A bipartisan group of senators met Tuesday in the hopes of advancing legislation that would let authorities test technologies aimed at keeping the U.S. electrical grid safe from cyberattacks.
Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, is leading a group of three Republicans and two Democrats who are sponsoring the bill. Risch said the goal of the legislation is not to be a permanent fix but to start the process of moving the nation toward a more secure electrical grid that has become increasingly automated in recent decades.
“Because of the development of the World Wide Web and those new ways of handling operations of controls, it also now has vulnerabilities, and these vulnerabilities are now targets by folks who wish to do us harm,” he said.
The bill was introduced in June and is still being considered at the subcommittee level of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Tuesday’s hearing was for testimony only.
Senators from both parties mentioned a cyberattack on the Ukrainian electrical grid in December 2015 as one of the motivating factors behind the bill. While the U.S. electrical grid is generally stronger and more reliable than its Ukrainian counterpart, the attack served as a warning that similar attacks could be coming.
Risch said the Ukrainian attack could have been even worse but, unlike in the United States, the entire grid was not automated and people were able to intervene.
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, called the wait for a cyberattack on the American electrical grid “the longest wind up to a punch in the history of the world.” It’s time to put some human controls in the system in order to make sure there is a way to keep an attack from spreading too far, King said.
“We know that it’s coming and we know there are people actively working to do us harm right now,” he said.
The bill would require researchers to use the pilot program to find non-digital tools and analog technology that would work as barriers in case of an attack.
The bill would also establish a working group of federal agencies and the energy industry to work together on recommending possible permanent solutions to lawmakers.
Risch said lawmakers need to take the threats to the American electrical grid seriously because the next “significant event” that causes grief to large numbers of Americans is coming in the cybersecurity sector.
“This is a subject that needs the attention of the United States Congress,” he said.
