THE EMP THREAT: THE STATE OF PREPAREDNESSAGAINST THE THREAT OF AN ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP) EVENTJOINT HEARING
BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY
AND THESUBCOMMITTEE ON THE INTERIOR
OF THECOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVESONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESSFIRST SESSION

MAY 13, 2015

Serial No. 114–42
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform(
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
http://www.house.gov/reform
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICEWASHINGTON : 2015

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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman
JOHN L. MICA, Florida
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
Minority Member
JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New YorkJIM JORDAN, Ohio
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
TIM WALBERG, Michigan
Columbia
JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee
JIM COOPER, Tennessee
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas
MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania
CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming
TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky
ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina
BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan
RON DESANTIS, Florida
TED LIEU, California
MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina
BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
KEN BUCK, Colorado
STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands
MARK WALKER, North Carolina
MARK DeSAULNIER, California
ROD BLUM, Iowa
BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
JODY B. HICE, Georgia
PETER WELCH, Vermont
STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma
MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico
EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin
WILL HURD, Texas
GARY J. PALMER, Alabama
SEAN MCLAUGHLIN, Staff Director
DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director
ANDREW R. ARTHUR, National Security Subcommittee Staff Director
WILLIAM MCGRATH, Interior Subcommittee Staff Director
SHARON CASEY, Deputy Chief Clerk

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SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY
RON DESANTIS, Florida, Chairman
JOHN L. MICA, Florida
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts,
JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee
Ranking Member
JODY B. HICE, Georgia
ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma, Vice Chair
BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan
WILL HUR, Texas
TED LIEU, California

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE INTERIORCYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming, Chairman
PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona
BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan, Ranking
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas
MemberKEN BUCK, Colorado, Vice chair
MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania
STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma
STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands
GARY J. PALMER, Alabama
JIM COOPER, Tennessee

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CONTENTS
Page

Hearing held on May 13, 2015 ...............................................................................

1

WITNESSES
Mr. George Baker, Professor Emeritus, James Madison University, CEO of
BaycorOral Statement .................................................................................................
Written Statement ............................................................................................
Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, Executive Director, Task Force on National and Homeland Security
Oral Statement .................................................................................................
Written Statement ............................................................................................
Mr. Mike Caruso, Director of Government and Specialty Business Development ETS-Lindgren
Oral Statement .................................................................................................
Written Statement ............................................................................................

5
8
21
23
49
51

APPENDIX
Walpole Fire Department Research Paper 2012 ...................................................
Submission of William Graham, Commission to Assess Threat to U.S. From
EMP Attack ..........................................................................................................
Submission of William Radasky, Metatech Corporation ......................................
Submission of Thomas Popik, Resilient Societies .................................................
Opening Statement from Interior Ranking Member Brenda Lawrence .............
Opening Statement from Congressman Trent Franks .........................................

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THE EMP THREAT: THE STATE OF PREPAREDNESS AGAINST THE THREAT OF AN
ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP) EVENT
Wednesday, May 13, 2015

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, JOINT WITHSUBCOMMITTEE ON THE INTERIOR,COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 2:20 p.m., in Room
2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ron DeSantis [chairman of the subcommittee on National Security] presiding.
Present for Subcommittee on National Security: Representatives
DeSantis, Duncan, Hice, Russell, Lynch, Lieu, and Kelly.
Present for Subcommittee on the Interior: Representatives Lummis, Gosar, Buck, Palmer, and Lawrence.
Mr. DESANTIS. The Subcommittees on National Security and Interior will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized
to declare a recess at any time.
The state of preparedness against the threat of an electromagnetic pulse is the subject of today’s hearing. An electromagnetic
pulse could be created through an attack from a missile, nuclear
weapon, radio frequency weapon, or geomagnetic storm caused by
the sun. Fallout from an EMP event, either man-made or natural,
could be extremely significant ranging from the loss of electrical
power for months, which would deplete energy sources of powersuch as emergency batteries and backup generators have cascading
consequences for supplying basic necessities such as food andwater, and result in loss of life.
The electrical grid is necessary to support critical infrastructure,supply and distribution of food, water, and fuel, communications,transportation, financial transactions and emergency and government services. Significant damage to the electrical grid during an
EMP event would quickly and significantly degrade the supply ofthese basic necessities.
EMPs can also be caused by solar storms, also referred to as geomagnetic disturbances, which are basically an everyday occurrence,
they just doesn’t always hit the Earth. Two significant storms that
did enter the earth’s atmosphere occurred in 1859 and 1921, respectively. Given the limited use of electricity in the mid-19th andearly 20th centuries, the impact on society was relatively minimal.
Today however, society depends heavily on a variety of technologies that are vulnerable to the effects of intense solar storms.

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Scientists predict that these storms impact the Earth once every
100 to 150 years. So it’s not a question of if, but a question ofwhen.
The occurrence today on an event like the 1921 storm could result in large scale and prolonged blackouts affecting more than 100
million people. The National Academy of Sciences estimates thecost of damage from the most extreme solar weather at $1 to $2
trillion with a recovery time of 4 to 10 years. The cost from evenshort-term blackouts are significant.
In July of 1977, a blackout in New York that lasted only one day
resulted in widespread looting and the breakdown of law throughmany New York neighborhoods. The blackout cost approximately$346 million and nearly 3,000 people were arrested during a 26hour period. In August of 2003, more than 200 power plants shut
down as a result of the electricity cut off caused by cascading failure. The blackout affected Ohio, New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Michigan and parts of Canada. Although relatively short induration, the blackout’s economic cost was between $7 billion and$10 billion due to food spoilage, lost production, overtime wages
and other related costs.
To look at this threat, Congress has created two EMP commissions which reported their findings in 2004 and 2008. Based inlarge part on their recommendations, a bill has been introduced inevery Congress since 2009 to strengthen protection of the electrical
grid by mitigating the effects of an EMP. Some bills have passed
the House but no bills have yet become law.
Congress is not alone in its assessment of the EMP threat. State
governments, such as in New York and Massachusetts have taken
action themselves to protect portions of the electrical grid locatedwithin their respective States. Even some individual utilities havecorrectly assessed their vulnerability to EMP and hardened a few
of their critical electrical control centers.
The Department of Defense recently decided to move the North
American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD back inside Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado because the mountain is EMP hardened and would allow the military to sustain communications andhomeland defense operations despite an EMP event.
One of our witnesses here today, Dr. Peter Pry, wrote in The
Wall Street Journal earlier this month about the military’s decisionand rightly surmised, ‘‘The Pentagon was wise to move NORAD
back into Cheyenne Mountain, but how are the American people tosurvive?’’ The Department of Homeland Security, the Federal agency responsible for protecting the American citizens, is not doing
enough to lead an interagency effort to mitigate the impact of an
EMP event, leaving vast populations of Americans vulnerable tothe effects of an EMP.
Lastly, the draft executive order by the National Space Weather
Strategy was released for comment earlier this month by the WhiteHouse Office of Science and Technology Council. This order is necessary and clearly within the constitutional mandate to provide forthe common defense, but it is an outline of goals, not what is needed. A strategy with priorities and a blueprint for how to reliably
mitigate adverse solar weather.

