[Senate Hearing 114-483]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 114-483
PROTECTING THE ELECTRIC GRID FROM THE
POTENTIAL THREATS OF SOLAR STORMS AND ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 22, 2015
__________
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin Chairman
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri
RAND PAUL, Kentucky JON TESTER, Montana
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey
JONI ERNST, Iowa GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
BEN SASSE, Nebraska
Keith B. Ashdown, Staff Director
Gabriel S. Sudduth, Senior Professional Staff Member
Jeffrey A. Fiore, Government Accountability Office Detailee
Gabrielle A. Batkin, Minority Staff Director
John P. Kilvington, Minority Deputy Staff Director
Abigail A. Shenkle, Minority Professional Staff Member
Harlan C. Geer, Minority Senior Professional Staff Member
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
Lauren M. Corcoran, Hearing Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Johnson.............................................. 1
Senator Carper............................................... 25
Senator Ernst................................................ 26
Senator Ayotte............................................... 28
Prepared statements:
Senator Johnson.............................................. 45
Senator Carper............................................... 47
WITNESS
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Hon. R. James Woolsey, Former Director of Central Intelligence,
and Chairman, Foundation for Defense of Democracies;
accompanied by Peter Vincent Pry, Ph.D., Executive Director of
the Task Force on National Homeland Security................... 3
Joseph H. McClelland, Director, Office of Energy Infrastructure
Security, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission................. 4
Richard L. Garwin, Ph.D., Fellow Emeritus, IBM Thomas J. Watson
Research Center................................................ 6
Christopher P. Currie, Director, Homeland Security and Justice,
U.S. Government Accountability Office.......................... 9
Bridgette Bourge, Senior Principal, Legislative Affairs, National
Rural Electric Cooperative Association......................... 10
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Bourge, Bridgette:
Testimony.................................................... 10
Prepared statement........................................... 97
Currie, Christopher P.:
Testimony.................................................... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 77
Garwin, Richard L.:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 69
McClelland, Joseph H.:
Testimony.................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 62
Woolsey, Hon. R. James:
Testimony.................................................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 49
APPENDIX
Charts submitted by Senator Johnson.............................. 102
Statement submitted for the Record from American Public Power
Association.................................................... 104
Statement submitted for the Record from National Center for
Policy Analysis................................................ 106
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record:
Mr. Woolsey.................................................. 109
Mr. McClelland............................................... 111
Mr. Currie................................................... 116
Mrs. Bourge.................................................. 119
PROTECTING THE ELECTRIC GRID FROM THE POTENTIAL THREATS OF SOLAR STORMS
AND ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE
----------
WEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 2015
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ron Johnson,
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Johnson, Ayotte, Ernst, Sasse, Carper,
McCaskill, and Peters.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHNSON
Chairman Johnson. Now that I have my cup of coffee, this
hearing will come to order. Senator Carper will be a little bit
late, so he told me that I could start the hearing without him.
Let me first welcome our witnesses. Thank you for your
thoughtful testimony. I have read it all. I hope every
Committee Member has read it all. I hope everybody in the
audience has, and I would encourage members of the public to
read this testimony and pay attention to this hearing.
I was first made aware of the potential threat of
electromagnetic pulse (EMP), disruptions to our electrical grid
and geomagnetic disturbances (GMD) well before I ever became a
United States Senator. But I think like most members of the
public, it is one of those scary things that is, ``Ah, that is
just science fiction. What are the chances of that?''
When I became a United States Senator, I was briefed by a
couple gentlemen who gave me a booklet that I read that made me
pretty concerned. This was probably a couple of years ago, and
I started talking to other Members, and a lot of those Members
never really even heard of this threat.
I have raised this in secure briefings with members of the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and I have been told,
``OK, we are on that. We are looking into it.''
But the fact of the matter is that this was first made
public and declassified in 2004, and we had a congressional
commission on that. And then we had another commission in 2008,
and the dangers posed by EMP and GMD have been well known
really for decades but made public now for over 10 years, and
we literally have not done anything.
So the purpose of this hearing is to basically stop and
pull our head out of the sand, and start paying attention to
this very real threat. We are going to be debating a nuclear
deal with the State of Iran. We already know we have North
Korea with both nuclear weapon capability and ballistic missile
technology, and that ballistic missile technology is improving
in North Korea.
We know that Iran has those exact same ambitions, and I
guess now we have a deal that is going to end an embargo on
their ballistic missile technology. There are satellites that
are orbiting overhead that could potentially deliver a nuclear
explosion that would cause something like this. So this is a
threat that is real and that we need to acknowledge.
Now, as I was made aware of this and I started talking to
colleagues, a lot of time people's opinion of this was
marginalized by, ``Well, those are just lobbyists that want to
sell the Federal Government some protections.'' I think we need
to keep our eyes open for that type of conflict. But it is no
reason to not be addressing this and taking a look in a very
serious fashion.
So today we have I think, a good panel of witnesses,
starting with Ambassador James Woolsey and Joseph McClelland
and Richard Garwin and Chris Currie and Bridgette Bourge--am I
pronouncing that correctly?
Ms. Bourge. Yes, Senator.
Chairman Johnson. That is actually unusual that I get it
right the first time.--some people that will give us the truth
and give us the information on this. So I am looking forward to
your testimony. When Senator Carper gets here, we will give him
an opportunity to make an opening statement as well, but let us
just start by maintaining the tradition of this Committee,
which is that we do swear witnesses in. So if you would all
rise and raise your right hand. Do you swear that the testimony
you will give before this Committee will be the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God?
Mr. Woolsey. I do.
Mr. McClelland. I do.
Mr. Garwin. I do.
Mr. Currie. I do.
Ms. Bourge. I do.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you. Please sit.
Our first witness will be Ambassador James Woolsey.
Ambassador Woolsey is the former Director of Central
Intelligence and Ambassador to and chief negotiator for the
Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty from 1989 to 1991. He is
currently the Chairman of the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies and is a venture partner with Lux Capital
Management. Ambassador Woolsey.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE R. JAMES WOOLSEY,\1\ FORMER DIRECTOR
OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE, AND CHAIRMAN, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE
OF DEMOCRACIES; ACCOMPANIED BY PETER VINCENT PRY, PH.D.,
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE TASK FORCE ON NATIONAL HOMELAND
SECURITY
Mr. Woolsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the interest of
our 6-minute limit, I will summarize quickly several major
points.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ambassador Woolsey appears in the
Appendix on page 49.
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First of all, the Earth has been being bombarded by
electromagnetic pulses for about 4\1/2\ billion years, so in
one sense, this is not a new issue. And I am not going to get
into the details of the difference between the different
wavelengths from electromagnetic pulses versus those created by
the Sun and the like, but will generalize more in the interest
of time.
We have a very serious problem with exactly what you
described: lack of willingness to admit or understand at the
beginning that this could be as serious as it is given how
horrible it is. People tend to want to shove those types of
issues aside.
But, in fact, there are ways in which electromagnetic pulse
threats are more serious than a conventional version of a
nuclear threat. For example, deterrence may not work at all
with respect to electromagnetic pulse. The reason is we may not
know where the pulse came from. If everything goes dark, it may
be a solar event, and it may be North Korea.
Furthermore, a satellite can be launched into orbit with a
southern trajectory, so it misses, at least initially, all of
our radars and other sensors that are focused north. And,
second, it could be launched--a Scud with a warhead could be
launched from a freighter off one of our coasts. We recently
had a North Korean freighter picked up by the Panamanians that
had two air defense missiles in it, each capable of putting
something into orbit.
So we have a very serious problem from the point of view of
deterring particularly a country such as Iran or North Korea
that is not playing by anywhere close to the standards of
rationality that one would see even in, let us say, China or
Russia when we are having tense relations with one another.
So I think that is the first and biggest problem. We do not
just have a probability issue the way one would have if we were
only worried about the solar EMP events. That could be bad
enough because we are due for a very large pulse event. The
last one occurred over a century and a half ago, and we are due
for another. But that could come anytime or not come for some
time.
The decision by a North Korean leader or an Iranian leader
that it is time to destroy the electric grid of the United
States is a different matter. We do not know what they are
going to do and when. People say, ``Well, they are not crazy.''
But sometimes individual government leaders such as Adolf
Hitler are mad north by northwest. They have horrible
objectives, and they pursue them very diligently. The
objectives are not something any of us would sympathize with.
The same could well be true of an Iranian missile, which
they have now, and an Iranian nuclear weapon, which I think
even under this agreement they are likely to have or be able to
have within months to perhaps a year or two.
The use of electromagnetic pulse has been embodied in
writings in the East, Russian and Chinese particularly. I would
call everybody's attention to the work of the Russian General
Vladimir Slipchenko in his military textbooks which focus on
EMP together with cyber as the new mode of warfare. An EMP for
the North Korean, Iranian, Russian, and Chinese point of view
is part of cyber and a particularly deadly part.
There have been a number of efforts for us to find some way
to take positive steps to do something about electromagnetic
pulse, whether from a nuclear weapon or from the sun, and they
have all been thwarted. Washington is completely dysfunctional
on this issue and has been for some time. The amount of money
involved is relatively small by infrastructure need standards.
According to the EMP Commission, about $2 billion, about what
we give in foreign aid to Pakistan every year for dealing with
the essentials of the electric grid, $10 to 20 billion,
according to the Commission, would protect all of the critical
infrastructures from nuclear EMP attack.
From the point of view of the cost of improvements in our
infrastructures that are badly needed, that is not a great deal
of money. But so far the resistance in the North American
Electrical Reliability Corporation (NERC), and in industry has
been solid and total. They have been able to prevent steps by
individual States that have wanted to take action, and they
have done everything they possibly can to keep the Critical
Infrastructure Protection Act (CIPA) and the reestablishment of
the congressional EMP Commission and the SHIELD and GRID Acts
all bottled up and not being able to be passed by the Congress.
One, perhaps two pointed observations by Texas State
Senator Robert Hall, a former Air Force colonel and himself an
EMP expert, characterizes the behavior of the electric
utilities and their lobbyists on this matter, Mr. Chairman, as
``equivalent to treason.''
Thank you.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Ambassador Woolsey.
Our next witness will be Joseph McClelland. Mr. McClelland
is the Director of the Office of Energy Infrastructure Security
(OEIS) at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). His
office provides leadership, expertise, and assistance to
identify, communicate, and seek comprehensive solutions to
potential risks to FERC-regulated facilities from cyber attacks
and physical threats such as electromagnetic pulses. Mr.
McClelland.
TESTIMONY OF JOSEPH MCCLELLAND,\1\ DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF ENERGY
INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY, FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION
Mr. McClelland. Thank you, Chairman Johnson, for the
privilege to appear before you today to discuss threats to the
electric grid in the United States. In the interest of time and
pursuant to your request, I will skip over the section that
details the E1, E2, and E3 threats.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. McClelland appears in the
Appendix on page 62.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
My name is Joe McClelland, and I am the Director of the
Office of Energy Infrastructure Security at the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission. I am here today as a Commission staff
witness, and my remarks do not necessarily represent the views
of the Commission or any individual Commissioner.
Under Section 215 of the Federal Power Act, the Commission
is entrusted with the responsibility to approve and enforce
mandatory reliability standards for the Nation's bulk power
system. These standards are developed and proposed by the North
American Electrical Reliability Corporation.
Section 215 of the Federal Power Act provides a statutory
framework for the development of reliability standards for the
bulk power system. However, the nature of a national security
threat by entities intent on attacking the United States
through its electric grid stands in stark contrast to other
major reliability events that have caused blackouts and
reliability failures in the past. Widespread disruption of
electric service can quickly undermine the U.S. Government, its
military, and the economy, as well as endanger the health and
safety of millions of its citizens.
Therefore, to provide a significantly more agile and
focused approach to these growing cyber and physical security
threats, the Commission established our office in late 2012.
Our office's mission includes responses to geomagnetic
disturbances and electromagnetic pulses.
Just briefly, in 2001 Congress established a Commission to
assess and report on the threat from EMP. In 2004 and again in
2008, the Commission issued reports on these threats. One of
the key findings in the reports was that a single EMP attack
could seriously degrade or shut down a large part of the
electric power grid. Depending upon the attack, significant
parts of electric infrastructure could be ``out of service for
periods measured in months to a year or more.'' And some would
say that is optimistic.
In order to better understand and quantify the effect of
EMP and GMD on the power grid, FERC staff, the Department of
Energy (DOE), and the Department of Homeland Security, all
three agencies, sponsored a single study conducted by the Oak
Ridge National Laboratory in 2010. The results of the study
support the general conclusion of prior studies that EMP and
GMD events pose substantial risk to equipment and operation of
the Nation's electric grid and under extreme conditions could
result in major long-term electrical outages. Unlike EMP
attacks that are dependent upon the capability and intent of an
attacker, GMD disturbances are inevitable with only the timing
and magnitude subject to variability. The Oak Ridge study
assessed a solar storm that occurred in May 1921, which has
been termed a 1-in-100-year event, and applied it to today's
electric grid. The study concluded that such a storm could
damage or destroy over 300 high-voltage electric grid
transformers and interrupt service to 130 million people with
some outages lasting for a period of years.
To help address these matters, the Commission has used both
regulatory and collaborative actions.
