include actual attacks on the degrees shipment these would damage the grid would end depend upon the severity over the incident. the structure is aging new hampshire technologies utilizing two-way communication and other digital capabilities are being incorporated with internet connectivity. while these advances can improve the efficiency and performance of the grid -- >> mr. campbell. can you pull the microphone a little closer. >> okay. >> thank you. >> while these advantages can improve the efficiency and performance the grid they may also inning crease vulnerability 0 to cyber attacks launch. from the internet. the 2014 the national security agency reported it has seen intrusions into industrial control systems with the apparent technical capability to take down the control systems and operate u.s. power grids, water systems and other critical infrastructure. although there's not been a cyber security event resulting in a power outage in the united states, the potential still

exists for such attacks causing a wide scale, long-lasting outage. happened in ukraine in december 2015. the attack targeted industrial control and operating systems at multiple regional utilities. other critical structures targeted in an attempt to impair recovery efforts. a report released by the national research council in 2012 concluded that while informed terrorists could black out a large region of the country to for weeks or months, it said if such an attack occurred during times of extreme weather hundreds of thousands of deaths could occur from heat stress or extended exposure to the cold. a systemic attack of the sort could cost the u.s. economy hundreds of millions of dollars. recovery from cyber and physical attack on the grid could be complicated by the cost and vulnerability of critical componented. for example, the strategic

destruction of a number of critical high voltage transformers could use up the limited inventory of spare unit cozy and make day months or years to build new units. the electric utility industry generally prepares for outages from weather related events and views the potential for a major cyber security attack or similar event as a low probability risk. if an event is severe enough to be a federally declared disaster, then fema, the federal energy management agency, can provide financial assistance to eligible utilities for their recovery efforts. and in 2016 congress gave the department of energy authority to order utilities to implement emergency security measures and fixing america's fixings frustration act. given potential for the damage to the nation's economy from major attack on grid some might suggest the greater focus on recovery is needed and should become as much a part of the

grid security strategy as the efforts to secure the grid. a focus on recovery should consider the mutual dependence and implications to other critical infrastructure of an electric grid failure and how quickly such impacts could proliferate if not planned for in advance. congress may also want to consider how the grid of the future will address cyber and physical security concerns. incorporating elements to increase system resellen si will aid in reduce thing vulnerability of the system. finally, we have state that after a major grid destruction, energizing transportation and contribution systems will be the first priority. restoring communication systems, fuel, water supply, and treatment, and hospital customers will be a second dear priority. congress may want to consider huh planning for the swept restoration of services would proceed to ensure that all communities are kept informed

and treated as equitably as possible in disaster recovery efforts. this concludes my brief remarks. look forward to your questions. >> thank you for your testimony, mr. campbell. now begin the first round of questions limited to five minutes for each member. if there are additional questions following the first round, we'll have additional rounds of questions as needed, and i will start with administrator fugate. could you please walk the committee through a timeline of consequences that we can expect to experience in the event of a large-scale and prolonged power outage which is the result of a combined cyber and physical attack. let's assume over ten million people are out of power in the northeast and it lasts for over a month. i'm not talking about how to turn the power back on. but what consequences will state

and local governments and residents have to deal with because the power is out. this miss concern. i'm going to by putt my mayor's hat back on. i have been listening to a lot of how prepared we are, what we can -- what is typical, what is unlikely and what we're going to do. but i'm not convinced we have connected the dots down to the love government. -- the local government. haven't talked to a mayor or township supervisors yet. when ski them the question and the event of unusual and unlikely event that power is out in the cyber attack, how long are you prepared to provide services? nobody can give me that answer. i know it's an unlikely event, so is the chances of two planes running into the twin towers in new york, very unlikely. so, that's what i'm hoping to

get at today, is -- for example in the first few days -- these are the people. i was a mayor. something like this happens, there's going to be panic and people are going to want to know, how long can we expect. i don't know if anybody has yet given me a clear answer in the event of both a physical and cyber, the worst case see nearow, very unlikely, very unusual, but still as a mayor and a supervisor, i would want to be prepared for that worst case circumstance. so, for example in the first few days there will be thousands of people stuck in elevators. after have to or four days, hospitals and other critical infrastructure will need fuel for generators. after a week, clean water and waste disposal may be -- hey have serious problems, and at some point people may start to self-evacuate in large numbers. please walk us through that timeline of increasing consequences as the duration of this scenario increases.

>> mr. chairman, first challenge, having actually had this happen during accidents, where human error caused power outages, we don't know at first how long it's going to be out, and often times you only know you're having a power outage and not aware of what is happening outside. situational awareness is key. you initial response will another knot be different. with heat had numerous communications go through power outages, substantial that, result inside having to mass rescue and elevator operations, deal with traffic control issues, hitting at commuter times with commuter rail being knocked off of electricity. we have seen this. most communities doing effective planning, those are things they'll be doing almost from the beginning. what is critical -- this goes back to what my partners to the left will focus on -- is this a short-term duration or long center we faced this in florida when if was still in the state. we had power knocked out that was not occurring in any set pattern. occurring awful over the state simultaneously.

the next question was, with this go into the night hours in if so the government will call out the national guard to provide darryl law enforcement support. so, again you start focusing on those immediate things of life safety, also safety in your communities because when you lose pour and start seeing disruptions you have to provide a much more visible form of policing and give people a sense of safety in their communities. that's going to require more manpower, more people on the streets. you start looking at my generators are not running. what systems need refueling next? the next 72 hours? and this is something i think is important. i learned this the hard way. a lot of communities does not plan for refueling in a crisis, and there are certain contractual things you have to have to make sure you get deliveries and the deliveries from suppliers may not be local. you're talking ten million. we were shipping fuel as far away as philadelphia back into new jersey and new york to provide gas. we found all kind regulatory challenges but you start going, okay, my first steps, pretty much my emergency response.

my next step, the next 72 hours. which of my critical facilities will start run out of fuel or have generator problems? by there is time we would hopefully have aced his is a larger event than local and we start looking at mobilizes resources from the outside, generators; it's key to keep the water systems and wastewater running. electricity has a lot of problems but water and waste earth are almost impossible mike up the difference. there's not a good way to manage that. those systems go offline for extended periods of time. once you get to, i'm past my 72 hours and starting to talk my first week, now you start really looking at what is the retail sector supply chain look like? florida learned the hard lesson that many gas stations, grocery stores and even pharmacies now have emergency power, and transfer switches because as we were dealing with power outages measured in weeks from hurricanes and some of our duration of outages went to almost a month. we found that retail was doing a

lot of things that we had to start supporting, because they were bring michigan generators and getting themselves back open, but we want doing it as a partnership. we found ourselves competing with them. so you want to plan this. think most communities that initial response, if they have good plans, they have done this or are prepared to do it. it's once you get past 72 hours that i think that they really need to start thinking through the plans. where are they've going to get fault fuel? what kind of thing does day have to keep up? and then where will be the next points. as well saw with new jersey and new york, initially it was the rescues and the trapped people and stuff like that. a lot of people evacuated. then it became the fuel. it became pharmacies negotiation e grocery stores and you start seeing cascading effects and those are the things that once your past 72 hours you need to start planning out, i'm out for a week, two weeks, i'm out for three weeks. how much of my core am -- the utilities north waiting. not going to be nothing

happening for a month but you won't get power back to everybody and not get power back to your residential areas. so can you get enough life support back up and rung where people that still don't have power can get the essentials. it won't be easy. it will be difficult. but the thing here now is to continue to trade off where can i make activities to buy more time to keep my population stable. evacuations, maybe self-evacuating, people will you won't see large numbers because it's unlikefully widespread outages there will be places to go to. so, again, becomes this time of stabilization, continue to look at the downrange impacts, what we're able to bring up about the reality is almost all the scenarios, including the cyber as well as the physical, residential areas are the last ones to get that power, so can you get enough life support and and infrastructure going to keep the major supply lines open. won't have terrifying, not going to have what the normal consumption rates are and may

have to do with what governor christie did and ration gasoline. but this means means you have tn out not just the power went out, but now what are the impacts imf that going through time hacks and then hopefully this is what our partners working on to give you better information about how much time are wetake talking about before key systems come up. when will we get the final power turn back on. in the absence of information that generates its own problems. if we know it's going to be out for three weeks we can plan. people are more resilient than we give them credit for, but lack of information, that in itself becomes a challenge. so ran out my time -- >> that's okay because it's important. that's what i'm trying to get at, is are these conversations and who is responsible for these conversations, with people at the local level? because this is unnorthern. if there's a storm coming, hurricane, an ice storm, we're prepared for that. we can expect -- we know what's

coming. an earthquake, you don't know it's coming but we have experience with that. but a widespread cyber attack with a physical attack attached it to is unknown, and who is having that conversation with people at the local level that we don't know. it could be out a week could be out longer than a week. you need to be prepared. all of those conversations actually happening? i'm not convinced that they are. and that's where the life will be lost. and i think we need to begin to find out how do we connect the dots, who is responsible to having those conversations down at the lowest level of the people who will be first charged with trying to protect lives. >> i'm going to turn to our ranking member carson for his questions. >> thank you very much, chairman barletta. madam hoffman, your testimony notes that the department's research and development

activities with respect to developing space transformer components, what is the cost manufacture to -- to manufacturers when you're making these alternative components and has a domestic manufacturer been identified so that we can ensure there's no disruption to its usage? >> thank you very much for the question. transformers are very critical component to electric sector that was, as was stated in the testimonies and some of the conversations earlier, with respect to transformers, the price of a transformer ranges anywhere between 5 million to $10 million. and so these are significant components. so, what do we need to do? what is our research program? what are the activities doing, looking for, dealing with the transformer issues. it's first of all looking at the

spare components and the spare transformers that industry has, and then industries looking at having capacity on their system. also looking at how to develop the next generation transformer, which might be a transformer that is -- you have the able to produce more quickly and also have more standardization and flexibility. so that includes in our research component, the development of power electronics and hybrid transformers. our 2017 budget request has a very strong program looking at transformers, which is about $10 million, which we're going to look at developing the next generation transforms as well as doing test offering transformers to make sure we understand vulnerabilities that may economist exist. >> thank you. in the event of widespread outage what are fema's plans with communicate with citizens on response and recovery efforts when there is zero electricity?