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It is essential that state and national leaders have adequate
plans at hand to determine how best to respond to EMP threats asthey arrive. As such, it is critical that a scenario focused on the
EMP threat be included in national planning scenarios by the Department of Homeland Security. This is precisely the directive included in the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act sponsored by
my good friend, Congressman Trent Franks, who will be here with
us today later to discuss the importance of the EMP issue. His billwould require DHS to take the lead for researching for how to best
prepare and protect the American citizens from the threat of an
EMP event.
Trent is also the leading sponsor on legislation such as the Secure High-Voltage Infrastructure for Electricity from Lethal Damage Act, the SHIELD Act, which again, seeks to strengthen America’s hand against an EMP attack.
I look forward to hearing Trent’s thoughts on this issue whenhe’s able to come as well as our other witnesses because this is an
important issue and there are things our government can do to address it right now. And with that, I recognize the ranking member,the gentleman from Massachusetts for 5 minutes.
Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to thank you andalso Chairwoman Lummis for holding the hearing, this hearing to
examine our state of preparedness against the threat of a Electromagnetic Pulse Event, also known as a EMP.
As well, I would like to thank our colleague, Mr. Franks of Arizona, who will, as you say, join us shortly and also, our other witnesses on the panel today for helping us with our work.
As set forth in President Obama’s 2015 national security strategy, a comprehensive national security agenda must prioritize efforts to address the top strategic risk to the U.S. interests, including the possibility of a catastrophic attack on U.S. critical infrastructure.
Similarly, the strategic plan developed by the Department ofHomeland Security provides that we must enhance security for our
Nation’s critical infrastructure against the threat of a terrorist attack by identifying key vulnerabilities and addressing themthrough the implementation of appropriate technology.
In support of our shared responsibility to protect America against
attack, we must make every effort to examine the extent of potential threats such as an electromagnetic pulse event to our homeland security. Now, this oversight is even more critical, given thatthe current budgetary climate requires Congress to make very difficult choices in determining Federal agency spending.
Not only is the Federal Government still operating under sequestration, but unfortunately, Congress recently passed a budget blueprint that contemplates cutting nondefense spending, including ourHomeland Security budget that could be helpful on this issue bynearly $500 billion below sequestration level spending caps.
While government officials, scientists and other experts may disagree on the imminence of Electromagnetic Pulse event, the EMP
Commission established by Congress in 2001 to assess the threatof an EMP attack reported that our national electric grid and other
U.S. Critical infrastructure could be significantly disrupted by asudden and high-intensity energy field burst. Now as the chairman

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noted, this could be large in scale and produced by nuclear explosion, it could also be created through the use of batteries, reactive
chemicals and other nonnuclear devices, or be the product of a natural magnetic storm.
According to the Commission’s 2008 report, ‘‘Because of the ubiquitous dependence of U.S. Society on electrical power systems, itsvulnerability to an EMP attack, coupled with the EMP’s particulardamage mechanisms creates the possibility of a long-term catastrophic consequence.’’ A 2012 research paper prepared by a Fire
Department in my congressional district—and I’d like to ask unanimous consent to submit the report by Deputy Chief Michael K.
Laracy, Sr., from the wonderful town of Walpole, Massachusetts,
he’s the deputy fire chief there. The title is ‘‘Potential Impacts ofElectromagnetic Pulse Attacks on Fire and EMS Delivery Services
for the Walpole Fire Department.’’
Mr. DESANTIS. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. LYNCH. Thank you. In response to such concerns, the Housepassed H.R. 3410, the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, by avoice vote at the end of last year. This bill introduced by our friend,
Mr. Franks from Arizona, sought to require the Department ofHomeland Security to include the EMP threat in its national planning scenario.
While the bill did not pass the Senate, DHS has indicated thatthe threat of an EMP attack is very much on its radar during recent congressional testimony. Ms. Suzanne Spaulding, the Under
Secretary for the National Protection and Programs, indicated thatthe DHS is currently partnering with private sector entities in theelectronic sector to determine how best to address the EMP threat.
So I look forward to discussing the issue with our witnesses inorder to examine what additional steps we might take in order tobetter safeguard our national electric grid and other critical infrastructure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and I yield back the balanceof my time.
Mr. DESANTIS. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts. I ask
unanimous consent that enter into the record a letter from Dr. William Graham who is chairman of the 2008 EMP Commission, a letter from Dr. William Radasky, president of Metatech Corporationand leading EMP expert for more than 50 years and a letter, fax
sheet and cost estimate model from Thomas Popik, chairman of theFoundation for Resilient Societies. Without objection so ordered.
Mr. DESANTIS. I now recognize the chairwoman of the Natural
Resources Subcommittee, Mrs. Lummis, for 5 minutes.
Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you, Chairman DeSantis for spearheading
this hearing. And I also want to thank ranking member, Ranking
Member Lynch, thanks for your participation and involvement inthis hearing to examine the important issue of electrical grid preparedness in the event of an electromagnetic pulse caused by an attack or a solar storm hitting the Earth.
The threat to the grid infrastructure is real and the potential fordevastating impacts needs to be examined. Solar flares have resulted in numerous incidents; the Carrington event of 1859, whichat the time, only affected telegraph systems. To be honest, I don’t
remember the Carrington event personally, I was a mere child at
the time. That was a little joke. But I do remember the 1989 geo-

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magnetic storm that disrupted radio signals and satellite damage
and knocked out the power grid in Quebec. The grid is a criticalpiece of national infrastructure that contributes to the most basic
daily needs of Americans, as well as business and government.
Given the threat presented to this critical infrastructure, I agreewith Chairman DeSantis that the Federal Government needs totake the EMP threat seriously by including it in DHS national
planning scenario. That’s why I support Congressman Trent
Franks’ Critical Infrastructure Protection Act. This important billtakes a step forward towards protecting our grid against an EMP
threat. I note that it passed the House last Congress, and I appreciate all the hard work that Congressman Trent Franks has doneon this issue.
The Federal Government needs to follow the lead of State-based
utilities and harden the grid against an EMP threat. As we willhear today, the entirety of the Nation’s grid is not prepared to deal
with a variety of threats. It is important that the Federal Government realize this and takes the necessary steps to protect the grid.
I welcome the testimony of our witnesses today. I look forward tohearing more about what our country needs to do to protect against
the threats of EMPs. Mr. Chairman, thank you, I yield back.
Mr. DESANTIS. The gentlelady yields back. We will now recognize
our panel of witnesses. I’m pleased to welcome Dr. George Baker,
Professor Emeritus at James Madison University and CEO ofBAYCOR; Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, executive director of the Task
Force on National and Homeland Security; and Mr. Mike Caruso,
Director of Government and Specialty Business Development at
ETS–Lindgren. Welcome all.
Pursuant to committee rules, witnesses will be sworn in before
they testify. So if you guys can rise an raise your right-hand side.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you areabout to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you God?
Let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. Thank you and please be seated.
In order to allow time for discussion, please limit your testimony
to 5 minutes and you’ll see the blinking lights in front of you.
When it hits red, that’s when you’ve hit 5 minutes. Your entire
written statement will be made a part of the record. And with that,
Dr. Baker, you are up for 5 minutes.
WITNESS STATEMENTS
STATEMENT OF GEORGE BAKER

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Mr. BAKER. My thanks to Chairman DeSantis and Chairman
Lummis, ranking members and committees members for this opportunity to share my concerns about EMP. My name is George
Baker, and I’ve spent most of my professional career protecting the
U.S. military from EMP. At the Defense Threat Reduction Agency,
I manage the development of the military standards used to protect
the Department of Defense systems. As a retired professor, James
Madison University and DOD consultant, I now perform EMP vulnerability assessments of key government facilities.

