around such areas makes sense, should we
expend our military's resources in order to do so? Merely using our
present available resources to operate at such high levels of alert for
the duration of what all indications are will be a long-term effort
does not seem realistic. There is a need for a substantial commitment
to the protection of our country's energy infrastructure both in scope
and duration.
Although 90% of the energy infrastructure in this country is
privately owned and operated and industry does have an obligation to
provide security, there is sufficient evidence to suggest the federal
government should make a more significant contribution. First, our
country is now experiencing an economic downturn. It is imperative for
our government to continue to focus its attention on production
measures to keep our domestic supply of energy steady.
Second, energy infrastructure is by nature not contained within the
borders of one state or region. For example, three of the country's top
ten gasoline consuming states are in the Midwest. The Midwest imports
25% of its total demand from the Gulf Coast. While the Gulf Coast
refining centers handle half of the total barrels processed in the U.S.
today, there are only two pipeline systems in place to move the product
from the South to the Midwest. This is a tremendous amount of pressure
on Gulf Coast refineries to meet demand in the Midwest. What happens if
one or both of these systems are disrupted? In addition, the only
offshore oil terminal in the United States, the Louisiana Offshore Oil
Port (LOOP), is estimated to take in 13% of the United States' imported
oil and refining capacity and is connected by five pipelines to over
30% of the United States refining capacity. Imagine the impact its
disruption from natural or hostile threats would have on the nation's
refining capacity.
So, whether we are talking about pipelines, transmission lines,
electric generators, refineries, nuclear power plants, ports, rigs or
platforms the federal government has a clear and compelling interest in
providing the necessary resources to ensure that our energy
infrastructure is sufficiently protected. Since the disruption of a
particular facility or transmission line has economic consequences and
could pose a significant threat to the safety of the surrounding
population, as well as the effect on our economy, environment, state
and local authorities must also play a role. This would require a
partnership among the federal, state and local governments and
industry.
I am proposing legislation which would:
establish a multi-year national energy infrastructure
program to provide funding annually to all 50 states in order
to make sure that all appropriate measures from the monitoring
and detection of potential threats to mitigation, response and
recovery are in place against hostile and natural threats;
create two funds, one for the protection of energy
infrastructure located in the coastal zones of oil and gas
producing states, the other for the energy infrastructure of
all fifty states excluding those areas in the oil and gas
producing states that would be provided for in the first fund;
provide funding based on a formula related to the amount of
energy infrastructure a state has as well as to the
contribution of the state's infrastructure to the rest of the
country;
the Governor of each state would consult with Federal, state
and local law enforcement, public safety officials, industry
and other relevant persons or agencies to put together a
security plan to submit to the Secretary of Energy detailing
what measures were necessary provide adequate protection of
that particular state's infrastructure; and
in order to pay for this program we would use a percentage
of offshore revenues from oil and gas development on the Outer
Continental Shelf.
If we are truly serious about protecting our country's energy
infrastructure from present and future threats, it is necessary for us
to provide a commitment of significant federal resources as soon as
possible.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Senator Cantwell, did you have an opening statement?
STATEMENT OF HON. MARIA CANTWELL, U.S. SENATOR
FROM WASHINGTON
Senator Cantwell. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I did want you
to know prior to our last closed session on the energy
infrastructure, I did visit with the Army Corps of Engineers
that has responsibility for security on part of our hydro
system in the Northwest, and I would like the committee to have
that information in light of the Bureau of Reclamation
legislation as well.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, and Senator Bennett, thank you for
being here to tell us about your proposed legislation. Go right
ahead.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT F. BENNETT, U.S. SENATOR
FROM UTAH
Senator Bennett. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
congratulate you on your foresight in including in your bill a
reference to infrastructure protection. Senator Kyl and I have
introduced our bill, which is something of an orphan. We are
looking for someone to adopt it, and if you should decide to
fulfill that function and put our bill into your bill, I think
I can speak for Senator Kyl, we would be delighted to have that
kind of parentage.
One word I want to leave with you with respect to critical
infrastructure as you conduct your deliberations is the word
seamless. Unfortunately, as we have addressed critical
infrastructure in this country, we have done it in a stovepipe
way. We have looked at critical infrastructure in one industry
or one sector of the economy, and the one thing that leaves us
vulnerable to is the overlapping seamlessness of the threat
that can come in today's information age world.
I have a chart here which I do not expect anybody to
understand, other than to look at it and get an overall
impression of what it is. That, Mr. Chairman, is a map of the
world. You will notice there are no oceans on it, there are no
mountains, there are no geographical barriers. It is a map of
the Internet in the world, and everything is connected in some
way with everything else, so when you think in terms of
critical infrastructure, you must understand the seamlessness
of the problem.
If there is an interruption in the critical infrastructure
in the transportation world, for example, if the computers fail
that run the railroads, that means that coal cannot get to
coal-fired plants, because if the computers fail in the
transportation system, no one knows where any of the railroad
cars are. There are no physical records any more tracking
railroad cars. They are all run by computer, so that someone
who can break into the transportation computer infrastructure
can have an impact on energy.
The same thing is true with telecommunications. When the
Secretary of Defense picks up the telephone in the Pentagon to
connect him with the Commander of the Central Command, that
phone call goes through Verizon, so that someone who breaks
into the telecommunications system can affect our defense
posture.
If someone decides to get into the Fedwire banking and
financing, and if they could shut down the Fedwire with a
computer attack, there could be no financial transactions. No
one in any energy refinery or other facility could get paid.
Their paychecks would not be automatically deposited because
the Fedwire controls all of the financial transactions in the
country, and so on and so on and so on.
I put this chart up to indicate just how seamless the
modern world has become, how productive it is, but at the same
time as we have the tremendous productivity that comes from
this kind of interconnectiveness, how vulnerable it is, so
someone can break in in one place and then have an impact some
place else.
The second chart, which is simply a subset of the first,
comes out of a hearing that I held in the Joint Economic
Committee, and this is a map made of one company's network.
Now, you will notice different colors. The interesting thing
about it is that the green color, the dark color, the most
dominant color is of the networks the company knew that it had.
The other colors, the other portion of the map come from
network connections that the company was unaware of.
They come from suppliers, customers, others who are
connected with the company's networks, which means if you were
a terrorist who wanted to shut this company down, you could
break into one of the orange networks. Unbeknownst to the
company you are then connected with the green network, and you
could do mischief from directions where no one would be
expecting any kind of attack.
So a cyber threat that could shut down a computer in one
situation can have a cascading effect and end up causing damage
to critical infrastructure some place else, so while I applaud
what is in your bill, the point I want to make is that it is
tied directly to the water and energy sector, and there are
vulnerabilities that threaten the water and energy sector that
come from cyber space, of which many people might not even be
aware.
Now, as Senator Landrieu pointed out, the vast majority of
the critical infrastructure is owned by the private sector. She
used the phrase, 90 percent. We are told 85 percent. I will not
quibble about the difference. That means the protection of the
computers that run our critical infrastructure system in this
seamless atmosphere in which we live is primarily in private
hands.
We have a blind spot in this situation, a major national
blind spot, and it comes from the fact that we do not know what
is going on in one portion of that map that could affect the
other portion of the map. For example, if the Defense
Department sees increased computer attacks on their networks,
no one in private industry knows that. There is no trading of
information. And conversely, if there is an increased attack on
private networks, the people in the intelligence community or
the Defense Department do not know that, but what you are
looking for on a national basis is the emergence of a pattern,
a pattern of attacks that tells you that some terrorist is
after you.
