1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,800 Hi, I'm Dennis Quaid. 2 00:00:02,740 --> 00:00:06,820 I've been concerned about this glaring issue with our country's civilian 3 00:00:06,820 --> 00:00:10,760 infrastructure since I first learned about it 10-plus years ago. 4 00:00:11,620 --> 00:00:14,500 I'm pleased to take a role in this important project. 5 00:00:14,840 --> 00:00:20,140 This is a very serious situation, but it's imminently fixable. 6 00:00:20,900 --> 00:00:23,380 Ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts. 7 00:00:23,720 --> 00:00:28,940 But let me tell you, this movie can and will have a happy ending. 8 00:00:36,460 --> 00:00:39,280 You ever stop and realize how fragile all this is? 9 00:00:41,180 --> 00:00:44,840 Wouldn't take much to throw us right back into barbaric times. 10 00:00:46,040 --> 00:00:48,700 All you'd have to do would be eliminate electricity. 11 00:00:52,800 --> 00:00:59,460 New York, one of the biggest cities in the world, plunges into darkness in the 12 00:00:59,460 --> 00:01:00,460 blink of an eye. 13 00:01:03,480 --> 00:01:05,560 It's just after 4 p.m. 14 00:01:05,930 --> 00:01:12,690 on August 14, 2003, and an unthinkable disaster becomes reality. 15 00:01:13,430 --> 00:01:19,390 A cascade of power failures shuts down electricity in southeast Canada 16 00:01:19,390 --> 00:01:22,410 and across eight northeastern states. 17 00:01:23,990 --> 00:01:28,310 Cities like New York are brought to a complete standstill. 18 00:01:28,510 --> 00:01:34,940 Hundreds of people are trapped in subway tunnels, while the traffic above becomes 19 00:01:34,940 --> 00:01:36,860 a nightmare of gridlock. 20 00:01:37,480 --> 00:01:44,320 In all, 55 million people lost power for up to two days. The main culprit, 21 00:01:44,620 --> 00:01:51,420 a sagging high-voltage power line in northern Ohio that brushed up against an 22 00:01:51,420 --> 00:01:52,420 overgrown tree. 23 00:01:54,380 --> 00:01:55,380 Eliminate electricity. 24 00:01:55,660 --> 00:01:56,658 That's all. 25 00:01:56,660 --> 00:01:57,660 But completely. 26 00:01:58,380 --> 00:02:01,260 So, no electricity, no lights. 27 00:02:01,880 --> 00:02:04,680 You're back to candles and lanterns, campfires and bonfires. 28 00:02:04,900 --> 00:02:06,200 Batteries couldn't be recharged. 29 00:02:06,720 --> 00:02:09,620 Generators couldn't be refueled because fuel is pumped electrically. 30 00:02:10,160 --> 00:02:14,560 So is water, by the way. So no lights, no fuel, no water, no computers. And 31 00:02:14,560 --> 00:02:15,700 computers run everything. 32 00:02:16,820 --> 00:02:19,860 Police wouldn't help you. They'd be gone at the first sign of trouble. They'd be 33 00:02:19,860 --> 00:02:22,540 home protecting their own families. So would the Army and the National Guard. 34 00:02:22,800 --> 00:02:25,800 You'd be alone. You'd be on your own. You'd be SOL and JWF. 35 00:02:26,120 --> 00:02:28,500 You might think George Carlin was funny. 36 00:02:28,970 --> 00:02:34,150 but this is hardly a humorous subject just listen to esteemed u.s senator 37 00:02:34,150 --> 00:02:41,110 angus king there's a weird calmness about this hearing this is 38 00:02:41,110 --> 00:02:47,790 not calm the russians are already in the grid this is not a 39 00:02:47,790 --> 00:02:53,430 threat this is happening we are under attack we are in a very dangerous place 40 00:02:53,430 --> 00:02:58,430 i just think this has to be an emergency an urgent situation what would the 41 00:02:58,920 --> 00:03:04,320 catastrophic consequences be at a human level if you tried to live in a non 42 00:03:04,320 --> 00:03:06,680 -electricity world given the way we build our civilization? 43 00:03:07,100 --> 00:03:12,120 Nine out of ten of us wouldn't make it if an attack on the grid resulted in the 44 00:03:12,120 --> 00:03:14,380 power going out and staying out for a year. 45 00:03:14,860 --> 00:03:20,260 This extraordinary claim came from an EMP commission, a congressionally 46 00:03:20,260 --> 00:03:26,220 mandated commission that operated for 15 plus years and was staffed by the best 47 00:03:26,620 --> 00:03:28,660 and brightest scientist in the country. 48 00:03:29,340 --> 00:03:35,140 The commission performed exhaustive studies, including experimentation and 49 00:03:35,140 --> 00:03:38,500 testing, largely eliminating the need for further studies. 50 00:03:39,640 --> 00:03:44,340 It's not difficult to imagine how our entire world could quickly turn to 51 00:03:44,340 --> 00:03:49,600 chaos. Think about the millions of people in hospitals and those requiring 52 00:03:49,600 --> 00:03:51,580 medicine for their daily survival. 