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The congressional EMP Commission on which I served as principal staff made a compelling case for protecting critical infrastructure against nuclear EMP and solar storm geomagnetic disturbances, I will also refer to that as GMD. Among potential disasters,
EMP and GMD are particularly challenging because the effects canbe continental in scale. EMP and GMD disasters are preventable,
that’s my main point today, they are preventable. We have the engineering, know-how and tools, what is missing is resolve.
I see three reasons why we are not making progress at present
on these threats and I’ll address these in the rest of my talk. The
first is there are many misconceptions about EMP and GMD
threats. I’ll look at four of those. The first misconception is that
only major nuclear powers, such as Russia and China with highyield thermonuclear devices could effectively execute an EMP attack. In fact, low yield devices obtained by emerging nuclear powers such as North Korea and Iran can produce catastrophic EMP
effects.
Misconception two, that a nuclear EMP attack would burn out
every exposed electronic system. In fact, based on government
tests, we know that smaller self-contained, self-powered systems
such as vehicles, handheld radios, disconnected portable generators
are often not affected.
Misconception three, EMP effects on critical infrastructure will
be limited to nonsevere, nuisance-type affects. In fact, wide area
failure of just a few systems, could cause cascading infrastructure
collapse, in highly interconnected networks. One example is the2003 electric blackout of the northeast was precipitated by a single
high-voltage line touching a tree, and then proceeded to cascade to
the entire northeast.
So, when you extend this concept to a wide area of failures andinfrastructure networks, including the Internet, you can see that
EMP is an existential threat that we must take very seriously.
Fourth and final misconception I’ll address, that is, to protect allother infrastructure against EMP would cost a large fraction of the
U.S. GNP. In fact, protecting the electric grid and communication
networks alone would provide substantial benefit and be cost effective.
A recent cost study by the Foundation for Resilient Society showsthat significant EMP protection could be achieved for an investment in the range of $10 to $30 billion. The second reason wearen’t making progress is the stakeholders are in a state of denial.
Concerned about cost makes stakeholders, the government and theprivate sector reluctant to admit EMP vulnerabilities. Actions todate have been limited and ineffective. An example is the joint effort of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, that is, FERC,
and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, that is
NERC, to set reliability standards for wide area electromagnetic
impacts on the electric grid.
The NERC-developed and FERC-approved standards that wehave exclude nuclear EMP, despite the opportunity to protect
against both GMD and EMP using the same equipment. NERC
standards rely on operational procedures that require no physicalprotection of the electric grid. The largest measured storms are afactor of 10 higher than their benchmark for protection. A sceptic

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might suspect that NERC’s main objective was to avert liability
rather than to protect the American public.
The third reason we aren’t making progress is there is no one incharge. There’s no single point of responsibility to develop an implement a national protection plan. When I ask NERC officials
about EMP protection, they informed me we don’t do EMP, that’s
DOD’s responsibility. The Department of Defense tells me, EMP
protection for civilian infrastructure is DHS’s responsibility. And
then when I talk to DHS, I get answers that the protection should
be done by the Department of Energy, since they are the infrastructure’s sector-specific agency. So we have EMP and GMD protection as finger-pointing exercises at present.
In closing, I have the following recommendation for future
progress, the DOD experience with EMP protection has given us
the necessary engineering tools, but what we need is the help of
your committee to get government to act. First, we need a designated executive authority. The DHS and DOD both are likely
candidates. The first order of business would be a national EMP,
GMD protection plan and a set of planning scenarios. Second, let
us budget for a national program to check the electric grid, including essential supporting infrastructures used for fuel supply andcommunication. And third, Congress should recognize that the regulatory apparatus conceived in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 is notworking. Establishing a new independent commission, solely focused on electric grid reliability would be very helpful, a commission with the power to issue and enforce regulations on its own
similar to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The present FERC/NERC arrangement has proved ineffective.
Thank you for this opportunity to present my concerns and recommendations, which are more fully explained in my written testimony and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Baker follows:]

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Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Dr. Baker.
The chair now recognizes Dr. Pry for 5 minutes, you are up.
STATEMENT OF PETER VINCENT PRY

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Mr. PRY. Thank you for the opportunity to address the subcommittees today. First, what I think we must understand about
the threat is that it is not merely theoretical, it is a real threat.
In the military doctrines of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran,they plan to make a nuclear EMP attack against the United States.
We have seen North Korea and Iran exercise this, including bylaunching ballistic missiles off of a freighter at sea, which would
enable the possibility of an anonymous EMP attack. During the nuclear crisis we had with North Korea in 2013, it was the worst nuclear crisis we ever had with Kim Jong Un was threatening to
make nuclear missile strikes against the United States in the aftermath of their third illegal nuclear test.
In the midst of that crisis North Korea orbited a satellite overthe south pole that passed over the territory of the United Stateson the optimum trajectory and altitude to both evade our national
missile defenses, and, had that been a nuclear warhead, to placean EMP field over all 48 contiguous United States that would have
had catastrophic consequences. That was the KSM 3 satellite; thatsatellite stills passes over us, it’s sill in orbit and passes over us
with regularity.
Another thing that must be understood is that EMP is part ofa—a larger part of their military doctrine that they consider a revolution in military affairs. That, basically, is a combined arms operation with cyber attacks, physical sabotage, nonnuclear EMP weapons, and nuclear EMP weapons is the most decisive instrument allused together and coordinated in a formula new Blitzkrieg, except
one that’s waged in cyberspace to basically bring a civilization
down to its knees so that a failed state like an Iran or North Korea
could theoretically defeat and destroy a highly advanced society
like our own.
This would be unprecedented in history where you would havea situation where a state like Iran or North Korea or even a sub
national actor like a terrorist group if they could get hold of that
one nuclear bomb and do it in combination with cyber attacks andphysical sabotage to crash our critical infrastructures, especiallythe electric grid and basically destroy our civilization. But they
write about it; they exercise it; they are serious about it. And we
actually see this being practiced in real life in some countries backin June of last year while ISIS was sweeping over northern Iraq,
al Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula blacked out the entire electric
grid in the state of Yemen, put 18 cities and 24 million people into
the dark. That is the first time in history that a terrorist group has
blacked out a whole country. And it so destabilized Yemen thatlook what happened to them. They have gone from being a U.S.
ally, so now we have lost one of our most important allies in the
Middle East already to this kind of an attack.
This year, in January 25 of this year, a terrorist group blackedout 80 percent of the grid in Turkey. We don’t know what they are
up to in doing that—excuse me, in Pakistan, but Pakistan is a nuclear weapons State. So the idea that 80 percent of the grid could

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be blocked out in Pakistan for purposes unknown is extremely disturbing.
Is this a precursor to try to get their hands on nuclear weaponsin Pakistan? About a week before the Washington blackout happened, Turkey was put—80 percent of Turkey was put into blackout by a cyber attack by Iran. These were not EMP attacks, butthey are experiments with parts of this doctrine that they havethat would combine all these things and we have seen in the caseof North Korea and Iran experiments with the nuclear EMP option
as well.
Now, so the threat is real. As George Baker has testified, however, there is really no excuse for us to be vulnerable to this. We
know how to fix the problem, and one of the things the EMP Commission recommended was, if you can protect against the worst
threat, which is the nuclear EMP attack, if you can protect against
that, it will mitigate all the others: Cyber attacks, physical sabotage, nonnuclear EMP weapons and GMD as well. So we know how
to fix the problem.
What to do? I endorse everything that Dr. Baker said. We needto pass the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act. The importanceof having a national planning scenario focused on EMP cannot be
understated.
Right now, despite what DHS may be telling you, if it is not in
the national planning scenarios, the threat doesn’t exist for Stateand local emergency planners, or for Federal emergency planners,
too. People who want do something about this threat at the Statelevel when they apply for funding, for example, from DHS, can’t get
it because EMP is not among the national planning scenarios. So
that would put it on the radar screen for Federal, State and local
emergency planners and would be an enormous step forward toward solving the problem.
Next, we need to bring back the congressional EMP Commission,
which is actually under consideration right now in the Defense Authorization bill being negotiated with the Senate. The greatest
progress we made in this country was when the EMP Commission
was around and, you know, with the absence of the Commission,
well we have seen that no progress has been made. If we can bringback the EMP Commission, I expect that that would reintroduce,
we would have a voice in the governmental level part of Congressthat could aggressively promote EMP preparedness, and that iswhat we need to do.
And last, the NERC/FERC relationship, I completely agree with
Dr. Baker. It’s extremely dysfunctional, it doesn’t work. It needs tobe reformed. I’m not sure that you can actually reform those institutions. I would actually advocate abolishing both FERC and
NERC and starting with something else, a different kind of institution, something similar to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission thathas real regulatory power, and that understands that its stakeholder, its customer is not the electric power industry first, but it’s
the American people first. And the responsibility is first not to the
profits of the utilities, but it’s to America’s national security. Thankyou for hearing me out.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pry follows:]

