A CRITICAL THREAT – AT 1:54 P.M. ET:  We started to speak seriously about this threat in the 1990s, but it is still with us, and, in some ways, growing.  From the Washington Free Beacon: 

The U.S. electric grid has become increasingly vulnerable to what the federal government is describing as an unprecedented wave of attacks that threatens to cripple the nation, according to a new investigative report that warns the energy industry is lagging in efforts to boost physical security of these critical sites.

Amid a wave of increasing attacks across the country on key power stations, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, or NERC, has been struggling to force the power industry to enact a series of security improvements meant to stop would-be attackers and terrorists from crippling the nation's infrastructure.

Since 2014, "security risks to the power grid have become an even greater concern in the electric utility industry," according to a new Congressional Research Service report that warns the power industry "has not necessarily reached the level of physical security needed based on the sector's own assessments of risk."

In the three years since federal overseers implicated a series of new standards for physical security of grid locations, the industry has worked to improve its defenses but has struggled to implement all of the government's recommendations, according to the report.

The slow moving pace of reforms, combined with an increased threat level and inability of the federal government to warn of upcoming attacks, has fueled concerns that the U.S. electric grid could be easily taken down by a rogue actor.

COMMENT:  This should be a national priority, as important as any other aspect of our defense.  I'm sure money plays a major role in our slow response – money, and the fact that the threat doesn't crash into the headlines periodically, as mass shootings do.

A major attack on the power grid could shut down large sections of the country in an instant, possibly leading to starvation, disease, and death.  And the economy would be destroyed.

Congress must holding serious, highly publicized hearings on this, in the hope that the press might even be interested.

March 27, 2018