Under its regulator authority, the Commission ordered NERC
to develop two GMD reliability standards for the bulk power
system, requiring new operational procedures and vulnerability
assessments.
Under its collaborative programs, the Commission actively
participates with Federal agencies and industry members to
establish action plans, develop risk assessments that identify
key energy facilities, and prioritize best practices that
exceed regulatory requirements at those facilities for cyber
and physical security matters, including both GMD and EMP.
In addition, the Commission continues to facilitate threat
briefings to industry members and cooperate with our
international partners to compare ongoing initiatives.
Internationally, over a dozen nations have GMD and/or EMP
programs in place or are in the early stages of addressing or
examining the impacts of GMD and EMP. For the United States,
although GMD baseline standards and some best practices are
being established for portions of the electric grid, few
entities have taken steps to address EMP on their systems.
In conclusion, these types of threats pose a serious risk
to the electric grid and its supporting infrastructures that
serve our Nation.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here today, and I would
be delighted to answer any questions you have.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Mr. McClelland.
Our next witness is Dr. Richard Garwin. Dr. Garwin is a
Fellow Emeritus at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center,
testifying in his personal capacity. He brings significant
experience on issues related to electromagnetic pulse. In what
is now the Los Alamos Laboratory, he outlined the first design
for a hydrogen bomb and wrote the first paper on the
electromagnetic pulse from nuclear explosions in the
atmosphere. He has served as an adviser to the Federal
Government for decades on national security issues, including
by serving on the JASON Defense Advisory Board. He is a member
of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and
Medicine, among other organizations, and he has received the
Enrico Fermi Award, the R.V. Jones Award for Scientific
Intelligence, and the National Medal of Science.
Dr. Garwin, when we met earlier, I remembered reading a
briefing that Enrico Fermi referred to you as one of the only
true geniuses he had ever met, so I think that is pretty good
praise from somebody that is also a genius. We are looking
forward to your testimony. Dr. Garwin.
TESTIMONY OF RICHARD L. GARWIN, PH.D.,\1\ FELLOW EMERITUS, IBM
THOMAS J. WATSON RESEARCH CENTER
Dr. Garwin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Actually, Ambassador
Woolsey created the R.V. Jones Award, which was later awarded
to me.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Dr. Garwin appears in the Appendix on
page 69.
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The spectacular images of Pluto this week from the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) New Horizons probe
provoked great interest in our solar system. But our solar
system is a matter for concern, as well. The 1,200 people
injured in February 2013 at Chelyabinsk, Russia, from a
bolide--a meteor--brought substantial focus on low-probability,
high-consequence events. Among these are particularly intense
magnetic storms from space--weather events or coronal mass
ejections from the Sun, possibly even more intense than the
1859 Carrington Event in the pre-electric grid era.
Another potentially great impact on the electrical grid and
modern society is the electromagnetic pulse from high-altitude
nuclear explosions, on the order of 100 kilometers or more
above the Earth's surface.
The United States has been a leader in long-distance
transmission of electrical power, but its system differs in
characteristics, management, and organization from those of
other advanced States. Nevertheless, there is much to be
learned from and by the United States in working to make our
electrical grid robust and economical in the modern era of
technological threats and opportunities.
I begin with my recommendations to ease and essentially
solve the severe problem posed by geomagnetic storms induced by
space weather--specifically by the routine ejection from the
sun of enormous blocks of plasma that travel out within the
solar system and reach the Earth typically in a couple of days.
Most of these coronal mass ejections do not reach the Earth.
They go in other directions. When they do reach the Earth, they
cause displays of the Northern Lights and Southern Lights, and,
more importantly, the magnetized plasma and its incorporated
magnetic field merge with the magnetic field of the Earth and
change it by a relatively small amount, which, however, can
create large currents on long electrical conductors such as
pipelines, telegraph wires in the old days, and the electrical
power transmission system--the Bulk Power System.
Very serious consequences are estimated for such an event
of a magnitude that can be expected to occur at random once per
century.
I emphasize that a once-per-century event might occur next
week; it has a probability of 10 percent of occurring within
the next 10 years--a time in which we can and should take
measures to reduce and essentially eliminate its impact on the
Bulk Power System of the United States. But events expected to
occur once in 20 years can cause significant damage and
disruption.
My recommendations regarding the Bulk Power System: Missing
in Federal policy and practice is a program to:
One, train and equip utility and transmission operators to
bring down within seconds--that is, to switch off--transmission
lines that are at risk of being damaged;
Two, implement ``rapid islanding'' of the grid, to maintain
a large fraction of the power consumers in operation by the use
of whatever island--that is, local--generation capacity exists;
this also facilitates restoring the Bulk Power System to
operation, in contrast with a so-called black start.
Three, fit transmission lines on a priority basis with
``neutral current-blocking devices''--capacitors--in the common
neutral-to-ground link of the three-phase transformers of
extra-high-voltage transmission systems at one end of the
line--whether three-phase transformers or three single-phase
transformers. Where transformers at both ends are
autotransformers, this may not be possible, in which case
series-blocking capacitors in the power lines themselves should
be installed and could be kept shorted until an EMP event is
recognized, or a geomagnetic storm.
Four, alert grid operators and others to a high-altitude
nuclear explosion within thousandths of a second of the event
(by detection of the unambiguous very brief E1 pulse).
In my supplemental testimony submitted for the record, I
provide support for these recommendations and explain why they
would largely and immediately also eliminate long-lasting
damage to the extra-high-voltage transmissions system that
might otherwise result from a high-altitude nuclear explosion.
So if we solve the problem that is sure to arise from space
weather and geomagnetic storm, we will solve the long-distance
transmission problem from high-altitude nuclear explosions,
which may or may not arise.
Those are also deterrable if they are from a place like
North Korea or Iran, and, it is better to plan to deter them by
means of our projected response, as well as to prevent damage
from their happening. But those are two arms of the response.
I should say that in 2011 I was a co-author of a study by
the JASON group, ``Impacts of Severe Space Weather on the
Electric Grid,'' and on pages 3 to 5 of that report, there are
recommendations that include the ones I am giving now.
Also, interestingly, there is the so-called E-PRO Handbook,
the electric protection handbook, Executive Summary 2014 and
International E-PRO Report of September 2013. That specifically
advocates geomagnetic storm-induced current blockers, the
neutral current ground interruptors, series capacitance in
lines, reducing transformer loads, and real-time threshold-
based transformer protection.
Finally, I say that series-blocking capacitors in the power
lines themselves are poorly understood. These are small
devices, not like the enormous fields of transformers, of
capacitors that are deployed for power--factor correction. But
it is a little difficult to understand them because they have
to be bigger in capacitance but smaller by a factor of 100 or
30 altogether because they have less energy storage, less mega-
volt ampere ratings than the power factor correction. But maybe
as a result of this hearing, they will get more attention.
Thank you.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Dr. Garwin. And that obviously
is the purpose of this hearing.
Our next witness is Mr. Chris Currie. Mr. Currie is a
Director of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), where
he leads the agency's work in evaluating emergency management,
national preparedness, and critical infrastructure protection
issues. In this role, Chris has led reviews of numerous Federal
programs and efforts to prevent, plan for, and respond to
natural and manmade disasters and terrorist attacks. Mr.
Currie.
TESTIMONY OF CHRISTOPHER P. CURRIE,\1\ DIRECTOR, HOMELAND
SECURITY AND JUSTICE, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Currie. Thank you, Chairman Johnson and Ranking Member
Carper and other Members that are here today. We appreciate the
opportunity to be here today and testify.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Currie appears in the Appendix on
page 77.
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Within the United States there are 16 critical
infrastructure sectors, for example, water, transportation
systems, agriculture, and, of course, energy. The energy sector
ties all of these sectors together, and without it, the others
just cannot function. This makes protecting it a national
security priority. So I think the others on the panel have done
a really good job of setting up the EMP and the solar weather
threat. Both could cause power outages across large parts of
the country for a long period of time.
That threat was so great that Congress established a whole
Commission on EMP in 2001, which issued reports in 2004 and
2008, and had many recommendations.
GAO is currently evaluating the Department of Homeland
Security's efforts to address EMP threats and electromagnetic
threats in general, and today I would like to share our
preliminary findings in two areas: the first is the extent to
which DHS has addressed the 2008 EMP Commission
recommendations; and the second is DHS' efforts to coordinate
with other Federal agencies and industry stakeholders to
mitigate risks to the electric grid.
So far, we have found that DHS has taken some actions to
mitigate the threats to the grid. These include developing
mitigation projects and planning for the consequences of an
event like an EMP, among other things. So two quick examples of
these actions are:
DHS is developing an R&D prototype transformer that would
allow utilities to replace critical large transformers within a
week, as opposed to the months it could take now, and it is
currently testing that.
Also, for example, the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) is developing a specific Incident Annex to deal with a
long-term power outage, and while this is not specific to
electromagnetic threats, this plan would address one of the
biggest side effects of an EMP or solar event.
In regard to coordination, we have found so far that DHS
has coordinated with stakeholders to address some but not all
risks to the electric grid. Some of these actions address
electromagnetic threats. For example, DHS participates in
interagency working groups that are designed to prepare and
respond to space weather events. However, our preliminary work
shows that DHS has not fully coordinated with stakeholders in
areas like sharing threat information, identifying key
infrastructure assets, and identifying research priorities,
just as examples.
So, for example, within those areas, energy industry
officials told us that they lack sufficient threat information
to determine if they should take actions to mitigate against an
EMP. They also said that this information would help them
justify these investments to their management and shareholders.
And this is similar to our past work and recommendations
related to cyber threats. In that work, we found that Federal
agencies' efforts to share information did not always meet
industry expectations, in part because of restrictions on
information that can be shared. And DHS has since taken steps
to implement those recommendations in that area, including
granting security clearances and establishing a secure
mechanism to share cyber threat information.
In another example, we have found that DHS and the
Department of Energy have not identified the most critical
energy substations and transformers on the grid. This was a key
recommendation of the EMP Commission, and this information
would help prioritize investments to mitigate against the
largest vulnerabilities.
There are a couple final and overarching points I would
like to make based on our work.
First, while DHS has taken some actions, as I have
mentioned, there has been no integrated effort to address the
EMP Commission recommendations. In fact, we have seen some
confusion within DHS about who is responsible for taking lead
on this.
Second, although DHS is not required by law to implement
the Commission's recommendations, many of the recommendations
align with responsibilities that DHS and DOE already have for
protecting critical infrastructure and coordinating these
efforts, such as under the National Infrastructure Protection
Plan. For example, DHS and DOE have not identified roles and
responsibilities for addressing electromagnetic impacts to the
grid.
As we complete our review, we will continue to evaluate the
extent that DHS has implemented the EMP Commission
recommendations and determine where specific coordination
efforts could be improved, and we expect to issue our final
report later this year.
This completes my prepared remarks, and I would be happy to
answer any questions you have.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Currie.
Our final witness is Ms. Bridgette Bourge. Ms. Bourge is a
senior principal for legislative affairs at the National Rural
Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), where she leads the
work on homeland security policy issues. She previously served
as a consultant to the Department of Homeland Security on
critical infrastructure issues. Ms. Bourge.
TESTIMONY OF BRIDGETTE BOURGE,\1\ SENIOR PRINCIPAL, LEGISLATIVE
AFFAIRS, NATIONAL RURAL ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION
Ms. Bourge. Thank you. It is an honor to be here to testify
today on behalf of the industry about the threat of solar
storms and electromagnetic pulses on the bulk power system.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Bourge appears in the Appendix on
page 97.
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As the Chairman mentioned, I do work for the National Rural
Electric Cooperative Association. I advocate for best security
practices that recognize the reality of the threat environments
on behalf of a service organization that serves over 900 not-
for-profit electric utilities providing reliable power to over
42 million people in 47 States.
As member-owned, not-for-profit utilities, electric
cooperatives focus on providing reliable electricity at the
lowest reasonable cost. Anything that undermines that mandate
undermines our members. Our member owners bear every cost.
There is never any debate over whether a proposed project
benefits cooperative stakeholders or cooperative customers.
They are one and the same.
I am not going to get into defining EMPs or GMDs. I think
we have gone into that quite a bit here. I do want to stress,
though, that we are a little concerned that there is some
misinformation out there that fails to reflect the reality and
factual danger of either phenomenon. These two are entirely
separate threats, both in nature and in execution, with
different causations and impacts. Yet they are, nevertheless,
regularly conflated as the same.
GMDs are common, relatively common natural events that can
result from a solar storm. We actually had a few weeks ago a 3-
day occurrence of GMDs at a G3 level. You saw no impact from
the bulk power system. You felt nothing from that. We have
standards and processes in place to address the GMDs at those
levels.
As you heard from Mr. McClelland, we are in the process of
waiting on an additional set of standards that will help us
plan for the 100-year event scenario. So industry does address
the GMD. We are aware of that issue and highly engaged on that
issue, and we are continuing to address that issue.
Electromagnetic pulses from a nuclear detonation are a
little different, from our perspective. They require a
different technology solution. They also require different
planning, different mitigation, different preparation. I would
actually like to read from the EMP Commission here where it
says, ``It is not practical to try to protect the entire
electrical power system or even all high-value components from
damage by an EMP event. There are too many components of too
many different types, manufacturers, ages, and designs. The
cost and time would be prohibitive. Widespread collapse of the
electrical power system in the area affected by EMP is
virtually inevitable after a broad geographic EMP attack, with
even a modest number of unprotected components.''
