>> "washington journal" continues. host: >> for a discussion on security of the us the electrical grid we're joined now by richard kauzlarich, codirector of the center for energy and science policy at george mason university, also a former u.s. ambassador. first, we were talking about the grid, what does that include? >> guest: that kind of the very basic question because my connection to the great is when i come home at night and through the electrical switch and i think most people can think that's the most important part. you've got the production of energy, which may come from coal, gas, nuclear power. you've got its transmission. ultimately he goes to consumers. so the grid is that whole

network and that's what makes it so complicated and innocence so vulnerable because there are many points of entry. it's not just the physical grid or if the cyber grid is a. >> host: who was responsible for protecting the grid and how do you do that on something so fast? >> guest: that's one of the things were looking at atri geoe mason at our center for science andd policy because you have regulators incumbent both at the federal level and at the state level. you have private companies that own the production and transmission lines, and then you have third parties whond produce the technology that the companies and the governments use to regulate the system. it's a very complex public-private relationship that really has to be managed if you're going to protect the grid. it used to be people only thought about the physical side, someone said it was guns, guards and gates. and now that's not enough because you could protect the production of electricity and

the production of natural gas, but if the technology that moves gas and electricity is vulnerable to hackers, you opened up a backdoor. >> host: what is the scenario that keeps you up at night? >> guest: well, i've to go back to my foreign service experience in the department of state where i spent a number of years in eastern europe and the former soviet union. look, you have to be concerned about threats from abroad and you have to look at who is capable and who has -- i will start with the russians. we've seen their behavior in ukraine twice, 2015 and 2017, where a cyber attack was aimed tt disrupting the electrical supply their picnic after estonia, whatever somalia nato partners partners but most effective in this area and they went after an oil pipeline according to some reporting that goes through turkey from

azerbaijan to the mediterranean sea. they have shown both the capability and the internet. i think now we have to be worried about iran, sanctions are going to be applied big-time and they have the incentive to try to disrupt -- they are not a major public, this technology is not just a purge of china, the u.s. and russia. smaller countries, organizedss crime and terrorist groups, all them can be equipped with the capability to disrupt our electrical. >> host: what did he want to do if they get into the system? >> guest: well, in the case of the russians just based on past experience they want to essentially disrupt the economic potentially the social aspects of that for the own political purposes. in the case off the iranians it may be something like revenge you arema going to put the sanctions on us, you guys were messing around with our nuclear program, we will carry out some

attacks in that respect. and you can organize room opponents who for the own reasons to make money hold hostages to disrupt the system. motivations are complex, but the challenge is how do you do with all of these things as well as the hurricanes and other natural disasters that can equally disrupt. >> host: we are talked about the grid this morning on the "washington journal" for about the next 25 is were joined by richard kauzlarich of the center for energy science and policy at george mason university. if you have questions about the grid, now is good time to call in. how often are cyber attacks being attempted against the u.s. grid? is this is a daily occurrence? >> guest:th i'm not a cyber geek, so you have to have

somebody who really is in the day-to-day business of assessing and reacting to those. they are regular. i think just the needy stories that we've seen recently indicate that there are people out there who are trying in various ways, not just electrical grid. we seen in her own electoral process. we've seen in other businesses, the financial community. it's an ongoing problem, what are some of those media stories best to get tea and what has been the reaction from those tasked with defending the system with the stories? >> guest: the interest of the administration has been shown vice president pence last week gave a speech where he talked in great detail about the cyber threat. sector ofce energy perry i think monday also talked about with the energy system specifically in mind. so the administration and those

in government, including in dod are constantly aware of this and working on these activities what i am encouraged by is that car nato allies are working with us to doth with this problem as i said little estonia is probably the best equipped country or because they have been hit throughout their economy by russian attacks. being able to draw and international experience, bringing the collective of native together is really important n in dealing with thi. >> host: what are the hurdles you see now and how much computer talked about sort of the interconnection between private industry and the government. what sort of barriers does that create as well? >> guest: the majoror barriers focus on one part of the problem, and if i were to criticize the administration, it's this idea if we just allow coal and nuclear plants that have enclosed and to continue in operation, this is going to increase the reliability of the grid.

that's just -- once the electrons are generated, they go into a system that are perfectly, , that's perfectly capable of being disrupted by computer hackers anywhere in the world. so focusing only on oneha part f this is not a good idea. secondly, as you say, it's getting this public-private partnership together, including universities. universities have major role to play. not good enough plug for george mason with our cyber programs all of the countries he could offer a lot in this area. and finally as i said, the international cooperation is really critical in this because we're not alone. >> host: the private entities that are involved, the businesses, how much i do want to share with the federal government and how much are they trying to keep their own sort of intellectual property? >> guest: naturally part off the problem because the federal government doesn't own the technology. it's the companies that do, and

so we can go to dominion resources in virginia talk about this problem and they get there i.t. support from some third company may not be anxious for s details of that to come out. i understand that but i think it's the idea of coordination, collaboration and communication that really has to be emphasized public-private partnership. >> host: eddie is at first this morning in massachusetts, a republican. eddie,rtis go ahead. >> caller: good morning.ll do remember the term -- [inaudible] it's one of -- mario cuomo wouldn't allow nuclear plans to open up. took a beating and then what they do, they went to congress and keep the rates from transmission low so now we are in critical situations are we areri vulnerable picky mention iran. we send words in. we sent the virus in. we sped up their centrifuges,

