September 15, 2020— When will they ever learn?

“The current vulnerability of our critical infrastructures can both invite and reward attack if not corrected. Correction is feasible and well within the nation’s means and resources to accomplish.”[Emphasis Added.] ~ Congressional EMP Commission Executive Report, 2004

Click here for this over 16-year-old report from the Congressional Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack. The above is the final sentence of the Abstract. Note the members of the Commission and their qualifications in Appendix B.

To understand the origin and significance of this important report, you should go back to the mid-1990s and in particular to Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), an accomplished scientist, engineer and inventor with over 20 patents, and his efforts to awaken the congress and the American people to the existential EMP threat.

As a member of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), he was well aware of the Department of Defense (DoD) classified activities for protecting our most important military systems against the EMP threat — and he became concerned that nothing was being done also to protect our critical civil infrastructure against this threat.

He liked to tell the story of Vladimir Lukin, former Russian Ambassador to the United States and Duma member, warning a congressional delegation that if they really wanted to hurt the United States in retaliation for NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia, Russia could fire a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and detonate a single nuclear warhead at high-altitude over the United States — and the resulting EMP would shut down the U.S. economy. And he would then say that another Duma member, Alexander Shabonov, added that if one missile would not do the job, Russia had many more on hand.

Shortly afterward and with strong support from HASC Vice-Chairman Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), he introduced legislation forming the EMP Commission that became law when signed by President George W. Bush in 2001 — and the afore referenced 2004 Executive Report was published along with a classified briefing to a Closed Session of Congress.

Congress re-authorized the EMP Commission and continued its work, while publishing additional open-source reports and making clear the reality of the EMP threat and that Russia, China, North Korea and Iran all pose existential threats to the American people. The Obama administration’s Strategic National Risk Assessment included EMP among the greatest threats against which the United States must prepare.

Due largely to redistricting, Roscoe Bartlett lost his seat in 2012, but his concern for EMP continued, especially under the EMP Caucus co-chaired by Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and Rep. Yvette Clark (D-NY) until 2017, when Rep Franks retired from congress and his co-chairman role was assumed by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO).

Essentially concurrent with Rep. Franks’ retirement, the HASC eliminated support for continuing the EMP Commission, leading former HASC Vice-Chairman Curt Weldon, one of the Commission’s founders, to write in The Hill on September 19, 2017:

“Only Washington bureaucrats could be so stupid that they would terminate the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, also known as the Congressional EMP Commission — just when North Korea threatened to attack the United States with EMP.”

Click here for my October 10, 2017 Newsmax article, “Lapsed EMP Commission Puts US in Danger — It Must Be Restored,” that linked to Mr. Weldon’s The Hill article and argued that the EMP Commission should be reinstated.

That did not happen…and the Washington bureaucracy has continued its dysfunctional meandering while alleging to address the EMP threat, leaving the American people vulnerable to the currently existing existential EMP threat long included in the military doctrine of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.

Then, the Federal Government did not even provide public access to the products of the EMP Commission. Thus, the EMP Commission Chairman for 17 years, Dr. William R. Graham, paid to establish a website for the important unclassified reports at http://www.firstempcommission.org/. These are still the most authoritative reports addressing this important existential threat, and how to protect against it.

President Trump had recognized the existential EMP threat in his campaign and highlighted its importance in his December 18, 2017 National Security Strategy. Since then, he has issued several Executive Orders and signed into law National Defense Authorization Acts directing the Federal Bureaucracy to address this existential threat.

But the Federal bureaucracy’s response has since been ineffective, to say the least.

Click here for my July 14, 2020 message “On Washington’s Stumbling, Fumbling, Bumbling Responses to the Existential EMP Threat.” That title was triggered by a 13-page report issued by the President’s Science Advisor and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) — that absurdly claimed we need more studies.

My message discussed the lethargic (to be generous) response of the Secretary of Energy, who is supposed to be leading a “whole of government” response to the May 1, 2020 Executive Order 18920, supposedly to secure the electric bulk power grid against cyber-attack. Note: The EMP Commission warned that the most comprehensive cyber-attack is an EMP attack.

Regrettably, this response is not surprising, because DOE actions have long opposed addressing the EMP threat, no doubt contributing to the termination of the EMP Commission. Click here for the EMP Commission Chairman’s April 20, 2017 letter to Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, listing a half dozen important issues of concern re. the DOE.

Dr. Graham never received any response from Secretary Perry, or senior DOE staff, regarding his succinctly stated concerns. Nor from other alleged responsible government officials that he also informed of critically important facts, largely being ignored.

Moreover, click here for my previous discussion of Dr. Graham’s important related video presentation to many local and state officials and concerned citizens at the National Guard Headquarters on Capitol Hill and around the nation. He began this briefing by discussing the high altitude nuclear test data available as benchmarks to guide our understanding of EMP, as he well understands as one of the original technical investigators in the early 1960s seeking to understand the “surprise” from our high altitude tests in the South Pacific.

Because we discovered our strategic systems were vulnerable to EMP, the subject became highly classified and only those most important military systems were protected, leaving other military systems and especially our critical civil infrastructure unprotected — which is still the current condition.