So basically the EMP Commission even had the same view of
protecting the grid will not guarantee the grid stays up. So we
have to look at this, separate the issues. A GMD is a solar
storm. It is something we do work on, we do address.
EMPs are something we also address through policy and
planning, not so much through the technology solution, because
we do not see it as something we can guarantee survival on. We
do try to protect it, and we do want to look toward planning
scenarios so that we can recover from it. When you hear people
talk about spare transformers, that is an idea that we think is
very valuable and should be looked at most certainly. And you
see some bills actually over in the House proposing that type
of concept, and the Department of Energy, I believe, just
recently put out a request for information on how they might be
able to do such a thing. That is an area of focus where
industry thinks that we would be very beneficial to turn
toward.
We have to remember when you are conflating the EMPs and
GMDs, you have the chance of impacting existing standards,
existing processes, existing mitigation efforts. GMDs are
something that impacts the electric grid. It is something that
impacts communications systems. EMPs are something that impacts
all critical infrastructure. If you have a microprocessor, more
than likely you are going to feel an impact. You are going to
have an impact on our hospitals, on our transportation, on our
fuel lines. These are interdependent critical infrastructures.
They rely on us, but we also rely on them. If we have no fuel,
if we have no water to cool, we will not function.
So when you say everyone else needs electricity to work,
electricity needs others to work as well. So simply finding a
way to harden a grid that will, per the EMP Commission, still
likely come down, when no one else is hardened, when we still
will fail because there are no protections anywhere else does
not seem like the best focus of our energy and time. We want to
focus on that recovery scenario for the low-likelihood, high-
impact events like an EMP, which we do see as distinctly
different than the GMD.
That is the conclusion of my testimony. If anyone has any
questions, I would be happy to answer them.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Ms. Bourge.
I will start the questioning, but before I start the clock,
I did a pretty good job of convincing all the panel members not
to describe E1, E2, E3, and GMD, so nobody did. So I guess what
I would like to do is I think Mr. McClelland might be the best
person to, please just kind of walk us through really what we
are talking about here, because it is, EMP is different from
the GMD, although there are certainly similarities in terms of
some of the effects on some of it. So if you would just kind of
educate us on that, and then I will start asking questions.
Mr. McClelland. Sure. Mr. Chairman, I will read, because I
have summarized it very succinctly, and I think
comprehensively. So within a paragraph, I think I can address
it here at your request.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you.
Mr. McClelland. GMD and EMP events are generated either
from naturally occurring or manmade causes. In the case of
geomagnetic disturbances, or GMDs, solar magnetic disturbances
periodically disrupt the Earth's magnetic field, which in turn
can induce currents on the electric grid that can damage or
destroy key transformers over a large geographic area.
Regarding manmade events, EMPs can be generated by devices
that range from small, portable, battery-powered units through
missiles equipped with nuclear warheads. In the case of the
former--the battery-powered units--the equipment is readily
available that can generate localized high-energy bursts
designed to disrupt, damage, or destroy electronics such as
those found in control systems on the electric grid. The EMP
generated during the detonation of a nuclear device is far more
encompassing and generates three distinct effects: a short high
energy radio-frequency-type burst called E1 that destroys
electronics; a slightly longer burst that is similar to
lightning termed E2; and a final effect termed E3 that is
similar in character and effect to the GMD targeting the same
equipment including key transformers. Any of these effects can
cause voltage problems and instability on the electric grid,
which can lead to prolonged wide-area blackouts.
So the key distinction between the two, geomagnetic
disturbances and we will go with the nuclear because it covers
the
range--the nuclear EMP is that nuclear EMP generates two other
effects: E1, which damages and destroys electronics; E2, which
is similar to lightning, and the common belief in the community
is that E2 has been mitigated or is readily mitigated by the
lightning practices of the utilities today; and then E3, which
is a longer-term effect which generates those geomagnetically
induced type currents that destroy key pieces of transformers.
So if you mitigate against GMD, you have mitigated really
against everything but E1, the E1 effect from a nuclear
detonation.
Chairman Johnson. Let me just ask the open question: Does
anybody disagree with that basic description? Or would you want
to tweak it in some way? Ambassador Woolsey.
Mr. Woolsey. I do not disagree. Most of what I know about
these issues I have learned from Joe McClelland. But I want to
stress that the EMP Commission did not--repeat, not--conclude
that it is futile to protect the grid. The Commission
recommended protecting the grid in such a way that it would
fail gracefully, essentially, so it could be quickly recovered.
But the industry across the board has gotten very, very good at
pointing the finger at other parts----
Chairman Johnson. And, again, we will get into that
discussion.
Mr. Woolsey. All right.
Chairman Johnson. Again, right now I just want to lay the
predicate in terms of this is what we are talking about.
Mr. Woolsey. Got it.
Chairman Johnson. E1, E2, E3, EMP versus GMD, and GMD and
EMP with the E3 that is a similar effect. OK. I just wanted to
get--and I also did want to--you talked about a G3 level
happening all the time. What would be the level of the 100-year
event or the Carrington Effect? What is that on the scale?
Anybody?
Mr. McClelland. That is going to be like a K8, K9 effect,
and we have not seen one. So we have not seen a 1921 level
effect. We have seen two others, and they are very interesting.
One is in 1989. We saw about a half of a 1921 event, and it
collapsed the grid of Canada. The Quebec grid collapsed very
quickly. We also saw a fraction of that event in South Africa
in October 2003 that destroyed over 12 large bulk power system
transformers. It was very small, so it did not collapse the
grid, but it was off for a prolonged period of time, destroyed
that critical equipment at a very low level.
Chairman Johnson. OK. So you had the Carrington Effect,
which was, what, 1859?
Mr. McClelland. 1859.
Chairman Johnson. And that in this G-scale would be a G8 or
G9?
Mr. McClelland. Well, I would say K9.
Chairman Johnson. OK, K9. Again, not that this really means
anything to anybody, but it just kind of gives order of
magnitude. So you had the Carrington Effect, which was kind of
once in a century, but that has been 150 years. Then we had the
1921 event, what would that have been on that scale?
Mr. McClelland. I have the nanoteslas, but as far as
relating it to the K-factor, I am sorry, I would not be able to
answer that question here.
Chairman Johnson. Way more than a G3, though?
Mr. McClelland. Yes.
Chairman Johnson. How about on a scale of 1 to 10? I am
just trying to get some sort of idea of the magnitude of these
things, from a Carrington to what we are seeing, almost
background noise, but this is happening all the time. And we
have all seen disruptions to TV signals, satellite signals,
that type of thing, but kind of the minor annoyances.
I think it is also true that Lloyd's of London says that on
average there is about $2 billion worth of damage from these G3
types of effects annually.
Again, so Carrington was massive; 1921 was not quite as
massive as the Carrington Effect. Correct?
Mr. McClelland. Right.
Chairman Johnson. The next one was in Canada?
Mr. McClelland. Yes, in 1989.
Chairman Johnson. In 1989. Do you have that on a scale?
Mr. McClelland. I do. I can pull it up for you. If the 1921
event was 5,000 nanoteslas, the Canadian event was about 1,100
or 1,200 nanoteslas, so about a fifth. I would say about a
fifth.
Chairman Johnson. It was a fifth of the 1921 event, and it
shut down all of Canada's electrical grid?
Mr. McClelland. It shut down Hydroelectric of Quebec, the
entire Quebec grid, shut down in 93 seconds; 6 million
customers were out of power for about 10 hours. The estimated
cost, I have heard cost estimates of $1 to $2 billion, but very
minor equipment damage. So they were able to restore very
quickly, but still the cost was very significant.
Chairman Johnson. But a fifth the size of the 1921 event,
which smaller than or less intense than the Carrington Effect.
Mr. McClelland. Right.
Chairman Johnson. And then the last one was, you said, in
South Africa?
Mr. McClelland. Right. That was the South African event.
Again, in orders of magnitude, that was probably about half to
a quarter of the Canadian event. It was a very low level event,
but it stayed on for a period of days. The grid did not
collapse. It did not cause consumption, overconsumption,
reactive power flow. So the grid stayed on. Equipment saw
prolonged exposure to this event, and months later, over a
period of months, 12 transformers were lost due to that event.
Chairman Johnson. Then it was true that in 2012 there was a
coronal discharge or a solar flare, whatever we want to call
it, that was pretty massive. Dr. Garwin, can you comment on
that?
Mr. Garwin. No.
Chairman Johnson. OK.
Mr. Garwin. Some of these things are not really on an
appropriate scale because, activity on the Sun is not
necessarily reflected in a geomagnetic event on the Earth. It
depends on the polarity of the plasma that is ejected. And many
of the things that happen on the Sun are spectacular, but their
coronal mass ejections go in different directions.
Chairman Johnson. OK. I saw a satellite picture of us
missing this by about 9 days. Anybody know anything about this
and can comment on it? Ambassador Woolsey.
Mr. Woolsey. I just got tipped from my friend who is the
Chairman or the Staff Director of the EMP Commission, and he
tells me that on July 23, 2012, there was a Carrington-level
event. It missed us by 3 days.
Mr. Garwin. That means it just went off in a different
direction.
Chairman Johnson. Correct, but had the Earth been in its--
had it affected the Earth, it is going to only--does it only
affect the side facing the Earth?
Mr. Garwin. No, the entire Earth, especially the polar
regions, but even down into the mid-latitudes Carrington--the
only long wires in those days were telegraph wires.
Chairman Johnson. Right.
Mr. Garwin. So no grid to bring down, no pipelines, but it
did play havoc with telegraph wires, burned up some telegraph
offices, and it would be much worse. It would collapse
societies. But if the transformers are off, they are not
damaged, and so the worst that would happen, if you take proper
preparations, is that you would have to turn off transformers
which have not been sufficiently mitigated. But the ones that
have been mitigated or which do not have the connections that
make them vulnerable--so-called Y connections instead are delta
connections, which work just as well--those are immune to
geomagnetic storms.
Chairman Johnson. Go ahead.
Mr. McClelland. I am sorry, Mr. Chairman. To answer your
question, because I do have the numbers here, the July 2012
event was about a quarter or about 25 percent of the size of
the 1921 event. The 1989 event that collapsed the Quebec grid
was about a tenth of the size of the 1921 event. And the event
is called ``the Halloween Storm of 2003 for South Africa.''
That was about a 50th of the size of the 1921 event. And I do
have those numbers and can provide that information.
Chairman Johnson. But, again, the granddaddy of them all
was the Carrington in terms of our history that we have
witnessed. Do you have any kind of relationship to that?
Mr. McClelland. I am sorry. I do not have that information.
Chairman Johnson. But bigger than 1921?
Mr. McClelland. Yes, bigger.
Chairman Johnson. Ambassador Woolsey.
Mr. Woolsey. Joe or Dick could correct me if I am wrong,
but 1921 affected, I think, North America only; whereas, the
Carrington Event of 1859 affected the entire world.
Chairman Johnson. OK. Ms. Bourge, again you are making a
distinction between EMP and GMD and to a certain extent
implying that, boy, there is just not much we can do about
EMPs, so, you know----
Ms. Bourge. Well, I certainly do not mean to be implying
there is not much we can do about EMPs. I think planning and
talking at a national level across the critical infrastructure
in identifying interdependencies, figuring out where government
can help industry and where industry can help industry and what
are the most logical ways to go about addressing this low-
likelihood, high-impact situation, as we would with many
others. Whenever you are talking about a catastrophic
situation, sometimes protection and mitigation has to be looked
at, but so does recovery. And you have to balance how much
effort should be put on ahead of time and how much effort
should be put on that recovery situation instead.
Chairman Johnson. Dr. Garwin, you have made four
recommendations. Have you ever seen any kind of cost estimate
of what it would cost to implement your recommendations?
Mr. Garwin. The EMP Commission has those $2 billion. They
do not exactly align with these recommendations. But the
neutral current-blocking device which solves the problem on the
EHB, the bulk transmission system, those might cost about
$100,000 per transformer. That is cheap compared with the
several million dollars per transformer, and it is very cheap
compared with the damages that would be avoided.
Chairman Johnson. Do you know how many transformers would
have to be protected?
Mr. Garwin. A couple hundred in a priority----
Chairman Johnson. Literally, $100,000 times a couple
hundred?
Mr. Garwin. Yes, that is right. You know, $100,000, that
is----
Chairman Johnson. That does not even show up in the Federal
budget. That is pocket change.
Mr. Garwin. Right. But we do not have the census. We do not
have from the transmission companies the details as to which
transformers are most vulnerable, so we do not know where to
start.
Chairman Johnson. So we have not even done that, which 200
transformers should have $100,000 worth of protection?
Mr. Garwin. Yes, and there are some that will not help
because they are autotransformers, and so you cannot separate
their ground----
Chairman Johnson. Mr. McClelland, you----
Mr. McClelland. I am sorry. I guess it really does depend--
the substation number does depend on the outcome that one is
pursuing. If it is grid stability and continuity, then it is a
small, relatively small number of substations. So 55,000
critical substations, as Dr. Garwin has indicated, would number
in the hundreds. If, however, it is to preserve the integrity
of the Department of Defense or the offsite power supply to
nuclear power stations, then criticality of load becomes an
important issue. In that case, you may escalate from a few
hundred to a thousand or more substations.