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Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you. Mr. Caruso, thank you for coming
you’re recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL CARUSO

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Mr. CARUSO. Thank you. I’d like to thank Chairman DeSantis,
Chairman Lummis, ranking members and committee members forthis opportunity to testify. I consider it an honor and a privilege
to be here today to share my 32 years of experience in the practicalside of protecting against EMP events.
EMP hardening has long been considered very expensive and an
illusive art known to few. The current guidance on EMP protection
is found in the MIL Standard 188–125 that is not necessarily appropriate for every application when considering the critical infrastructure.
EMP hardening of the critical infrastructure would require a lessstringent application of the MIL Standard 188–125. Government,
public, and private critical infrastructure facilities and services are
becoming increasingly interdependent, as we’ve seen with many of
the companies that I’ve talked to over the past 3 years.
In addition to the interdependency of those services, we see anincreasingly dependence on the very vulnerable electric grid andelectric power system. To date, little has been done to harden theelectric power system and the 16 segments of critical infrastructure
as designated by the Department of Homeland Security.
Currently, 18 States have ongoing initiatives to require the electric utilities to at least address the protection of the electrical gridfrom the dangers of a EMP or solar storm. Electromagnetic energy
from an EMP can disrupt a supervisory and control data acquisition systems, or SCADA systems, which the electric grid heavily relies.
I recently testified in the Texas State House in support of bills
introduced for EMP protection of the critical infrastructure. Texas
is one of the States aggressively pursuing passage of EMP legislation, including an appropriation to get critical infrastructure segments started in the overall evaluation of their vulnerability.
In 2014, ETS–Lindgren, the company for which I work, was partof a multidisciplinary team that successfully completed construction of the very first large private sector SCADA facility in the
United States that includes EMP protection. The building was a 2story, 105 square-foot building, of which 44,000 square feet were
EMP-protected, that included generators and cooling systems. The
total project cost was about $100 million and the approximate EMP
protection part of that was about $8 million. So if we’re looking at
it, about 8 percent of the overall budget. If we looked at that costspread over the 2 million customers that that building serves, we’relooking at less than a dollar per year, per customer spread out over
5 years.
While the optimum scenario is to protect a brand new control
building, retrofitting is possible. I’ve spoken with quite a few electric utilities about retrofitting their control buildings. If we’re looking at the existing facilities, they are tremendously vulnerable because the equipment was never intended to be EMP-protected, norwere the support systems ever laid out properly to be protected. An

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estimated rough order of magnitude for protecting a similar facility
as the 44,000 square feet that we talked about in the new building
would be approximately $16 million. And there again, when you
take a look at that and spread that out over 5 years, it’s less than$2 per customer, based on the 2 million customer service area.
In my opinion, EMP protection of the electric utilities is the primary concern due to the survival and dependency we have on electrical power. Some proactive, forward-thinking utilities have either
instituted EMP protection programs, or have at least begun to consider implementing them. However, the balance of the critical infrastructure segment, such as financial, wastewater, drinking
water, transportation, food distribution, health care emergency
services, have really not ever been addressed at all. It is my sincere
belief that we as a Nation will some day face an EMP attack. I respectfully urge you to consider and pass legislation to address the
EMP threat that I belive has been overlooked for far too long.
Chairman DeSantis, Chairman Lummis, ranking members, committee members, I thank you again for this opportunity to present
my thoughts, and I would be very happy to answer any questions
that you have of me. Thank you to your time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Caruso follows:]

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Mr. DESANTIS. I thank the witnesses for your testimony. The
chair now recognizes himself for questions for 5 minutes.
Dr. Baker you talked in your written testimony about the criticalimportance of the electric grid. So an EMP attack that would fry
the electric grid, can you just explain the consequences to somebody who maybe has never heard of an EMP before today’s hearing, what practical effect would that have on American society?
Mr. BAKER. The electric grid is the foundation for all other infrastructures. DHS has listed 16 critical infrastructure sectors, andthe one sector that every—depends, you know, that drives everything else is the electric power. The other thing about the electric
power, it not only is the most critical, arguably the most critical infrastructure, it is arguably the most vulnerable to EMP because
you measure EMP in volts per meter, so the longer the line, thelarger the voltage it will be induced on the line.
So it’s ironic that our most critical infrastructure is also the mostvulnerable, and that’s why we have to be so serious about protecting the grid. But without the electric grid, basic life services:
The ability to pump drinking water, the ability to heat and cool ourhomes——
Mr. DESANTIS. Take our money from an ATM, would you be able
to do that?
Mr. BAKER. Yeah, that’s right. You would—you would—our financial sector is also way up there on in terms of EMP vulnerability and risk factor mainly because it depends upon the electric
grid and the on call communications as well. So essentially it would
be—we’ve seen sort of a microcosm of what could happen in thenortheast blackout and the anarchy that resulted there, but that—in Britain, I’ve been to some EMP meetings in Britain, where they
actually are protecting their grid—but their rule of thumb is it’s 3days to total anarchy, I heard this member of Parliament say—once you lose the electricity.
Mr. DESANTIS. And in terms of the some of the casualties, because people have surmised men, terrorists, if they can get theirhands on a nuclear device, detonate an American city, obviouslythat would be very devastating. And someone said, yeah, thatwould be, but their best bet to do the most damage would be to try
to launch it over the country and explode it and create an EMP.
And the casualty estimates I’ve seen are really, really high if they
were able to cripple our entire electrical grid. Is that your understanding that you are talking about potentially millions of people?
Mr. BAKER. That’s my understanding. Even though you don’t get
direct effects on biological, humans—the long-term term effects
without the electric power grid, we’re talking about certainly within a year, you would lose at least half the American population. I
have seen estimates as high as 90 percent of the American population would be at risk over a projected 1-year period.
Mr. DESANTIS. So given that the consequences are potentiallyvery dire, but also given that, I think, as all the witnesses have
said, there are certainly things we could do very easily, why
haven’t we done enough, in your opinion?
Mr. BAKER. One of the problems is that the liabilities, the publiccompanies are reluctant to admit vulnerabilities, because if something bad were to happen, they would be liable, and I think that’s