Now, our defense intelligence communities are under attack
every day. I have been in the facilities where these attacks
are monitored. The information is classified, and so I will not
in this hearing go any further than that, but I can tell you
that I have seen in real time the attacks that are going on
every single day against our defense facilities. Some of these
attacks come from hobbyist hackers who simply want to get in to
prove that they can, but many of them come from much more
sinister sources and are after access which, if they achieved
it, could be very dangerous to our defense capacity.
Now, someone who recognizes the map that I have just shown
you says, all right, I have tried to get into the U.S. Defense
Department directly. I cannot. Now let us try some place else.
Let us try something in the private sector that may not be as
well-protected, or that can be detected as carefully, and a
pattern of attacks starts somewhere where the folks in the
Defense Department have no knowledge of it.
I have used the Defense Department as an example, but we
could take the energy and water sector of the economy and say
exactly the same thing. Someone could try to get into an energy
installation, say the labs in your State, Mr. Chairman, in an
attempt to get information that would be valuable to a
terrorist. They are repulsed by Government firewalls that are
built in and around the labs.
And so they say, okay, we cannot get in there, let us go
into the telecommunications system and see if we could come
into the labs somehow through the telephone network. Let us try
something as humble as a supplier of the labs, something that
has nothing whatever to do with energy, but from that orange
network, find ourselves being able to get into the green
network and then get the information that we need, or do the
damage that we seek to do from a source that no one had
anticipated.
So with that background, let me outline for you the bill
that Senator Kyl and I have introduced which we think should be
considered as a possible substitute for what you have in your
own bill.
In this chart, I have outlined the problem as I have tried
to describe it in my comments. We have private industry that is
seamlessly connected. The four examples we put up here were the
telecom industry, the banking industry, high tech, and the
power industry, but you could add many, many more to that
particular circle. We have tried to keep it fairly simple.
The blind spot, as I said, is that there is currently no
ability for private industry to share information about attacks
with each other in that circle on the left-hand side of the
chart, nor is there any formal ability to share the information
with the U.S. Government, or for the U.S. Government to share
its analysis of what is going on with anybody in private
industry, and this is what the bill that Senator Kyl and I have
introduced seeks to correct.
We want to make it possible for private industry to consult
with each other as attacks are mounted, and then as that
information is gathered, to furnish that to the U.S. Government
in a way that will not compromise the security of that
information, and this is where we come up to deal with the
Freedom of Information Act.
Now, the Freedom of Information Act contemplates the
ability of private citizens to share information with the
Government and have that information kept confidential, kept
out of the public arena, but because it was drafted before we
got to the state we are in the cyber age today, the Internet
age, the Freedom of Information Act does not have crisp, clear
definitions of which pieces of information can be protected
from FOIA and which pieces cannot.
FOIA simply says it will be up to Congress to provide these
definitions in the future, so it is in the spirit of complying
with the Freedom of Information Act that Senator Kyl and I have
introduced our bill to provide the specificity of that kind of
information that can be protected.
Many people have attacked our bill on the grounds that the
public has a right to know, therefore, Senator Bennett and
Senator Kyl are trying to hold down public disclosure with
their bill. Those who make that kind of attack miss the point,
the point being that if the FOIA protections outlined in our
bill are not granted to private industry, private industry will
not share this information with the Federal Government. It is
not that the public is being deprived access to information
that they would otherwise have if our bill does not pass. It is
that the Government is being deprived of information that they
would not have unless our bill is passed.
Understand, FOIA not only gives the American public the
right to this information, it gives other people the right to
this information, including, if you will, Mr. Chairman, the
terrorists who might want to use their attacks to cripple our
critical infrastructure, and then the private industry says an
attack is going on. Here, Government, is a list of the pattern
of attacks. Tell us what it means.
The terrorist files a FOIA request and says, we want that
same analysis, and they can sit wherever they are in the world
and say to themselves, well, we have got a complete analysis of
how successful we have been. They were able to stop us here,
here, and here, but they are worried about there, there, and
there, so now we know where to target our attacks.
That is why our bill says that this information that is
shared voluntarily by the private industry solely for the
purpose of informing the Government of what is going on and
then getting analysis back from the Government as to what the
private industry ought to be doing about it, that that
information will be kept confidential and will not be subject
to a normal FOIA request.
We are not treading on unfamiliar ground here. Senator Kyl
and I served on the Y2K special committee, and the bill that
passed this Congress, signed by President Clinton, had some
FOIA information exemptions there as well, so that private
industry could share with the Federal Government their
vulnerabilities to a Y2K shutdown, receive back from the
Federal Government information about it, and that it would not
be shared with their competitors or with some potential
terrorist, and so we have experience with this. The world has
not come to an end, the First Amendment has not been degraded,
and we are simply building upon that experience with the
legislation we are proposing.
So Mr. Chairman, to summarize this, and I appreciate your
indulgence in allowing me to go on this long, let me say that
there are four needed provisions in any legislation that deals
with information on critical infrastructure.
First, the critical infrastructure must be better-defined
than it is, and our bill attempts to do that.
Second, the private sector must be able to share
information with the Government, knowing that that information
will be protected.
Third, that the Federal Government must have the capability
to analyze that information and share back with private
industry.
And fourth, that the private sector must be enabled and
empowered to work together around this circle on the left-hand
side of the chart, and that is why there are some antitrust
provisions in our legislation.
So I close, Mr. Chairman, as I opened. We must understand
when we deal with critical infrastructure that we cannot
stovepipe the problem. We cannot say, well, this is the
vulnerability in this sector, this is the vulnerability in this
sector, and so on. We must understand horizontally that the
computer world has made the information that controls all of
our sectors virtually seamless, and a cyber attack that might
be mounted by a terrorist could come anywhere in the economy
and then travel through the Internet virtually anywhere else.
We have raised this issue a number of times. members of the
committee have a chart that comes out of a GAO report that
responded to queries that were raised by a number of us in
which they discussed the vulnerability and assessments and
remedial plans that are currently available industry by
industry.
This chart goes to the question of seamlessness, and goes
down all of the sectors, banking and finance, electric power,
emergency fire services, law enforcement, and so on, and again
and again, in the column that discusses vulnerability
assessments, we see some assessments performed, no remedial
plans, some assessments performed, no remedial plans, no
assessments, methodology developed but no assessments
performed, no remedial plans.
We need to get on with this as quickly as we can, and the
first place where we start is with information.
With that, Mr. Chairman, again my thanks for your
indulgence. Senator Kyl is here, and I would be delighted to
have anything that he might wish to add as a cosponsor of this
bill.
The Chairman. Let me sort of interrupt our normal procedure
and ask if Senator Kyl has anything he wants to add at this
point.
STATEMENT OF HON. JON KYL, U.S. SENATOR FROM ARIZONA
Senator Kyl. Mr. Chairman, thanks very much, and I
appreciate very much your willingness to hear Senator Bennett
and to call on me, because he has made the case I think
thoroughly for the substantive aspects of this legislation. I
cannot conceive of Congress not doing this.
I will just address one thing, and that is what committee
should do it, and in what piece of legislation, and if you just
go round the chart--and there are some groups that are not even
on there. You have got the Government Affairs Committee, you
have got the Finance Committee, the Commerce Committee, the
Judiciary Committee, the Energy and Natural Resources
Committee. Any one of those could take the lead on this.