In addition, it is important to state that Dr. Garwin I
think focused on just one aspect, geomagnetic disturbance.
Electromagnetic pulse requires E1 hardening, too, and----
Chairman Johnson. I understand. So the point being is let
us not make perfect the enemy of the good. Let us not sit back
and go, ``Well, if you cannot protect everything, protect
nothing.'' Let us start protecting things.
Mr. McClelland. Right.
Chairman Johnson. Literally, $100,000 times 200, was it?
What is the math on that? I made a mistake earlier. I need a
calculator. It is not much.
Somebody described the Commission is established, starting
in 2004 when we declassified what we knew dating back to the
1960s, right, when we were doing nuclear testing and we
realized, whoa, something pretty strange is happening or
something pretty damaging, and we classified that. We
declassified in 2004, correct? And we set up a Commission--this
is for Dr. Garwin.
Mr. Garwin. No. It was long before. It was recognized in
1962 by a high-altitude nuclear test. It was explained a couple
years later, never was classified. The only thing that is
classified is the details of the construction of the nuclear
weapons that caused this.
Chairman Johnson. So it was just ignored. It was something
pretty scary, and we did not want to acknowledge it, so we put
our head in the sand, and our head is still in the sand, by and
large.
Mr. Garwin. Well, people tried and, of course----
Chairman Johnson. I am not blaming you. I am just saying
that is the position----
Mr. Garwin [continuing]. And the EMP Commission has been
trying, but here is what the EMP Commission said, if you look
on page 6 of my submittal for the record. So E1, this very
sharp pulse that has no counterpart in a natural phenomenon,
does not affect people, no direct harm to humans or animals,
gasoline-fueled automobiles, 3 stopped running out of 37, but
all restarted without incident, and then, in particular, the
electrical grid.
But Ms. Bourge is right. The country runs on other than
electricity, and so you have to protect more than the
electrical grid. But our subject is the electrical grid, and to
protect the electrical grid even against E1 is not the big
problem that protecting all of society is.
So electromagnetic relays that send current and voltage
were immune to E1, and the electronic protective relays, they
were the toughest devices tested, and they could be even
tougher, according to the EMP Commission, with minor filtering
on them.
So it is something that is doable, is to protect the bulk
power system not only against the geomagnetic storms and
against E3 from high-altitude nuclear explosions, but also
against E1. That would not solve the problem of society because
we depend upon a lot of other things. And if all of our
furnaces and water pumps and so on go out because of the
personal computer type things that are used in them, that is a
bad day.
Chairman Johnson. But we can protect ourselves against
something like the Carrington Effect, the 1921 effect, and we
can do that for a relatively low cost. And, again, it is
something that has a 10 to 12 percent probability of happening
every decade, and we escaped something massive by a couple days
in 2012. Am I stating that correctly?
Mr. McClelland. Yes.
Mr. Woolsey. Yes.
[Witnesses nod in agreement.]
Chairman Johnson. So, again, let us go back to 2008, and I
want to start with you, Mr. Currie. I am going to go through
Recommendations A through O of the 2008 EMP Commission, and I
really want just a simple yes or no on these. Have we done
this? OK? Do we understand the system network level
vulnerabilities, including cascading effects? Do we understand
that? Has DHS done that?
Mr. Currie. No, DHS has not done that.
Chairman Johnson. So we do not even understand the system
or network level vulnerabilities, including cascading effects?
Mr. Currie. Not for geomagnetic threats. No, DHS has not
done that.
Chairman Johnson. OK. Well, that was the first
recommendation. So, again, this is in 2008, and now it is 2015,
and I can actually do that math in my head. That is 7 years.
OK.
B, Evaluate and implement quick fixes.
Mr. Currie. They are evaluating some quick fixes, like the
project I mentioned, the transformer quick fix project, and
that is----
Chairman Johnson. So do you think seven--I am not beating
up on you. Seven years later, that is not exactly a quick
evaluation of a quick fix, is it?
Mr. Currie. Right.
Chairman Johnson. So we still have not done that. We are
kind of evaluating it. Seven years to evaluate a quick fix that
could cost minimal dollars, that would go a long way toward
protecting the absolute critical substations and transformers
of an effect that we know will happen again with 100 percent
certainty, right, Dr. Garwin? We will be hit by one of these
solar flares with 100 percent certainty?
Mr. Garwin. Right.
Chairman Johnson. Sometime in the future.
Mr. Garwin. Right.
Chairman Johnson. We have known about this publicly since
2004. In 2008, these recommendations. Seven years later, we
have virtually done nothing in terms of some quick fixes that
would cost $100,000 per transformer--when, by the way, we spent
$800 billion in 2009 and 2010 on a stimulus package looking for
shovel-ready projects. This would have been a pretty good
shovel-ready project, wouldn't it?
Mr. Garwin. Well, the criterion was too severe because it
takes longer than a year to go from something which is there
actually to get it running. You have all that planning and
budgeting, and it should have lasted longer, and we should have
fixed our infrastructure more widely.
Mr. Currie. Senator Johnson, can I mention one thing?
Chairman Johnson. Sure, Mr. Currie.
Mr. Currie. One of the things that makes it hard--and this
has made our work really hard--is there is no one at DHS that
sort of line by line tracks what efforts coincide with these
recommendations.
Chairman Johnson. No, I will stipulate the dysfunction with
government, OK? And, again, we are describing dysfunction. This
is a serious threat; 100 percent certainty this will happen,
and we have done nothing, having known about this publicly
since 2004, we have done nothing. We have spent minimal amounts
of dollars on a quick fix to protect a big chunk of our iron
structure. Not perfect, not protecting everything, but just
doing the bare minimum, we have done nothing.
Let me go on. C, have we developed national and regional
restoration plans? Yes or no.
Mr. Currie. According to our work, DHS has not done that.
There may have been discussions about that in the Sector
Coordinating Council.
Chairman Johnson. So 7 years later, we have not developed
national and regional restoration plans.
By the way, if anybody wants to challenge this, pipe in. We
have plenty of time. I am the only questioner, which is kind of
nice.
Ms. Bourge. Chairman Johnson----
Chairman Johnson. I wish every member of the Committee were
here to hear this, though. It is unfortunate they are not. But,
again, if anybody wants to challenge this, step in. Do you want
to say--have we developed a national or regional restoration
plan?
Ms. Bourge. Actually, I want to go one back from there. I
want to talk about whether or not we have done nothing, because
I think the issue got a little conflated here on the EMP versus
GMD. Industry has done things on GMDs. We have standards
implemented. We are in the process of pending approval from
FERC on a second set of standards to build toward the 100-year
event.
Chairman Johnson. Have we installed anything? Have we
actually protected anything? So industry, great, God bless you,
I love industry. So industry has done some studying. The
government has not.
Ms. Bourge. I could not say what DHS has done specifically
or not.
Chairman Johnson. That is why we have GAO here, and he said
government has not done anything. So God bless industry. I am
glad you are moving forward. We should start installing some of
these things.
D, have we assured the availability of replacement
equipment. Have we done that?
Mr. Currie. No. It is being researched, but there is no
assurance.
Chairman Johnson. Ah, research. Love research. Some of
these transformers are 2 years out in terms of lead time,
correct?
Mr. Woolsey. Yes.
Chairman Johnson. Two years out.
Mr. Woolsey. And the last time I looked, Mr. Chairman, they
were made only in--the big ones, only in South Korea and
Germany.
Chairman Johnson. So anybody with a brain in their head
looking at this would go, what we ought to do--again, we are
going to spend $800 billion looking for shovel-ready projects
and shovel about $2 billion into some replacement transformers
and just keeping the spare parts. Wouldn't that have been a
rational response, take $2 billion and buy a bunch of
transformers and store them so that we can restore power from
that----
Mr. Woolsey. Some transformers are not fungible. You cannot
just take one and put--but people here who know more about
that----
Chairman Johnson. That would, of course, require some
research and some planning, which we did not do that either. So
let me keep going on.
Mr. Garwin. As they say, the good is the enemy of----
Chairman Johnson. No. The perfect is the enemy of the good,
I know. And just government does not work, and I think this is
pretty obvious.
Mr. Garwin. You can make replacement transformers that are
modular and stack them up, and that is a good way to do it. But
it is very difficult to get people to agree on a particular
course. And in industry and commerce, you have competition, so
people buy what is most effective and what----
Chairman Johnson. Right, and, of course, the point of this
hearing is to lay bare how ridiculous it is that we have done
nothing, and we have let the perfect be the enemy of the good,
and we have allowed governmental dysfunction to prevent us from
even doing the basic first little quick fixes to begin
protecting our critical infrastructure. That is the purpose of
this hearing.
Let me go on. E, assure availability of critical
communications channels. Have we done that, Mr. Currie?
Mr. Currie. So we focus on the energy sector, and one thing
that was not mentioned is that the EMP Commission report
actually covered other sectors, like telecommunications and
banking and finance and raised threats in those areas, too. I
do not have knowledge of the communications area.
Chairman Johnson. Well, again, and I agree with your
assessment in your testimony, too. We have 16 critical
infrastructures, and they all depend on energy. So, again, we
are trying to prioritize what you are trying to address--again,
not going to solve all of them. In other words, do nothing, so
try and start solving something. The top priority would be
protect our electrical infrastructure, correct?
F, expand and extend emergency power supplies. Have we done
that?
Mr. Currie. That is not something we have looked at as DHS
because they would not be responsible.
Chairman Johnson. I will take that as a no.
Extend black start capability.
Mr. Currie. It is something that they have looked at as
their research and development for installing these
transformers that can be easily replaced, but I am not aware
of----
Chairman Johnson. So looked at it. Then that would be what
we would have to do. Pre-purchasing some of these replacement
transformers is really what we are talking about, right? And
getting those in a position so that we do not have to rely on
transportation to put them in service. Mr. McClelland.
Mr. McClelland. If you do not mind, Mr. Chairman, I would
like to revisit just a couple----
Chairman Johnson. Sure.
Mr. McClelland. Not from the DHS perspective, but from
FERC's perspective. Regarding item No. 1, identify critical
facilities, the Commission did finish comprehensive network
modeling, has identified the most critical substations and
nodes on the electric power grid, conveyed that information to
the industry, and then offered assistance. And this is in
conjunction with DOE and DHS, so they were our partners on
this. We did collaborate, so we have identified those critical
nodes, met with the subject matter experts who own and operate
those critical nodes, and offered assistance, joint assistance
for cybersecurity with DHS and also assistance on both GMD and
EMP mitigation procedures and techniques.
We have also collaborated with our partners at the
Department of Defense (DOD) to identify mission-critical
facilities and essentially perform the same function for our
partners at DOD.
So work has been done. I cannot speak to independent
efforts by DHS. The work was not specifically driven by GMD and
EMP. It was driven in the threat context and used for both
cyber GMD and EMP.
On the second item, I do not want to overrepresent it. I
think it is important to say that the NERC standards are a
baseline approach, so they are a foundational approach. They
are certainly not best practices, and they certainly would not
represent best practices that the industry could bring to bear.
However, NERC did put operating procedures in place so that
when they receive alerts and bulletins from the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) folks regarding
space weather events, they are given an alert, and they can
take operational action. That is just operational action,
though. It does depend on human beings to actuate procedures in
order to protect the system.
There is a second phase of that standard. The second phase
of that standard regards a self-assessment by the industry to
determine whether or not they need to take protective measures,
automatic protective measures against GMD. And the Commission
has questioned some of the aspects of that standard in regards
to the 1-in-100-year event and the baseline that NERC submitted
for the Commission's review.
Chairman Johnson. OK. So that is good news. I would have
assumed we would have been looking at this. I am sure there is,
with all the paper being produced around here, there are some
studies. We need to start implementing some protections,
though, and prioritizing those things. Ambassador Woolsey.
Mr. Woolsey. Mr. Chairman, just one illustration. It takes
NERC sometimes quite a while to come up with these standards.
In 2003, after the Great Northeast Blackout in Canada--and it
started, I think, in Cleveland, with a tree branch touching a
wire--NERC undertook a Vegetation Management Plan. It took them
slightly over 10 years, until 2013, to come up with that. The
United States was engaged in World War II for 3 years and 8
months, so that is essentially three World War II's that it
took NERC to figure out what to do with vegetation. I do not
know how long it took them to handle a much more complex
problem, like, say, squirrels.
Ms. Bourge. Mr. Chairman, if I could add one thing----
Chairman Johnson. Squirrels are a 100 percent probability
as well. [Laughter.]
Ms. Bourge. The NERC process has been changing and growing
and establishing itself over the years, and that was more in
its infancy. At this point we have gotten better with
standards. I am not going to say we are perfect, but we have
gotten better in the process of getting them done, and for an
example, we had a request from FERC to create physical security
standards last year, and we did that, I believe, in 82 days.
Chairman Johnson. Again, this is a different example, but I
know the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has established
standards in case the Ebola virus ever came to the United
States, and the first time it happened, we had some young
nurses contract Ebola because--again, you can write up
standards, but if you do not test it, if you do not actually
have the protective gown and equipment in place, the standards,
the piece of paper does nothing.
