Recent national policies and federal preparedness efforts have highlighted the importance of enhancing the resilience of the nation’s critical infrastructure, including the electricity grid. Presidential Policy Directive 21, issued in February 2013, established national policy on critical infrastructure security and resilience. The directive expanded the nation’s focus from protecting critical infrastructure against terrorism to protecting critical infrastructure and increasing its resilience against all hazards, including natural disasters, terrorism, and cyber incidents. In addition, the directive recognizes that proactive and coordinated efforts are necessary to strengthen and maintain critical infrastructure that is secure and resilient. It also identifies 16 critical infrastructure sectors, including the energy sector—which encompasses the electricity grid—and designates lead federal agencies to coordinate and prioritize security and resiliency activities in each sector. DOE was designated as the lead federal agency for the energy sector. Reflecting the shift in focus in Presidential Policy Directive 21, the December 2013 update to the National Infrastructure Protection Plan elevated security and resilience to be the primary aim of federal critical infrastructure planning efforts. The update established a set of broad national goals for critical infrastructure security and resilience and directed that each of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors update its sector-specific plan—a planning document that complements and tailors the application of the National Infrastructure Protection Plan to the specific characteristics and risks of each critical infrastructure sector. In response, DOE in 2015 led the development of an updated Energy Sector-Specific Plan to help guide and integrate efforts to improve the security and resilience of the energy sector’s critical infrastructure, including the electricity grid. The plan identified three federal priorities for enhancing the security and resilience of the grid: (1) developing and deploying tools and technologies to enhance awareness of potential disruptions, (2) planning and exercising coordinated responses to disruptive events, and (3) ensuring actionable intelligence on threats is communicated between government and industry in a time-sensitive manner. In addition, in 2016 the United States developed an action plan and issued a joint strategy with Canada for strengthening the security and resilience of the North American electricity grid. As table 1 shows, federal roles and responsibilities related to enhancing the resilience of the electricity grid are defined in policy and law, including Presidential Policy Directive 21 and certain provisions of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act of 2015. States and industry also play key roles in enhancing the resilience of the electricity grid. States, through their public utility commissions, regulate retail electricity service and facility planning and siting. States also enact policies that can affect the resilience of the portion of the electricity grid that is within their borders. Industry owns and operates most of the electricity grid, so the actions that owners and operators take to protect and maintain their assets can contribute to grid resilience. In addition, owners and operators of the electricity grid are responsible for complying with mandatory reliability standards that can contribute to grid resilience. DOE, DHS, and FERC reported implementing 27 grid resiliency efforts since 2013 that supported a range of activities and that addressed multiple hazards and federal priorities for enhancing the resilience of the electricity grid. Agency officials reported a variety of results stemming from these efforts. In response to our questionnaire, DOE, DHS, and FERC officials reported implementing 27 efforts since 2013 that aimed at enhancing the resilience of the electricity grid. Of these 27 efforts, 12 were FERC regulatory efforts tied to the agency’s role in reviewing and approving mandatory reliability standards for the bulk power system. FERC officials also reported that the agency oversaw another effort in which it acted on a petition by a private company to provide regulatory findings related to the company’s plan to establish a subscription service for spare critical transmission equipment, including transformers. The remaining 14 efforts—11 implemented by DOE and 3 by DHS—were programmatic in nature. Federal funding for the DOE and DHS grid resiliency activities from fiscal year 2013 through fiscal year 2015 totaled approximately $240 million. The 27 efforts that DOE, DHS, and FERC officials reported implementing supported a range of activities, addressed a variety of potential threats and hazards, and addressed federal priorities for enhancing the resilience of the electricity grid (see app. II for more information on each effort). As table 2 shows, the reported federal grid resiliency efforts supported a range of activities, with the most prevalent being: emergency preparedness and response activities (e.g. providing coordination, planning, training, and exercise programs to prepare for potential disaster operations; providing situational awareness during an event; coordinating response efforts; and helping facilitate system restoration); research and development activities (e.g. pursuing tools, technologies, and demonstrations aimed at bringing new and innovative technologies to maturity and helping them transition to industry); modeling, analytics, and risk assessment activities (e.g. modeling, simulation, and analysis of electricity grid risks and vulnerabilities); and standard-setting activities (e.g. the development or approval of standards for industry). For example, DOE reported that its Strategic Transformer Reserve effort supported emergency preparedness