April 21, 2020—Fix the Grid in Phase 4!!!

Everything works — and will continue to work — as long as we have electricity. It’s what keeps the lights on, the oxygen flowing, the information going. Everything is the grid, the grid, the grid.” (Emphasis added) by Peggy Noonan, who once wrote speeches for President Ronald Reagan

Click here for Ms. Noonan’s full March 21-22 Wall Street Journal article. It is a bit unfortunate that this above observation, in my opinion one of her “all time” best observations, is buried in just another of her usual excellent articles, “We Need Time to Absorb All This.”

While we may need time to absorb fully the lessons of our continuing efforts to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, we should long ago have recognized the essential role the electric power grid plays in assuring the viability of all we hold dear. And yet, we for just as long have largely ignored the existential threat of losing that vital electric grid.

While there are a number of ways we could lose the electric grid — and assuring its resilience to all such threats is urgently important, we at our peril continue to ignore the fact that an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack is imbedded in the Military Doctrine of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. Need I say more?

In addition, a major massive solar flare — called a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME )— will with absolute certainty one day intersect the Earth in its orbit around the Sun and interact with the Earth geomagnetic field to create a Geomagnetic Disturbance (GMD) that envelops the Earth — and, our currently unprotected electric power grid will go down indefinitely.

In either case, we will be returned without electricity to an 18^th century existence without the conditions of 18^th century America. Most Americans surely will die from starvation, disease and the chaos that results from societal collapse.

A Congressional Commission, the EMP Commission, has warned of this condition for nearly two decades — and we have done essentially nothing to deal with the truly existential threat. This, even though President Trump issued an Executive Order over a year ago directing the Federal Government to provide a “whole of Government” response to the EMP threat — and last December signed the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020 strengthening his year old Executive Order.

With this fact in mind, I strongly urge the “powers that be” at all political levels to deal with this existential threat while responding to the COVID-19 threat, which Washington is seeking to address, whether in session or not.

According to Juliegrace Brufke in The Hill on April 18, 2020, House Republicans over the last weekend indicated that many of them expect to return to Washington as early this week to agree on a COVID-19 Phase 4 appropriation. Click here for her article that begins by noting that one representative claimed that a vote as early as today “was not out of the realm of possibility.” Click here for Jordan Carney’s report in The Hill yesterday, reinforcing that perspective.

Allegedly, an early agreement may include additional funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), funding for rural hospitals and additional testing, but clearly, everything remains in flux. Republicans will press Democrat leaders to bring a bill to the floor to vote for small business relief and to get something done. Some Democrats also have indicated they are getting closer to coming to an agreement, perhaps by tomorrow or Thursday.

A “Dear Colleague” letter from Speaker Pelosi said that “I am pleased to report that we have been engaged in bipartisan negotiations on our interim legislation and our progress is encouraging.” . . . and that “We are also working on CARES 2 to prepare for the path ahead to support the lives and livelihoods of the American people.” She indicated the key to opening our economy is “testing, treatment, contact tracing and quarantine.”

But other senior Democratic sources threw cold water on the notion of an early agreement, saying Republicans should be willing to provide additional funding for state and local governments. Others indicate that passing such legislation is unlikely via unanimous consent, noting that many will insist that Congress to come back to Washington to pass the Phase 3 coronavirus relief bill, setting the stage for Phase 4.

So … shouldn’t they be in Washington looking after the public welfare anyway?

Whatever the House does, I am hopeful that the Senate will take pertinent action in dealing with this important matter. In part, I am encouraged by comments made by South Carolina’s senior Senator, Lindsey Graham, in his Face Book Town Hall last Friday.

Among a wide ranging discussion that dealt with many issues important to South Carolinians, I was particularly taken by his statement that when he returns to Washington, he expects to take up Phase 4 initiatives, and he signaled it should focus on our critical civil infrastructure and a “bump-up” for the military.