their oil drilling wells and even their banking so they know how to do it. thank you. >> guest: i think the northeast is a good example especially gas pipelines. the nimby issue is principally a gas pipeline that would bring natural gas to parts of the northeast and less what they had to import russian lng to stay warm. that from my point of view is not a move that enhances u.s. energy security. so it's electricity. its natural gas and a good point about iran because they understand how to get in different parts of our system that may own indirectly touch of energy but still be points of all the. >> host: how reliable are we on other countries for our total energy usage? >> guest: leakages is not really. i mean, we've made such extraordinary progress in the last two decades with

nonconventional oil and gas development that we are now the largest energy producer in the world along with our canadian and mexican neighbors. but we really don't need come id a physical sense, a lot of imported oil and gas to keep our economy going. it's certainly is less of a vulnerability and more of an instrument that we can use to help our allies, as the president talked about with the eu of exporting u.s. natural gas to europe. >> host: abrams is up next, and independent. good morning. >> caller: good morning. great subject. glad you are. covering it. it's one of my major concerns and fears about the country we have come and go about the world conducting all this hegemony and the things we do around the world and we rely on this power we supposedly have an easily

destroyed when you take down the electrical system. two months an hour in this country would put us in the stone age.. we are using antiquated 100-year-old power lines, grids, nuclear plants that should've been decommissioned 30 years ago, and between iran, russia, north korea and china, they would be foolish to try to take us on militarily if something as simple as a hack to our system would cripple us. in 2018, it is outrageously shameful that we don't protect our main vulnerability because we spent all our money in needless wars rather than rebuilding our infrastructure try what i think we got your point. >> guest: i think the infrastructure point is really critical because in the energy perry whether talk about electricity or gas pipelines, he

mentioned nuclear, all of these are areas where we need to modernize our basic underlying system. if we're going to be beating the needs of the 21st century, electricity is the greatest energy demand sector in our economy. and if we can't provide that energy chiefly, reliably and a diversified way -- cheaply -- we will haveif problems. critical that modernize infrastructure including pipelines and infrastructure great. >> host: where is the oldestgu part of that infrastructure? >> guest: on not sure you can isolate them. i think the whole country has issues relating to that. commonwealth of virginia, for example, because of the production nonconventional gas in the region, now there's a gas pipeline there talk about building. that raises again the nimby issues, but i think if you look in the older urban areas of the united states you will see real problems in the electrical grid

and the production side. >> host: about 50 minutes left with richard kauzlarich, , formr u.s. ambassador and the codirector of the center for energy science and policy at george mason university. for our viewers were not familiar, tell them some of the work you do there. >> guest: well, we've tried to look at energy and a very holistic way because we recognize that a lot of technology is coming outze of ti engineering and science area, that enable not only the productivity but the distribution of energy in different ways. and i'm part of the public policy school and we saw a look at all that and we say what are the policy implications? how do regulars have to address these problems that are created by this new technology? that maybe they didn't have to do with a couple decades ago. our objective is having a cross university program transdisciplinary both faculty students to try to address

those, the public university in the commonwealth of virginia were concerned about virginia energy issues, but the problems we've been talking about this morning our national. >> host: lindsay is up next in powder springs tennessee republican. goodwd morning. >> caller: pioneer tennessee. >> host: go ahead. >> caller: can you hear me?ss >> host: yes, sir. >> caller: pioneer tennessee. >> host: go ahead from pioneer tennessee, this is kind of a pet peeve of mine. i hear all the reps and in congress talk about people backing our power grid with the internet and all that. my question is, what's wrong with having a person with the radio at a switchboard and tell you which switch to flip of what

tto do and it not be hooked to the internet? it seems like a made a problem to me. that's all. >> guest: you have put your finger on exactly what happened when the russians when at the ukrainian energy system in 2015. and the reason they didn't succeed was precisely because the system relied on manual switches. they literally had guys goingd around and flipping switches. the problem for us is that our companies have applied i.t. technology to all this so it might be really hard in most of these cases to find a switch too flip, that's what our vulnerability to the cyber attack is so, so great. >> host: intellection securitized but having a backup paper ballot to electronic voting machines. is thereotot a backup manual swh built on the various ways that we make in the energy around

this country? >> guest: now you're getting out of my comfort zone to talk about this issue. i think there are number of ways you can do backups. one thing we can do specials with our canadian neighbors, and we see that in the past in the '70s when at that massive electrical failure in the northeast united states can we relied on canada for electricity. f having cooperative arrangement with her neighbors is going to be important within the united states, regional cooperation between states becomes really critical so that these grids are not just seen as the responsible of a single state but a region. and i'm sure thehe tech guys aren't working right now trying to figurere out how do we avoid the problem a single note collapse?e >> host: pedro is in virginia, republican. go ahead. >> caller: thanks. i'm in the d.c. area and i like to see both my kids go to george

mason university for what it's worth. okay, so how do we know as civilians was really launching these attacks? and why can we not have oversight over the people that tell us who are launching these attacks? do we know for sure who attacked in the subway, who attacked -- i can remember the country name, next to russia you were referring to. >> guest: well, you know, i look at the media coverage of these 12 russian gru people were accused of being directly involved in the attacks on the u.s. electrical system and you read the judicial proceedings underway. we are able to go to not only specific locations physically, but buildings, , compute a