Somebody has to take the lead, and because the Attorney
General's reforms were the essence of the Judiciary Committee
work, I felt, and Senator Bennett agreed, that perhaps the bill
that everyone knew was going to have to move, an energy bill
that affected more than just the subject of energy might be the
most propitious place to start this. If we do not start some
place and put it in some bill, as Senator Bennett said, it is
an orphan, and yet I cannot imagine anybody not agreeing that
the essence of the bill needs to be addressed, and addressed
very, very quickly.
So rather than addressing the substance of it, let me just
make a plea for this committee to think out of the box a little
bit. I mean, terrorists have now caused us to all think out of
the box, and because of the seamlessness of this threat to our
information infrastructure, we have to start some place. The
energy sector is a very logical place to start, and that is why
I propose that we include these provisions in the bill, which,
by the way, would subsume what you, Mr. Chairman, have put in
with respect to energy, but are not contradictory to those two
particular sectors.
Senator Landrieu. Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Landrieu.
Senator Landrieu. If I could, since we are not following
our regular order, let me just say, a) I would love to be a
cosponsor of your legislation. I think it is very important,
and I would like to join with you in helping you, and I will do
my part to urge this committee to adopt this piece of
legislation, because I think it would fit nicely, Senators,
into what we are trying to put together and push forward with
some urgency to this Congress about the importance of
protecting our energy infrastructure, both cyber and physical,
and there are obviously, as you pointed out in your
legislation, some things that we should do sooner as opposed to
later, and I want to commend you and thank you for making that
presentation.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Bennett. We are always happy to receive support.
The Chairman. Senator Bennett, let me just ask the obvious
question that both you and Senator Kyl addressed. You say we
cannot stovepipe the problem, and I do not disagree with that.
Congress is very good at stovepiping issues. We have done that
by dividing ourselves into these committees. It is your
position, the same as Senator Kyl's, that we should go ahead
and not just deal with the provisions in your bill as they
relate to energy, but the broader provisions, is that what I
understand?
Senator Bennett. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. If I can
share this experience with you, again going back to our Y2K
days. When the airplane slammed into the World Trade Center in
New York, the New York emergency services were immediately
called on. Senator Dodd, who was the vice chairman of the Y2K
Committee, paid a visit to the emergency preparedness center in
New York City, where the coordination of all of these services
in the city took place.
The leaders of that facility said to him, Senator, if we
had not done the Y2K remediation necessary to make sure that
our computers did not fail, we would not have been able to
provide the emergency services necessary to deal with the
crisis in Lower Manhattan, and Senator Dodd shared that comment
with me on the Senate floor, and he said, at least we did
something worthwhile out of that, because once again the
seamlessness of the problem manifested itself, so I believe you
are doing the right thing for protection of information that
would impact energy and water.
Back again to the labs in your home State, which are very
dependent on computers and the network, the Internet, you are
doing a service to protect those labs when you adopt something
like our legislation, even though the legislation goes all
across the board, and is not just aimed at the labs.
The Chairman. Now, as I understand it, there is similar
legislation that is pending in the House. Could you tell the
committee what your understanding is as to whether it is
similar, and what the status of it is?
Senator Bennett. There is similar legislation pending in
the House. With all of the modesty that we all possess in the
Congress we think our bill is better. We think we have focused
on the definition issue a little bit better than the House has,
and again drawing on the experience that Senator Kyl and I had
in the Y2K committee, we think we have a better handle on the
overall problem, but the House is moving forward, and I think
the Senate ought to do the same.
The Chairman. Senator Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. Senator Bennett, I share your
observation. I think we all saw some of the television coverage
after September 11 which indicated that, indeed, the quick
recovery from the standpoint of our financial community, the
bond houses, trading groups, brokers and so forth, was a
consequence of preparation for Y2K, where they had the fear of
the unknown at the end of that year starting the millennium
really geared up in such a way as they had a backup that was
there, a plan, and they were able to initiate it, and I think
it speaks for the reality of being prepared.
From the standpoint of one member of the minority, I think
we would be prepared to recommend to our minority the inclusion
of your bill in the infrastructure security bill that we are
talking about here, and I commend you for your forthrightness,
and Senator Kyl as well, because obviously your contribution in
Y2K was significant, and I think it is a carryover, and I wish
you well.
Senator Bennett. Thank you, sir.
The Chairman. Senator Landrieu, did you have other
questions?
Senator Landrieu. Yes, I have one question. I have got a
document here that is very interesting from the American
Petroleum Institute that responded to the chairman's request to
submit points that they would like for us to consider, and one
of them, as I am reading this, is on this particular subject,
and I wanted to know just for the record if you could help
clarify something.
This organization is concerned that under the EPA's risk
management program that you are probably, Senator, familiar
with, that was developed, this sort of body of law about the
right to know, for consumers and communities' right to know in
terms of hazardous materials and chemicals, and many States and
communities have developed, but they point out in there, and I
think they are making a good point, and it was sort of along
the lines of what you said, that the public's right to know has
to be balanced, with some of this information being readily
available on the Internet being then turned around and used
against us, so their point is basically, in whatever
legislation that we would do, that we would, whatever
legislation we would advocate for, would address this issue.
So my question is, in your hearings, or in your work in
this particular area, could you give us any suggestions about
how to make that balance appropriate in terms of the Cyber or
Chemical Emergency Preparedness and Prevention Act?
Senator Bennett. Thank you. As I indicated in my
presentation, there is a hesitancy on the part of industry to
let out information which they feel would be detrimental to
them, either competitively or in terms of some kind of public
panic or overreaction.
Our bill addresses that information that would be
voluntarily given, so the comments that I made apply here. If a
particular plant says, we do not want anybody to know this, and
they are under currently no obligation to tell anybody, that
information would not be available to any emergency
preparedness personnel either if they were afraid the emergency
preparedness personnel might leak it.
So instead of restricting the amount of the public's right
to know, the approach we are trying to take is to increase the
flow of information among responsible parties without
endangering the confidentiality of that, and I think the
exchange of this information would actually increase the public
right to know.
If somebody in an emergency preparedness agency gets a
piece of information voluntarily, and says, wait a minute, we
probably ought to have some sort of public alert on this issue,
and then talks to the people in the plant, and they talk it
through and come to a joint decision that yes, we will publicly
announce so much, but not this much, the public learns more
than they would have otherwise, and it has been screened in a
responsible way instead of being subject to a FOIA request,
which is nothing but a fishing expedition, very often, and ends
up getting out information that might, in fact, cause panic and
do more harm in the name of right to know than would otherwise
be the case.
Senator Landrieu. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Domenici.
Senator Domenici. First, Mr. Chairman, I compliment you for
having the hearing, and I urge you to proceed with dispatch,
which I think you already intend to do, and frankly, the fact
that there are so many jurisdictions that have a piece of this
legislative pie to me would indicate that you ought to move
ahead with a broader-based bill than that which would
technically fit within this committee's jurisdiction, because
if you do not get started and get something moving to the
floor, where debate can occur, we will be out of here, and we
will be into next year's legislative agenda. We will not have
done something that is patently needed.
I want to suggest to you that on the Armed Services bill
that was an authorizing bill you joined me in what I think is a
very interesting amendment, and I would intend to offer it on
this bill, and it has to do with the national infrastructure
and simulation analysis.
We have an amendment that you and I sponsored on the floor
which would take the existing analysis-gathering network, which
is essentially the national laboratories, and they are making
sense out of piecemeal kind of damage to our infrastructure.