and response activities through planning for the potential loss of large, high-power transformers by evaluating the feasibility of establishing a reserve of those transformers for use during an emergency. Similarly, FERC reported that its efforts supported emergency preparedness and response activities as well as activities to set standards by approving a reliability standard that requires owners and operators of the electricity grid to develop and implement procedures to mitigate the potential effects of geomagnetic disturbances on the bulk power system. In addition, DHS reported that its Recovery Transformer Program supported research and development activities by designing and demonstrating a type of rapidly deployable large, high- power transformer for use in the event of the unexpected loss of multiple large, high-power transformers. As table 3 shows, the agencies reported that their federal grid resiliency efforts addressed a range of threats and hazards, including cyberattacks (i.e. computer-related attacks); physical attacks (e.g. attacks on physical infrastructure such as targeted shooting of transformers or intentional downing of power lines); natural disasters (e.g. extreme weather events and geomagnetic disturbances); and operational accidents (e.g. unintentional equipment failures or operator error). For example, DOE and FERC reported implementing several grid resiliency efforts to address the threat of cyberattacks. DOE’s Electricity Subsector Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model effort was a public-private partnership that developed a tool kit modeled on a common set of industry-vetted cybersecurity practices; the effort made this tool kit available to the electricity industry to help owners and operators evaluate, prioritize, and improve their cybersecurity capabilities. Similarly, of the 12 reliability standards FERC approved, several require owners and operators of the electricity grid to take actions to mitigate the threat posed by cyberattacks on the bulk power system. As table 4 shows, the reported federal grid resiliency efforts collectively addressed each of the three federal priorities for enhancing the security and resilience of the electricity grid that were identified in the 2015 Energy Sector-Specific Plan. For example, DHS’s Solar Storm Mitigation effort addressed the federal priority of developing and deploying tools and technologies to enhance awareness of potential disruptions; the effort addressed this priority by providing owners and operators of the electricity grid with advanced and actionable information about anticipated impacts of a solar storm. Similarly, DOE’s Cybersecurity Risk Information Sharing Program addressed the federal priority to ensure actionable intelligence on threats is communicated between government and industry in a time- sensitive manner; the effort addressed this priority by facilitating the timely sharing of unclassified and classified cybersecurity threat information and developing situational awareness tools to better identify, prioritize, and coordinate the protection of critical electricity infrastructure. In their questionnaire responses, agency officials reported a variety of results from both ongoing and completed federal grid resiliency efforts. As shown in the selected examples in table 5, these results included the development, and in some cases the deployment, of new technologies and analytical tools; the planning and exercising of coordinated responses to disruptive events; and improved coordination and information sharing between the federal government and industry related to potential cyberattacks and other threats or hazards to the electricity grid. We found that the 27 federal efforts to enhance the resilience of the electricity grid were fragmented across DOE, DHS, and FERC and overlapped to some degree, but we did not find any instances of duplication among these efforts. In their questionnaire responses, agency officials reported engaging in a number of activities and mechanisms to coordinate their efforts and avoid duplication. These activities and mechanisms include serving as members on formal coordinating bodies that bring together federal, state, and industry stakeholders in the energy sector to discuss resiliency issues on a regular basis; contributing to the development of federal plans and reviews that address grid resiliency gaps and priorities; and participating in direct coordination activities at the program level. According to our analysis of agency questionnaire responses, federal grid resiliency efforts were fragmented and overlapped to some degree, but none were duplicative. In addition, industry group representatives we interviewed did not identify any instances of duplication among federal grid resiliency efforts. Fragmentation. The 27 federal efforts to enhance the resilience of the electricity grid were fragmented in that they were implemented by three different agencies—DOE, DHS, and FERC—and addressed the same broad area of national need: enhancing the resilience of the electricity grid. We have previously reported that fragmentation has the potential to result in duplication of resources. For example, fragmentation can lead to technical or administrative functions being managed separately by individual agencies, when these functions could be shared among programs. However, we also have reported that fragmentation, by itself, is not an indication that unnecessary duplication of efforts or activities exists. There can be advantages to having multiple federal agencies involved in a broad area of national need; for example, agencies can tailor initiatives to suit their specific missions and needs, among other things. In the case of federal grid resiliency efforts, we found that DOE, DHS, and FERC generally have tailored their efforts to contribute to their specific missions and needs.