Let me just continue, because I just want to--and, again,
anybody can answer this. If it is yes or no or, maybe or
partially, let me know.
Prioritize and protect critical nodes. Have we prioritized
and protected critical notes? Mr. McClelland.
Mr. McClelland. The studies that FERC has performed do
prioritize the critical nodes for the industry.
Chairman Johnson. So we prioritized but no protection.
Mr. McClelland. No, the protection is voluntary. There is
no EMP standard, and the Commission has said on numerous
occasions that for national security the standards are not
adequate.
Chairman Johnson. OK. So, listen, I am somebody who hates
overreaching government, overregulation. But let us face it:
Voluntary is not working so good. From my standpoint, this is
something that needs to be addressed, and if government has to
pay for it, again, that is why I go back to the old stimulus,
$800 billion, we could have done a lot of protection with just
a small little fraction of that, and it is just a shame, it is
just unconscionable we did not.
Mr. McClelland. I can just add to that quickly. We have
seen just a handful of utilities move forward with EMP
mitigation. One or two have been very proactive. The cost for
both GMD and EMP mitigation at those stations is relatively
small. It has been 1 to 2 percent--for EMP mitigation included.
Chairman Johnson. When the administration in 2009 was
looking for those shovel-ready projects, did NERC ever raise
its hand and say, ``We have one here''?
Mr. McClelland. I do not know.
Chairman Johnson. I wish they would have.
Mr. Woolsey. Not to my knowledge, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Garwin. There is a generic problem in the government,
as evidenced by our late friend Jim Schlesinger when he was
Secretary of Defense. They needed a fiscal stimulus, and
Schlesinger came up with $5 billion to be spent. He said, ``We
do not need it for defense, but I am the only one in the
government, the only Cabinet Secretary, allowed to have
contingency plans for spending money we do not have.''
And so we spent that $5 billion on defense. Schlesinger
said we did not need it, but it was a good thing to do,
according to the administration and the Congress. We ought to
have contingency plans lined up for things that we do not have
money to do, and you have to be able to say no to them to stay
within the budget.
Chairman Johnson. Well, again, the purpose of this hearing
is to raise this issue, this contingency and a real high--this
is not a contingency. This is an imperative. This is a top
priority from my standpoint.
I, Expand and assure intelligent islanding capability. Dr.
Garwin, that was part of your testimony. Have we done anything
there?
Mr. Garwin. I do not know.
Chairman Johnson. Mr. McClelland.
Mr. McClelland. I would say not, no.
Chairman Johnson. OK. Assure protection of high-value
generation assets.
[No response.]
No? Correct? I guess we will just assume no unless somebody
wants to--OK.
Assure protection of high-value transmissions assets.
[No response.]
No. Assure sufficient numbers of adequately trained
recovery personnel. Have we done that one?
[No response.]
No. Simulate, train, exercise, and test the recovery plan.
Have we done that?
[No response.]
No, we have not done that.
Develop and deploy system test standards and equipment.
[No response.]
Have not done that.
The final one, you can all breathe easy now, establish
installation standards.
[No response.]
So this is pretty remarkable. From 2008, we had all these
recommendations, seems like pretty common-sense
recommendations, things that responsible individuals would have
hopped right on and said, ``This is a problem, this is a
threat, this needs to be addressed, this is a priority.'' And
we have virtually done very little. We have done some. We have
done some studies. We need to start using those studies.
We are, by the way, going to be introducing a piece of
legislation--and I have it here somewhere. Oh, I know. This
passed in the House. One of the reasons we are holding this
hearing now is I wanted the House to move first. It is called
the ``Critical Infrastructure Protection Act.'' To me, this is
just bare minimum. And it was amazing to me. Ambassador
Woolsey, can you describe the problems we had even passing this
in the House? It is going to require DHS to prepare a strategy
to protect critical infrastructure against electromagnetic
threats.
Mr. Woolsey. I think this is the one that go through the
House and was stopped in the Senate--Peter Pry has followed the
legislation on this more closely, if we can ask him, former
Chief of Staff of----
Chairman Johnson. Sure. Why don't you come forward? I will
let you provide the information without being sworn in.
Mr. Woolsey. Progress, particularly in the House, of CIPA.
Mr. Pry. Well, it was passed in the House, but like in the
last week of the last Congress. It passed unanimously, as a
matter of fact, but we just ran out of time. I think the bills
you are thinking about are the SHIELD Act and the GRID Act
which were held up for years in the House Energy and Commerce
Committee. One of them, the GRID Act, did pass the House
unanimously in 2010, and it came over to the Senate. But one
Senator anonymously put a hold on the bill, and then it died.
And that is the closest we came.
Chairman Johnson. I actually was going to get to the SHIELD
and GRID Acts. Right now we are just talking about CIPA,
because I think the House--is it Homeland Security?--has
actually reported out of Committee, and hopefully the House
will pass it. And I want to bring this up and report it out of
our Committee as well, and it is one of the reasons I held this
hearing, was to get Committee support for just a bare minimum.
Again, this is sort of a study as well. But we need to move
past studies as quickly as possible and develop a strategy and
start implementing it real quick. And I think some of these
things we are talking about here, the $100,000 for some of
these critical transformers, I do not think we need a strategy
or a study. I think we should just do it, quite honestly. I
will amend this bill to authorize the dollars to do just that.
Mr. Garwin. One problem is that some of these remedies are
so cheap, so that is the reproduction cost. But the design, the
test, that costs really a lot of money, and then you put it
into production. But you have to decide what it is you put into
production. So that is why there has not been a lot of supply-
industry interest in this, because the market is not all that
big.
Chairman Johnson. Mr. Currie, do you want a quick----
Mr. Currie. Yes, sir. On the cost issue, one of the things
that we are looking at--when we talk about this, we tend to
talk about just replacing existing equipment now. Another
option that is easier and cheaper is, as you redesign systems,
as they need natural replacement, that you consider hardening
in this, too, which can be cheaper and easier to do as well.
Chairman Johnson. That is fine. But, again, that is
replacing. That is further out in the future. Let us take a
look at what we have now. Let us address that. Let us offer
some protection now.
I think I will yield back my time remaining, my 7 minutes
here. [Laughter.]
Senator Carper. I will say you have made the most of it.
Chairman Johnson. I have it right here. It says all 7
minutes, so I have not even begun.
I will say I wish we have had really good attendance at
these hearings, and this is probably the least attended
hearing, and it is unfortunate. I will ask----
Senator Carper. They are all waiting in the anteroom until
you finish.
Chairman Johnson. I will ask that you review what has
already been stated here, Senator Carper. This is unbelievable.
It is just unbelievable. So if you have an opening statement, I
am happy to have you make it now. But I really want you to
review the testimony, and I want you to review the initial
questioning here, and what we have not done is pretty jaw-
dropping and how little it is going to cost to just offer some
basic protection, this is something we need to prioritize. We
need to get moving on this now. But why don't you make your
opening statement? Then we will continue on with questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. OK. Thanks. I apologize to our witnesses.
First, my train was running about an hour and a half late. That
is enough of a trouble. And the Northeast corridor was shut
down for a while. And I got here, and I got distracted on
another big issue that we are facing in the Senate today. But,
Mr. Chairman, thanks very much for holding this hearing, and
thanks to our witnesses as well for joining us.
Threats to the homeland have evolved, as we all know,
considerably over the last 15 years. In the months after 9/11,
the most pressing threat to our homeland came from al-Qaeda
terrorists planning attacks from remote caves in Afghanistan.
Today the terror threat has become far more diverse.
Some terror groups are still seeking sophisticated attacks
against high-profile targets. Other groups, such as the Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), are attempting to inspire
extremists all over the world--including right here in the
United States--to carry out simple attacks within their own
communities, sometimes lethal attacks.
We are also being attacked daily in cyberspace. In many
ways, we are dealing with an epidemic of online theft and
fraud. This epidemic is growing at an alarming rate and touches
many of the people in this room, including on this side of the
dais, as attacks become more sophisticated and more disruptive.
And the challenges we faced with the recent Ebola outbreak
and our ongoing efforts to counter the spread of avian
influenza remind us that threats to our homeland are not just
manmade. To address these evolving threats, we must always look
to stay at least one step ahead of the bad guys or, in some
cases, Mother Nature.
At the same time, we have to reluctantly accept the reality
that our Nation cannot protect against every threat, or
potential threat, out there. Though we should always strive for
perfection, we simply do not have the resources to achieve 100
percent security all of the time. I know that, and I think we
all recognize that. That is why it is so critical that we
prioritize our homeland defenses. We must focus on those
threats that our experience and intelligence tell us are most
likely to occur and would have the gravest effects if, God
forbid, they should become a reality.
Today's hearing gives us an opportunity to assess two
different potential threats to our electrical grid: man-made
electromagnetic pulses, and geomagnetic disturbances caused by
space weather.
Each of these threats poses some degree of risk to our
communities. That much is clear. Our job, however, is to assess
that risk and figure out where these threats rank in the
spectrum of everything else that our country faces. For
example, we must determine how likely electro-and geomagnetic
threats are to occur given our existing preparations and
deterrents. And if they were to occur, how would they impact
our homeland?
The answers to these basic questions become all the more
important and urgent amid the horrific reminders of the
existing challenges we already do face from domestic terrorism
and homegrown violent extremism in our own communities--attacks
like those that occurred recently in Chattanooga and in
Charleston.
I hope today we can make some progress on this front and
that our witnesses can provide us with a clear-eyed assessment
of these threats. I look forward to questioning, but I am going
to yield on my questions to Senator Ernst and Senator Ayotte
and then maybe pick up the chance to ask my own questions in a
few minutes.
Thank you.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Senator Carper. Senator Ernst.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ERNST
Senator Ernst. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Ranking Member Carper.
I would like to start, of course, with a discussion. I know
the DOD was brought up earlier--and, first, I apologize. I want
to thank all of you for being here today as well. I know many
of us are dashing from meeting to meeting. But the DOD was
brought up as far as our military is concerned, so, Director
Woolsey, I would like to direct this to you first. I am
interested in your thoughts on the potential impact of whether
it is a natural or manmade EMP on our military capabilities,
and if you could I guess detail or general observation, either,
on where we are most vulnerable and how we should prioritize
our efforts to harden these areas in our military and mitigate
some of the threats that have been discussed here today.
Mr. Woolsey. Well, 99 percent of--maybe it is like 97
percent of the military are on the grid. That is where they get
their power.
Senator Ernst. Correct.
Mr. Woolsey. I think in California there is one hot water
steam facility, but that is it. So since we have 16 critical
infrastructure and they all in one way or another depend on
electricity, although electricity depends on them--they are
interacting. But if the grid goes down, there is no special
arrangement for the military. They are hungry and thirsty just
like everybody else. And so in a real crisis one might look to
the National Guard or whatever to maintain order. They are
going to be worried about their families starving and not
having water just like everybody else.
So we have a very fundamental problem that the
infrastructure at least in this country is essentially
completely integrated, and one good thing is that Defense often
has less difficulty making decisions and moving out, and
sometimes they have a bit of extra money, so sometimes if you
have a cooperative arrangement between Defense and other parts
of the government, and particularly on something like this,
Defense could kind of take the lead, particularly in areas like
the corridor in the middle of Texas, which has several major
military bases on it as well as several cities. And it would be
a way to move out relatively quickly, perhaps, on getting some
of these changes to the transformers and the rest that we have
been talking about here.
Senator Ernst. So you would say they would be a priority;
they would need to be a priority.
Mr. Woolsey. Absolutely, but, I mean, hospitals are going
to be a priority because they will not have electricity, et
cetera, et cetera. The military would certainly be front and
center.
Senator Ernst. Certainly. And do you believe that we could
adequately protect our installations here? What about post
bases that we have overseas?
Mr. Woolsey. Well, there are different threats, both for
geomagnetic--except for the really huge Carrington Effect 1859
event, the events like even the railroad one of 1921 occur only
over part of the Earth. So if something like that hit us,
unless it was a gigantic Carrington event, it might well not
hit our bases in other parts of the world. And if they were
hit, then they might not be in the United States.
But whether it is in Britain or Germany or here, we cannot
assume that our military is going to have electricity and power
and function any different really than the rest of society.
They are going to depend on British transformers in Britain.
Senator Ernst. Based on those host countries.
Mr. Woolsey. Yes, I am sure they have generators and fuel
that will last for 2 or 3 days or something like that, like a
lot of businesses do. But we are used to planning for weather-
caused outages, which will last 2, 3, or 4, maximum 4 or 5, let
us say, days. And that is not what this would be. This would be
an outage for a very long time.
Senator Ernst. OK. Mr. McClelland, I think you had some
information.
Mr. McClelland. I do. In 2008--and, actually, Mr. Woolsey
was a part of this initiative. It was the Defense Science Board
Task Force that wrote a report in February 2008 called ``More
Fight, Less Fuel.'' The primary objective of that task force,
as I remember, was to evaluate battlefield needs and dependency
on fuel. They inadvertently found, however, they came up with
two primary determinations. The second was very serious and was
a surprise, and I would just like to read an excerpt from the
memorandum from Dr. Schlesinger.
Senator Ernst. Please.
Mr. McClelland. He said, ``The task force concluded that
DOD has two primary energy challenges,'' and this is the
second: ``Military installations are almost completely
dependent on a fragile and vulnerable commercial power grid,
placing critical military and homeland defense missions at an
unacceptable risk of extended outages.''