They make sense out of the cascading effect where one
particular piece of infrastructure, if you analyze it all
alone, you do not get its impact on the country because it has
all other kinds of ramifications.
So I will be here tomorrow when you mark this up, and I am
hopeful that Senator Bennett, who is aware of the laboratory's
role in this--that is, the three major defense laboratories--
and I hope you would accept the amendment as an amendment
tomorrow, and we will be going over it with you and the staff,
Mr. Chairman. I think it has already been done, but we will do
it again.
Thank you for calling the hearing and getting something
done.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Let me just repeat what I said at the beginning of the
hearing. Because of Senator Mansfield's funeral tomorrow we are
going to try to mark up Thursday morning, rather than tomorrow
morning.
Senator Campbell.
Senator Campbell. No, thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Kyl.
Senator Kyl. Mr. Chairman, thank you. First of all, I
appreciate Senator Landrieu's willingness to cosponsor, and the
others' willingness to include this legislation. As I said, I
think the case is very easy to make.
The question is just the same procedural conundrum we
always get into around here, and maybe we are blessed by the
fact that since virtually every committee in the Senate could
have some jurisdiction over this, because the very intention is
to make it broad and seamless, that point was well made by
Senator Domenici.
We need to start some place, or we will still be talking
about this when we leave at the end of the year, and perhaps
this bill does, as I said before, offer the best opportunity
for us to get it out there, see if there are any other things
that we need to do to it, and then have a vehicle for it to
become the law, and again, I really appreciate your willingness
to consider this.
The Chairman. Thank you, and Senator Bennett, thank you
very much for your presentation, and we will take all of your
recommendations under advisement here.
Senator Bennett. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I will say that my staff and I have looked at Senator
Domenici's bill. We find it completely complementary with what
we are doing, and I cannot speak for my cosponsors, but as far
as I am concerned, I would be delighted to have that bill
included with ours, and I appreciate very much your
consideration.
The Chairman. Thank you. Let us start with the next panel.
I think we will find ourselves interrupted. We have a vote
coming at 10:30, I believe. Our other two witnesses today are
Mr. John Keys, III, who is Commissioner of the Bureau of
Reclamation, and Ms. Otis, who is the General Counsel with the
Department of Energy.
Mr. Keys, why don't you go right ahead with your statement.
STATEMENT OF JOHN W. KEYS, III, COMMISSIONER,
BUREAU OF RECLAMATION
Mr. Keys. Good morning, sir. This is my first appearance
before your committee as Commissioner, and I really appreciate
your having us here to talk about law enforcement today.
The Chairman. You might just pull that microphone a little
bit closer to you there.
Mr. Keys. I would appreciate my whole written statement
being entered in the record, and I would certainly summarize,
if I could.
The Chairman. It will be included, as Ms. Otis' written
statement.
Mr. Keys. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Bureau of Reclamation is the largest water management
agency in the West. We operate 348 reservoirs, 58 hydroelectric
plants, and in excess of 300 recreation areas that serve about
90 million visitors a year. What that means is, we have over
400 sites that need some sort of security in one level or the
other.
In spite of our obligation to operate, manage and run those
facilities on 8 million acres of land in the West, we still
need express authority to enforce Federal laws and regulations
within a Reclamation project and on Reclamation administered
lands.
The Bureau of Reclamation's dams, powerplants, and other
sites are secure. We are operating on a normal schedule at the
current time. That was the case before September 11, the
tragedy in Washington and New York, but we are now operating at
a high state of alert and a high level of security at all of
those facilities.
Unfortunately, there have been and continue to be
violations of Federal law on Reclamation property that threaten
public safety and security and the resources that we depend on
there. Agency-wide, the Bureau of Reclamation offices have
recurring problems: unauthorized entry onto lands and
facilities, vandalism, theft of cultural resources, illegal
dumping, illegal drug activities, and similar type violations
all over the West.
A couple of examples: at Lake Berryessa in California, our
recreation area, we had a riot that we had an awfully hard time
dealing with. Yuma project in Arizona, we have had breaches of
facilities there, vandalism that causes great problems.
In a nutshell, we can contract with State and local law
enforcement agencies to enforce State and local laws. They
cannot enforce Federal laws on the Reclamation property, or
Reclamation-administered lands. For example, at a recreation
site in Oregon, we had to work with county government to have
them establish local ordinances around our facilities so that
they could enforce local and State law, rather than the Federal
law on those Federal lands.
Often, lands adjacent to Reclamation properties are managed
by other Federal agencies who have law enforcement capability.
Currently, we are limited in our ability to acquire those law
enforcement services from sister agencies.
Another problem that we face is local sensitivity. The
Bureau of Reclamation has been denied local law enforcement
support at times, when issues are sensitive in a community,
when that community does not agree with the Federal law that we
are trying to enforce.
A couple of examples, lately we have been trying to deal
with the trespass and the protection of our facilities in the
Klamath Falls area. A few years ago we faced similar problems
at the American Falls. Such situations put the Bureau of
Reclamation personnel and resources in danger.
Now, on S. 1480, let me tell you what the bill does not do,
first. It would not create a new Reclamation police force or
law enforcement agency. It would not authorize Bureau of
Reclamation employees to carry firearms at work. It would not
empower Reclamation employees to issue warrants or make
arrests.
Now, what it would do for us, it would give the Secretary
the discretion to authorize personnel from Interior or other
Federal agencies with law enforcement authorities, except
Defense, to enforce Federal laws on Reclamation's behalf around
our facilities.
It would give Reclamation the discretion to enter into
agreements with State, local, or tribal law enforcement
agencies to enforce Federal law at Reclamation projects and on
Reclamation-administered lands.
It would authorize the Secretary to reimburse law
enforcement agencies, and it would ensure that only trained law
enforcement personnel, who are authorized to carry firearms,
make arrests and enforce criminal laws, would be eligible to
enforce Federal law on Reclamation lands.
In conclusion, lack of authority impedes Reclamation's
ability to provide for public safety and security around our
facilities. The administration strongly supports S. 1480. We
understand from discussions with committee staff that some
technical modifications have to be made or may be needed to
fully effect the bill's purposes. We would work with the
committee and staff to do that, and to make those changes.
The administration, Secretary Norton, and I, urge adoption
of S. 1480 with the necessary minor changes. We would
appreciate a clean bill so that it could be passed as soon as
possible and let us be on with the business at hand.
Thank you again for being able to be here, and I would
certainly answer any questions you might have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Keys follows:]
Prepared Statement of John W. Keys, III, Commissioner,
Bureau of Reclamation
My name is John Keys, I am Commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation (Reclamation). Let me start by saying that as my first
appearance before this Committee as Commissioner, I am honored to be
here before you today to provide the Administration's views on S. 1480,
legislation concerning law enforcement authority within Bureau of
Reclamation (Reclamation) projects and Reclamation administered lands.
Thank you for holding this hearing and I would especially like to
express my appreciation to the Chairman for introducing S. 1480 at the
Administration's request.
Reclamation is the largest water resources management agency in the
west. The agency operates 348 reservoirs, 58 hydroelectric power
plants, and more than 300 recreation sites which receive 90 million
visits a year. Despite Reclamation's obligation to operate, manage, and
use these facilities on 8 million acres of public land, Reclamation
still needs express authority to enforce Federal laws or regulations
within a Reclamation project or on Reclamation administered lands.
