CRS Insight - Electric Grid Physical Security: Recent Legislation (US)

(Another Hat Tip to our friends at the Federation of American Scientists for posting this CRS document!)

Last week a two-page summary of recent US government legislation focused on electric grid physical security was prepared by Paul W. Parfomak of the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

http://fas.us8.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33c6e6fc9f63792ebcbb7ef9d&id=9c0cfe0fff&e=d0dc8ca93c

The document is a quick read. Besides summarizing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)) / North American Electric Reliability corporation (NERC) efforts on the CIP-014, Physical Security Reliability Standard, the document summarizes some interesting electric grid physical security elements in the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act - P.L. 114-94 and the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015 - S. 2012.

Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act - P.L. 114-94

• Became law on December 4, 2015
  
• Contains provisions in two sections to facilitate recovery during electric grid emergencies due to physical damage and other causes.
  
• Critical Electric Infrastructure Security (§1104) -- This section provides the Secretary of Energy additional authority to order emergency measures to protect or restore the reliability of critical electric infrastructure or defense critical electric infrastructure during a grid security emergency.  The identification of such a grid emergency would be made by written notice from the President with a concurrent notification from Congress.  This section also allows a) grid owners to recover prudent costs incurred under such emergency measures through rates regulated by FERC, and b) increases protection of critical electrical infrastructure information.
  
• Strategic Transformer Reserve (§1105) -- This section requires the Secretary of Energy -- in consultation with other agencies, the military, and the utility industry -- to submit to Congress within one year a plan for a Strategic Transformer Reserve.

Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015 - S. 2012

• Includes two sections primarily directed at electric grid cybersecurity but with potential impacts on physical asset protection or recovery.
  
• Cybersecurity Threats (§2001) -- Would provide the Secretary of Energy additional authority to order emergency measures to avert or mitigate a cybersecurity threat upon receiving notice from the President that such a threat exists.  This section is also intended to increase protection of critical electrical infrastructure information.
  
• Cybersecurity Threats (§2002) -- This section would designate the Department of Energy (DOE) as the lead Sector-Specific Agency under Presidential Policy Directive 21 for energy sector cybersecurity.  This bill would require a) DOE to develop a program for modeling and assessing energy infrastructure risks in the face of natural and human-made (physical and cyber) threats, b) DOE to explore alternative structures and funding mechanisms to expand industry participation in the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center (E-ISAC).

Thanks again to Mr. Parfomak for this CRS Insight.

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Planning for Community Infrastructure Resilience - NIST Guidance

In 2015 the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)  began a process to produce guidance on approaches to aid communities in improving their resilience to prevailing natural and man made disasters that could affect their jurisdiction.  NIST began to produce various guides to offer some processes for community planners to follow including understanding and assessing their current risks as well as develop plans to implement to improve their resilience.  Using the "Guides" the community planners can better integrate their resilience efforts into their economic development, zoning, and other local planning activities impacting buildings, public utilities, and other infrastructure systems.

Currently there are three NIST Guide documents to be summarized below in this Blog:

• Community Resilience Planning Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems Volume 1. (11MB Download, 125 pages, Released October 2015)
• Community Resilience Planning Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems Volume II  (14 MB Download, 273 pages, Released October 2015)
• Community Resilience Economic Decision Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems (1 MB Download, 69 pages, Released December 2015)

Volume 1

The first document produced by NIST is Community Resilience Planning Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems Volume 1.   (11MB Download, 125 pages).  Volume I describes the methodology and has an example illustrating the planning process for the fictional town of Riverbend, USA.

As part of this methodology, Volume 1 includes a "Six-Step" Process to Planning for Community Resilience." (Shown Below).  Although the graphic is offering an elementary project planning structure, the contents and discussion of Volume 1 on how to approach the challenges of assessing and improving the resilience of the community is useful.

Volume 1 continues to provide the basis for this approach and also ensures that the reader does not fall into the trap of looking exclusively at "THINGS" such as bridges, roads, public works facilities, but instead helps the reader realize that the THINGS are based on and affected by the social aspects.  A particularly good graphic showing this "cause and effect" so to speak is below:

Volume II

Volume II of this Guide provides details for the planners on issues ranging from Understanding and Characterizing the Social Community (Chapter 10) to Dependencies and Cascading Effects to detailed information for various Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources (CIKR) including:

• Chapter 12 - Buildings
• Chapter 13 - Transportation Systems
• Chapter 14 - Energy Systems
• Chapter 15 - Communications Systems
• Chapter 16 - Water and Wastewater Systems

Each CIKR sector reviewed includes parallel analysis to include:

• Introduction to the Sector
• Infrastructure, Functions
• Performance Goals for the Sector
• Regulatory Environment
• Standards and Codes for New Construction and Existing Construction
• Strategies for Implementing Plans for Community Resilience
• References for the Sector

Finally, Chapter 17 includes a discussion on "Community Resilience Metrics" to include such metrics as:

• Time to Recover Function
• Economic Vitality
• Social Well-Being
• Environmental Resilience
• Hybrid Metrics

Economic Guide

The third Guide just issued in this series is focused on Economics and "Economic Decision Making."   Per the NIST announcement the Economic Guide "... provides a standard economic methodology for evaluating investment decisions aimed to improve the ability of communities to adapt to, withstand, and quickly recover from disasters."  The report is intended to frame the economic decision process by identifying and comparing the relevant present and future streams of costs and benefits with benefits realized through costs savings and damage loss avoidance.