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a big problem. And just the cost, the wide-area effects, we get into
these hand-wringing stances where people—they don’t know where
to begin so they haven’t. And what we’re trying to do is lay out,
you know, a well-ordered, incremental approach where to get us beyond the hand-wringing.
Mr. DESANTIS. Mr. Caruso, you’ve been involved in this field andhave done work hardening critical infrastructure against an EMP
attack. So help us understand what is involved when you actually
try to harden a facility or a line?
Mr. CARUSO. Certainly. In addition to the critical infrastructure,
I’ve been involved in hardening military and government facilities
for the 32 years in this business. And essentially, what’s required
to harden a facility is to create an electromagnetic shield, a 6-sided
electromagnetic shield around the equipment that’s intended to beprotected.
Mr. DESANTIS. As of right now, in your judgment, and based onyour experience, what percentage of the electrical grid is prepared
for an EMP threat?
Mr. CARUSO. Currently, there’s only one control center in the entire country that I’m aware of that is protected.
Mr. DESANTIS. And which one is that?
Mr. CARUSO. I’m not allowed to say, because of non-disclosureagreements that I’m under.
Mr. DESANTIS. Understood. My time has expired. Thanks for answering the questions, and I now recognize the ranking member ofthe full committee—the subcommittee on National Security, Mr.
Lynch, for 5 minutes.
Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So what we’re saying
here is that because of the interconnectivity of our society today,
the great reliance and connectivity to the Internet, so much of
every aspect of our lives is wired now, that that fact will actuallyamplify the impact of a EMP event. Is that basically what you’resaying, Mr. Baker—Dr. Baker? Excuse me.
Mr. BAKER. That’s right.
Mr. LYNCH. All right. Now, for countermeasures, I understand,and I don’t question the level of disruption that would occur. And
I guess the imminence of this is debatable, but there is no debate
above the disruption that would result if one of these EMPs occurred. The countermeasures that have been talked about, the folks
at CRS that serve Congress, the Congressional Research Service,mentioned a couple of countermeasures. One was this Faraday
Cage protection, which I guess is some kind of a cladding. Can you
talk about that for a bit?
Mr. BAKER. I can. Mike Caruso just mentioned the idea of a 6sided shield. You have a six-sided metal enclosure, that’s referred
to in electrical engineering as a Faraday Cage.
Mr. LYNCH. Okay. Mr. Caruso, do you want to go into that a little bit more?
Mr. CARUSO. Certainly. The six-sided metal shield has to be constructed so it basically has no openings in it except those that are
absolutely necessary to have. And all of those openings are technically considered to be points of entry. So you start out by building a six-sided metal box with no openings, and then you start adding openings for things like the electrical power, communications

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and air exchanges and cooling systems. And all of those points ofentries are handled in a very, very special and particular way inorder to ensure that you are attenuating any EMP signal thatmight be broadcast in the atmosphere, but also any signals thatare being brought in, conducted on the electrical lines or communication lines.
Mr. LYNCH. Sort of like a surge protector? That type of——Mr. CARUSO. Exactly. A surge protector on steroids, if you would.
Mr. LYNCH. Yeah. Now, what about the other countermeasurethat I’m not sure if it incorporates the Faraday Cage protection,these portable, or mobile units that, I guess, some of the contractors for Microsoft and, I guess, some of the other computer outfits
have come up with, sort of an off-the-rack type of system where
they can house all of these servers in the event that you have an
event. Is that one and the same or are these two different strategies?
Mr. CARUSO. It’s one and the same. In terms of technology, theportable data centers, if you will, the EMP-protected data centers
are essentially six-sided Faraday cages with all the points of entry
addressed, and sometimes they get actually interfaced with thefixed asset that might be inside of a building. So they become asupplement to what’s going on in the building. These same shelters
sometimes hold backup generator systems or backup cooling systems to act as protection against the EMP for those systems as
well.
Mr. LYNCH. Okay. So the last time we had a talk about this, thestudy was done in 2008, I think, then there were 16 recommendations. Is there anything different that we’re doing now than what
was going on at that point, talking about Congress?
Mr. BAKER. The only substantive response to the EMP recommendations has been within the Department of Defense, where
they are actually providing an annual report to Congress on thesteps they are taking to meet the EMP Commission recommendations. But as far as the civilian infrastructure, I’m not aware of any
progress.
Mr. LYNCH. Dr. Pry, I don’t want you to get off the hook without
a question. The general recommendation then would be to adopt
some of these countermeasures for infrastructure that we identify
as being critical, whether it’s civilian critical infrastructure, or military infrastructure; is that right?
Mr. PRY. Yeah, that’s right. You know, for example, there are
2,000 extra high voltage transformers that are basically the technological foundation of our electronic civilization, you know, most people don’t even know that. These things are vulnerable to EMP.
They should be protected. You know, they are very hard—we don’teven make them in this country anymore. But that’s an example
of—the Commission had a rather long list of recommendations, basically a plan that could be implemented to protect the civilian critical infrastructure at affordable cost. It’s not hard to do, the technology isn’t the problem, the money isn’t the problem, it doesn’t
cost that much to do it, it’s the politics that has been the problem.
As George has said, nobody has responsibility for doing this,those who would think would have responsibility, the Departmentof Defense, for example. You know, when you talk about it, they

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have no jurisdiction over the civilian critical infrastructure. And
they will say, well, this could be caused by a geomagnetic storm
and that’s not our department. We are dealing with foreign threats,
so it is the Department of Homeland Security’s job. DHS will say,well, a nuclear weapon, that’s the DOD’s job, so nobody has beenin charge.
And then where it counts the most is we have this very dysfunctional relationship between the NERC, the North American Electric Liability Corporation that represents the 3,000 utilities that is
supposed to be—partner with U.S. FERC in providing for grid security. But the political reality is that that relationship is dysfunctional and it has not resulted in not only in increasing our security
where EMP is concerned, but even against tree branch problems,for instance. It took NERC a decade to come up with a vegetation
management plan to better manage tree branches so that we won’t
have a repeat of the great Northeast Blackout of 2003. They are
falling down on job on very pedestrians threats, let alone cyberthreats and EMP attacks and the like. It’s just the system isn’t
working, and that needs to be fixed by somebody.
Mr. LYNCH. Thank you. I assume my time has expired. I yieldback.
Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from Wyoming, the chairman of Natural
Resources Subcommittee for 5 minutes.
Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m a bit of a novice tothis subject, so I’m going to ask you some general questions, feel
free to take them wherever you choose. You know, over the weekend I got a little taste of this. I woke up Sunday morning in mycountry home, in Wyoming, without electricity. I had no water because in a rural area I’m on an electric pump to pump my well
water. So the inconveniences associated to being without electricity
were apparent from the minute my eyes opened.
As it turned out, it was just something, I think they called it abayonet which is a very large fuse that they just came and replaced. And believe it or not, they came on Sunday morning and
I was back up and running, and happily so. But when you think
about that on the scale that we’re talking about, it really does create immediate global problems, especially in this country.
So my first question, Mr. Caruso, what do these things cost,these shields that protect our infrastructure?
Mr. CARUSO. The shield that I gave an example of in my testimony was approximately $182 per square foot to put into place. So
if you look at a floor plan of a building and look at the square footage, again, about $182 a square foot on top of the building costitself.
Mrs. LUMMIS. So it’s not chump change.
Mr. CARUSO. It’s not chump change, but it’s not insurmountable
either.
Mrs. LUMMIS. My next question is for all of you. I am going todirect to Dr. Pry first, but then I’d like to ask our other two witnesses to weigh in. This is about your concern that the relationshipbetween NERC and FERC is dysfunctional. You mention the possibility of doing away with both. So if you were dictator for a day,and you could do exactly that, either combine NERC and FERC or