>> not much different than what we have faced in other significant outages. we have a variety of tools. first of all, within the emergency alert system, the radio stations, tv stations, many of them that have emergency power, tv stations, partner radio stations. we can get signals in. in addition if we lose a transmitter -- this is something we'll look at in oregon during the cascadei, not uncome to lose radio and tv stations. we look with the fcc to increase power to get signal back in and we encourage people have the battery operated radio and encourage the idea of fm chips in cell phones because we can get signals in from the outside but people need to receive it to get the information. part of this is going to be where the information is coming from. governors and their teams are going to be the best information testify local level. our job on a federal side is to provide the backup and tools

required, and we're prepared to work with the fcc and broadcasters to get signals from the outside, in addition we have gone as far -- and we did this in the sandy spots -- bringing in satellite musics and set up wi-fi in areas that have lost some of the cellular communications but we have another backup, and self-disclosure, i am an amateur raidover operator, and sometimes the more we look at the come mixity of our risk we forget we have resilient systems that aren't part of government but often timers the last thing rung when everything else failed. we look for everything from our systems and satellite technology, working with nonimpacted station, how to broadcast in, amateur radios are part of that. it's important that people take the steps to be able to get the information when we can get the signal in. that's why it may seem very pass say in an area of streaming everything, that a battery powered radio may be the lifeline and communication link to get information, because we

have seen even in large-scale -- like katrina, stations outside the area could broadcast in but you had to have a way to receive the information. >> lastly, have our most critical transforms and substations within the bulk power system been identified so that we have a clear comprehension of system dependencies and even cascading impacts 0om a widespread power outage regardless of cost. >> thank you for that question. we work very closely with the utility owners, with our partners at doe, ace well as american, to understand the most critical expects of the electric grid. we have a number of programs to help assess the vulnerabilities of thieves particular assets and to work with owners and operators to help enhance the

security and resilience to provide recommendations, but equally important, as you will hear later from jerry calley, the president and ceo of nerc, we have a series of standards that are intended to guide the stewart of some of these most critical assets. increasingly, within my office, we are working to better understand the dependencies and inner depend kenzies or critical energy assets to be able to visualize what an outage is -- the impacts it is going to have to other key lifeline sectors and to be able to provide that information as leaders to include administrator few gate and those of -- fugat. >> the chair recognizes mr. meds dose for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. for this important topic.

think this is one of the interesting aspects that i get asked about more than anything else. let me tell you why i'm a little bit troubled here today. is that i hear a lot of rhetoric that acts like we have our act together from a federal standpoint, when really the vast majority of the job that gets dub is real where with the stakeholders, the public utilities that for years have been prepared for mass outages, but perhaps the scope of the threat, the cyber threat, and what we're talking about mass outages, we can talk about hurricane sandy, we can talk about other storms. they're used to that. i'm just telling you. i used to work for an electric utility many years ago. i was around. i've got a enough gray hear and was around when the doe was actually formed. so when we look at this to suggest that the federal

government is here to help, i want to make sure that you're helping, and the chairman talked about the real communication that is being done. the real communication that is being done is really being done by the public utilities at the local level. if any is getting done. it's crickets when its comes to the other federal agencies as it relates to this. now, i say that as a criticism only because we have to figure out that we're sick before we start to figure out the diagnosis and how to fix it. so let me ask assistant secretary hoffman for your help in your testimony you talked about national security and how you can reprioritize and make sure that those national security interests are supplied by public utilities or governmental agencies. here's my concern. many of our national security interests actually have their own generating and own

distribution capacity, and yet i find them woefully underprepared for cyber attacks. some of them are primary metered at the point of entrance so you may have a public utility providing generating capacity, they do the distribution so as we look at this, what kind of turf war doo we get in between dod and doe with regardses to being ready for a cyber attack that would have national security implications. >> thank you, congressman for the question. when we deal with any sort of events we are going act as a whole government. so, whether it's a -- >> who is in charge? here's the problem. i've dealt with a number of agencies so we get fema that comes in, and we get local emergency management responses, and what you have is you have different people saying different things. so with regards to national security, who is in charge of the power grid? is it doe or dod?

>> the owners and operators are ultimately in charge of the power grid. the support to the power grid is going to come both from doe, with respect to work with the owners and operators to restore power, dod has the responsibility with respect to national security and protection. so from a physical security perspective, we may look at law enforcement to help with utilities to protect substations. depends on the event but the response will be coordinated. >> all right. so you have a plan, a coordinated plan that i could look at today on how that would happen. >> so far -- >> you can give to this committee in terms -- because here's what happens is most of the time an event happens and then you go out and you figure out the problems. mr. fugate was talking about the fact we learn lessons from each event, but the problem with a cyber event, as we're looking at in ukraine, here we have an

outage to over 200,000 people russian was cut off. the real problem is they were in the system for almost six months and we didn't know about it. if guess the question is, how many times are we getting attackes and are they in our systems without our knowledge? >> you bring up a good point, congressman, thank you. the issue is, every event and every incident is going to be different, and we're going to have to think about the capabilities when somebody can take someone's access credentials. we have to think about that and look at that as an industry. so we're taking the lesson learn -- >> that's more of a physical threat. want to go back to the cyber aspect. what we're degree is -- i heard miss durkovic talk about this, we're looking at risk management and what we need to start to focus on is a real comprehensive plan on how we're going to partner with the private sector or public utilities on doing this, because what happens is we

get a little check box and we say, well, we have gone and talked to x, y, z, and asked them to make shire they're vigilant about cyber security, which most of them are, but yet what happens is, we don't have a comprehensive plan at a federal level to look at how we can support enemy the event of a -- support them in the event of national athat would come in the way of cyber. i'm not talk about storms or stealing a credential. i'm talking about real attack wes get hit with every day. have we done a risk assess arraignment we have intelligence and have we shared that with the public utilities? because a lot of time wes have this national security concern that we don't want to share that with an outside group because of national security concerns. >> thank you. you bring up very good points in your discussion. first of all we follow the non response framework, at the administrator talked about, regardless of whether it's a physical or cyber or weather

related event, we're going act as a whole government and respond to that. with respect to your question on intelligence, we are sharing information with the private sector. dhs and doe regular loyces classified briefings with the private sector to share, aable information, and that is the information that the utilities are able to take back and really do response for. with respect to specific events, ukraine, they have provided actionable information. doe working with the electric sector center has provided actionable information to the industry to learn from these events and prepare, and that's what is important. each event is going to be different. we have to take those events and learn from them. >> i have run out of time. yield back, mr. chairman. thank you for your patience. >> thank you. chair recognizes mr. defazio for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. regretted had to step out to go

to a hearing upstater. the committee should look at not scheduling hearings in different subcommitees at the same time. administrator fugat you made a number of excellent points when you talked about being a ham radio operator, obviously that is a potential backup, but i was recently in japan, and one of their greatest regrets is that they didn't have enough sensors -- deep ocean sensors ss and stunned statemented the size of the tsunami and did manage to get out warning with that original estimate before the electrical grid went down in those areas and they had no cavable of broadcasting and washing people. and therefore many people sheltered in places that actually were below the crest of the tsunami and died. so, they've now moved to a cell phone-based system and required resilient cell towers to be built.

are we looking at anything like that here in the u.s.? >> yes, sir. part of the charge you gave news the fcc was to develop wireless emergency alerts which working with the carriers we implemented faster than we thought. right now every cell phone being manufactured today is required to be able to transmit a wireless emergency alert, part the emergency alert system. tsunami warnings are built into those, so i there's a triggering event the originator for that would be the national weather service, tsunami warning centers and in oregon, it would be the alaska warning center. it's geocoded to the years of impact so come counties with get notifications over the cell phone you. cannot -- don't have to opt in don't have to sign up. the only thing you can do on a cell phone is turn it off and not get the alerts. so unless you have done that, a tsunami warning would be issued and transmilted upon that pinpoint go out. you do point out one of the challenges which is why we work

closely at local levels. it's hard to get the magnitude of the tsunami so the evacuation zones have to be what's the maximum risk can we have to move down. a phased approach. it's too close to the coast and that's why we tell people, even before you get the washing, if you feel shaking, you have to move to higher grind. even with a warning, you only have minutes to move. but the cell phone system now, assume as soon as the weather service issues a warning. it has answered the question of what will wake people up in the middle of the night, and your cell phone buzzing and humming and making strange knows noises walt the hole u. over system. ...