I am hopeful that Senator Graham’s stated interest in our critical civil infrastructure will include protecting our absolutely vital electric power grid, as well as the “roads and bridges” that he emphasized. Moreover, if he and other leadership could agree on a “plus-up” for the military, I hope he will advocate funding for an effort to empower the National Guard in leading a nationwide effort to protect the electric power grid upon which all we hold dear depends.

Moreover, as I have repeatedly reported in previous High Frontier messages and other publications, our Lake Wylie Pilot Study has demonstrated that the methods used to protect our most important military systems can affordably be used to protect the electric power grid. For example, we demonstrated that protecting the key components of the Distribution Grid in York County, SC would likely cost less that $100 per citizen in York County, a one time cost less that the monthly cost of medical insurance for an average family.

So, the expense of hardening the electric power grid should not be an issue — the obstacle clearly is political and bureaucratic. COVID-19 Phase 4 could set this record straight!

Moreover, as I have written previously, assuring viable operations during the COVID-19 pandemic is a current challenge for those who play a critical role in keeping the grid operating. In part, these messages were stimulated by that fact that no funds were directed to address this important vulnerability in the initial $2.2 trillion appropriation that President Trump signed into law on March 27, 2020.

Click here, here and here to review those three High Frontier messages that emphasized that the COVID-19 pandemic threatens those relatively few key operators of the nation’s electric power grid. Without them, the grid could go down. The last of these gives a link to an important article posted on the Foundation for Resilient Societies webpage — click here for that important report and consider its Abstract:

“Modelling of the COVID-19 pandemic shows control room operators at electric utilities will have high probability of being exposed and possibly infected. High absenteeism in operator teams, if not proactively managed, will reduce electric reliability and could cause blackouts. Reported COVID-19 cases used in a generalized logistic growth model indicate unmitigated spread in the U.S. could peak in the last week of April 2020. Alternatively, if mitigations are successful, the peak might be delayed until September or later. Utilities should plan for multiple scenarios. CDC guidelines should recommend asymptomatic testing of operators. When community infections are prevalent, operators should have priority for N95 masks and other personal protections. Monitoring and reporting of workforce health status to organizations such as the E-ISAC will be critically important during the COVID-19 pandemic. Medical personnel may be assigned to the most critical control facilities. Information sharing will enable better support to utilities from state, local, and federal governments. Modeling indicates that pandemic planning should be reexamined and updated by early April 2020.”

This report’s primary author is Tom Popik, the Foundation’s Founder and President and a MIT Electrical Engineer with a Harvard MBA. I was pleased to join him in co-authoring this report with Dr. Alan Nichols, a retired Rock Hill, SC physician who has played an enormously important role in our Lake Wylie Pilot Study, and Ms. Lanaanne Tyrell, who holds a Masters Degree in Public Health and is an Adjunct Faculty Member at the River University of Public Health. I strongly recommend that you read this effort, and especially pay attention to requirements for assuring continuity of operations of our essential Operations Centers.

Of course, it is important that the operators also must be assured protection in case of an EMP attack on the grid…just as protecting them against COVID-19 is important. However, there is no particular EMP threat to the operators from an EMP attack. It only shuts down the grid for an indefinite period of time. And they, like everyone else, will become victims of starvation, disease and societal collapse.

And by the way, if our 97 or so nuclear reactors that provide about 20-percent of the nation’s electricity are vulnerable to EMP, as I fear at least some are, and they lose their needed cooling water due to a loss of electricity, we could have a radiation release equivalent to up to 97 Fukushima events — to be carried across the nation by the wind.

Understand, I am an advocate for nuclear power, but we must assure our reactors are safe and can be restarted if they shut down to protect themselves. Keeping them safe is in fact a if not the top priority.

Just ne more reason that dealing with COVID-19 is child’s play as compared to dealing with the existential EMP threat!

So, if we are going to upgrade the roads and bridges and other important infrastructure — as President Trump, Senator Graham and others have urged, isn’t it much more important to fix the vulnerable electric power grid — which is actually much more important for the viability of the nation? And that effort can provide key employment as well.