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do away with them and replace them with something else thatwould solve the dysfunction you’ve identified, as well as address
this electromagnetic pulse issue responsibly, what would that look
like?
Mr. PRY. That would look like the kind of relationship that theFederal Aviation Administration has with the air line industry.
What I think that isn’t understood is that the electric power industry is the only critical infrastructure that still operates basically insomething that’s close to a 19th century regulatory environment.
The Federal Aviation Administration has the power and has independent inspectors. If they find metal fatigue in the wings of anairline, they can ground that whole fleet and order the air line industry, you are not going to fly those planes until they are fixed.
When there is a disaster and an airplane crashes, the industry
doesn’t get to investigate and figure out what went wrong, not bythemselves. It’s the Federal Aviation Administration that drags
those things into a hangar. And why do we do that? Because wewant an objective actor whose first priority is public safety, because
hundreds of lives are at stake when airplanes fly and so we don’t—
you know, we don’t take lightly, you know, the lives of the American people when it comes to that. If we go to the Food and Drug
Administration or any other industry, I would like that same kindof regulatory relationship with the electric power industry.
Let me describe to you a little bit about what the current regulatory environment is like, because it’s not really what we would
consider a regulatory environment. The U.S. FERC, for example,
does not have the power to tell NERC, that is, the industry, what
they shall do to protect the grid. It can order them to come up witha plan and then NERC can take as much time as it likes to comeup with a plan or a proposed plan. And then if the U.S. FERC has
objections that plan, the whole plan has to be scrapped, and theprocess starts all over again.
That’s how it took 10 years to get a plan for vegetation management, you know, so we wouldn’t have a repeat of the great Northeast Blackout of 2003. Industry takes its time dragging its feet and
can use the process, you know, to basically escape doing what it’ssupposed to do. The NERC is supposed to partner with the U.S.
FERC in providing for the security of the American people, but it
doesn’t. And I don’t think combining these or keeping the same—
I mean, there are some good people in these institutions, but
George and I have served, for example, on the NERC’s Geomagnetic Disturbance Task Force, and we have actually seen themengage in junk science, dishonest practices, you know, in terms of
the science to try to mislead people.
In my written testimony, I describe a very disturbing example ofwhere the NERC came up with a hollow standard for the natural
EMP created by the sun saying, okay—they were dragged, kicking
and streaming by the way and resisted for years saying that oh,
the threat from the sun doesn’t really affect the electric grid, which
was completely untrue. Eventually they were forced to come up
with a standard, the standard is so low, that it doesn’t provide any
real protection.

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Mrs. LUMMIS. Dr. Pry, my time has expired, but I’m hoping tofollow up with all three of you on this issue in a second round ofquestioning. Thank you all very much.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. DESANTIS. The gentlelady yields back. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a statement of Ms. Lawrence, who is
the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Interior. Without objection, that will be so ordered.
Mr. DESANTIS. At this point, I would like to recognize Mrs. Lawrence for 5 minutes for her questions.
Mrs. LAWRENCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We—this issue is
one of great importance to me and to our country. The congressional EMP Commission issued a report in 2008 identifying 16 segments of our infrastructure that could suffer severe damage if notprotected. Today, 7 years later, the testimony continues to echo
those concerns. I’m curious today, Mr. Caruso, has anythingchanged since this last report regarding the protection of the grid?
Mr. CARUSO. I don’t believe anything significant has changed.
What we have seen is that many private industries that make up
the critical infrastructure have taken it upon themselves just as
doing good business to do EMP protection. I have worked with several financial institutions, including insurance companies. I’ve
worked with electric utilities and have done some work counseling,
the gas and electric industry as well, but other than that, nothing
real significant has happened.
Mrs. LAWRENCE. To follow up on your statement, there has beensome independent efforts being made in this direction. Are we monitoring that as a Federal Government if we start implementing
the—taking the steps that we should, would we have a different
system that is being used now, or are we just going to provide oversight to these individual companies? What is the plan that you’rerecommending here?
Mr. CARUSO. My recommendation really falls in line with thoseof Dr. Pry and Dr. Baker in that someone needs to be in charge,
and especially as it’s related to the 16 critical infrastructure segments in terms of providing real protection, and at least addressing
the issue to ask the question what if, what happens if we lose theelectrical power? What happens if we lose the ability to do it? I
use—I like to use the example of the waste treatment systems. You
would not only lose the electrical power, but the control systems
that control the wastewater filtration and pumping stations
throughout an area. If that goes down in a major city, you have 2
or 3 days before the city is just on its knees.
Mrs. LAWRENCE. My question is to Dr. Baker. As we look at theneed, we heard your recommendations, 2008 was the last report.
Will we have to initiate a new commission and a new report so it
would be relevant, or do you feel strongly that the information we
have now is enough to move forward with starting our plan?
Mr. BAKER. I believe that the EMP Commission reports thatwere issued in 2004, 2008 are still operative, and so I would say
yeah, they are a very good place to start. I don’t know whether
there is anything I can add to those reports. The thing that helps
us is that—I understand that there’s going to be a lot of new construction on the electric grid, and that if we are able to project and

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develop some plans that we can actually include EMP protection
with the new build-out. So there might be some maybe augmentation of the EMP Commission recommendations.
Mrs. LAWRENCE. I do want to say as my time runs out that asa mayor, I lived through the power outages that affected the Midwest. And when you talk about the threat of lives, hospitals thatwere in my city, individuals stranded on elevators, life support systems and oxygen, getting the pumps backed up with batteries sothat we could continue to ensure that our water was properly processed through cleaning water filtration, this is a very serious issue.
And I appreciate your testimonies today, and I know for a fact if
we receive such an attack, the threat is one that would be significantly dangerous for our country and a lot of dangerous people on
simple mere traffic navigation, everything came to a complete halt.
To be able to sit in a room in our emergency command center withno power, we could not pull up documents of employee records, because it was on a computer. So it taught me a lot of how we weredependent just from being a mayor and trying to manage throughthat power outage. So I thank you today for your testimony.
Mr. DESANTIS. The gentlelady’s time has expired.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia for 5 minutes for his questions.
Mr. HICE. Thank you.
Dr. Pry, what Federal agency do you believe is best suited to leada preparedness effort for this? Is it Homeland Security? Is it Energy? Which one is it?
Mr. PRY. I think the Department of Homeland Security, that it
naturally falls under their jurisdiction, you know, because they’re
responsible—they’re supposed to be responsible for critical infrastructure protection in the first place. So I think that they’re theones.
However, DHS and the Department of Defense are also supposed
to have a cooperative relationship, you know, when it comes to providing for homeland security. There’s a lot of expertise—now, DHS
should have the lead, but there’s a lot of expertise in the Department of Defense. And the Department of Defense is also dependent
on the civilian critical infrastructure.
Mr. HICE. All right. But, at the end of the day, DHS, you believe.
Mr. PRY. I would say DHS. I’d like——
Mr. HICE. All right.
Does DHS currently have anything to deal with the scenario—
they’ve got the 15 national planning contingency scenarios. Is anything dealing with EMPs a part of those 15 plans?
Mr. PRY. No, they’re not. And that’s part of the problem and why
we need to pass the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act.
And I would add that there are people—there are people within
DHS that are standing by, waiting for us to do exactly that.
The——
Mr. HICE. All right. So there needs to be—if DHS is responsible,
DHS then needs some sort of plan. Is there a reason there is nota plan, if DHS is responsible?
Mr. PRY. The—I think the—I don’t know what the motive has
been within the leadership of DHS, because it’s been a bipartisan
failure, you know——