And so that report went on then to detail the findings as
well as recommendations to help correct that circumstance.
Senator Ernst. So in your assessment then, it would be
important that not only are we ensuring our troops are prepared
for war, but also that they would be prepared in situations
like this to make sure we can eventually step up into military
operations.
Mr. McClelland. Absolutely.
Senator Ernst. OK. Thank you very much. I have very little
time remaining, but I do want to thank all of you for
participating today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Senator. I will use your time,
because we have not adequately described this.
Ambassador Woolsey, you said ``a very long time.'' Lay out
exactly what would happen in a massive GMD or an EMP. Lay it
out. Describe what this is going to look like. This is not a 2-
week or a 3-week power outage. Talk about the electrical grid
going down and everything shuts down.
Mr. Woolsey. Well, I will take a quick stab at it and then
lateral it to Joe and Dick, if they want to add, because they
both know a great deal about this issue--more than I, really.
You have the short wavelength effects that operate line of
sight, so if you----
Mr. Garwin. Short time.
Mr. Woolsey. Short time.
Chairman Johnson. I really do not want to impinge too much
on Senator Ayotte's time here. Kind of get by the technical
aspects to now the grid is down.
Mr. Woolsey. All right.
Chairman Johnson. And just describe what happens to society
when the grid is down for--you said ``a very long time.'' We
are talking a year or two, because we cannot get these
transformers.
Mr. Woolsey. It is briefly dealt with in the Commission
report of 2008, and there are essentially two estimates on how
many people would die from hunger, from starvation, from lack
of water, and from social disruption. One estimate is that
within a year or so, two-thirds of the United States population
would die. The other estimate is that within a year or so, 90
percent of the U.S. population would die. We are talking about
total devastation. We are not talking about just a regular
catastrophe.
Chairman Johnson. I think that made the point. Senator
Ayotte.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AYOTTE
Senator Ayotte. Thank you, Chairman.
Ambassador, you certainly made the point, which brings me
to my question. I serve on the Armed Services Committee as
well, and in February, our Director of National Intelligence
(DNI) and the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
both testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee
regarding worldwide threats. It is our annual worldwide threats
hearing. And this was obviously intended to be a comprehensive
assessment, yet neither of them even mentioned the EMP threat
in their lengthy written testimony provided to the Committee or
in the oral testimony.
So, Ambassador Woolsey, what explains this notable silence?
If you look at collectively your tremendous experience in so
many key positions in our government, how would you assess our
awareness about this threat? And do you worry that there is a
gap in terms of the intelligence community's (IC) and our
overall focus on this devastating threat?
Mr. Woolsey. Senator, it is a great question, and it is one
of the things that perplexes everybody who looks at this. How
could this be such a terrible threat and nobody has paid
attention to it for quite a while, sometimes even in DIA and
DNI testimony? I think there are two things going on.
First of all, all parts of government and individuals are
strapped for cash these days, and so to stick one's neck out in
a bureaucratic situation in which you say, ``I understand that.
That is my agency's responsibility. We will take charge, and
here we go,'' you may find that it is being taken out of your
hide. And so you do not have any real prospect to get added
resources to do something, even if the resources are a couple
of billion dollars, very small in these terms. So that is, I
think, one thing that is going on.
Another is that it has enough of a technological component
that people tend to think of it as science fiction. I gave a
speech to a group of very distinguished scientists, and one
came up afterwards and said, ``Come on, Woolsey. You cannot
mean this. Newt Gingrich writes novels about this.'' I said,
``Well, Tolstoy wrote a novel about the war in Europe in
Napoleonic times. It did not mean it did not happen.''
But people get into the mode of thinking that this is so
horrible if it goes the way it might--and there are books,
there are good sort of dystopian books--one called ``One Second
After''--about this, and so people get into not wanting to
think about it, not wanting to worry about it because it is too
terrible.
I think that those two phenomena--and, finally, we kind of
first knew about this--and, Dick, correct me if I am wrong--as
a result of the atmospheric or high-altitude nuclear test just
before the Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty came into effect, we and
the Russians. And we dealt with the problem from the point of
view of protecting the Strategic Air Command's assets, bombers,
radar aircraft, and so on. But everybody kind of thought of it
as, well, this is one thing that would be terrible if we had a
nuclear war with the Soviets, so it is kind of a lesser
included case. And the problem is that it is not now a lesser
included case. If Iran gets one nuclear weapon, relatively
primitive, just like what we dropped on Hiroshima, and can put
it into a simple launcher, a Scud--they give Scuds to the
Houthis in Yemen--a Scud and put it into orbit at, say, 100
kilometers, which is the easiest thing to do in space, the
first thing we did, the first thing the Russians did, launch a
little satellite into space. They get into space, and it is
low-Earth orbit, and it is going around the Earth a couple of
times a day or so, it crosses the United States. If you have
that up there and you are the Iranians and that morning you
wake up and think you really mean the ``death to America''
business, then you can pickle it off and go, ``Boom,'' and
knock out the American grid.
It is not just a lesser included case of strategic--and, by
the way, the Iranians are rather good at deception. They might
try to make it look like it was North Korea or something.
Senator Ayotte. And North Korea otherwise could do it.
Mr. Woolsey. North Korea otherwise could do it.
Senator Ayotte. They are not know for----
Mr. Woolsey. Try to make it look like it is Iran.
Senator Ayotte [continuing]. Really rational leaders all
the time.
Mr. Woolsey. So there are several factors, but when you put
them all together, the government--and I guess finally with
respect to electricity, the functions of government with
respect to the electric grid, particularly after it was in
part--competition introduced into it around 2000--is you have
FERC, you have NERC, you have State authorities, you have
different kinds of ownership practices in industry. You have
chaos from the point of view of trying to have anybody in
charge of a coherent policy. There is only one person, I think,
who can set this priority for the Nation and get people going,
and that would be the President of the United States.
Senator Ayotte. And from what I hear from your testimony,
you would say that it is very important that the President do
that, whether it is this President or the next President, but
as soon as possible.
Mr. Woolsey. I absolutely think as soon as possible,
because even if you are willing to hope that things will work
out OK with North Korea and with other nuclear powers that
could orbit a satellite, Iran is explicitly genocidal with
respect to both us and Israel, and they are, I think, months
maybe--I hope years, but quite possibly months away from having
a nuclear weapon.
Senator Ayotte. Well, and, of course, under the agreement
that has been released, the U.N. Resolution against
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) and their missile
program will be lifted in 8 years, but the intelligence
estimates have been that they would have ICBM capability this
year, is what we have heard. So we know that, yes, the Scud
would be the more primitive form, but they are also working on
more advanced forms that could deliver these types of weapons
and could have the same effect.
Mr. Woolsey. Absolutely right. And the thing that is a
problem here is that this is easier, an EMP shot is easier than
launching a long-range missile at a target on the Earth. The
shooter does not have to worry about reentry, does not have to
worry about accuracy, none of that. They just need to get into
orbit and detonate when the orbit takes the satellite over the
United States.
Senator Ayotte. Well, I want to thank all of you for being
here. I did not get to a question which I will submit for the
record, but there is some really important work being done on
this issue at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), and they
are actually a leader in the field of heliophysics and
researching this area, and also the impact of actually building
space aircraft instruments to predict and detect solar
eruptions, but also other types of events are important that we
have referenced today. So I am going to submit a question for
that, and I want to give UNH a shout-out for their important
work on this.
And I think this is a wakeup call, Mr. Chairman, for
important work we could do on this Committee to really raise
the attention level of what would be a devastating impact on
our country. So I thank you all for being here.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Senator. It definitely is a
wakeup call, although the wakeup call was first broadcast in
2004, then 2008. And, by the way, I did do a quick calculation
using my iPhone here: 200 critical transformers at $100,000
would be $20 million. That is it, $20 million and we would go a
long way toward at least protecting a good chunk of our
electrical grid.
Mr. Woolsey. About a third of a fighter aircraft.
Chairman Johnson. $20 million, that is it. We are going to
include that on our CIPA bill.
Mr. Garwin. Could I reduce some confusion here, perhaps?
Chairman Johnson. Sure.
Mr. Garwin. Jim Woolsey and I worked together in 1998 on
the Missile Threat Commission, and we said there it is not only
the ICBMs but it is short-range missiles, cruise missiles, or
ballistic missiles from freighters that could threaten the
United States. Now, some people do not like to hear that
because they like to build defenses against ICBMs, and it is
hard to defend against these little things--even harder to
defend against ones that do not have to actually reenter but
could detonate over the United States.
However, never mind radars. We do see every launch of a
significant ballistic missile, even Scuds, with the warning
satellites. And so we know where it is fired from. If it is a
long-range missile fired from Iran or North Korea, we know.
There are easier ways for those countries to commit suicide
than to send a nuclear weapon to do EMP that does not kill
anybody directly but may kill tens of millions of people
indirectly.
But among those would be many Iranians and North Koreans,
and, one ought to say that, in my opinion.
Chairman Johnson. Well, thank you, Dr. Garwin. Senator
Carper.
Senator Carper. Thanks again, everybody.
I think I would like to start off my first question with
Mr. Currie--thank you for being here--and Dr. Garwin. Here is
my question: We have heard about high-altitude nuclear
detonations and the EMP threat that they could pose. Where do
manmade EMP threats rank in the spectrum of all homeland
threats? Do you want to take a shot at that, Mr. Currie?
Mr. Currie. Yes, sir. Thank you for the question.
So that is the responsibility of DHS to assess those types
of threats, and one of the things we found in our work is that
DHS has not done that. They have not sort of incorporated the
EMP or geomagnetic threat into their assessments yet. And there
has been some confusion at DHS, too. When we asked them the
question of who is responsible for doing that, there has been
some confusion around who is supposed to do that.
Senator Carper. OK. Dr. Garwin.
Mr. Garwin. Nuclear weapons are not very widely available,
and to add to that, the capability of launching them over the
United States is also not something they find in the ordinary
terrorist cell. So that is a blessing.
The suitcase battery-operated EMP generators, they can
cause damage at a substation, but there are a lot of other ways
to cause damage at a substation by shooting the transformer----
Senator Carper. We saw that near San Jose. I saw it with my
own eyes.
Mr. Garwin. Yes. Or, for instance----
Senator Carper. Metcalf.
Mr. Garwin [continuing]. Nuclear power plants. You use a
little bit of explosives on the towers, and you bring down all
the offsite power. That is why nuclear power plants have backup
diesels, and we have taken that much more seriously after the
Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns. But it took awhile to realize that
the U.S. plants did not have sufficient battery capacity, did
not have sufficient protection of their diesels.
So the high-altitude nuclear explosion EMP threat is real.
It is very special. We have many other problems of homeland
security: disease spread by terrorists, for instance, as was
mentioned; many other problems; widespread just shooting in
marketplaces, which is endemic in the rest of the world--
fortunately, not so common here; bringing down the commercial
aviation sector by various means. So Homeland Security has a
lot of things to think about.
Senator Carper. I like to say it is a busy neighborhood.
Mr. Garwin. And EMP, we should fix the E3 threat. We should
fix the solar storm threat. And then we should move on and do
the E1 hardening and tell people that they are going to be out
of business if such a thing happens, and that is an unnecessary
vulnerability of the country.
Senator Carper. Ms. Bourge, do you want to comment on what
Mr. Currie and Dr. Garwin just said, please?
Ms. Bourge. Thank you, Senator. What I would add to that is
that the EMP threat is a lower-likelihood threat, but it is one
of the highest-impact threats that you can find out there. And
I think that is one reason that even though it is a very low
likelihood, it is a very important issue, and a lot of people
talk about it. Maybe not as many as should, and hopefully we
are moving toward getting to public-private partnerships across
the infrastructures to do so. But for now, it is a low-risk,
high-impact threat. And as industry, we address those type of
threats in a defense-in-depth approach, and so we take into
consideration all threats, but then we do have to also factor
in the likelihood, the ability to protect against it, the cost
and impact on the consumers, and many other considerations as
we are doing that to decide which threats we are going to
address which ways. And so just because it is a low likelihood
does not mean we do not think about it, but it means that it is
one of the ones that is not the first that we are fixing.
Senator Carper. All right. My followup to you, if I could,
we have heard today that it could take as little as $20 million
to upgrade 200 transformers in the United States. Would you
like to address that number or that assertion?
Ms. Bourge. So I have heard that number before in the past.
Usually, I have heard it in reference to----
Senator Carper. Do you have any idea how many transformers
there are in the country? I do not know. Roughly. Are there
100,000? Are there 50,000?
Ms. Bourge. I believe you are looking at around 20,000 of
the major transformers.
Senator Carper. Major.
Ms. Bourge. But I would have to confirm that number.
Senator Carper. OK.
Ms. Bourge. Joe might be able to----
Mr. Garwin. I think there are only about 700 extremely high
voltage (EHV) transformers, the ones that carry power over many
hundreds of kilometers at voltages above 500,000 volts.
Senator Carper. OK.
Mr. Garwin. Those are the primary ones that would be
damaged and should be protected.
Senator Carper. All right. Good. Thanks.
Mr. Garwin. But the $20 million that is the reproduction
cost.
Senator Carper. The what?