Notably, Speaker Pelosi at least once included the electric grid in her list of critical infrastructure … click here for a March 30, 2020 Politico article quoting her as signaling to her caucus that infrastructure likely be part of the “Phase 4” package, specifically including water systems, broadband and the energy grid. Hopefully, our friends are paying attention.

I would argue that priority should be given to investing at least enough to validate the results of our Lake Wylie Pilot Study and to assure that those results can be exploited throughout South and North Carolina — as well as throughout the nation.

And, consistent with Senator Graham’s stated objective, I would urge that a “bump-up” should be given to funding the National Guard to oversee this important initiative and develop a plan to protect the nation’s grid.

Click here for my most comprehensive recent discussion (March 3, 2020) of how the Lake Wylie Pilot Study can and should be exploited to quickly take advantage of such an initiative. That proposed initiative would engage the National Guard with an important funding responsibility because of the important role it can play in executing a viable, responsive program across the nation — and that role actually fits with existing legislation as discussed in our game plan.

Click here for a brief report on those connections and the $30 million funding needed over two years, preferably beginning this year, to accomplish the following objectives:

Validate the Lake Wylie Pilot Study $22 million cost estimate to protect the York County Distribution Grid and its Palmetto 800 UHF link to the state Capitol in Columbia — by funding already recommended hardening from the Lake Wylie Pilot Study;
Cooperate with Duke Energy efforts to estimate the costs of protecting its Power Generation Plants on Lake Wylie and its Transmission Grid infrastructure;
Estimate the cost of protecting the Palmetto 800 MHz Emergency Management communication system throughout the State of South Carolina;
Link 263^rd Army Air and Missile Defense Command (AAMDC) and the Joint Base San Antonio Electromagnetic Defense Initiative (JBSA-EDI) activities; and
Recommend more pathways to export the lessons to other states and regions throughout the U.S.

As illustrated below in a chart I often include in my briefings, the Commander of the 263^rd AAMDC is a direct report to the Commanders of Northern Command in Colorado Springs, CO, First Air Force on Tyndall AFB, FL and Army North on Ft. Sam Houston, TX. Notably, it is located in Anderson, SC near Senator Graham’s hometown.

This initiative would embed a proactive initiative within the National Guard in a way that will help enable a logical, coherent national effort to protect the nation’s electric power grid.

Thus, our proposed effort, which has the support of South Carolina’s Adjutant General, can become a key element of a viable national effort to protect the nation’s electric power grid. More for another day as to how best to proceed though existing National Guard connections.

Bottom Lines.

Peggy Noonan was right: “Everything works — and will continue to work — as long as we have electricity. It’s what keeps the lights on, the oxygen flowing, the information going. Everything is the grid, the grid, the grid.”

And so was Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) when he notably lamented last year, as he closed his important February 17, 2019 Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing:

“We have known about the existential threat posed by electromagnetic pulses (EMP) and geomagnetic disturbances (GMD) for decades. Because most people are either unaware of the danger, or view these as very low probability events, there has not been sufficient public pressure to take effective action to mitigate these threats. Instead, we 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.” (Emphasis added)

And so was Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) when she observed as she closed her May 4, 2017 Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on the EMP threat to the grid:

“I appreciate the urging that we not let our guard down … recognizing that this [threat] is complicated and multifaceted … truly daunting … and that we need to start out locally … It is important that we in congress be reminded of the urgency and imperative of our task and I think we were given that message this morning.” (Emphasis added)

So, hopefully, they will join Senator Graham in sponsoring Phase 4 appropriations to “Fix the Grid” from the bottom up, with our Lake Wylie Pilot Study playing a key role.

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 manmade 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.

Click here to make a tax deductible gift. If you prefer to mail a check, Please send it High Frontier, 20 F Street 7^th Floor, Washington, DC 20001.

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