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On Friday, Congressman Bob Latta (R-OH5) joined fellow members of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security for a field hearing in Moore County, North Carolina to discuss solutions to enhance America’s grid security and resiliency. 

“America’s electric grid is essential to the delivery of power for hundreds of millions of Americans; unfortunately, this fact makes it vulnerable to attacks from bad actors or foreign adversaries while also being susceptible to extreme weather events,” Latta said. “To maintain our modern way of life and to protect the safety of the American people, we need solutions now to harden and enhance the resiliency of our grid. I’m pleased to have joined my Energy and Commerce Committee colleagues in Moore County, North Carolina – which is the location of a recent attack on a substation that knocked out power for tens of thousands of people – to question officials and discuss solutions to fortify our grid. It is important to build upon what we learned from this field hearing in order to move commonsense policies that enhance our grid’s security, resiliency, and reliability.”  

Latta and members of the Energy, Climate, and Grid Security subcommittee heard from the following witnesses:

·         William Ray, Director and Deputy Homeland Security Advisor, Division of Emergency Management, North Carolina Department of Public Safety

·         Mark Aysta, Managing Director, Enterprise Security, Duke Energy

·         Tim Ponseti, Vice President, Operations, SERC Reliability Corporation

·         Jordan Kern, Assistant Professor, North Carolina State University, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

Latta’s work to strengthen the grid:

·         Led on three bills that were signed into law: the Critical Electric Infrastructure Protection Act, the Cyber Sense Act, and the Enhancing Grid Security through Public-Private Partnerships Act.

·         Relaunched the bipartisan Grid Innovation Caucus with Congressman Marilyn Strickland (D-WA).

Recent grid security attacks:

Physical and cybersecurity threats to the electric grid have increased in recent years. On February 6, 2023, the Department of Justice announced the arrest of two individuals for planning to attack five electric power transmission substations around Baltimore, MD. On December 25, 2022, four electric distribution substations in the Tacoma, WA, area were physically attacked, allegedly by two malicious individuals in a burglary scheme, causing millions of dollars in damage and cutting power to some 30,000 utility customers. Unknown perpetrators attacked two substations in Moore County, NC three weeks earlier, causing an extended blackout for 45,000 area customers. The Baltimore, Tacoma, and Moore County incidents are the latest examples of physical threats against U.S. electric power infrastructure. A notable incident in Metcalf, CA, involving a rifle attack on a high-voltage electric power substation and other security incidents, led to the passage of the FAST Act amendments to the FPA in 2015.

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