And now we have a second discouraging report, this one from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Click here for my last week’s message discussing this latest inept report in the context of recent evidence of Iran’s existential EMP threat — announced by Iran itself.

Click here for this latest delinquent, very disappointing DHS report, dated August 17, 2020 and titled “Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Program Status Report.” And bear in mind that a report of this title was called for in the President’s March 26, 2019 Executive order — and it was due on March 26, 2020.

Click here for the Homeland Security Today article on this 4-page, 6-month late, report that alleges to respond to the March 26, 2019 Executive Order 13865 call for a substantive report. It, in fact, is little more than a self-aggrandizing recipe for more studies, with consequent more delays in addressing the existential EMP threat.

Is President Trump aware of how poorly his administration is responding to his 2016 campaign pledge, his December 18, 2017 National Security Strategy, his March 26, 2019 Executive Order 13865, his April 17, 2020 Executive Order 13920, and no doubt other directives intended to fulfill his campaign promise to address the existential threat of an EMP attack that is included in the military doctrine of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran?

As my High Frontier readers know, I have long been very concerned about this vulnerability of the American people to the existential electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threat. And I am very frustrated by the seemingly unending studies of the threat and what to do about it, with little or no action — especially given the above briefly recounted, but long-standing, history of our knowledge of the threat and how to protect against it.

In spite of President Trump’s most welcome Executive Orders, these recent administration reports indicate little notable improvement to at best sluggish and ineffective bureaucratic processes.

I have a recommendation for making a significant improvement — beginning now, by supporting “bottom-up” efforts at the local level rather than continuing to wait on these obviously ineffective “planning” efforts in Washington.

Our Lake Wylie Pilot Study validated many months ago the EMP Commission’s claim that WE KNOW HOW TO PROTECT THE GRID AND IT IS QUITE AFFORDABLE TO DO SO.

Sixteen years have passed since the first EMP commission reported this condition, and numerous more recent Commission reports have reinforced this view, but little has happened within the Federal bureaucracy to protect our critical civil infrastructures, especially the electric grid.

Click here and here for my two messages immediately following my May 4, 2017 testimony before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee about how this frustrating situation led a couple of years earlier to the Lake Wylie Pilot Study in York County, SC to prove that affordable protection is possible by addressing the problem from the “bottom up.”

For five years, I have worked with key local and state leaders to use the unclassified assessment methods and hardening standards that protect our most important military systems also to protect the key components of the York County Distribution Grid. Last year, we found the one-time cost would be less than $100 per York County citizen — less than the monthly medical insurance for an average family.

This investment would assure that York County citizens and their businesses, hospital, water-wastewater, key communications, emergency management, and other key infrastructure could function effectively with electricity received from Duke Energy, which is also examining the costs of protecting its critical infrastructure including power plants and high voltage transmission lines. Limited additional annual costs would be required to assure that the grid is maintained in that condition.

Click here for my most recent (August 25, 2020) related discussion with more details and our plans for next steps, provided availability of the necessary funds. See the following figure from that discussion.

York County includes Rock Hill, South Carolina’s fourth largest city and a suburb of Charlotte — home of the corporate Headquarters of Duke Energy, one of the nation’s largest Energy companies. Since we began the Lake Wylie Pilot Study, Duke Energy engineers have worked with Rock Hill and York County municipal utility and cooperative company leaders, engineers and emergency managers in conducting this pilot study — and the SC Adjutant General and his staff have cooperated with us from the outset and, with funding help from Washington, stand ready to export the lessons-learned throughout South Carolina and beyond.

In my opinion, Washington should fund such efforts to be led by the nation’s Governors and, through the Adjutants General, the National Guard. I’m confident South Carolina’s Adjutant General will support such an effort. But thus far, Washington has ignored our results and recommendations, while continuing to study the problem.

Bottom Lines.

I often refer to Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) — Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee as our strongest advocate in congress. I can’t help but quote him again to end this message: Regrettably, the Federal Government has not been responsive to his February 17, 2019 assessment following an important hearing on the EMP threat:

“ . . . [W]e establish commissions and study panels, conduct research, and develop plans to develop strategies. It is way past time to stop admiring this problem, and actually begin to do something concrete to protect our vulnerable electrical grid, control systems, and the ever-increasing array of electronic devices our society has become dependent upon.” ~ Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI)

I can’t help but recall that Peter, Paul and Mary 1960s classic, “Where have all the flowers gone?” It ends wistfully with “When will they ever learn?” Click here. This was about the graves from Viet Nam … If we don’t get our act together, there will be many, many more graves after we experience an EMP attack.

What can you do?

Join us in praying for our nation, and for a rebirth of the freedom sought, achieved and passed to us by those who came before us.

Help us to spread our message to the grass roots and to encourage all “powers that be” to provide for the common defense as they are sworn to do.

Begin by passing this message to your friends and suggest they visit our webpage www.highfrontier.org, for more information. Also, please encourage your sphere of influence to sign up for our weekly e-newsletter.

Encourage them to review our past email messages, posted on www.highfrontier.org, to learn about many details related to the existential man-made and natural EMP threats and how we can protect America against them. I hope you will help us with our urgently needed efforts, which I will be discussing in future messages.

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