as we see the replacements, we have now third, fourth, fifth replacement cycles. we are getting good penetration with those systems. >> that's great. i have been on an airplane where we were held on the ground because of thunderstorms and everyone's cell phones started buzzing, like a tornado alert or something. that is great progress. to the honorable ms. hoffman, just on the issue i raised earlier, the transformer issue. it does seem really critical and they are very expensive, cumbersome, hard to move. by aiming, where are you at in evaluating the potential for possibility of having some backup or replacement transformers in a strategic reserve? you are analyzing that are where

are you at in that process? >> thank you very much for the question. the transformer reserve plan that was required as part of the fast act is in progress. we have contracted with oak ridge national lab urgent to do an assessment with respect to transformers. the transportation issues come the transportation issues, any sort of where they would be placed, volumes inside as you're well aware the transformers in united states are quite unique and let's also look at a parallel process for how do we look at standardization, look at next-generation transfer for additional manufacturing. we are in the process of assessing the transformer manufacturing in the u.s. d.o.e. has had several reports with respect to manufacturing. the are several manufacturing entities in the u.s., including fsx, george are transformer, g. april the and hyundai to the

transformer manufacturers in the u.s. is that enough capacity? i would say we need more capacity with respect to transformers. it's important we continue to look at a transformer sharing program. we are in progress and on target to me that deliverable for the committee. >> what was the timeline that was established? >> that timeline in the fast act as one year from enactment, so we would be due in september. >> great. are you unaware when the regional administration is, are you working with them? they have most of, are interlinked in some places with -- provide for the participation high-voltage power transmission. half of that, part of it is d.c.'s we have two different sets of transformers. >> thank you very much for highlighting that. we are working with the power marketing administrations which

includes -- their core assets and the department of energy as well as core asset to the electric infrastructure writ large. they are very important part of the conversation. as required by the fast act we will do consultation with industry and with experts in this area. >> okay thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> the chair recognizes mr. perry for five minutes. >> the fast act you were just discussing includes which are just discussing some additional roles and authorities. i can you talk further about the importance of the transformer reserve and what your thoughts on that are particularly? >> thank you very much for the question. the transformers in the united states are very critical component of the system. the fast act recognizes the criticality of these transformers as well as the need

to assess where are we at with respect to any sort of need for a plan to develop a plan for transformer spare capacity. so what this means is really evaluating the spare capacity in the united states, the inability to transport transformers. so where we should have a transformer stockpile if necessary to where it would be located. because of the different sizes and dimensions of transformers. so part of the point of what we're looking at with oak ridge national laboratory's, our national laboratories with industry, is assessing the number of transformers, the size of transformers meaning the different voltage classes, and where those transformers could potentially be needed to be located because of transportation issues. the industry has had discussions with the class they railroads and we have a transportation of transformers. you may not be aware a lot of

substations are in very remote locations. so really the criticality and sometimes the only manufacturing the transformers but it is the transportation of those transformers to a location. >> would he be considered the timeline for manufacture in that study, and when can we expect results of? >> yes, we have started looking at and had several reports out with respect to transform a manufacturing. those were on d.o.e.'s website but the result will be included in the report in the summer. >> do you discuss cost for reimbursement in your report? >> part of the request is to look at policy implications and costs and financing of that. we are going to work within the department of energy with our energy policy and systems analysis group and assess what are some of the financial implications to setting up and developing a transformer reserve. >> in my opinion the epa

continues to overregulate the energy industry. and with that i don't think they have the ability to determine or examine the requirements. mr. fugate, i'm sure you're aware based on what i have here as of december of 2015, retiring to th the epa policy from retirg or converting 81,423 megawatts, or 499 units, based on regulation. has yuma done an examination -- fema -- how epa regulations affect the grid and capacity? are you interested in doing that? even with the capacity is empty know the ramifications of the loss of the 499 units and the 81,000 plus megawatts? >> to be honest, we really depend upon our partners at dhs that do that.

we are not the subject matter experts. we determine for our infrastructure protection what that means and what those impacts are. having come from florida i would leave as we've seen these types of changes, we've seen dependency move from coal-fired to natural gas. so we have to start planning for what happens there. i can probably come unique expense of having a natural gas pipeline severed due to lightning strike, knocked out all the natural gas to the southern end central part of the stupid we had a tremendous dependence on natural gas petri units an that were fortunate we have mild weather otherwise we would've had generated capacity shortfalls that would not have been made up. >> i've got a limited amount of time, so if fema isn't doing it particularly who are you kidding, which partner aren't getting that information from? who is assessing the effect of the regulation, the loss of

capacity and the timing of that loss? who is doing that of your partner's? >> i would depend upon my partners to the left. we look at energy as a function of government because as you point out the are numerous parts of the regulatory and response structure. we concentrate that -- >> with all due respect to ask reporters to the left, you have that information? are you tracking that? >> thank you very much for the question. the department does look at reliability implications with respect to any sort of master change in generation in the united states. with respect to the clean power plan, it is really going to be asked the states develop their applications plans. the assessment will occur with the regional reliability entities and any independent system operators with a will coordinate and understand the reliability impacts. >> so you don't know what it is up front with you to assess it as it occurs like you don't know that so many plans and so much

capacity is leaving in ohio or pennsylvania or alabama? you don't know that in advance and make an assessment of the potential risk that is involve? >> thank you. from a widespread reliability point of view, d.o.e. he leaves that the clean power plan and the regulations will not have any widespread reliability impacts. the specific -- >> hold on. with the chairman's indulgence, you believe that but you believe it because you have empirical data to support up with weekly that because someone is telling that we believe that because you don't of any reason to disbelieve it? >> right now the dose will work very hard to inform the liability of the system. our past experiences as any sort of reliability concerns come up, there is strong coordination within the industry to address any sort of reliability back. >> does that mean if he thought it was going to be a reliability

impacts based on the regulation and the capacity reduction that you would, you would essentially exonerate or waive the requirements for a period of time to make sure that capacity remains? do you have a policy to do that? is there a thought to that? what is your plan if you come up against something that doesn't comport with what you think needs to be from a capacity step what? >> within the clean power plan that states as they develop their clean power plan, their state plans, they will be coordinating with the reliability entities, the isos in the rv owes looking at a potential reliability applications. >> how does that work? i live in a multi-state organization. it's not state-by-state. it is multistate because all feeds into the same grid. how does one states plan affect another? who coordinates whether a reliability capacity issue in that regard speak with the states for record as part of the clean power plant to coordinate

with pjm. they have and will continue to get reliability analysis for the region. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate your indulgence. >> the chair recognizes mr. series. >> thank you, chairman, for holding this hearing and ranking member, but this very important. i represent the eighth district of new jersey which got hoboken in some of the other areas which got hit very hard by sandy creek of other anything, about how infrastructure, is how unprepared we were for storm or anything else. there's plenty of blame to go around. everybody always points to the federal government but reality is states do a lot of things and the locals could do a lot of things that the power companies could do a lot of things. i always think of example, i did once before, there was a generator in a flood zone, and

that our company was protected by it chain-link fence pics when it flooded obviously the chain-link fence did not hold the water back. so what i'm trying to get at is these are the kind of simple things we can do to protect this particular transformer. the other thing was in terms of a gas station or talk about it now that we learned, i mean come with plenty of gas, quite frankly, but they couldn't offer a. so simple thing like a small generator to just move the pom-pom of the gas from, you know, from the containers to the people. i mean, would suffice. so when i say to you that everybody shares the blame in this, i just hope that, that we

have come from sandy far enough to learn some of the mistakes that we are correcting. administrator fugate, would you please tell me we've come a long way from where we were? >> we have come a long ways. we haven't gone far enough. you point out what i see as the real challenge. which cyber highlights. that contingency plans for what we used to dealing with them not for what can happen. again as you point out we put a fence around a generated in a flood zone. the reason you have a generator is if the power goes out, one of the likely reasons for power outage is a coastal storm. you have not had one in a long time so you're more concerned about someone breaking into damaging to transformer. that's the trap cyber is new. a lot of things we're going to do what not be new in response to the consequences but if we don't know what we are planning against we may run the risk of only planning for what we have been used to having them may be short-term power outages, maybe

disruptions that are strictly local and no plan for what could happen in plan against it. unfortunate as you point it would try to promote these lessons, but it seems to again be one of our challenges. how geeky people to change what let's talk about gas stations. that's a private entity. putting in a generator is the cost. so you can just ship a generator there. it is a workable because most of those utilities are underground and it's hard to get a generator hooked up to it. in some states they put in incentives that gas stations would be required to regulation to put in a transfer switch. it was a good compromise. that way if they did lose power, we could get generators in there and hook it up in podcast. this is what we've got to be careful. it's easy to say this is a fix until you ask who's paying for it. i think this is the trade-offs of what would make sense either through incentives, tax credits, regulatory oversight to get these changes. i can't ask the business to lose

money if their other partners or competitors are not doing the same thing. at the same time you have to put a generator in every gas station. that's not also message of a great ide the. putting any transfers which was a good compromise. as we learned these lessons, we go back to this trap of, we plan for what we have experienced in the past, and that does not always scale up to the future impacts. we've got the lessons learned. we put information out there but the receptive best of that audience is oftentimes based upon do they perceive as threat as applying to them. as you know for your community can we talk about hurricanes and evacuations. most people simply don't have hurricanes. we have nor'easter's. it's getting people from planning bigamy cases we know what these impacts are at is the chance of getting people to plan for what can happen. not what they're prepared to be based upon only the past experiences as the chairman points out, not a lot of experience with cyber. part of this is getting, what are we planning against?