With that being said, I want to be clear that all of our dams and
other sites are secure and we are operating on a normal schedule. This
was the case even before the recent tragedies in Washington, D.C., New
York City, and Pennsylvania. However, in addition to this heightened
state of alert, there are regular violations of Federal law on
Reclamation property that could present a threat to public safety or to
the resources that we manage. Let me give the Committee just a few
examples. At Lake Berryessa, a popular recreation site in northern
California, trespass, vandalism, resource damage, unauthorized large-
scale camping and events, and hazardous materials dumping occur on a
regular basis. In Yuma, Arizona, unauthorized use of Reclamation
facilities such as trespass are common occurrences. Throughout the
agency, Reclamation's area offices report recurring problems such as
unauthorized entry into lands and facilities, vandalism, theft of
cultural resources, illegal drug-related activities, and illegal
dumping and burning.
While Reclamation can contact State or local law enforcement
agencies to enforce State and local laws, these entities cannot enforce
Federal laws within a Reclamation project or on Reclamation-
administered lands. In one case, because of our lack of authority,
Reclamation found it necessary to work with the local county government
to establish local ordinances, so local law enforcement officers could
protect the safety of visitors at Reclamation's recreation site.
Very often the lands adjacent to Reclamation properties are managed
by other Federal agencies capable of providing law enforcement for the
protection of visitors and public resources. However, Reclamation is
limited in its ability to acquire those services.
Before touching upon the details of this legislation--what the bill
does--it is important to clarify a few points about what this bill does
not do. S. 1480 would not create a new police force or law enforcement
agency within the Bureau of Reclamation.
Now to what S. 1480 would do.
S. 1480 would give the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) the
discretion to authorize law enforcement personnel from other Department
of the Interior agencies or other Federal agencies that have law
enforcement authority (but not the Department of the Defense) to
enforce Federal laws on Reclamation's behalf at Reclamation projects
and Reclamation-administered lands. Also, the Secretary will have the
discretion to enter into agreements with law enforcement personnel of
any State or local government, including Indian tribes, to enforce
Federal laws at Reclamation projects and Reclamation-administered
lands. The bill authorizes the Secretary to reimburse law enforcement
agencies for their services. S. 1480 specifies that only trained law
enforcement personnel authorized to carry firearms, make arrests, and
enforce criminal laws would be eligible to enforce Federal law within
Reclamation projects or on Reclamation-administered lands.
Mr. Chairman, the lack of law enforcement authority within a
Reclamation project or on Reclamation-administered lands impedes the
Bureau's ability to provide for public safety and the security of its
facilities. In discussions with the Committee staff, we have learned
that there are some technical modifications that may be needed to fully
effect the purposes of the bill. The Administration strongly supports
S. 1480, and we will work with the Committee to address any potential
changes.
That concludes my testimony, I would be pleased to answer any
questions you may have.
The Chairman. Thank you very much for your testimony. Why
don't we go ahead and hear from Ms. Otis, who is General
Counsel for the Department of Energy.
STATEMENT OF LEE LIBERMAN OTIS, GENERAL COUNSEL, DEPARTMENT OF
ENERGY
Ms. Otis. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. This is my
first appearance before the committee in my official capacity
as General Counsel as well, and I very much appreciate the
opportunity to be here to discuss with you today some steps
that can be taken to assist in protecting our critical energy
infrastructure.
I have been asked to address really two topics. One is what
the Department is doing now, and the other is to comment on a
staff draft substitute amendment to S. 1480 which would extend
the provisions of the bill to include some provisions relating
to energy infrastructure as well as the Bureau of Reclamation
subject matter that it covered originally.
As to what the Department is doing now, the Department of
Energy is basically playing a coordinating role in attempting
to coordinate the efforts of elements of the private energy
sector in making plans to enhance our capacity to protect our
energy infrastructure.
We do not currently have any kind of regulatory role. We
are simply performing a coordination function, and people who
are participating in that effort with us on the outside are
doing so voluntarily. And so essentially what we are doing is
working with industries, States, and localities on a voluntary
cooperative basis, and sharing information and working with
industry groups like the North American Electric Reliability
Council (NERC) and the National Petroleum Council (NPC) to try
to provide information about potential threats to
infrastructure, and steps that can be taken to protect it. Our
Office of Critical Infrastructure is the focal point for this
activity.
Turning to S. 1480, the draft substitute contains several
provisions that we think will enhance our ability to play this
kind of role more effectively. Let me comment first about the
ones we view as the most important, and then as time permits I
will talk about the other ones.
The ones that we think are the most important are sections
5 and 6. Let me also add, because of the timing of all of this,
I am essentially presenting the Department's preliminary
thoughts.
We do not have an official administration position yet on
any of this, but section 5 would essentially create a
prohibition on disclosure of critical infrastructure
information relating to the energy sector, and I believe to
that extent it is closely related to the provision in Senator
Bennett's and Senator Kyl's bill that will do that more
broadly. We think this is an important provision, because we
think that the exchange of information that we are currently
engaging in would be enhanced by our ability to assure people
who are providing information to us that it is not going to be
disclosed absent a solid governmental reason for doing so.
My staff made some technical suggestions about the language
in the bill, I think at the end of last week, essentially to
extend it to make sure that it covers cyber security and to
make sure that there is an appropriate disclosure mechanism for
important governmental purposes, because it will not do us a
lot of good to get this information and not be able to do
anything with it.
We also want to modify it so that the prohibition against
disclosure is not tied to the source of information, but,
rather, the nature of the information, and to provide
rulemaking authority to make sure that the concepts in the bill
can be carried out in a manner that is understood.
The other provision I would like to spend a few minutes on
is section 6, which is an antitrust exemption that parallels to
a significant extent the antitrust exemption for information-
sharing related to critical infrastructure in the Kyl-Bennett
bill, but again this is related to the energy sector rather
than to information more broadly.
The substitute provision is similar to authorities under
the Defense Production Act (DPA) and Energy Policy and
Conservation Act (EPCA) to create exemptions from the antitrust
laws for voluntary agreements to carry out important national
purposes. In the DPA's case, the exemption is for information-
sharing and for planning related to preparedness and expansion
of production capacity and supply necessary to the national
defense, and in EPCA's case it is to carry out international
emergency response provisions if there is an energy emergency.
We think this is a reasonable parallel, and therefore we think
that in making plans to address disruption of our critical
energy infrastructure it is sensible to analogize that to these
other two instances.
We again have made some suggestions for conforming S.
1480's language to the preexisting exemptions to make sure the
Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) exemption from these
other pieces of legislation is picked up, and to allow the
exemption to cover not only agreements to plan but potentially
also agreements to take actions to implement plans relating to
these voluntary agreements. We are also interested in exploring
the idea of allowing the Department to certify a private
organization to set standards for critical infrastructure
protection that would then be carried out by the private
sector.
The other two provisions that I would just like to say a
few words about are section 3, which is an effort to confer
Federal law enforcement on employees of the Bonneville Power
Administration (BPA), who monitor the BPA infrastructure, in a
manner similar to what the original bill does with respect to
the Bureau of Reclamation. We think that BPA employees should
be able to have that kind of authority, as designated by the
Secretary, and we would like to work with the committee on the
language that is being proposed.
Finally, let me say a few words about section 4, relating
to background checks for employees of various elements of the
energy sector. We are less sure about what is sought to be done
here, and how to go about it. Because those employees are part
of an industry that currently is not closely regulated by the
Federal Government, we are not sure that the kind of program
that the committee is looking at in that regard, the breadth of
it, is necessarily the way to go.
