A sensitive disaster analysis of how an attack on the electric grid would cause wide blackouts was widely shared in government, industry and even media circles despite warnings that it could provide terrorists a “very nice road map” to attacking the United States, according to a new Energy Department inspector general’s report.
The just-released investigation said that the analysis by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission either should have been classified or prohibited from being shared outside of the agency.
But instead the agency shared it with other federal officials, including the White House, industry leaders and the media even though those who drew it up said it should not be shared.
“Our review revealed that the Commission’s controls, processes and procedures for protecting nonpublic information were severely lacking. Specifically, we found that staff inconsistently handled and shared Commission-created analyses that identified vulnerability of the nation’s electric grid without ensuring that the data was adequately evaluated for sensitivity and classification,” said the inspector general.
The probe was sparked by media stories a year ago showing how easy it is to turn the nation’s lights out.
In one story, for example, the Wall Street Journal reported, “A small number of the country’s substations play an outsize role in keeping power flowing across large regions. The FERC analysis indicates that knocking out nine of those key substations could plunge the country into darkness for weeks, if not months.”
FERC, responding to the IG report, said it would handle future electric grid and other sensitive information better.
According to the report, FERC officials were warned in advance that sharing the analysis would be bad.
“Commission staff who were involved in the creation of the electric grid analysis and simulations told us that they expressed concern with sharing the information, indicating that they believed that the information, should it fall into the wrong hands, could provide terrorists or other adversaries with data they might use to disable portions of the grid,” said the IG.
“Commission officials told us that when the electric grid analysis and simulations were created, there was no expectation that they would be shared with outside entities,” it said, adding:
“Commission staff who were involved in the creation of the electric grid analysis and simulations told us that they expressed concern with sharing the information, indicating that they believed that the information, should it fall into the wrong hands, could provide terrorists or other adversaries with information they might use to disable portions of the grid. Further, a senior Commission official indicated that the electric grid analysis does not exist outside the Commission and ‘actually approximates and optimizes attacks’ on a certain number of locations. The senior Commission official wrote that ‘it [the electric grid analysis] would serve as a very nice road map to someone planning such attacks.’”
FERC officials, however, saw benefit in sharing it with key officials as a way to fix problems in the system.
“In their opinion, the ability to share certain nonpublic information (like the electric grid analysis) with industry outweighed the benefit of classifying certain nonpublic information,” said the IG report.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