and then, what would we do differently? if it requires resources where are those coming from? >> i also think that we have to be prepared post-sandy because one of the issues with the problems in new jersey were people still are out of their homes years later. actually unacceptable to us for your late that have these issues were people, with insurance, with the evaluation of the property. i mean, somehow we have to be prepared for some of these things because it impacts real people. >> it does and our experience coming out of hurricane katrina fighters after we sold 5000 families living in travel trailers because we didn't have the right answers. so rebuilding after disaster is again very time-consuming. there's a lot of hurdles and i

agree it is ideal to get people back in homes as quickly as possible but that requires a lot of things that go beyond even some of my programs. israel as you point out state, locals and -- >> i'm not putting this on you. on putting the blame on the locals and the state that we should prepare for any of the storm or whatever we have. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. chair recognizes mr. massey. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm going to yield as much of my time as he might consume to the gentleman from north carolina. >> i thank the gentleman from kentucky for yielding and i want to follow up on one thing because as you talked about the transformers and having these backup transformers as the redundancy. one of my major concerns is that decision to give made by d.o.e. or dhs or fema, all of a sudden what we do is we transfer that the liability to others that are providing service. right now all utilities have backup transformers, primarily

for distribution purposes. but even for larger transmission related transformers and switches. however, if you're going to make a decision, it directly impacts rate holders for two reasons. if they are having to have $10 million transformers sitting there, i don't know that they can get a return on that investment messag necessarily. if you start to extrapolate that out if it's not in service, just kind of like generating capacity, there's a certain length of time to have been ordered to bring it online so that they can get a return. ultimately, it affects the ratepayer, anything that you do. when we start to look at the security implications, what i would encourage both of you to do is look at it as we would from fema, is that it is a federal redundancy that is required, not the redundancy

that needs to be done by utility to delete to utility. to have that commitment that you would look at it as a federal obligation versus a private obligation? >> yes, congressman. thank you. >> okay. i see you nodding your head. for the record both of them said yes. let me finish with one another i guess concern when we are talking about sharing in a classified setting with the stakeholders. have all the utilities participated in that secured setting where you have let them know of both the threat potential and real threats that we already have experienced? you were saying we don't and classified setting and i just find that interesting. i'm not challenging you but i want to drill down on the because i don't know of too many, maybe the big utilities but there are hundreds.

they come into a classified study and say this is your risk, this is where it is, that your testimony here today? >> so thank you for the question. information sharing occurs at multiple levels. we do have classified information with the electric sector coordinating council which is 30 ceos that comprise the whole sector of the investor owned utilities, municipal, co-ops that participate in that information sharing compact classified information. in addition we've had one day readings were brought a larger section of utilities and to to classified information sharing. we have done that. dhs has done regional information sharing meetings where they have had opportunities to bring folks in into information. it occurs on multiple levels. habited every single --

>> i'm not saying, i want to be systemic and i guess i would yield back to my good friend from kentucky in just a couple of seconds but i want to make sure that i'm clear. as we get the stakeholders, what i wanted to be is more than just a box we are checking off. i want eei, i want all of the groups that are there to buy-in and say we have a plan. we do it for mass outages like sand and other hurricanes. we haven't done that, i believe, adequate as relates to cyber. do have both of your commitment you will we double your efforts to include them as the stakeholders? >> yes, we will redouble our efforts. the one thing i would say, fisa we redoubling our efforts is the grid ask where we are actively exercising the. >> couple years back to my good friend. >> thank you. i just had a brief question that occurs to me during this

tremendous question which is a this classified information, if we sought to get a brief on that which you make yourself available in a classified setting for us, as accountable to what sort of legislation might be necessary? >> yes, congressman, we be glad to have a briefing with you. >> is that the case for everybody? >> yes or. >> mr. fugate? >> i would originate most of the data but i would be there, most of the origination of the classified information would come from my partners at the left. >> thank you very much and i yield back. >> with respect to time for our second panel, we're going to move on. i think if i can summarize, and i thank you all for participating today, i think if i can summarize administrator fugate, that play for local and state governments needs to be in terms of weeks, not days. and that's important because that's the first time i've heard

what we need to begin to look at in the event of an attack. i didn't want to thank you all for your testimony. your comments have been very helpful in today's discussion. we will now call on our second panel. [inaudible conversations] >> i remind you of the subcommittee's request to limit your oral testimony to five

minutes. mr. cauley, you may proceed. >> good morning, chairman barletta, ranking member defazio and members of the subcommittee. great to be here today testify. my name is gerry cauley, i'm president and ceo of the north american electric reliability corporation, a nonprofit overseen the reliability and security of the power grid in the united states, canada and a porsche mexico. we have afforded aside by congress to develop and enforce standards affecting reliability and security of the grid. that authorities overseen by the federal energy regulatory commission. we can agree electricity is the most critical lifeline sector for national security for other lifeline sectors like finance, water and transportation for the economy and for public safety. everyday we reminded of the stress test of our job related to security agree. there have been terrorist

attacks in france and belgium and even here domestically. there have been cyber attacks and data breaches across various industries and across government. particular relevance to our grid on december 23, 2015, it was a cyberattack in the ukraine which was launched against three distribution companies and in which the perpetrators gained control of the three distribution companies and were able to put out the lights for 225,000 customers for up to six hours. a team from the u.s. went to investigate that incident in the ukraine, including a member of the nerc staff. the cyber threats are real but i think we're very different situation in the ukraine as compared to what we had in the united states in north america. security controls in north america are very different. we are the only industry with mandatory and enforceable reliability standards affecting physical and cybersecurity.

we are currently in the fifth generation of our cybersecurity standards. they are risk-based standards based on nist type controls. they are adaptable. we have a very robust compliance monitoring and enforcement program. system operators use modern controlled to ensure the security of the system including separation of corporate and business systems from control systems. physical access controls, patch management, aggressive threat hunting and medication, and employ and contractor training, and many other measures that they take. take. we've established electricity senator courtney council at the highest levels of industry and government including ceos and top officials from government. ceos and boards of power companies take security very seriously, and security is one of the highest minority's on a

regular basis. out information sharing and analysis center which he for about provides robust information sharing regarding physical and cyber threats. with engagement of industry leaders we have gone through a review and update of the keep those of the i sack and i sack i believe is closely integrated with the security operations and information sharing at individual companies as well as estate fusion centers and other sectors. we also operate a tool which is a way to monitor the electronic internet traffic tiki sites around the industry and compare the traffic to threats and vulnerabilities that we are aware of worldwide and one the utilities the issues they may be experiencing in real-time. in the unlikely event of a successful site or physical attack, i believe we are well prepared.

nerc complete a study of the restoration and recovery capability plans and drills and exercises of nine major companies and industry. that report is available publicly and is posted on the nerc website but it demonstrated that preparation is there and that the plans have been exercise. as you were before on november this past year, nerc led by the i believe is the largest grade teacher to exercise in the world. over 400 entities in north america participated. we had over 4400 registered users. to distribute play portion where we are in a central control place when we inject the attacks outward, and so the power companies are engaged in the exercise locally in their own control centers in their own

substations and power plants. they are receiving information from us. that portion of the exercise i apologize for my voice. getting over a cold. that portion lasted two days. on the second day there was an executive tabletop which were altogether for senior executives from industry and government. the center concluded cyberattacks, physical attacks including active shooters, truckmounted explosive devices and unmanned surveillance drones. this hypothetical event was extreme and it was intentionally extreme to really go beyond our capabilities with the test system and really the point to find out what can we learn and what do we need to do to improve. during the distribute to the plate exercise because outages. no one was affected. we simulated lightning customers were out, entering the executive section to invoke all the policy questions at the national level

to pull that they are quick 15 million customers out. those outages are projected to be extended for weeks and even two months to really push the questions that the chairman is trying to raise today. participating in this work for them emergency procedures, had extensive contacts with local on force but and first responders and actually those local government officials and first responders to persisting in the exercise. we had an exercise we have the white house, dhs, d.o.e., defense, cybercom nsa, northcom, fema and illinois and wisconsin national guard are some of the players who participate directly in the executive exercise. number of key takeaways were to make sure that we are able to better coordinate between industry and government in terms of the situation assessment and what do we communicate to the public? it would be a constant race with

regard to the information to the public on social media and news of a quick i want to make sure we didn't pashtun we are getting reliable information out to the public. focus on ensuring unity of effort and unity of scale and that we can resolve all of our resources. looking forward i would say in this exercise we will continue to expand the role of state and local governments and participants in the exercise to make sure we can exercise some of the things that chairman is looking to get here which is, how do we engage, inform, and had we set expectations? i look forward to your questions. thank you. >> good morning chairman barletta, ranking member defazio and members of the committee. my name is wayne spence, president, chairman and ceo of ppl corporation. we deliver electricity to more than 10 million in the u.s. and uk. beyond my roll over same our operations i'm also on the pei