As observed in the report benefits are primarily determined as the improvement in performance during a hazard event over the status quo, i.e., those obtained directly or indirectly by implementation of the new resilience strategy.

And for cost analysis, costs include all costs, including negative effects of implementing a resilience action. That specifically includes the initial costs, operation and maintenance costs, end-of-life costs, and replacement costs. In addition, any non-economic costs (e.g., deaths and injuries) and negative externalities need to be taken into account.

Who Are Served by These Reports?

These reports appear to be excellent resources for city, county, regional and national planners -- especially those examining disaster recovery and Continuity of Operations (COOP) policies, procedures and budgets.  Also, students of infrastructure management should find these reports to be very useful -- not only for their content but also for the references cited in the document and for each analyzed critical infrastructure in Volume II.

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FEMA Damage Assessment Operating Manual - Comments Requested

The FEMA Damage Assessment Operations Manual is part of a greater effort to provide a user-friendly, streamlined post-disaster damage assessment process that builds on the existing knowledge and expertise of State or Tribe and local partners to identify damage after a natural or man-made disaster. Eligible Tribes and U.S. territories are considered the same as States for application of FEMA programs; the Manual is aimed at clarifying FEMA damage assessment guidance, promoting standardized information collection, and assisting in the development of requests for federal disaster assistance. 

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is seeking comments from state, local, tribal, and territorial emergency management practitioners on the draft FEMA Damage Assessment Operating Manual. The manual establishes national damage assessment standards developed from historic lessons learned and best-practices already in use by state, local, tribal and federal emergency management agencies. The manual is built using a framework that encourages local information collection, state or tribal verification, and federal validation. Previous versions of such manuals have focused exclusively on the federal role. This document better highlights and provides guidance to state, local, and tribal governments on their role in the assessment. The draft manual is posted here. Comments should be added to the comment matrix, and submitted by Nov. 14, 2015.

The document appears to provide a very thorough user guide for handling disaster assessments. The book is 160 pages long and includes the following (from the Table of Contents):

• Introduction
• Concept of Operations
• Roles and Responsibilities
• Evaluating Damage and Impact for FEMA Public Assistance
• Evaluating Damage and Impact for FEMA Individual Assistance
• Damage Assessment Methods
• Integration of Geospatial Analysis and Technology
• Integration of Mobile Technology
• Appendices A, C, D = Checklists
• Appendices E, F = Matrices
• Appendix H = Process Charts

Overall the document is a useful starting place; however, it does appear to have some gaps in chapter content, formatting, etc. But, then again, the document is out for review and comment.

This could be a useful tool for the student of Disaster Assessment and Recovery due to the checklists and discussions about the more contemporary use of GIS and cellphones for data gathering.

You are encouraged to take time and at least page through this document and offer your thoughts, ideas and feedback. Perhaps someday you will be using this manual for your own disaster assessments.

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FEMA Bits and Pieces

For those of us in the "infrastructure community" we seem to be drawn to issues involving different critical infrastructure sectors along with broader issues such as emergency preparedness, disaster response and business continuity, government financing, climate change impacts, etc.

A useful resource is FEMA's Higher Education Program Bits and Pieces newsletter published by Barbara Johnson at the FEMA National Emergency Training Center, Emmitsburg, Maryland.  

The newsletter - often produced weekly on Fridays - not only includes information on FEMA training opportunities but it also weaves in timely  "bits and pieces" of information on emergency planning, critical infrastructure protection, etc.  The report also highlights any recently issued Congressional Research Service reports that may be of interest to the emergency planning/critical infrastructure protection professional.

Instructions on how to sign up for the email subscription service are below:

Sign up via our free e-mail subscription service to receive notifications when new information is available from the Higher Education Program and FEMA.gov.

You will receive Activity Reports and other pertinent information concerning professional development. You also have the option of signing up for additional e-mail updates from FEMA and EMI. Visit the subscriber settings page to sign up for additional e-mail notices. Once there, you can also receive e-mail updates targeted to your geographic area by clicking on “subscriber preferences” and inserting your state and ZIP Code where requested.

The links above will guide you through various aspects of the Higher Education Program. If you have any questions, please contact Barbara L. Johnson at Barbara.Johnson3@fema.dhs.gov.

Please note: Some of the websites linked from the Higher Ed courses, documents, presentations are not Federal government websites and may not necessarily operate under the same laws, regulations and policies as Federal websites.

Many thanks to Barbara for this useful service!  Well done!

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