We would like to work with the committee and with the
Department of Justice to see what the issue is that is sought
to be addressed, and how we could best address it.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Otis follows:]
Prepared Statement of Lee Liberman Otis, General Counsel,
Department of Energy
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I am Lee Liberman Otis,
the General Counsel of the Department of Energy (DOE). This is my first
appearance before this Committee in my official capacity. The topic the
Committee is meeting to consider this morning, critical infrastructure
assurance, is a serious one at any time, and all the more so in light
of this weekend's events. I therefore especially appreciate having the
privilege of discussing that topic with you today.
I have been advised that you would like me to address two subjects:
first, to discuss DOE's current role in critical infrastructure
assurance; and second, to discuss provisions of S. 1480, a bill that I
am advised is being expanded to include a number of provisions intended
to strengthen DOE's and the energy sector's critical infrastructure
protection capacity. I will take these topics in order.
I. DOE'S CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE ASSURANCE MISSION
Our energy infrastructure is critical to the nation's economic
prosperity, national defense, and quality of life. In recent years,
energy markets, industries, and regulatory regimes have changed, in
some cases significantly. The energy infrastructure also has changed
significantly with respect to its ownership, operation, and
maintenance. Increased use of computer technology and
telecommunications services has improved the reliability and economic
efficiency of energy systems, but has also brought accompanying new
vulnerabilities to disruption. Besides intentional attacks, accidents
and natural disasters have long presented significant risks to the
physical and cyber components of the energy infrastructure. The growing
complexity of the energy system makes these familiar threats
potentially more disruptive and unpredictable as well.
DOE's infrastructure mission, as if affects the private sector,
stems from Presidential assignment rather than specific statutory
responsibility. Under Presidential Decision Directive 63, issued in
1998, DOE is the lead Federal agency designated to work with industry
in improving our capacity to protect our nation's critical energy
infrastructure, including electric power (with the exception of nuclear
plants, where the NRC has the leading role), and the oil and gas
industries. We are also charged with helping to devise ways to mitigate
any significant vulnerabilities of the energy sector to physical and
cyber attacks.
It is important to understand, however, that DOE has no authority
to require participation in any aspect of this process, let alone
compliance with any proposals that may result from it. Rather, at
present we are relying exclusively on voluntary participation and
cooperation.
DOE's Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection is the focal
point of this activity. In cooperation with industry, State, local, and
tribal governments, and other stakeholders, it carries out the
following tasks:
Assessing energy sector vulnerabilities to cyber or physical
attacks;
Identifying ways to mitigate vulnerabilities;
Developing ways to alert to, contain, and divert attacks;
Planning for a system to respond to energy sector attacks;
and
Identifying ways to facilitate rapid reconstruction.
DOE has been collaborating extensively with industry through
``sector coordinators''--the North American Electricity Reliability
Council and the National Petroleum Council--in developing a national
critical energy infrastructure protection strategy.
DOE also works closely with utilities, State and local governments,
and other stakeholders on a regional, State, and local basis. Examples
include collaboration with the City of Chicago, Commonwealth Edison,
and 270 municipalities to assist local governments in better
understanding the threats to, and vulnerabilities of, critical
infrastructures and facilities in the region; working with the State of
Utah, utility, local, county, State, and Federal officials on regional
infrastructure assurance for the Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games;
and working with the California Energy Commission, utilities, and
associations on regional infrastructure assurance needs and activities
in California and the West. To reiterate, however, participation in all
of these efforts is entirely voluntary.
II. S. 1480
Let me now turn to S. 1480. At the end of last week, the Committee
staff kindly shared with us a staff draft of an amendment in the nature
of a substitute for S.1480. Sections 3 through 6 of the substitute
relate to aspects of DOE's critical infrastructure program. I hope that
you will appreciate that the very short time for review of the
substitute, over a holiday weekend, has not afforded us the opportunity
to develop a formal Administration position on the bill or on these
provisions. Nevertheless, given that I understand that the Committee
plans to mark up S. 1480 tomorrow, I thought it important to provide
you with the Department's initial reaction to the sections in question.
Section 3
Section 3 concerns law enforcement authority at DOE's Power
Administrations (referred to in the bill as ``Power Marketing
Administrations''). This provision would authorize the Secretary to
contract with State, local, and tribal law enforcement personnel when
the Secretary determines assistance is necessary in enforcing Federal
laws and regulations.
Regrettably, this section does not at present provide the authority
we believe would be most helpful. Each of the Power Administrations
uses GSA guards and relies upon State, local, and tribal law
enforcement personnel now. All find the current arrangements
satisfactory, with one exception. Bonneville Power Administration (BPA)
presents a special case. As you may be aware, BPA owns and operates
nearly 80% of the high-voltage electric transmission in the Pacific
Northwest, including the most important interconnections with other
regions of the Western United States and Canada. The economy of the
Western United States depends on BPA's reliable operation of its
electric power system, which includes more than 15,000 circuit miles of
high-voltage transmission lines in 8 States.
Given the unique nature of BPA's system, and its dominance in its
service region (unmatched by other Power Administrations, but similar
to TVA), BPA currently employs a very small number of security
specialists who are thoroughly versed in BPA's system and the type of
crime it attracts. Their principal responsibility is to monitor
activities directed against BPA's infrastructure.
DOE believes protection of BPA's system would be materially
advanced by authorizing the Secretary to give this handful of employees
the authority to carry firearms and limited Federal law enforcement
authority. Similar authority already is provided under other statutes
to DOE guard personnel involved with our nuclear weapons complex and
defense activities and with our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. DOE has
prepared a legislative proposal that is in the final stages of the
interagency clearance process to allow the Secretary to provide the BPA
security specialists with the required authority. We urge the Committee
to consider that proposal when it is submitted, instead of section 3.
In addition, the Committee may wish to consider extending to the
other Power Administrations authority available to Bonneville to offer
crime witness rewards as an incentive to gain valuable information
regarding criminal attacks. Bonneville estimates its witness reward
program has resulted in savings of almost $4 million over the last 4
years. The House Resources Committee has ordered reported H.R. 2924,
which would grant the other Power Administrations this authority.
Section 4
Section 4 would require the Secretary of Energy, in cooperation
with the Attorney General, to establish a criminal background check
system covering energy sector employees occupying ``sensitive''
positions at critical energy infrastructure facilities.
I understand that this section is modeled on section 149 of the
Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which established such a program for the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission with respect to civilian nuclear power
plant personnel. We have not had an opportunity to discuss this section
yet with the Department of Justice, which would be deeply involved in
such a program; nor do we know enough about the size of the program
contemplated or the intended object of the program to take a position
on it. We would note, however, that civilian nuclear power plants have
since their inception been closely regulated by the federal government.
That is not the case with respect to the entities that would be covered
by this provision. Accordingly, it may be that such a program, to the
extent it is needed, would be administered more appropriately at the
State or local level, rather than the Federal level. I would point out
that even the industry representatives who have called for action on
this subject specifically note that they do not favor the substantial
federal government role that this provision may contemplate. To
reiterate, however, without more information and more input from the
Department of Justice, we are not able to take a position on this
provision at this time.
Section 5
Section 5 would prohibit the disclosure by the Secretary of Energy
or a Federal agency of information that would reveal a specific,
identifiable weakness or vulnerability of a critical energy
infrastructure facility to a physical attack, or that would compromise
the physical security of a specific, identifiable energy infrastructure
facility.