ceo policy committee on reliability and business continuity. i'm a member of the electricity subcommittee, or some sector coordinating council the chart about earlier. we serve as the principal liaison between the federal government and the electric power sector to protect against cyber threats to the nation's power grid. protecting the nation's power grid is not only a top for a federal government, it's also a top 30 for the industry. we have faced very strong record of working together closely in all kinds of disasters and storms. along with our government partners. we identify, assess and respond to all threats. the electric sector takes the defense and depth approach to protecting as suspect this approach includes three key elements. the first is a rigorous mandatory enforceable and regularly audited reliability standards. also close wer coronation among

industry and with government partners at all levels. thirdly, efforts to prepare, respond and recover should power grid operations be affected. our industry already maintains hundreds of spare transformers. i don't believe that came up earlier but you should be aware that. we just recently launched as an industry a new project called great assurance. under great assurance many of the major utilities in the sector are coming together to establish regional centers where we will not only store spirit transfers but other critical equipment necessary to quickly recover the power system in any type of an event. among all the critical infrastructure sectors you should know that the electric sector invest more annually than any other critical infrastructure sector. last year alone we invested more than $100 billion. regarding security standards and regulations, as you would were

subject to reliability standards, entities that violate the standards faced those of up to $1 million per violation per day. in factor industry is the only industry subject to these mandatory federally enforceable cyber and physical standards. the industry is also implementing requirement for physical security as part of a broader suite of nerc standard and using voluntary standards as well to drive improvement. we are coordinate close with the federal government sharon threat information between the government and industry to protect the creative. according to the national infrastructure advisory council, the electric power sector is viewed as a model for other critical infrastructure sectors can more effectively partner with government. our intent is to keep it that way. the electric some sector coordinating council brings senior government and industry executives like myself together with agency officials to improve sector wide resilience against all-hazards and potential

threats. the escc and our analysis center offer programs like the cyber risk information sharing programs, as jerry also mentioned which we share information on potential threats. this is never i think the federal government has been very helpful to the industry, by allowing us to utilize proprietary hardware and software that was developed at the national labs and is now helping to protect the grid. we have over 75% of u.s. customer base covered by industry participation in this critical program. but escc is focused on other areas including planning and exercising responses made by disruptions. our last exercise was a combined cyber and physical threat. we are also ensuring rapid threat communication amongst share owners and stakeholders who are also developing government health technologies on electric power systems that improve situational awareness

and cross sectoral coordination. last but not least where focus on incident response and recovery efforts. electric power companies continuously plant an exercise for a broad range of potential threats. we ship crews and equipment in times of trouble, and we drill for potential emergencies. for our part ppl is engaged in the industry efforts i've highlighted and pursuing an aggressive defensive best approach to protecting the power grid. thank you and i look forward to questions. >> thank you for your testimony. mr. spence. >> chairman barletta, ranking member defazio at all mirrors of the committee. thank you for inviting me to testify today at our electric cooperatives manage the consequences of a power outage. getting power restored quickly and safely requires advanced thinking and planning. my name is bobbi kilmer and i'm testify today on behalf of claverack rural electric cooperative and the national rural electric cooperative association.

we have low -- acting lesson six consumer from out of line and we serve primarily residential accounts. we are one of pennsylvania's 13th electric cooperatives and our electric dish vision system is not directly connected to the bulk power system. and national rural electric cooperative association nerc is dedicated to representing the national interest of national cooperatives and their consumers. we represent more than 900 not-for-profit consumer of were elected because of provide electricity to over 42 main people in 47 states. electric co-ops are campbell to the consumer members, those same numbers own and government co-ops and locally elected board of directors. electric co-ops reflect the values of their membership and are uniquely focus on providing reliable energy at the lowest

reasonable count cost. responded to out just is a major part of our business. assessing the situation, knowing who to call to determine how to proceed is imperative and it requires coordinated efforts to the public and private sectors during major events. what of the principles of the cooperative business model is cooperation among cooperatives. this is integral to our emergency plan in response. in pennsylvania as in many states to electric cooperatives statewide association plays an important role in emergency coordination. electric co-ops have agreements between one another so that during a major event the process of securing additional crews and resources is simplified. there's also a national cooperatives database which facilitates cross state mutual assistance. as i noted, this network help our statewide secure crews from florida to assist us in our restoration following hurricane

sandy. also important are the relationships that we have with state and local government agencies. during major events our statewide association is in regular contact with the pennsylvania public utility commission and emergency management agency. the statewide communicates outage information as well as requests for assistance from other governmental divisions on our behalf. locally we are in touch with our county emergency management agencies. we advise them of outages in their counties and expected restoration times. this allows them to coordinate with other organizations like the red cross to set up services such as warming shelters. we have close relationships with our local police and fire departments. and along with other agencies and utilities we participate in tabletop exercises which simulate emergency scenarios and strengthen our community networks. communication with our members is important. we always provide the option to

speak with a live customer service representative. we use outgoing telephone messages, informationa informatr postings on our website and social media, and use radio and television broadcasts which could be used even invent the internet is down to keep members and the public informed about outages. we test our business continuity and disaster recovery plans annually and we have plans so we can operate from a remote location, if necessary. cybersecurity and awareness is a critical part of our operational preparedness. though we are a small utility we strive to follow industry best practices such as the use of network scanning and intrusion detection programs in protecting our operational data as well as our business and member information. we participated in the pennsylvania department of homeland securities task force on cybersecurity. our preparedness in the field tested drug to you to localize outages caused by weather events and other conditions. lessons learned through experience along with the

coordination with our national statewide and local networks would form the basis of our response to a national or cyber event. i didn't think you were the opportunity to testify today on our emergency preparations and recovery efforts. >> thank you for your testimony. i'll now begin our first round of questioning. this question is t to all. i'm going to all. but when asked if the same same question i asked our first panel. what is the planning scenario that state and local governments should be using for a cyber attack on the electric grid? will to power be out for days or weeks or months? considering both a cyber attack any physical attack, the worst case scenario. how widespread could the outage be? mr. cauley, nerc and to exercise an affiliate of the grid. what scenario do you use?

>> thank you, mr. chairman for the question. as i mentioned in my presentation, we do probably post this in your that is 10 times beyond any sort of realistic expectation in terms of magnitude, which is to test and check us out and see what we can do. the difficulty in understanding the question is that there's many kinds of hazards that can cause outages. we do a lot of data and analysis about what causes blackouts. that's one of our jobs. since 2011, so four years running in our data, whether has been the top 10 causes of all major outages in north america. we have that sort of baseline. the question for me, i phrase it as what kinds of things can cause outages from a few hours

up to two to three days bucks there's a lot of things that contribute towards that come and what kind of response capability we have. it could be storms, equipment for your company number of things. then i think as we get to the kind of things were talking about in terms of cyber and physical attacks, i think it's reasonable to ask, and severe storms, ice storms, hurricanes. it is very similar to ask the question how do we take care of people. in a one to two week outage. it may not be anywhere but it might be in some local areas. it might be some cities that could reasonably be facing a one to two week outage but i would hate to say is the storm or cyber them. the public safety is similar. the major difference would be to make up the major difference would be we know there's some kind of security concern to law enforcement would be involved but still the same fundamental without electricity you need to take care people, get fuel, food

and water those kinds of things. the one sinner that is the exception that i think was appropriate the committee participated in the legislation around spirit equipment, the one scenario i think realistically concerned be longer than the ones come is damage to spare equipment, particularly the transformers that could happen from bomb blasts, shootings, other storms pick the of the question is not what caused it. the question is what is going to do if hoosier transformers? >> i want to get this down, connect the dots down to the local and state. i feel pretty confident that getting to that point we've got all the ducks in order. i'm just concerned that there's a missing link to what should the state and local governments be preparing for or planning for a length of time? because they need to do the same

thing you are doing. they need to know the scenario of worst case, what do we need to prepare for? >> and i've been doing reliability for 35 years. i think there's two levels. as normal expected, one to three days is a normal kind of scenario everybody should be prepared for. i think a one to two weeks in there is a scenario that if you're prudent, i would be talking withthe mayors and city councils about what you can do to be ready for a one to two week outage in the extreme case of hurricanes, earthquakes and those kinds of things. my only exception to spirit equipment damage, may be more challenging. it really is independent of the cost whether it's cyberattack i can't imagine a cyber attack that will damage equipment, haven't outage more than hours or days. >> i would agree with the

mr. cauley. i think the prudent thing would be the same as what we're doing today for devastating storms, which is really 22 week outage preparation. i think a lot of resources that are currently available to local communities both at the state and the local community level. great resource at a fortune i don't think all the towns and communities take full advantage of. a lot of really good best practices that have been used by towns and cities that have been more experience with devastating storms. so, for example, the state of florida has a lot of expenses couple of lessons learned there that are available to towns and communities but i think the other thing that i think this was mentioned ivy representative of fema earlier, it really was down to in many cases the probability of the event happening, that risk of the event and willingness to put in place and spend the money for

