Congress has expressed interest in learning more about the capabilities of America’s adversaries to damage the nation’s power grid.
Watchdog.org reports an intelligence authorization bill passed by the House of Representatives last month includes a provision directing the director of national intelligence to submit to Congress “a report on the threat posed by man-made electromagnetic pulse weapons to United States interests through 2025, including threats from foreign countries and foreign non-State actors.” The report is to be made within six months of the bill’s passage.
In recent years, concern over the possibility of an attack by foreign powers using a weapon capable of emitting a powerful electromagnetic pulse has grown. Such a weapon could devastate the national power grid, disrupt transportation and security efforts, and kill millions of civilians within the first few minutes of detonation.
An EMP created through natural means is also worrisome: the sun, now at the peak of its 11-year solar cycle, continues to emit increasingly stronger solar flares capable of causing communication blackouts.
The provision was attached to the bill without objection as an amendment introduced by Arizona Republican U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, leader of the Congressional EMP Caucus, who emphasized he wasn’t aiming to task another federal agency with assessing the U.S. electric grid’s vulnerabilities to EMPs and solar storms.
“There have now been nearly a dozen federal government reports and studies on the dangers, threats and vulnerabilities the U.S. electric grid faces from EMP and GMD, including reports from the EMP Commission, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. national laboratories,” Franks said.
“All of them come to similar conclusions. The U.S. electric grid is dangerously vulnerable to EMP and GMD.”
The Senate’s version of the bill, scheduled to be voted on last week, however, made no mention of assessing threats from electromagnetic pulse weapons.
The bill is sponsored by California Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