Mr. Garwin. The cost of building these things once you
decide what it is and you do all of the homologation--that is,
you make sure it is suitable, it passes all the requirements of
the various councils that are involved, and that is a good many
million dollars before you get the first one. Now, some of that
work has been done in Ontario Hydro and elsewhere.
Senator Carper. We interrupted what you were saying, Ms.
Bourge. Do you want to finish? I do not want to be rude.
Ms. Bourge. Oh, no. No worries at all. I believe I had
actually pretty much finished all my statement.
Senator Carper. OK. Let me go back and ask a followup to my
first question, Mr. Currie, to you and Dr. Garwin. How likely
is it that a country, like Russia, like China, like North
Korea, would detonate a nuclear weapon in the atmosphere above
the United States? Do we have any deterrence in place to the
launching of a high-altitude nuclear blast?
Mr. Currie. Sir, from a GAO perspective, I do not know the
answer to that. We have done some work, a couple of years ago
on DOD's efforts, the Department of Defense's efforts to
mitigate against this and plan for this, and that is completely
classified. So we would be happy to give that report to you or
your staff.
Senator Carper. OK. That would be good. Thanks.
Dr. Garwin, do you have any--first of all----
Mr. Garwin. There are two aspects to what Ms. Bourge
mentioned.
Senator Carper. OK.
Mr. Garwin. She said explicitly what would be the cost to
the American public, the consumer, of such an event if it
happened, and we do not really know that. We need many more and
more precise and more public estimates of that. Then anybody
can supply the probability, which is not really a probability
because it is affected by people's decisionmaking process, and
in the case of China and Russia, that is deterrable. We would
deter that. This is not something that they could do lightly
without realizing that they would suffer nuclear response, not
just high-altitude EMP. So it would be very bad for their
militaries, and you might say that could cause all-out war. So
it could. And it would not help to put the blame on the one who
started it. We have to think these things through.
So what is the probability? Difficult to answer.
Senator Carper. All right. Thanks.
Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. I know you went on for a
while, and I would like to go on--not for that long but for a
while. Is that OK?
Chairman Johnson. Can I come back to you? I just want to
clarify a few things.
Senator Carper. Sure.
Chairman Johnson. Dr. Garwin, 700 total transformers that
are kind of the critical ones, the long term; $100,000, that
would be $70 million. Again, that does not even show up as a
rounding error in the Federal budget. We are talking about $70
million. But I did want to ask you a question. Are those
capacitors that you are recommending already designed? Or is
that something that would have to be developed?
Mr. Garwin. The neutral current-blocking devices exist.
They have been tried. A company, Emprimus, is offering them for
sale. Who knows how much they are charging for it? I think that
you can use one device on several transformers, and that is
where this $100,000 or $150,000 per transformer comes from.
The series blocking capacitors in the power lines
themselves, those have not been designed. Those are also of the
same order of cost. It depends whether you put them in
substations on fiberglass stands, whether you actually hang
them on the lines, what kind of control systems you put around
them so that they do not cause any power problems when there is
no electromagnetic pulse or solar storm.
So those have not been designed. I wish to call attention
to the fact that they exist. It is hard for an electrical
engineer even to get her mind around the fact that you make a
great big value of a capacitance, a lot of millifarads. And it
still costs less than the ones that we are accustomed to having
because the voltage across them is lower.
Chairman Johnson. So, again, these are estimates. I am just
trying to get a feel for how much we are talking about, how
much of the electrical grid would it protect, and how quickly
could we actually install these things. As a business guy, that
would be my first questions. How much is it going to cost? How
quickly could we install them, in what kind of phasing? And,
how much development really has to occur on this? Anybody else
can jump in.
Mr. Garwin. You could do it in a couple of years.
Chairman Johnson. But could you start installing some of
these things tomorrow?
Mr. Garwin. Yes, you could install neutral current-blocking
devices. You could have some military base at the end of a long
transmission line, install series-blocking capacitors. Yes, you
could go ahead, and if it did not work, you would take it out
of service. But you need to do analyses of the stability of the
networks, electrical stability of the networks, and then you
need to have competition to perfect these things. But, yes, you
could get a good ways within a couple of years.
Chairman Johnson. So, again, for this not even pocket
change to the Federal Government, would this make sense for us
to quickly authorize just a bare minimum level of protection,
authorize, $20 to $70 million--again, no need to ask for an
offset for that small amount--start installing these things,
maybe they are not perfect, we can always upgrade them. And I
guess I want to ask you, Mr. McClelland, and you, Ms. Bourge,
is that something that we could support and get done and do it
tomorrow? We will do other strategies. We will do other
reports. But is this something we could do tomorrow, get that
in motion so we can start installing these things as quickly as
possible? Mr. McClelland.
Mr. McClelland. I would say yes. I would also make a
recommendation that we stay flexible. Neutral blocking may not
be the only solution. It may not be a good fit for that
particular site, and you will hear that from industry members
that evaluate their----
Chairman Johnson. But if we are paying for it----
Mr. McClelland. Right.
Chairman Johnson. I mean, is there going to be much reason
for them to squawk?
Mr. McClelland. No. And I would even say that there may be
cheaper solutions, so instead of a neutral blocker, you could
trip the transformer off.
And just to put one other item in context, if you will
allow me, the 1989 Quebec event, there was virtually no
equipment damage, 10 hours of off time for the grid, cost
between $1 to $2 billion. If you work backward and if you just
inflate the cost to half a million dollars, you are equivalent
then to $1 billion, the lower end of that cost for that
relatively benign event, versus a much more severe event that
is inevitable.
Chairman Johnson. Again, so what I am going to try and
convince our Ranking Member is to join me in authorizing up to
$100 million to quickly install these as a first step. Could
you do these things in a series? Again, we are talking about
such a minimal expenditure with such a great risk. And, by the
way, we do know GMD, it is 100 percent certainty that this will
occur. Maybe not tomorrow, 10 percent every decade, but it will
occur. It is 100 percent. And so we need to protect ourselves
against that.
Ms. Bourge, would industry have any problems if we
authorized spending the money to install these types of
controls, realizing they are not perfect and there may be
better solutions, lower-cost solutions in the future, but let
us at least do this minimal amount now and continue to look at
this in the future?
Ms. Bourge. I think the overall concept would not be so
concerning, but there would be some concerns about the
flexibility of what type of technology solutions are going to
be applied and where we are applying, because the longitude or
the closeness to water, things like that impact what type of
protections are best recommended for an individual facility.
So I am not sure if we would be comfortable with the idea
of it just being a mandate, here is the money, but you need to
install this specific technology on every part of the system;
so much as here is some money, work together with DOE, figure
out how best to install it----
Chairman Johnson. OK. Happy to provide that flexibility,
but I want to get the thing moving. So I do not want to say,
well, until we have it all designed and we know exactly what we
are going to put on all 700, we are going to do nothing. Let us
take a look at if there are 500 which are pretty obvious, let
us get the things installed. And it may not be perfect, and we
will come back and authorize a better solution. Mr. Currie.
Mr. Currie. Yes, sir. I will say one thing that could be a
stumbling block, again, is this prioritization of the most high
risk places or transformers, and it sounds like FERC has some
efforts ongoing. Based on our work at DHS, we have not seen
anything that has really fleshed that out yet or any entity at
DHS that really knows that information. So that would be
critical before you could ever figure out how to spend money.
Chairman Johnson. But, again, FERC, you have done a fair
amount--you have already done some studies, so you think this
could be implemented pretty rapidly. So I will come to you
guys, and I will leave DHS out of this for the time being,
because you are little more prepared, or I will ask you to give
the information to DHS. What a concept. We can actually get
these things done. Senator Carper.
Senator Carper. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Again, another question, if I could, for Ms. Bourge, and
maybe, Dr. Garwin, you take a swing at this one as well. A
fellow named Yousaf Butt--I think that is the correct
pronunciation--a nuclear physicist and former researcher with
the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, recently wrote
the following--this is what he wrote. He said, ``If terrorists
want to do something serious, they will use a weapon of mass
destruction--not mass disruption. They do not want to depend on
complicated secondary effects in which the physics is not very
clear.'' That is what he said.
Let me just ask, is a high-altitude nuclear EMP a weapon of
mass destruction or a weapon of mass disruption? If you believe
it is a weapon of mass disruption, do you agree with Dr. Butt's
statement? Ms. Bourge, please.
Ms. Bourge. It is most definitely mass disruption when you
are talking about a high-altitude nuclear EMP. The reason
someone would detonate a nuclear bomb or device in the air like
that is for the EMP effect. Otherwise, they are going to do a
ground detonation.
From our perspective, we tend to see it from a risk
scenario. The most likely scenario is that a nuclear bomb would
be detonated on the ground, not in the air, because a nation
state would be doing an act of war. A terrorist is also going
to be trying to kill as well as cause terror. So you would have
some groups that would do a high-altitude detonation, but their
intent has to be that mass panic, that mass destruction,
without the mass casualties immediately.
Senator Carper. OK. Again, Dr. Garwin, I will quote Dr.
Butt again. He said, ``If terrorists want to do something
serious, they will use a weapon of mass destruction--not mass
disruption.'' Then he went on to say, ``They do not want to
depend on complicated secondary effects in which the physics is
not very clear.''
Mr. Garwin. He asserts a better understanding of terrorists
than I have. Yes, having a nuclear weapon, exploding it at
ground level in a city, I have written about that a lot. That
is a real problem. It is a lot easier to do, really, than
sending it up without killing anybody immediately. But you will
kill lots of people.
Now, a first-generation nuclear weapon produces a very
significant E1 and destroys all kinds of electronics. It does
not do very much for the E3, that is, the geomagnetic storm-
like pulse. But it will kill a lot of people, not instantly,
and, that is up to the terrorists' taste. It is easier for
them, in my opinion, to detonate a nuclear weapon in a city.
But that does not mean we should not protect against the other.
Senator Carper. I have several other questions. If you
would, just bear with me, please. A question on predicting
space weather, if we could, and I do not know if this is a fair
question to ask of you, Ms. Bourge, but I will start with you
if I could.
When it comes to space weather-generated geomagnetic
disturbances, it appears that our ability to predict the
intensity of solar flares and their impact on Earth is critical
to mitigating the impacts to the electrical grid. Ms. Bourge,
could you and maybe Dr. Garwin take this question for me? Can
you address if the United States is doing a good job at
predicting space weather events?
Ms. Bourge. From the electric industry----
Senator Carper. Microphone.
Ms. Bourge. From the electric industry perspective, I would
say that the United States is doing a pretty good job of
predicting space events. We do get early alerts so that we are
able to take protective action for our systems in the higher
latitudes. That sometimes will mean turning off a system
because we got that alert from the government in time.
Senator Carper. Is it a couple of days? Is it hours?
Ms. Bourge. So it depends on the size of the storm.
Usually, it takes about 16 hours to, I think, 36 hours, if I
recall correctly, for the storm to impact the Earth from when
it first happened on the Sun, and we usually get close to that
for type of a heads up. But you could have a shorter time
period as well. But as long as we have enough time to have our
operators respond, that works. And so that is a very important
issue from our perspective, because unlike the EMP threat, the
GMD threat we do get that early warning. We do know for sure.
The military is not going to call us if they are tracking a
nuke, most likely. But we do get a heads up when a GMD is
heading our way. We know what level we are expecting. We know
what region is likely to have the most impact, and we can take
protective measures for our system.
Senator Carper. What kind of protective measures would you
take in those instances?
Ms. Bourge. So in some cases, we already have existing
technology on the systems at the higher latitudes to protect
against GMDs. They are often called ``chokes.''
Senator Carper. Chokes?
Ms. Bourge. Chokes.
Senator Carper. Like a chokehold.
Ms. Bourge. Like a chokehold, because basically that is
what it is doing to the current. It is trying to limit its
ability to impact the system.
And then we also have that early warning system. That is a
big part of protection against a GMD, just knowing that it is
coming, knowing what time you are expecting it so you can
protect your system, and if need be, shut it off so it does not
get hurt.
Senator Carper. And if you get like a warning of 12, 18
hours, that is enough time to shut down?
Ms. Bourge. That is enough time. We always would love more
time. The more time you have for things, the better. But that
is a good window. I would caution that these are programs that
are sponsored by government dollars. It is satellites that are
out in space monitoring space weather for us. And it is very
important as we move forward in the years that we do not
consider removing these technologies from NOAA's suite of
technologies and availabilities that they have.
Senator Carper. Dr. Garwin, do you agree with anything that
Ms. Bourge just said?
Mr. Garwin. Quite a lot. We do not get very good warning.
We see these things on the sun, and 24 or 36 hours later we may
or may not have a severe geomagnetic storm on the Earth. A real
warning of about 40 minutes comes from an ACE satellite or now
the DSCOVR satellite on the Earth-Sun line off at a million and
a half miles from the Earth out of 93 million miles to the Sun.
Forty minutes is sort of short to change from economic dispatch
where you send the electricity in the cheapest way to robust
dispatch, which may do some good so that the lines are less
heavily loaded and more generators are operating, so if one
line goes out, another one can take over.
We could have, as in the 2011 report, some so-called quasi-
satellites that would be out at 15 million miles. You cannot
station them there. You have to have a whole swarm of them. But
they can be tiny things, and that would extend from 40 minutes
to about 7 hours and give you really better actionable
intelligence.