backup generation or other backstops it would be necessary for one to two week event. i think that's were i would direct the towns to be unaware of what's available, utilize not only and to make the critical investments that they need to survive a one to two week period. >> i'm going to connect the dots. do you think it's the federal government responsibility for the state government's responsibility to make sure that the local government is doing all that? i'm concerned record everybody pointing fingers at each other, well, i thought you said, i thought you did, and nobody did. whose responsibility should it be that we make sure that the local governments are prepared? today as the first time i'm hearing a length of time. you know, in my own mind, again, i will put that major setback on. i'm thinking if it's a week or two weeks, there's a lot of things i need to be prepared

for, and we are probably not. which means that most cities are probably not prepared at a think that's what this hearing is about, is really to raise a red flag today that we are not prepared in the event of something drastic, major, unlikely, but could be. >> a couple comments, richard durbin. first i would say you probably would not want it is necessary but i think it is a shared responsibility between local government and the federal government. i really do believe that because you're just not condone the federal boots on the ground and all these local communities to get the committee back up and running. secondly, i would say that there's things the local utilities to have at their disposal to help with local communities in terms of communication and even backup generators, portable generator that we can deploy to make sure we need to restore the system and we can do in a timely fashion, at least there's basic

level of service we can provide. in an extended period of outage you will still the power to certain areas, have backbone power. preeminent be this down for that town but collectively they would be ways to get resources available to the local towns and communities. to be quite frank, i was skeptical when we started this electric subsector cord knitting council and whether the federal government was going to get help us as an industry to restore power quicker. i've been pleasantly surprised at the last level of cooperation and collaboration that has gone on in the last three to four years. they are simple things like providing fuel that we desperately needed during hurricane sandy to restore towns and communities in new jersey and pennsylvania. there's other things like providing beds for cruise that are coming from out of state. we were able to access barracks at the department of defense facilities. we were able to access portable generators. we were able to access experts

and emergency response. so the are some things the federal government can be very, very helpful for, and i think now that we have a playbook that really dictates who does what wind, which was always my concerconcerned if a major eveno do i call? are they going to be ready for that call? i can say that from what i've seen so far, i believe we are more ready than we've ever been in the past and we have a very good system and a playbook and we can go right down the line and have access. we are talking about this committee, cyber resources at highest level of the federal government. >> thank you. >> i agree with my fellow panelists and the shared responsibility. i would also like to emphasize to the subcommittee importance of communications during crisis periods. my experience has been that sometimes it's not the length of the outage but simply knowing how long it's going to be or what the expectation is. it can help both residential consumers as well as townships

and towns understand how they need to plan. i would also like to add one thing that we've seen in our rural area, especially since hurricane sandy. and that is a focus on individual preparedness. i think our local county emergency management agencies doing a great job in trying to educate the public on being prepared. we tried to do the same thing. of course, we are in a rural area, subject to many events so i think our consumers are relatively prepared. i'm not suggesting we can rely on that but that is an element in all of this. thank you. >> the chair recognizes ranking member. >> thank you, chairman barletta. ms. kilmer, you mentioned that claverack is not elected to the bulk power system but you receive services from -- what

does that mean for your cooperative in the event of nationwide cyber attacks on the grid? >> in the event that was a cyber attack that took down the grid we would be effected by that. the transmission system was affected empower was disrupted to our substations, we would also be out of power. >> mr. spence or, or whoever, there was a newspaper article yesterday that indicated that the fbi and the department of homeland security have been warning the power industry over the last month about a potential cyber attack. what role as the electricity information sharing and analysis center, what role might deploy industry-leading this kind of information? >> thank you, congressman. that is exactly really want the information sharing analysis center does.

in fact not aware of that particular one because we do dozens of these today. we get information, posted industry, have several thousand participants in industry who receive those notices every day. >> i yield back, mr. chairman. thank you. >> the chair recognizes mr. meadows. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. cauley, did i do correctly? use it in the event of a cyber attack, the longest period of time that people would be without power is at our? is that what you said? >> thank you for allowing me to follow up on whatever i said. my point -- >> sometimes i don't hear correctly but i just wanted to give you a chance. >> the point i was trying to get to but i rushed, was it's a very difficult form of attack to go from a cyber attack, it's easy to steal information or disrupt electronics. it's technically challenged to

go from an electronic cyber attack to causing physical damage to equipment. even in the ukraine attack there was no damage to equipment. it was open. the breakers were operated to basically shut down the feet of to go to customers. there was no damage it so that once they realize what was happening, they basically could defeat the computers and that people go to the station manually, flip the mechanical switch and put the power back on. my point, and i would love to continue working on this and did some actual data to support that, is it's very hard to transform from a cyber attack into long-term damage that would be measured in weeks or months because you have to hurt equipped to that. >> that's really my focus is not turning a switch off here or there or tripping the breaker or making a jack go out. that's minor. i guess the type of cyber attacks that we are seeing and hearing about in classified

settings, not directly related to the electric utility business, are very sophisticated. so being able to come in and, i assume going into a generating capacity, so let's say you have a generator. there's all kinds of controls and switches to make sure that you don't run into problems with the electrons. let's put it that way. so all of a sudden someone coming in with nefarious, not just to switch off, and scrambled in such a way that would create unbelievable damage, certainly from a standpoint of generating capacity. i don't want to talk about it in an open forum like this but i guess my concern, are you not having those kinds of conversations which are more than just turning the power switch off as happened in the

ukraine, but really causing long-term damage either to generation capacity or transmission capacity? >> yes, congressman. i have the privilege of going to very similar highly classified briefings as well, but i also 35 years of experience working in substations with equipment. i understand the threats of black energy or aurora or things like that it's difficult to transform an action that the predominant behavior we're seeing today is surveillance type behavior. to transform that into an action that destroys equipment is -- >> that's comforting to know. that's real comforting because what i'm going to do is, i will follow-up with both you and mr. spence as it relates to this. again is one of the number one questions that i get is just a real concern, you know, it's about hitting the grid.

most people don't understand the interconnectivity between utilities, and so a lot that gets blown way out of proportion. but yet at the same time your confidence level, if it were a cyber attack on an investor owned utility somewhere in the midwest, that the damage they could cause, in your opinion, would be minimal? >> the damage on -- >> physical damage. >> that would be their business risk. on the grid it's very difficult. it's very unlikely to put the grid out for one to two weeks. >> so what you're saying is, mass outages for multiple weeks or days are, in your opinion, is going to be a weather-related event. >> or the other thing is fiscal attack, which is shooting and explosive devices at the substation are the two things i think i can get into the one to

two week and beyond. >> those are a lot easier to anticipate and plan for. >> gets very complicated to do 20 sites at once with a current law enforcement we have. i think that risk is mitigated as well. but the one i worry about most is the physical attack. >> i'll follow up with all of you. i just want to say thank you as a member of my local our ea. i have great affinity for them. >> i yield back. >> thank you. i just have one more question mr. spencer. my colleague, mr. spencer, my colleague from visiting highlighted that too many coal power plants have closed are you concerned having to fewer generation systems online makes the grid as a whole more vulnerable? >> i am not. in fact, mr. cauley and his team are also responsible as part of their duties to evaluate with

very detailed modeling region by region the impact of retirements of any sort on the grid of major power stations. they have evaluated this multiple times in fact end of found that we continue to maintain an adequate reserve of capacity should we see more retirements that actually forecast. so even with the forecast, the retirements, which are many, particularly on a cool site, with all of adequate capacity to meet all of our projected needs for power. >> all right. i look forward to working with each and every one of you, and welcome your input as we move forward on this initiative. i thank you all for your testimony, your comments have been helpful. if there are no further question i would ask unanimous consent that the record of today's hearing remain open until such time as our witnesses have provided answers to any questions that may be submitted to them in writing.

a unanimous consent that the recruitment open 415 days for any additional comments and information submitted by members or witnesses to be included in the record of today's hearings. without objection, so ordered. .. >> 15.