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Mr. HICE. But a failure it is. We don’t need to elaborate. If DHS
is responsible, that is one thing. If DHS is responsible and not prepared, that is another issue that certainly needs to be addressed.
Mr. PRY. I’d say they are responsible and not prepared.
Mr. HICE. Okay. Well, then we have to—that definitely needs tobe addressed.
Let me go, Mr. Caruso, to you. Hardening a facility, can you
elaborate a little bit more on just what that means and what it involves?
Mr. CARUSO. Certainly.
As was mentioned before, we’re talking—the scientific term is‘‘Faraday cage.’’ And it essentially—we use steel to do that. So it
encloses the area that’s intended to be protected in a six-sided steel
enclosure. And all of the points of entry coming in and, most importantly, the electrical power are fitted with filter devices and suppression devices that would suppress an EMP coming down theline being conducted in from the external power lines.
In addition to that, the facility shield protects all of the equipment inside from the radiated effects of an EMP coming down outof the atmosphere. And it needs to also protect the backup generators, the cooling systems, and all of the other support systems thatwould support a facility.
Mr. HICE. Okay. I just have a couple minutes, so that—just ageneral understanding, I appreciate what you just shared.
Do State governments—and I will just keep this with you, Mr.
Caruso—do State governments have anything right now to protect
against EMPs?
Mr. CARUSO. Absolutely nothing.
Mr. HICE. Nothing. All right. So we are totally vulnerable. That
includes all 50 States; there is nothing out there?
Mr. CARUSO. Nothing that I’m aware of.
Mr. HICE. All right. All right. So we have got to address thisproblem because it is totally not addressed anywhere.
Mr. CARUSO. That’s correct, except for a handful of private industry actors that have taken it upon themselves to protect it. The
control center that I was speaking of before is an electric utility.
They took it upon themselves to invest their own money to protect
their control center.
Mr. HICE. Okay. Then, real quickly, across the board, and I
would appreciate an answer real quickly from all three of you. This
being the case, what steps do Federal entities need to take to protect this?
And, Dr. Baker, I will start with you, just real quickly because
I know my name is about up.
Mr. BAKER. First, we need a single authority that is in charge
with the power to develop and enforce requirements.
Mr. HICE. Okay.
Mr. BAKER. And then I think, you know, of the 16 critical infrastructures, if we focused only on the electric power grid, that would
be well worth it. We should have a program to——Mr. HICE. All right.
Mr. BAKER. —protect the grid.
Mr. HICE. Real quickly, Dr. Pry and Mr. Caruso?

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Mr. PRY. Pass the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, which
will require the Department of Homeland Security to add a newnational planning scenario focused on the EMP threat. All State,
local, and Federal emergency planning, training, and resource allocation is based on those scenarios. That’s why it’s not on the radar
screen right now. Bring back the congressional EMP commission so
you can have an aggressive watchdog to make sure that this work
gets done.
And reform the dysfunctional relationship between NERC and
FERC. I say abolish them and start all over again. Give the job to
DHS, somebody that’s willing to do the job.
Mr. HICE. Unfortunately, my time has expired, but could Mr. Caruso——
Mr. DESANTIS. If you can submit your response——
Mr. HICE. Thank you.
Mr. DESANTIS. —for the record written, it would be great.
Mr. HICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DESANTIS. And the chair now recognizes the gentleman from
California, Mr. Lieu, for 5 minutes.
Mr. LIEU. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for holding thishearing to inform the public and policymakers about the threat ofan EMP device.
I have just some preliminary questions. Let’s say an EMP device
was exploded over the U.S. What is the geographic area that it
would affect? Is it the size of D.C.? Of Maryland? Of Virginia?
Smaller? Larger?
Mr. BAKER. An entry-level, you know, low-yield weapon, if it’sdetonated at the optimum altitude, the diameter of the effect would
be 1,200 miles. So it would be a circle with a 1,200-mile diameter.
Mr. LIEU. Okay.
And then, within that circle—so let’s say it fries the electricalgenerators. Does it also destroy the lines themselves, or are they
still fine?
Mr. BAKER. The——
Mr. LIEU. The lines that connect houses and businesses to theelectric grid.
Mr. BAKER. The lines will remain intact. There was some Russian experience where some of their lines, they actually had damage to the support insulators, where some of their lines fell to theground. But the evidence is that, in most cases, the lines would remain intact. It’s just what’s on the end of the line would be affected.
Mr. LIEU. And then, based on the way our electrical power gridis constructed in the U.S., could you take power from another partof the country and route it through the affected area?
Mr. BAKER. That would depend upon the size of the circular diameter. It would be difficult to do that because you’re looking at
areas that are crossing, you know, State boundaries and the boundaries of the different power companies. So it could be difficult.
And we don’t—the grid control centers—we don’t have grid control centers in most cases that span that large of an area.
Mr. LIEU. Okay.
And I think, Mr. Caruso, you had mentioned a cost to harden our
critical infrastructure. You said $182 per—per what?

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Mr. CARUSO. Per square foot of floor space.
Mr. LIEU. Okay.
Mr. CARUSO. And that’s for doing a facility, not looking at thetransformers.
Mr. LIEU. So it’s hard for me to understand what that means.
Can you sort of give me a number? To harden the United States
to a place you think is sufficient, are we talking about $50 million,$50 billion, $500 billion? What is the range here so I can understand that?
Mr. CARUSO. I’m sorry, I really don’t have that number available
in my head. I can submit something.
Mr. LIEU. Sure.
Or anyone on the panel?
Mr. PRY. It depends on how much protection you want to buy
and what your judgment is, okay? It’s sort of like asking, well, howmuch will it cost to buy fire protection for my house? You know,some plans can be very inexpensive. It can be as simple as buying
a smoke alarm—okay?—you know, which would cost you very little.
Others might want to put a fire extinguisher in every room and put
a sprinkler system in, which is going to cost a lot.
There are—here are some legitimate plans and legitimate prices
for you to keep in mind—okay?—that can range—John
Kappenman, who was on our commission, had an idea, a plan, thatwould cost $200 million. And the idea here would be to protect the
200 most important extra-high-voltage transformers, the ones that
service the major metropolitan areas. So John wouldn’t say that
this is adequate, but it will at least give you a fighting chance tosave millions of people from starving to death, you know, because
the transformers, at least, would be saved.
The EMP Commission had a plan. It’s, you know, right in theplan, it’s about $2 billion—okay?—that protects all of the transformers and generators and is much more ambitious. And, youknow, that’s a much better plan and would give you much greater
resiliency and confidence in being able to recover the society quickly from an EMP.
George Baker described an even better—a more ambitious and,I would say, a better plan that goes beyond that. It sort of depends
on how much do you want to put into prevention. Just like in protecting your house, you know, you can spend more money to protect
your house and be safer, or you can decide to spend less money andbe less safe.
But there are a wide variety of plans, which——
Mr. LIEU. And——
Mr. PRY. —industry sometimes misrepresents as being contradictory. They’re not. You know, it could range from $200 million up
to $20 billion, $30 billion.
Mr. LIEU. And so, given those options—as you know, a lot of electrical utilities are regulated by States or cities. What is your viewof the Federal Government’s role? Why is it we don’t leave it up,
for example, to the Public Utilities Commission of California to decide if they want to increase fees on ratepayers in order to harden
the facilities there?

