WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy held a hearing on the Securing Energy Infrastructure Act, bipartisan legislation introduced by U.S. Senators Angus King (I-Maine) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho) that aims to protect America’s electric grid from cyber-attacks.

Senator King, a member of both the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee, spoke in favor of the bill, which also garnered support from other members of the Committee today.

“Over the past four years, we have had dozens – if not hundreds – of warnings of cyber-attacks against critical infrastructure. What we’re looking at now is the longest wind-up for a punch in world history. We know it’s coming. We just don’t know where and when, and the risks are enormous,” Senator King said. “There is no single solution to this problem. What we’re talking about here is not rebuilding or reengineering the entire grid, but, instead, we’re asking if there are some back to the future answers, at critical points, that might protect us from the kind of attack we know is coming. And time is running out. I don’t want to go home to my constituents in the middle of a blackout and say, ‘Well, we might have gotten to this but we had different committees and jurisdictions and we couldn’t quite get at it in the conference committee.’ That isn’t going to cut it. I think this qualifies as an emergency, and I hope we can act promptly.”

To watch Sen. King speak in support of his bill during the hearing, click HERE.

Today’s hearing came in the wake of a January report from the U.S. Department of Energy that warned that the U.S. grid “faces imminent danger” from cyber-attacks, and that a widespread power outage caused by a cyber-attack could place at risk the health and safety of millions of citizens.

Top officials within the Intelligence Community have testified that U.S. critical infrastructure are enticing targets to malicious actors. Those officials have also warned that, without action, the U.S. remains vulnerable to cyber-attacks that could result in catastrophic damage to public health and safety, economic security, and national security.

The Securing Energy Infrastructure Act aims to remove vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to access the energy grid through holes in digital software systems. Specifically, it would examine ways to replace automated systems with low-tech redundancies, like manual procedures controlled by human operators. This approach seeks to thwart even the most sophisticated cyber-adversaries who, if they are intent on accessing the grid, would have to actually physically touch the equipment, thereby making cyber-attacks much more difficult.

This legislation was inspired in part by Ukraine’s experience in 2015, when a sophisticated cyber-attack on that country’s power grid led to more than 225,000 people being left in the dark. The attack could have been worse if not for the fact that Ukraine relies on manual technology to operate its grid. The Senator’s bill seeks to build on this concept by studying ways to strategically use “retro” technology to isolate the grid’s most important control systems.

More specifically, the legislation would:

• Establish a two-year pilot program within the National Laboratories to study covered entities and identify new classes of security vulnerabilities, and research and test technology – like analog devices – that could be used to isolate the most critical systems of covered entities from cyber-attacks.

• Require the establishment of a working group to evaluate the technology solutions proposed by the National Laboratories and to develop a national cyber-informed strategy to isolate the energy grid from attacks. Members of the working group would include federal government agencies, the energy industry, a state or regional energy agency, the National Laboratories, and other groups with relevant experience.

• Require the Secretary of Energy to submit a report to Congress describing the results of the program, assessing the feasibility of the techniques considered, and outlining the results of the working groups’ evaluation.

• Define “covered entities” under the bill as segments of the energy sector that have already been designated as entities where a cyber-security incident could result in catastrophic regional or national effects on public health or safety, economic security, or national security.

The text of the legislation is available HERE.

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