[inaudible conversation] republican presidential candidate doubled from his campaigning in connecticut today.

c-span will have live coverage of his rally in hartford this evening at seven eastern. connecticut holds its primary april 26. our live coverage of the presidential race continues tuesday night for the new york state primary. join us at nine eastern for election results, candidate speeches and your reaction. taking on the road to the white house on c-span, c-span radio and c-span.org. book tv has 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors every weekend and here's some programs to watch this coming weekend. on saturday at 10 am eastern, book tv is live from maryland state capital for the 14th annual annapolis book festival. then at 7 pm, john mueller and mark stewart talk about their book chasingghosts , the policing of terrorism in which

they examine the cost of local counterterrorism efforts. sunday at nine afterward with ellen malcolm, founder of emily's list. she discussesher book when women win : emily's list and the rise of women in american politics which looks at the rise of women elected to public office. as malcolm is interviewed by congresswoman maxine watersof california. >> we wanted to raise early money and we thought if we gave women credibility raising early money , they could go on and raise the additional money they needed to win so we were like on political venture capitalists. we were going to go there. in today's terms we were the kick starter for women and early money is like yeast, we make the dough rise and we've been doing that ever since. >> go to book tv.org for the complete weekend schedule. >> house subcommittee this week examines the benefits of providing service dogs to

veterans suffering from posttraumatic stress and other mental health issues. members heard from a panel of witnesses from the veterans affairs department and the head of a nonprofit organization that provides train service canines. the sponsor of the legislation to provide dogs, representative rhonda sanchez of florida, sheer this hearing of the house oversight and government reform subcommittee on national security. this is an hour and 20 minutes. >> subcommittee on national security will come together without objection. the committee can this clear recess at any time. veterans continue to be a national epidemic. veterans are admitted to have a suicide rate 60 percent higher than those that did not serve in the military. major driver of suicide rates is the incidence of traumatic stress among our veterans. according to the department of veterans affairs between 11 and 20 percent of those who served in operation iraqi freedom or enduring freedom suffer from pts. other estimates range as high

as 29 percent. veterans with ptsd may be troubled by people, places and things and experience hyper awareness and nightmares and may find they are no longer able to trust and love those closest to them. some may even feel their life is no longer worth living. unfortunately many veterans have stiff problems in receiving the health care they deserve. the issues regarding the inadequate treatment of veterans by the va have been widely reported.these include long wait times in this prescription dangerous opiates. utilizing effective range of treatments for veterans healing from posttraumatic stress is something the va must do. one treatment that complements existing therapy is the connection of veterans with ptsd with service dogs. these are not comfort dogs or therapy dogs as useful as those might be. service dogs perform valuable services for veterans, calling

them during a panic attack, turning on lights in the dark home, waking them from nightmares. currently the va only provides service dogs to veterans with physical impairments. however, 2010 va inspector general report stated the va quote, faces challenges implementing the guide and service dogs program. the va only started assisting mobility and hearing-impaired programs with service dogs in 2008. six years after being authorized to do so. va personnel told us the actual demand for service dogs is unknown. with tens of thousands of veterans returning with mobility and hearing impairment from wars, plagued by , due to the use of improvised explosive devices and other things, this six-year delay represents a stunningbureaucratic failure. the va contends there is insufficient evidence that service dogs help those with pts , however ample scientific findings and ongoing research suggests the va may very well be wrong. service dogs are not intended to nor do they cure pts but they provide a safe nonaddictive tool for veterans to live normal, functioning productive lives and they could provide a safe complement to existing treatment for pts.

the urgency of the veterans suicide rate demands that we explore this option. in 2010, national defense authorization act, congress authorized the va to conduct a three-year study on the efficacy of pairing veterans with service dogs. that would be completed in 2013, the va study is not expected to be completed until 2019. according to the va the study has undergone multiple significant and unexpected challenges. the first age of the study referred to as phase i again in 2011 and had to be suspended and restarted twice, once after two dogs bit children and again after dog health issues arose.

the va has riveted these problems to problems with vendors contracted to provide the dogs. many of the dogs provided by the vendor were of substandard county and had hit dyslexia, a condition that could have been treated earlier if the vendor performed screening procedures. of the 26 veterans enrolled in phase i, only 12 completed the study and for more are expected to complete the study in february 2017. issues with phase i could have been avoided if the va had properly screened the vendors and leaked out to other private sector organizations engaged in similar ventures. organizations like canines for warriors which is based in the district i represent do not experience these issues because of their experience in sourcing and training the dogs. instead of conducting outreach, the va insisted on developments on veterinary standards for the study of the department of defense already has its own military working dog standards. in fact dod is an internationally regarded trainer of dogs with a team of over 55 personnel including 14 veterinarians. the va initially adopted d.o. d standards, they could have avoided the $10-$12 million failure of faves on. the va eventually did reach out and adopt some dod standards but it appeared that

development of its own standards was largely duplicated and wasteful. the va began phase ii in september 2014 with changes based on lessons learned from phase i. these changes included the va hiring its own dog trainers to provide support to veterans throughout the study, incorporating dod veterinary standards and moving the study from one site in tampa florida to three separate sites in orlando, atlanta and iowa city. the va is meeting only half of its recruiting goal of 12 veterans for the study. similar issues echoed in the 2010 report. this this problem is not based on a shortage of veterans but instead on the va's problems filling dog trainer positions and the alleged complexity of the study. the va is struggling to pair veterans with service dogs, other organizations are attempting to fill the void. the committee has spoken with organizations that cumulatively claim to have hundreds of dogs trained and ready to be paired. contrary to the va's assertion that quote, there is not enough research to know if dogs

actually help face traumatic stress and symptoms, there is ample anecdotal and scientific evidence that service dogs can help veterans with pts. today we will hear from those familiar with the evidence and cole weiler who credits his service on with reducing his ptsd symptoms. veterans cannot wait until 2018 for the va to introduce the high reward treatment option. the problem of veteran suicide is too urgent. for this reason i have introduced the puppies assisting wounded service members act of 2016 cosponsored by many of my fellow committee members including members on both sides of the aisle. this legislation would create a program for veterans with the most severe levels of pts tried a va approved treatment and remain symptomatically. they would then be per of her to a service dog organization. the va would reimburse the organization supplying those service dogs and all funds expended would be offset with funds from the va office of human resources and administration expenses for administrative offices, and preservation and interior

decor. those who risk their lives for this country deserve the absolute best care upon their return and time is of the essence. i would like to thank our witnesses for their testimony today. we had veterans testifying and many joining us in the auto audience and i want to thank them for their service and with that, i will recognize the ranking member of the subcommittee on national security, mister lynch for his opening statement. >> thank you mister chairman. thanks forholding this hearing , examining the efforts undertaken by the department of veterans affairs to mine service dogs with veterans of the us armed forces consistent with treatment for posttraumatic stress. i'd also like to thank today's panel of witnesses for helping the committee with their work and again, thank all our veterans and their families and active military. it is the mission of the

department of the va to serve and honor the more than 21 million dedicated men and women who are america's veterans. in fulfillment of president lincoln's historic commitment to quote, care for those who shall have borne the battle and for their widows and orphans. with the formal end of the us-led combat missions in iraq in 2010 and in afghanistan in 2014, the return of over 2.7 million veterans from extended service in support of operation iraqi freedom, operation enduring freedom and other wars and deployments, the fundamental duty of the va to provide that if i care to american veterans and their families remains as critical as ever. we turn our continued bipartisan oversight of the va is essential to ensuring that the agency is able to carry out its support mission. as most recently evidenced by the exoneration of post-9/11 veterans returning the wars in iraq and afghanistan, effective treatment of posttraumatic stress, also known as ptsd is one urgent area of veterans

health care at the va and congress must continue to strengthen. according to the va's national center proposal for posttraumatic stress, 20 percent of our veterans serving in operation iraqi freedom or enduring freedom have pts in a given year. the prevalence of posttraumatic stress among our iraqi and afghan veterans is primarily the result of multiple tours of duty and repeated severe and constant combat exposure. moreover, the va has reported that veterans with pts are particularly vulnerable to the risk of suicide which continues to affect veterans and a devastating rate. last month the va undersecretary of health david wilkins againestimated that every day approximately 22 veterans take their lives . similarly the department of transportation tatian reported suicide for active duty service

members remain high for the seventh year in a row with 265 active certain servicemembers lost to suicide in 2015. we are clearly failing to meet our obligations to our returning and active servicemembers. the impact of posttraumatic stress in our veterans community is a complex and far-reaching issue at the man's a conference of approach to treatment and rehabilitation. this includes robust funding for the va to continue to expand its health services and i was proud to join the chairman for to support the funding bill passed by president obama at the end of last year that would provide $50 billion for va medical services and specifically targets mental health care and suicide prevention. we must also encourage the development of common sense alternative solutions to further assist veterans with pts rehabilitation. one alternative is the topic of today, providing service dogs to veterans with pts to help

alleviate their symptoms. as noted in the american metal medical association journal of ethics in 2016, initial academic studies have revealed veterans paired with service dogs report less severe ptsd symptoms, stronger social relationships, decreased substance abuse and other increased health benefits. pursuant to the defense authorization act of 2010, congress itself mandated the va three-year study as noted by the chairman in his remarks. that study was to imagine the benefits of using service dog for the treatment of rehabilitation of veterans with physical or mental injuries including pts. regrettably, as the chairman noted, the va encountered numerous challenges in getting this study off the ground including inadequate oversight over its service dog vendors and inconsistent service dog training standards. as a result, again as the

chairman noted, the agency's task to complete the study in november 2018 or 2019. i understand the va is taking steps to address these problems. however, a delay for a study of this importance for this amount of time is simply not acceptable. and i look forward to examining the progress of this further study with our witnesses. i also think the chairman's idea of going forward with a pilot program which can be based on the evidence in hand today is a great way to go at this problem so i'm proud to cosponsor two pieces of bipartisan legislation introduced into congress to facilitate the use of service dogs to assist our veterans. chairman desantis, my colleague has introduced hr 4764, a bill to require the va to commence its dog the program right away pursuant to not post 9/11 veterans with pts and i'm proud

to join him on that. also representative jim mcgovern as introduced legislation to establish a grant program to assist nonprofit organizations in developing and establishing service dog programs for veterans. and mister chairman, i would ask the consent if i could please submit mister mcgovern's legislation for the record without objection. >> and the supporting statement to the record as well. >> without objection. >> thank you sir. as evidence continues to show, the service dogs are one way of helping veterans of pts and i applaud the expansion of these efforts. mister chairman, thank you again for holding this hearing and i yield back the balance of my time. >> thank you gentlemen and thank you for your support and effort. i will hold the record open for five legislative days for any members would like to submit a written statement. we will now recognize our talent panel of witnesses. like to welcome doctor fallon at the office of research and develop at the us department of