Perhaps the loudest complaint from industry with regard to
information that industry submits to the government is that government
lacks the capacity to protect that information. Accordingly, companies
can be, at best, reluctant to share it.
The September 11 attacks have made our nation more acutely aware
that there is a delicate balance that must be maintained between the
protection and the release of information, particularly when it
involves the nation's critical energy infrastructure. DOE believes that
in order to facilitate the exchange of information that is the
foundation of cooperation between the private sector and the federal
government in protecting critical energy infrastructure, the government
needs more ability than it has currently to protect the information we
are given. We support legislation affording that protection.
My staff has discussed informally with Committee staff relatively
minor changes to section 5 that would extend its reach to cyber, as
well as physical security. We have also noted that to accomplish its
purpose, this section must contain a mechanism that would allow the
government to disclose that information where disclosure is warranted,
for instance for intelligence and law enforcement purposes, to enable
the taking of corrective measures, and the like.
I note that Senators Bennett and Kyl have introduced S. 1456, which
addresses this information protection problem from a government-wide
perspective. Without commenting on the particular provisions of that
legislation, I would note that we believe there is government-wide
concern about this subject that extends beyond energy-sector
information, but that addressing energy-sector information would be an
extremely useful step.
Section 6
Section 6 would authorize the formation among companies in the
energy sector of voluntary agreements to gather and analyze information
to better understand security problems and to communicate or disclose
information to avoid or correct security problems. The section would
afford a limited anti-trust defense to the participating entities. This
section is modeled on existing authority available to oil companies
participating in International Energy Agency activities.
DOE supports this section, and my staff has informally suggested
some minor technical changes to bring the section more in line with
similar authority available under the Defense Production Act, recently
extended by Congress for two years. Section 6 would go a long way
toward calming another of industry's oft-expressed fears--that the
sharing of information among companies, which is essential to
addressing and correcting critical infrastructure vulnerabilities,
might subject them to anti-trust liability.
In addition, DOE is interested in exploring whether it should be
granted limited authority to certify private sector organizations that
would have some authority to set critical infrastructure security
standards for different portions of the energy sector. As we envision
it, different organizations would be established for each sector of the
energy industry--electric power, oil, and natural gas--although more
than one organization might be appropriate for a given sector.
In conclusion, I deeply appreciate having the opportunity to
testify this morning on this important legislation, and I'd be pleased
to respond to any questions you or other members of the Committee may
have.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. We are about half-way
through this vote. I think what we will do at this point is to
recess and come back and ask some questions at that point, so
it will be about a 10-15 minute recess.
[Recess.]
The Chairman. Why don't we start again here. I have a few
questions. I am sure Senator Carper will have some questions as
well, and we start with you, Mr. Keys. I will just ask a couple
of things that occurred to me. One relates to a concern I think
that you expressed that you do not want to be setting up a new
police force, you do not want to have authority to enforce
criminal laws within the Bureau of Reclamation, is that
correct?
Mr. Keys. Yes, sir. That is a tough call, and in working
with my Secretary and within the administration it appears that
we can provide adequate protection with contract authority to
get that done.
The Chairman. We have in the Department of Energy parts of
this bill, proposals that we give Bonneville Power
Administration authority to do just what you are saying you do
not want the authority to do, and that is to actually enforce
criminal law, as I understand it.
Mr. Keys. That is correct. I have corresponded and talked
with the Bonneville Power folks, and with Western Area Power
Administration. There is a difference of opinion there on how
they would like to approach it. Our Secretary and our
administration felt that we could do it better with what we
have.
The Chairman. Do you have the resources you need? Do you
have a cost estimate for what you would like to see done,
assuming this bill passes, and, if so, do you need more
resources to do it?
Mr. Keys. Senator Bingaman, this thing has come upon us
very quickly, where we would provide that level of security at
all of our facilities. As I said earlier, we have in excess of
400 sites that need some sort of protection at one level or the
other.
In providing that, what we would do is work with the other
agencies of Interior that have law enforcement authority, and
would enter into agreement with them to bring their folks into
our facilities. We would teach them about our facilities, and
then they would operate under our direction.
It appears to us that it would take in excess of 200 people
to do that, and the cost could exceed $25 million a year. Those
are just rough estimates, certainly ones that we would be
working to hone and then to come to the appropriations people
to see how we could cover them.
The Chairman. I know Sandia Labs did a report for you folks
on cyber security.
Mr. Keys. That is correct.
The Chairman. Is there more work needed in that area, or do
you think that was adequate to the purpose?
Mr. Keys. The report we got from Sandia laid out a number
of things for Reclamation to do, and we do have a cost estimate
for accomplishing the levels of security that they recommended
for our information technology. The estimate for that that is
in our budget, about $17 million. I think for the current time
that review is adequate.
In the next level of security review that we will do in all
of Interior, and especially in Reclamation, we will take
another look at it, but we think what we got from Sandia right
now is a good report.
The Chairman. Ms. Otis, let me ask you a few questions
about the Department of Energy position. As I understand it,
the administration is preparing a proposal on this Bonneville
Power Administration law enforcement authority, is that
correct?
Ms. Otis. That is correct.
The Chairman. When can we expect to see that?
Ms. Otis. Mr. Chairman, it is in the process of agency
review, and so we will get back to you as soon as the hearing
is over with more information about that. We did not have the
opportunity to talk to anyone this morning about how that is
coming along.
[The following information was received for the record:]
BONNEVILLE LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITY
The Administration conducted an interagency review of the
Department of Energy proposed draft legislation for Bonneville armed
security authority and determined that the proposed legislation should
not be transmitted to the Congress. The Department of Justice (1)
indicated that it is the Department of Justice policy to limit the
number of statutorily authorized federal police forces and (2)
determined that an administrative process would be available to
Bonneville to arm its federal security specialists under the special
deputations program of the U.S. Marshals Service. Bonneville is
proceeding with this administrative approach for arming its federal
security specialists. Bonneville's non-federal contract guards will
continue to be armed under appropriate state law and regulations.
The Chairman. Okay. Let me ask about the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve. I know the Secretary of Energy has indicated
that is a subject that is under very serious consideration at
the Department of Energy. I guess there is some question about
our ability to access the crude oil that is in there in order
to turn it into refined product. What is DOE's position as to
whether they have the authority they need to adequately fill
the SPRO and make preparations for accessing the oil that is in
the SPRO, and all those issues?
Ms. Otis. I think that we do feel we have the authority
that we need to fill it, and to access what is in it. I think
the administration is looking right now at exactly how it would
like to proceed, and it is giving very serious consideration to
what it wants to do next on that score.
The Chairman. I gather the House committee has moved ahead
to propose, or to--I do not know if they have enacted or passed
legislation on SPRO, calling for additional filling of SPRO and
some things--you have no position on those provisions in the
House bill?
Ms. Otis. My understanding is it was a Sense of the
Congress kind of resolution calling for filling SPRO, if we are
talking about the same provision. We are currently reviewing
exactly how we would like to proceed ourselves, and therefore a
Sense of Congress provision is not something on which we would
take a position at this time.
The Chairman. Do you have any view, or does the
administration have any view on the provisions in Senator
Bennett's bill, the one he described to us here a few minutes
ago?
Ms. Otis. There is no official administration position on
Senator Bennett's bill. But speaking for the Department of
Energy, there are two questions about the bill's antitrust
exemption.