Senator Carper. OK.
Mr. Garwin. So that would be a good thing. It really would
not cost very much. Nobody that I know is planning for it.
Senator Carper. All right. Thank you. And one last
question, if I could, for Mr. Currie. Mr. Currie, the EMP
Commission issued its recommendations several years ago, and I
think those have been discussed at least to some degree here
today. As I understand it, GAO is working to assess whether the
Department of Homeland Security has implemented the EMP
Commission's recommendations. Here is my question: Is DHS
required to implement the EMP Commission's recommendations?
That is one. Second, have any of the EMP Commission's
recommendations been codified in statute? Go ahead and answer
those first. Is DHS required to implement the EMP Commission's
recommendations? And, two, have any of the EMP Commission's
recommendations been codified in statute? Just do those first.
And then I have one more followup.
Mr. Currie. Sure. No, I am not aware of any law that
requires DHS to implement the recommendations.
Senator Carper. Have any of the Commission's
recommendations been codified in statute yet?
Mr. Currie. Not that we have seen.
Senator Carper. OK. Last question: Did the EMP Commission
recommend that any other department or agency take action?
Mr. Currie. Absolutely. The Department of Energy was a big
part of the EMP Commission report, too, and they were to work
either independently or with DHS to implement the
recommendations, too. And that is the same structure for
protecting critical infrastructure across the country. DHS has
the lead in coordinating, and they work with the sector-
specific agency. For energy, it is DOE. But that applies to all
sectors, too. So it is a partnership.
Senator Carper. OK. I want to, if I could just in a closing
statement, thank each of you for coming today, for your
preparation, and for your responses to questions.
In the last Congress--I call him the wingman while I was
chairing this Committee, was Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Dr.
Coburn, a House Member, a physician, a successful business
person, and a valued member of this Committee and this body.
And we were encouraged at one point in time--at several points
in time in the last Congress to hold hearings and to delve
deeper into this issue. And I recall him as a Congressman, he
is one of those persons who--for those of you who know him--was
already free to speak his mind. And one of our colleagues used
to say of Tom, whom I love dearly, he would say, ``Dr. Coburn
is sometimes mistaken but never uncertain.'' That is what he
would always say. But he was oftentimes right.
We once had a conversation about this issue. I think he
described this issue as ``hokum.'' That is a word we sometimes
use in Delaware. Again, going back to the characterization one
of our colleagues used to have of Tom, I do not know if this is
hokum or not. I think we have some pretty smart people here
that are before us and who have the interests of our Nation at
heart, have brought their concerns to us, and we should
certainly be attentive to those. I know this is an issue that
is especially important to our Chairman, so it is sure to get
some attention. But I know just about enough to be dangerous on
this subject, and I did not know that much before we started
planning for this hearing, so I have learned a bit, and I have
more to learn.
But among other things, I know a little bit about cyber
attacks. I know a little bit about cybersecurity. I know a
little bit about data breaches. In fact, I have learned a lot.
I remember a couple years ago when there was an article several
years ago in the press that said I was the expert in the Senate
on cybersecurity. And I turned to a member of my staff, and I
said, ``Imagine that. I am an expert now in cybersecurity now
that I am the Chairman of the Committee.'' And my staff person
said, ``In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.''
So for me not to get carried away with being deemed an expert
in that.
But I know a fair amount about those. I also know I am a
retired naval flight officer (NFO), retired Navy captain, and
spend a fair amount of time thinking about wars and being
involved in one and worried about our homeland security and a
lot of levels, including lone-wolf attacks--and those are not
lone-wolf attacks--including avian influenza, Ebola. It is a
wild and crazy world that we live in today, and we need to be
able to sort of assess these risks, and to the extent that we
have resources, people and other resources to push toward these
risks, what we need to do is make sure that we are adjusting
our resources that we have, can commit, are committing to the
level of risk, and that we always keep that in mind.
All right. Mr. Chairman, thanks so much for bringing this
together and to all of you for joining us today.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Senator Carper.
I just have two quick questions. Then I will give everybody
a chance, if you have another comment you want to make, to do
that. First of all, does anybody on the panel think the threats
from EMP and GMD is ``hokum''? Anybody?
Ms. Bourge. I just have to admit I do not know the word.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Johnson. Hooey. Science fiction. Fanciful. Like
not a problem.
Ms. Bourge. I would not agree that it is imaginative or
movie scenario only. It is a definite potential threat. I just
would not agree that it is the most vital threat against our
electric infrastructure.
Chairman Johnson. OK. It is a real threat.
Second, we were talking about one of the solutions would be
basically shutdown--with early warning, shutdown. Correct?
Ms. Bourge. For a GMD.
Chairman Johnson. Now, we have a massive solar flare, space
weather like a Carrington Effect. You would have to shut down
everything, correct? Dr. Garwin.
Mr. Garwin. You can wait, but we do not have the
instrumentation right now to give you the information. We have
to look at the individual transformers, listen to the noise
they make, measure their ground currents, and in order not to
shut them down unnecessarily, use the magnetometers. China has
a much better display, deployment of National Science
Foundation magnetometers than we have here.
Chairman Johnson. But, again, that is making the decision
based on what the extent of the solar discharge would be if it
was massive, like a Carrington.
Mr. Garwin. Well, we might----
Chairman Johnson. You would have to shut it down then,
correct?
Mr. Garwin. With no protection deployed, yes, we could and
should do that.
Chairman Johnson. And for how long? How long do these space
weather effects----
Mr. Garwin. Some of them are a few days.
Chairman Johnson. Which means you would have to--because we
do not have protection, we have not installed the capacitors--
--
Mr. Garwin. Yes.
Chairman Johnson [continuing]. The only solution we have
right now, the only protection would be early warning, and on
something massive, complete shutdown of our electrical grid to
save it.
Mr. Garwin. Well, the North American Electric Reliability
Corporation, argues that you do not have to plan for a
shutdown. The grid is so vulnerable that it will shut itself
down.
Chairman Johnson. That is not very comforting, and it could
shut down for a couple years. Ambassador Woolsey.
Mr. Woolsey. Mr. Chairman, I just want to make one point on
this issue of whether this is a low-probability, high-risk
problem. There is more than one kind of probability. I
sometimes talk about whether you are dealing with a malignant
or malevolent
problem--a malignant problem being something that is natural
and it may metastasize, it may be terrible, it may be awful--
Ebola. But it is random in the sense that it is only influenced
by nature. Whereas, a malevolent one is one where there is
somebody on the other side actually planning to try to kill
you, and you cannot really assign a probability to that. All
you can do is try to understand their culture. A lot of people
would not have thought in 1929 that within a decade we would be
into World War II with the Nazis in control of Germany and the
rest.
But I want to read two sentences from an Iranian
publication: ``Once you confuse the enemy communication
network, you can also disrupt the work of the enemy command and
decisionmaking center. Even worse, today when you disable a
country's military high command through disruption of
communications, you will, in effect, disrupt all the affairs of
that country. If the world's industrial countries fail to
devise effective ways to defend themselves against dangerous
electronic assaults, then they will disintegrate within a few
years. American soldiers would not be able to find food to eat,
nor would they be able to fire a single shot.'' That is the
Iranian magazine Nashriyeh-e Siasi, 17 years ago, in 1998.
Their strategists have been following and analyzing General
Slipchenko's work, which I mentioned. That is not something to
which one can assign a random probability. If these guys get in
control, a launch under some circumstances could be possible.
Chairman Johnson. Again, that was 17 years ago, and they
have been pretty patient. And now we have a deal that I believe
will allow them to become a nuclear power with ballistic
missile technology.
Mr. Woolsey. Yes.
Chairman Johnson. And this is in their military planning
and strategy, as well as--and I would refer everybody to your
testimony. You have a number of statements from military
planners in Russia and China and North Korea.
Mr. Woolsey. Yes.
Chairman Johnson. Again, fully aware of this real threat--
not hokum. A real threat.
Mr. Woolsey. Yes.
Chairman Johnson. Again, this is not like, ``Oh, nobody has
thought about this.'' No, people have thought about it, and
they are planning for it, and they are giving themselves the
capability to implement it.
Mr. Woolsey. And the South Koreans are not getting bogged
down in probabilities. They are toughening their grid because
they have North Korea to deal with.
Chairman Johnson. And we have known absolutely this for
decades, publicly since at least 2004 with these EMP
Commissions, and we have done virtually nothing.
Mr. Woolsey. Absolutely.
Chairman Johnson. When we can do something, and it does not
cost very much--not perfect, but we can spend a few million
dollars--millions. We are not talking billions. We are talking
millions, and we could go a long way toward providing some
pretty significant protection.
Chairman Johnson. OK.
Mr. Garwin. I will agree with that. I disagree with Jim
Woolsey's characterization. It sounds like, not only 17 years
ago. It sound like Sun-Tzu.
Mr. Woolsey. It does. Sun-Tzu could have written that if he
had known about EMP.
Chairman Johnson. But he was not aware of nuclear weapons.
Final comments, we will start with you, Ms. Bourge.
Ms. Bourge. I just want to remind you that we do need to
look at these issues as separate, GMDs and EMPs. I hear a lot
of conflation, and I understand the reason why, because of that
E3 component. But one thing I do not think was clear when we
defined that out initially was it was defined as E3 component
is similar to a severe GMD storm. That is not identical. That
is similar. So there has been some disagreement, and there is a
desire to have some research to see just how well does the GMD
protections that we do utilize in some parts of the country
currently, how well do those actually protect against an EMP?
And so I am not sure if industry would agree that by putting on
the technology solution that is being put forth here or the
ones we already utilize in some parts of the industry, if that
would actually solve the EMP threat.
Chairman Johnson. And that is fine, but let us at least
protect ourselves from GMD in a more robust fashion where it
does not cost very much. And, again, my proposal would actually
have the government pay for it, and we just need cooperation.
Ms. Bourge. Well, we certainly----
Chairman Johnson. Trust me, now I am all about let us not
grow the Federal Government, let us not overregulate. I mean, I
am your ally from that one still. So, again, kind of work with
us on this. I would appreciate it. Mr. Currie.
Mr. Currie. Yes, sir. Well, as I said in my opening
statement, I think it is really difficult to fully assess the
risks of this or prioritize investments and security when it is
not clear who has the lead role, and that is one of the big
themes that we have
found--is that DHS has the lead role for critical
infrastructure protection, but has not identified different
roles and responsibilities for electromagnetic threats.
Chairman Johnson. So that would be something our Committee
could potentially help define in legislation. Dr. Garwin.
Mr. Garwin. Let me pass right now.
Chairman Johnson. Sure. Mr. McClelland.
Mr. McClelland. Just one quick clarification. An EMP event
and a GMD event would be events of mass destruction. The EMP
Commission was very clear about the electronics and the
transformers and the lead times associated with those systems
as well as the other systems, the other infrastructure types
that would be affected. A recovery would not be easy. In many
cases, the generators are specifically and custom-built. They
have transformers that are custom-built for their installation.
So stockpiling those transformers and then replacing them after
the effect is simply not a feasible solution.
Chairman Johnson. OK. Ambassador Woolsey.
Mr. Woolsey. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for holding
this hearing and say that anything I can do in the future to
help you in these efforts. After several years of Peter and I
and others who are interested in this issue feeling like we are
beating our heads against a wall, it is great to have a
Chairman and a Committee that is taking us seriously.
Chairman Johnson. I understand what that feels like, by the
way. [Laughter.]
Mr. Woolsey. Anyway, I just want to say thank you.
Chairman Johnson. OK. Well, again, thank you for your work
on this. Dr. Garwin.
Mr. Garwin. OK. My summary is a small point, and in my
analyses, E3 from a high-altitude nuclear explosion is easier
to correct, to mitigate, than a geomagnetic storm because it is
over in a minute or so, and you are going to shut down,
generators are still spinning, easier to get back up.
Chairman Johnson. Can you shut down quickly enough in an
EMP, though? Doesn't that require microseconds?
Mr. Garwin. No. The E3 does not cause damage for seconds or
more because it is the power that is flowing in the
transformers that can no longer resist the voltage----
Chairman Johnson. But you need automatic trips. I mean, you
are going to have to have some kind of detection in mind----
Mr. Garwin. I agree with you, and you would have absolute
certainty if you put in this warning system that I recommend,
government-operated, high-altitude nuclear explosion went off,
never went off before, and take measures to protect your
system. Then milliseconds, seconds, those would be fine for
protecting the transformers. Of course, other things may have
been lost due to the E1 pulse.
Chairman Johnson. OK. Well, again, I just want to thank all
of you for your time, your thoughtful testimony, your answers
to my questions, all of our questions. I hate to call this a
``first step,'' but I guess we are kind of at that stage where,
at least for this Committee, for the U.S. Senate, this is kind
of a first step. Maybe we have had a number of first steps. It
cannot be the last step. So I am going to aggressively pursue
this, provide it the type of public attention I think it
deserves, and hopefully the thoughtful evaluation so we can
start moving forward. Let us do the easy things first, not
perfect, but let us start offering and implementing some
protections as we continue to study this, as we develop a
longer-term strategy that is certainly more encompassing.
So, with that, this hearing record will remain open for 15
days until August 6 at 5 p.m. for the submission of statements
and questions for the record.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:12 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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