By Jeff Postelwait
Online Editor
Coming on the heels of the news that Russian and Chinese hackers infiltrated the U.S. power grid, members of Congress introduced a joint staff draft related to cyber security and critical electricity infrastructure. Testimony from industry representatives began May 7.
The purpose of the draft is to help create guidelines to bolster the government’s readiness for possible attacks against the electric grid and its various assets.
Among other things, the bill would allow the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to direct the actions of utilities and modify rules.
The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources heard testimony from representatives from the American Public Power Association (APPA), the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), the Department of Energy and other agencies.
Allen Mosher, senior director of policy analysis and reliability for APPA, which represents publicly owned utilities, told the committee that Congress should continue the industry partnership with government agencies in the U.S. and Canada as well as foster the industry’s commitment to monitor the bulk power system and ensure grid reliability.
“Maintaining and enhancing the cyber security of our bulk power control and communication systems is a fundamental element of this developing industry culture,” Mosher said.
Mosher called for continued participation in NERC’s standards development process to develop mandatory critical infrastructure protection (CIP) standards that are clear, technically sound and enforceable.
Working with the industry, NERC has made a significant commitment of resources to the development of new security standards, he said.
“In fact we’ve committed some of our scarcest resources ? our subject matter experts in cyber security and system operations ? to the task of developing draft standards for consideration by the industry,” he said.
Mosher recommended a narrowly targeted authority for FERC to issue emergency orders in response to an imminent threat to the bulk power system.
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