First, there is the scope of it--and it would cover more
information than just the energy sector, and we do agree that
there is concern about information beyond the information
directly involving the energy sector.
We also think, however, that doing something about the
energy sector information is a very important step, and if that
is the most that can be done right now, we would support doing
that.
The other issue about the antitrust exemption in the
Bennett bill is that it does not use the model of the DPA, or
of EPCA in terms of involving the Attorney General and the
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the devising of the voluntary
agreements at issue. I think it also contains exceptions saying
if there is price-fixing going on, then the information-sharing
would not be protected, and if there is market dividing going
on, then the information-sharing would not be protected.
The effect of that may be to lead to less certainty than is
desirable, because you would not have the sign-off from the
people who would be enforcing the antitrust laws on the
proposed information-sharing activity, and there would be an
exemption, with exceptions to the exemption. I am not sure that
that would provide the certainty that you would need for
industry to feel confident about sharing its information
through the mechanism at issue.
The Chairman. My time is up.
Senator Carper.
Senator Carper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to our
witnesses, thank you for joining us today, and I have a couple
of questions. Let me just start--I missed your testimony, most
all of your testimony, and I apologize for being late, but I
would ask each of you to take just a minute or two just to
crystallize for me what we ought to be doing with respect to
marking up legislation this week on protecting our energy
infrastructure, just crystallize it for me.
Mr. Keys. Mr. Chairman, Senator Carper, we need law
enforcement authority in Reclamation to be able to provide the
necessary levels of security around our facilities, which are
about 340-some-odd dams, in excess of 8 million acres that we
administer.
The administration would like to see you pass a bill that
gives us the authority to contract for that. What we are
looking to do is have Reclamation contract with other agencies
within Interior to provide that service. It will take extra
people, it will take more money to do that, but we think that
is the best way to go. It does not create another police force.
It does not give us the authority to carry guns and that sort
of thing, but it gives us the ability to contract out that
service.
I would say that it gives us the ability to contract at
several different levels. I think if you look at it, first we
could contract with our sister agencies that already have that
authority. If in a local situation we could go to a local
government agency, the sheriff or the local police, or the
State, and contract with them, this bill gives us the authority
to pay them.That is what we do not have right now, is the
ability to have one of those come in and do that for us. That
is what this bill would do for us.
Senator Carper. Is that Senator Bennett's bill?
The Chairman. That is a bill the administration sent us
which does incorporate the new authority the Bureau of
Reclamation would like to have, and then we are considering
whether to add Senator Bennett's bill to that, or other
provisions that the Department of Energy has come up with to
that.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
Mr. Keys. Senator Carper, I would add to what Senator
Bingaman said, whether you all add those bills together or not
does not matter, except that we need some quick action, because
the people that are helping us from the Park Service, from the
BLM, from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, from the Fish &
Wildlife Service are stretched much too thin right now. Maybe
bureaucrats looking for security is the same thing as visitors
to your house, after 3 days they start to smell, and we are
stretching our goodwill among agencies awfully thin right now,
with them having to provide us with that service.
Senator Carper. Three days?
Mr. Keys. It is in excess of that now, so we are pretty
ripe about now.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. And if I could, I would like to ask Ms.
Otis, could I ask you just to respond to a similar question,
just crystallize for me succinctly where you think we are?
Ms. Otis. As I told the committee at the beginning of my
testimony, because of the haste with which we are all trying to
proceed here, I do not actually have an official administration
position to offer on any of this at this time, but speaking for
the Department of Energy, we reviewed a draft substitute that
the committee staff shared with us to S. 1480 on Friday, and
two of its provisions we think would address the most important
areas where we would like to see action taken, and those relate
to information-sharing regarding critical energy infrastructure
between the private sector and the Government.
Basically, the substitute would create a prohibition on
disclosing that kind of information, and it would also exempt
from the antitrust laws the sharing of that kind of
information, and we think that kind of legislation along those
lines would help us in our most important next steps in terms
of trying to find out what needs to be done to help protect our
energy infrastructure.
Senator Carper. Where is that legislation? What is the
status of that legislation?
Ms. Otis. My understanding is, and the chairman can correct
me, that there is a substitute which has been circulated among
the committee members, or perhaps among the staff of the
committee, I am not sure, that is being looked at.
The coverage is similar to the coverage of the Bennett-Kyl
bill, except that it is limited to energy infrastructure, as
opposed to sweeping more broadly. We do think there is a
Government-wide issue about protecting this kind of
information, and we would like to see it addressed Government-
wide, but we would not like to see the effort to address it
Government-wide interfere with the effort to address it in the
energy sector.
As I was telling the chairman, I think that the model the
committee is using for the antitrust exemption is one that has
been tried in other contexts, and therefore one that it is
likely that everyone has more experience with, and therefore
may be more comfortable with.
Senator Carper. Do either of you have a feel for how our
security of our energy infrastructure in America compares with
that of some other nations, particularly to our north or to our
south?
Ms. Otis. I do not really have a good feel for that. I
would be happy to get back to you about that. This is obviously
something everyone is looking at very intensely right now. It
is not actually a subject matter over which the Energy
Department has regulatory authority or responsibility at all
right now. We are just basically trying to talk to people on a
voluntary and cooperative basis.
Mr. Keys. Senator Carper, we have not lately talked to our
Canadian counterparts who we work with closely at times on our
generation facilities, but about 3 years ago we did a review of
our facilities and actually incorporated a lot of their ideas
on security into the review of our facilities in the Northwest.
We have not gone back and looked at that this time. We do
have scheduled a more thorough security review of all of our
facilities in the near future, and certainly that contact would
be made again, especially BC Hydro. They are the ones that we
have had very close ties with in the past.
Senator Carper. Given the fact that we import a fair amount
of energy, including some from the north in Canada and from the
south in Mexico, should we be concerned at all about the
protection of their energy infrastructure, or do we have
enough--or are we just here in our own States?
Mr. Keys. Senator Carper, that is a good question. I do not
have a good answer for you. We do depend upon the exchanges of
power across the border in meeting the Federal Columbia Power
System obligations. To be very candid with you, our plate is
full right now providing security for our own facilities. I
would say that when we make contact with BC Hydro, we would
inquire what further measures they are taking to see that they
are comfortable with what they have. We just have not gotten
that far yet.
Senator Carper. I understand.
The Chairman. Thanks very much. Let me just ask Ms. Otis
one other question here. Both the Corps of Engineers and the
Bureau of Reclamation, which operate the dams for the power
marketing administrations, believe that they can rely upon
State and local law enforcement officials to protect those
dams. Why does Bonneville believe it needs new Federal police
force authority to act as a Federal police force to protect
transmission wires?
Ms. Otis. My understanding is that--and I may not have this
right, but my understanding is that the Corps actually does
have some authority to protect its own structures, and I think
that what my colleague is saying is that the Interior
Department has other Federal officials who have these kinds of
authorities whom it could cross-designate to exercise the law
enforcement authorities that would be needed to allow it to
protect its own structures.
At Energy, we do not have anybody who we could cross-
designate in that fashion, and we are basically not asking for
broad authority at all, but there is a handful of security
specialists that Bonneville hires to look out for its
infrastructure, and we do think their ability to protect that
infrastructure would be materially enhanced by giving just that
handful of employees this kind of authority.
The Chairman. All right. Well, I think that is useful
testimony, and we appreciate both of you being here, and we
will take that to heart and try to move forward if we are able
to do that.
Thank you very much. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:15 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]