veterans affairs, mister larry diamond, executive director of canines for warriors, mister cold while, us marine veteran who has posttraumatic stress and mister steve feldman, executive director of the human animal bond research initiative foundation. welcome to you all. pursuant to committee rules all witnesses will be sworn in before they testify. will you please rise and raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god thank you, please be seated. all witnesses answered in the affirmative. in order to allow time for discussion, limit your testimony to five minutes. your entire written statement will be made part of the record. doctor fallon, your recognized . >> good afternoon chairman, desantis and members of the sub subcommittee. thank you for the opportunity to up the data committee on progress in the service dogs

study which pairs veterans with pts with service dogs. i am a company today to my right by doctor fisher doran, director of the rehabilitation research and development service and doctor chris crow, senior mental health liaison to the dod defense centers of excellence for psychological help and tbi. the national defense authorization act directed the va to undertake a study to assess the benefits of these abilities and advisability of using service dogs for treatment and rehabilitation of veterans with physical or mental abilities or disabilities including ptsd. benefits of using service dogs and guide dogs for physical disabilities are well-established and the va design study to focus on veterans with ptsd and ptsd is a high priority health issue for veterans and the benefits of service dogs in assisting with ptsd are not established in scientific literature. this is a groundbreaking study that determines veterans with ptsd he would benefit from a service dog.

for the study the va hired its own dog trainers to provide guidance after they received the dog reducing experimental bias in the study. the va also developed its own contract of behavior and training standards for dogs. three study sites, atlanta, iowa city and portland oregon are enrolling veterans for different parts of the country. approximately 421 months, measures were taken of healthcare, interpersonal interactions with social participation, the severity of ptsd symptoms, sleep related problems, suicidal ideation, the severity of mood disorders and substance abuse, anger directed to others, inpatient and outpatient visits, medication usage and employment and work productivity. veteran enrollment in the multistate phase of the study began in september 2014. as of this week 109 of 220 veterans had been enrolled in the study and all three study teams will be fully staffed to

achieve and roman right of 12 to 15 veterans a month which would allow all 220 veterans to be enrolled by the end of this year or early 2017. data collection will end in late 2018. the data will then be analyzed and results published in appear reviewed scientific journal. while the va does not purchase service dogs for veterans, the va provides veterans care benefits to veterans to manage a visual, hearing or substantial mobility impairment to enable the veteran to live independently. currently the va does not provide veterinary care benefits for ptsd or mental health dogs because research has not shown them to be effective in overcoming specific functional limitations. the study is incredibly important in addressing shortcomings in the existing research literature reported by others. the va continues to monitor other scientific literature for evidence to inform future policies or remain strongly committed to completing the

current study at an estimated cost of at least $12 million. the va is strongly committed to the delivery of the best care for veterans with ptsd . advances in research have led to a range of treatments to reduce symptoms and increase functional well-being. the dod evidence-based critical practice guideline recommends the following as first-line treatment. trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy such as prolonged exposure or pe and cognitive processing therapy or cpe. i movement the sensitization and reprocessing, stress inoculation, uptake and hitters and serotonin or nothing effort uptake inhibitors. research demonstrates the effectiveness of pe and cpe as particularly strong. the ha handle 1116.01, uniform mental health services and medical centers and clinics requires that all va medical centers provide access to pe or cpe. they require this requirement by training 7000 therapists in cpe as part of a broader initiative to disseminate evidence-based psychotherapy for mental disorders. uptake of evidence based

therapy such as pe and cpe across the healthcare system was cracked. as season two of the treatment approaches, we offer a range of associated symptoms. the va is a leader in developing evidence-based therapy at a global standard for ptsd treatment. as a veteran myself i remain firmly committed to the successful completion of this study. i appreciate the opportunity today. i and my colleagues are prepared to answer any questions the committee may have. >> thank you doctor fallon. mister diamond you are now recognized for five minutes. >> thank you mister chairman, document writing member, members of the committee. we are thrilled to be here to talk about this important matter. my name is rory diamond, the executive director of canines for warriors, the nation's largest provider of service dogs for traumatic brain injuries or who have been victims of military sexual trauma.

with me is the founder of canines for warriors and of the current head of our canine division, we have two of our graduates.an 18 year army veteran did three tours in iraq and he is with his service dog. also with me, adam legrand, a 10 year air force veteran who helped men and women in uniform as a medic. he is with his service dog, molly. as has been mentioned, statistically speaking 22 veterans will commit suicide today. that's why canines for warriors exists. we were founded by mom, her name is jerry devault and she was worried about her own sons pts. five years later canines for warriors has grown into an organization with 36 dedicated staff. we have a nine acre, 17,000 square foot state-of-the-art campus in florida and most importantly we have a track record of helping hundreds of veterans overcome the symptoms associated with pts.we're successful at preventing veteran suicides. everywhere that comes through our door gets the family

treatment i would say. they get a service canine, equipment, training, certification, seminars, legal instruction, housing, home-cooked meals. we have house mounds that listen to them, house dance to provide advice and frankly we have a full wraparound service and follow-up for the life of the dog and life of the veteran. at canines for warriors, we say we always have our veterans back and we absolutely never charge our veterans. our program is 100 percent free. we've had two independent researchers evaluate our program. these are phd's who have looked at the efficacy of our program and have come back with the exact same conclusion. the program works, the dogs are effective. let me provide a flavor of this. the average canines for warriors applicant is on 10 to 15 medications. the 92 percent will reduce or eliminate those medications after receiving those dog. 73 percent of our graduates improve their overall health. 85 percent will handle anxiety better. 77 percent report a reduction

of nightmares for night terror , finally being able to get a good nights sleep and being able to get back on a life cycle. as adam legrand was behind me says about molly, she gives me meaty ability to be a father and a functioning member of society again and as joe who is behind me also says, i just wouldn't be here without lily. she is the light in the darkness of ptsd. when we hear and read on the va's website that there is quote, not enough research yet to know if dogs actually help treat pts and its symptoms, we fundamentally disagree. there is not a void of research in this regard that we don't know whether or not a service dog can help mitigate the symptoms associated with ptsd and its associated morbidity and there is enough research. canines for warriors is an example of how that can work. given the current crisis, we think makes sense to error on the side of providing more options for our veterans. what is the harm?

the worst thing that can happen is a veteran ends up with a dog. but the va's response is something we have seen over and over again that there is a reluctance to agree that this can work. our warriors report to us and they come from all over the country, 42 states. 152 cities and we asked all the time tell us, how is the va treating you? how is your pts being treated? this is what they tell us and it's shockingly similar and frustrating to hear over and over again. they wait and they wait and they finally get an appointment. then they go to get their appointment at the hospital and they wait hour after hour and finally, they get in front of a psychologist or psychiatrist or clinical social worker and they had their moments and let's understand what this moment is. this is the one lifeline our government is giving these veterans to recover from tps. this is the one chance and do they get 45 minutes of the discussion of the wonderful

options we just heard doctor fallon talk about? number they report to us, and 10, 15 minutes maybe.the first question is always about how are your meds? i guarantee they walk out with another prescription drug. the va has three responses to the pts crisis in america. drugs, drugs and more drugs to help you with the drugs we already gave you. that is the response and we find it unacceptable. the va in our opinion stumbled the first round of the pilot program and then in our opinion we have no confidence they will successfully pull off the second round. we see an immediate veterans suicide crisis today and we believe the time is now, not after the va gets their act together but right now to start

saving these lives. we appreciate the chairman's leadership on this issue and are happy to answer questions thank you. mister lyle, you are up five minutes. >> iq chairman desantis, ranking member lynch, distinguished representatives of the subcommittee. i appreciate the opportunity to testify. i'd like to begin by saying i'm not here for myself. i'm here strictly for my brothers and sisters still struggling to transition to post military life while also struggling with posttraumatic stress and no other options besides drugs and therapy. i'm here for those of us in the veteran communities who have been left behind and continue to deal with the pain of suicide as other veterans see no way out. i'm here for the veterans who have lost faith in the system, lost hope for themselves and have lost purpose in their lives. i'm here for the men and women like myself who have had to go it alone and acquire their service dogs and extraordinary financial burden to them. for those reasons i've been fighting for the last year to change the existing va policy. i believe allowing veterans to

fight pts without all options available to them is tantamount to sending our military to fight an enemy without a secondary weapon in their arsenal. while in afghanistan for the majority of 2011, my unit served in the home province. i was faced lebanon but since sometime with the british is your market on royal airbase. my physical injuries as a result of military service our insignificant relative to my fellow veterans. but like many veterans today who showed little signs of physical injury, there are many stars that beneath the surface. during the last few months of my deployment, our replacements were starting to arrive and takeover the operational capabilities of our unit , i felt i wasn't doing enough to help the cause of our war fighters. i started volunteering my time largely during sleep hours at a severely understaffed trauma center. it was there, mentally unprepared for the new volunteer role i assume that has affected me most in my post appointment transition. upon returning stateside,