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In other words—or is it your view we should give DHS authority
to simply start imposing additional costs on ratepayers so we canharden all these facilities?
Mr. PRY. May I respond?
Mr. LIEU. Yeah, of course.
Mr. PRY. Yeah. Well, you know, because this is—ultimately, thisis a national security—especially if you’re talking about a nuclear
EMP attack or a great geomagnetic storm that could cover not justthe United States, but if it’s a Carrington event, you’re talking
about the entire world being affected by this kind of a phenomenon.
A threat of this scale should be a Federal national security responsibility. The States don’t normally think of themselves as protecting themselves against nuclear terrorist attacks, but because ofthe——Mr. LIEU. But they do think about—right?—natural disasters. I
mean, a massive naturally caused EMP thing would be a natural
disaster. So, in California, it’s not so much the Federal Government
saying, ‘‘Hey, harden yourself against earthquakes.’’ It’s actually
California building codes that do that.
So I’m just sort of curious as to, do you want this massive, overreaching Federal plan, or should we leave it to States and cities
and local control?
Mr. PRY. I personally don’t think it should be left to States andcities. But, however, you’re getting your wish. Because of the vacuum that’s been created by the lack of Federal leadership on thisissue, the States are taking the initiative because they have to.
Next week, I’m going up to Maine because Maine has passed abill to protect its electric grid because the Feds haven’t done anything. Virginia has passed a bill. Arizona has passed a bill to protect its people. Florida has established a cyber and EMP legislative
working group because there is no leadership, no help coming from
Washington.
And so the States are being made aware. They don’t even know
about this threat, most of them, but as they become aware of thisthreat and they realize that the Federal Government isn’t doing
anything, they are stepping up to the plate to protect their people.
I don’t think that that’s—I was originally trained as a historian,and I find that rather disturbing, the fact that the States have todo this. You know, in the—one of the signs of the decline and fallof the Roman Empire was the rise of walled cities, because Rome
would no longer—could no longer defend its cities against the Barbarians. So the states had to start providing for their own—I mean,
the cities had to start providing for their own security.
I don’t think that’s the way our system is supposed to work. You
know, when it comes to national security, the Feds aren’t supposed
to just say, ‘‘Well, the States, go ahead and do the best you can totake care of yourselves. We’ve got other things to do here.’’ You
know, the fundamental constitutional obligation, the reason we
have a Federal Government, is to provide for the common defense.
Mr. LIEU. Thank you.
Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman’s time has expired.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee for 5
minutes for his questions.

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Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And
thank you for calling this very important hearing.
This is just one of thousands of things that we deal with, so noneof us are the experts that you all are, but I can tell you this, it’ssomething I’ve been concerned about for a long time.
In fact, just a few days after the 2003 blackout, I gave a speechon the floor, and I quoted from the Associated Press story at thetime. And it said the proposed improvements that they were talking about to keep this from happening a second time, it says, ‘‘aremaking the electricity supply vulnerable to a different kind of
peril—computer viruses and hackers that could blackout substations, cities, or entire States.’’
And the story went on to say, it said, ‘‘In the past, the grid’s oldelectromechanical switches and analog technology made it more orless impervious to computer maladies, but now switches and monitoring gear can be upgraded and programmed remotely with software, and that requires a vulnerable connection to a computer network. If that network runs on Microsoft Corporation operating systems, which virus writers favor, or it connects to the Internet, thevulnerabilities are increased.’’That’s what came out in 2003. And I’m sorry that I’ve had to run
in and out of here and not hear everything you’ve said because I’ve
had some meetings with constituents. But when I hear you talking
about knocking out the power to 80 percent of Turkey—somebody
mentioned that—and all of Yemen, in some ways it seems like
we’re almost more vulnerable today than we were then. Are we?
Mr. BAKER. The quick answer is ‘‘yes.’’
Mr. DUNCAN. Well, you know, my wife has told me for years I
still live in Andy of Mayberry days. And then, a few years later,
I saw that I had the same birthday as Don Knotts. And when I saw
that, I thought, well, she’s been right all these years. So I’m about
as low-tech as they come.
But it seems ridiculous to me that we’re so interconnected witheach other that, when a crew cuts a tree limb in Cleveland, Ohio,and it cuts off the power to the entire Northeast and part of Canada for several hours, I mean, it seems like, to me, that that’s justridiculous that we would allow that to happen.
And it also seems to me that we need to get more people interested in this. Because surely we have people that can figure out—
is it possible, you know, that bigger may not always be better?
That maybe we shouldn’t have these power companies that are so
big that, if we broke up some of these power companies, that wewouldn’t be so interconnected, where what happened to one would
affect people all over the country?
Mr. PRY. Well, actually, that was one of the recommendations of
the EMP Commission. It’s called ‘‘islanding.’’And, in effect, it’s kind of what’s happening at the level of theStates. Even though it isn’t happening by a plan coming out of
Washington, by this natural process of the States deciding to protect themselves, you’re creating islands, you know, where, if the big
grid goes down, at least that State will have its lights stay on. And
so——

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Mr. DUNCAN. Well, that is encouraging. I’ve been glad to hear
that, that some of these States are taking individual initiatives. I
hope that keeps growing.
Mr. PRY. It makes it harder to do when the NERC claims thatthey’ve adopted a GMD standard and don’t worry about it, they’reon top of the problem, which they also say about cyber and things
like that, which tends—is not true, you know, because it ends up
taking away the incentive for the States to protect themselves
when NERC convinces them that they are.
And one—I’d like to also make one last statement, because you
talked about, are we getting more vulnerable? Another thing thatneeds to be kept in mind is that we are getting more vulnerable
all the time because of the advance of technology. You know, as our
semiconductor technology gets better and better and faster andfaster and runs on lower and lower voltages, it becomes more andmore vulnerable to the EMP effect, which is why we’re so vulnerable now.
Back in 1962, Starfish Prime test, when that happened, the vacuum tube technology of the day, you know, was 1 million times lessvulnerable to EMP. Still, the lights went out in Hawaii—1 million
times less vulnerable.
And every time—I think it’s every 10 years we have, like, a tenfold increase in the capabilities of our semiconductor technology. It
also becomes tenfold more vulnerable to EMP. So this problem isgetting worse and worse. It’s not just standing still while we donothing.
Mr. DUNCAN. Well, what do you think about this bill by Congressman Franks? Is that a good first step?
Mr. PRY. Oh, the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act? Absolutely. It’s, you know—it would go in a huge way toward helping
solve the problem.
Mr. DUNCAN. I remember several years ago I read on the front
page of The Washington Post one day that a 12-year-old boy
opened up the floodgates at the Hoover Dam 700 miles from hishome because he was able to hack in. And it seems to me that, youknow, we have a lot of brilliant people out here that should be able
to—that should be working on this.
We oversensationalize a lot of these threats because of a 24-hournews cycle and because so many people in companies make money
off of threats that are exaggerated. But, in my opinion, this is one
that’s not being exaggerated and that we need to do a little bit
more. And I appreciate what you all are trying to do.
I’ve run out of time. I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman yields back.
I want to thank the witnesses for their testimony, for answering
our questions.
We wanted to have Congressman Franks testify and present both
his critical infrastructure bill and the SHIELD Act, but he has abill on the House floor right now, and he’s not able to attend. So
we’re sorry that that couldn’t be arranged.
But, clearly, I think, from what the witnesses have said, youknow, those are the types of pieces of legislation, you know, that
I think we need to be moving ahead in Congress. And so, if this

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hearing has helped raise more awareness—and hopefully we canget some bipartisan support for this stuff and move forward.
I will hold the record open for 5 legislative days for any members
who would like to submit a written statement.
Mr. DESANTIS. And, with that, this hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:40 p.m., the subcommittees were adjourned.]

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APPENDIX
MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

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70

AKING-6430 with DISTILLER‘‘Identify Potential Impacts of an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)
Attack on Fire and EMS Delivery Services for the Walpole Fire Department’’ by Deputy Chief Michael K. Lararacy, Sr., Walpole Fire
Department, Walpole, Massachusetts, can be found here:
http://www.usfa.fema.gov/pdf/efop/efo46308.pdf

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