53 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:57,620 The running water we depend on comes from municipal water systems that 54 00:03:57,620 --> 00:03:59,460 require power to operate. 55 00:04:00,840 --> 00:04:07,140 The rule of three survival theory tells us that humans can die after three days 56 00:04:07,140 --> 00:04:08,180 without water. 57 00:04:10,100 --> 00:04:16,779 Heat, gas for our cars, transportation for food restocking, all of it 58 00:04:16,779 --> 00:04:19,019 relies to some extent on electricity. 59 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:26,160 But no one likes to focus on what could happen if it all suddenly is taken away. 60 00:05:01,100 --> 00:05:05,980 The veil between civility and brutality is razor thin. So imagine what will 61 00:05:05,980 --> 00:05:09,560 happen if there is no food, no power, and no money, and no transportation for 62 00:05:09,560 --> 00:05:11,140 three weeks, three months. 63 00:05:11,960 --> 00:05:17,180 Only people with guns and the boldness to go and take what they need to survive 64 00:05:17,180 --> 00:05:22,280 will live. The vulnerability of the power grid is clear. Look no further 65 00:05:22,280 --> 00:05:25,800 than to what happened in the state of Texas in the winter. 66 00:05:26,170 --> 00:05:31,930 of 2021 texas's grid collapsed which should serve as a cautionary tale for 67 00:05:31,930 --> 00:05:37,310 everybody else in the united states mike maybe lived through it at his home in 68 00:05:37,310 --> 00:05:42,910 fort worth texas he's a retired command sergeant major in the u.s army with two 69 00:05:42,910 --> 00:05:49,750 deployments to iraq under his belt these days he's a citizen warrior when he 70 00:05:49,750 --> 00:05:54,470 learned about the vulnerabilities of the nation's grid he devoted himself 71 00:05:55,210 --> 00:05:58,270 to raising awareness of it and resolving these weaknesses. 72 00:05:59,070 --> 00:06:04,990 I filed over 200 different filings with the federal government related to 73 00:06:04,990 --> 00:06:11,110 protecting the electric grid. We had 210 fatalities as a result of that grid 74 00:06:11,110 --> 00:06:15,230 collapse. We had millions of people under boil water orders because the 75 00:06:15,230 --> 00:06:16,230 water was unsafe. 76 00:06:17,090 --> 00:06:21,590 Three days after the blackout, I took pictures of the empty shelves. 77 00:06:22,350 --> 00:06:23,650 There's no water. 78 00:06:24,060 --> 00:06:30,440 no bread, no frozen pizza. We were literally minutes away from the 79 00:06:30,440 --> 00:06:35,940 blackout causing such severe damage that it could have taken weeks or longer to 80 00:06:35,940 --> 00:06:37,380 get the grid back up and running. 81 00:06:38,160 --> 00:06:43,960 Our top story, 4 minutes and 37 seconds. That's how close Texas was from a total 82 00:06:43,960 --> 00:06:48,460 power grid collapse last week. It was confirmed today at the ERCOT board 83 00:06:48,460 --> 00:06:49,460 meeting. 84 00:06:50,320 --> 00:06:54,800 This four-minute and 37-second time frame is crucially important. 85 00:06:55,180 --> 00:07:00,320 We were that close to a devastating and prolonged crisis. 86 00:07:02,360 --> 00:07:07,160 There's a major difference between a short-term grid-down scenario and the 87 00:07:07,160 --> 00:07:11,740 power grid being out for months at a time, where tens of millions of citizens 88 00:07:11,740 --> 00:07:12,800 can die. 89 00:07:13,620 --> 00:07:16,800 And again, the question I'd ask, what have we actually, we've taken it 90 00:07:16,800 --> 00:07:18,980 seriously, what have we actually done? 91 00:07:19,450 --> 00:07:21,050 other than literally admire the problem. 92 00:07:21,610 --> 00:07:27,310 All of us need to fully understand what's at stake here so we can get 93 00:07:27,310 --> 00:07:32,410 involved and push for action so that our critical civilian infrastructure can be 94 00:07:32,410 --> 00:07:33,870 protected from all threats. 95 00:07:34,770 --> 00:07:37,990 Now, it's hard to imagine a more bipartisan issue. 96 00:07:38,530 --> 00:07:43,210 A grid down scenario would have a devastating impact on every one of us 97 00:07:43,210 --> 00:07:46,430 and our children's and our grandchildren's futures. 98 00:07:47,370 --> 00:07:51,970 That's why at the end of this film, we're going to provide an action plan 99 00:07:51,970 --> 00:07:54,950 that will put us on the road to resolving this vulnerability. 100 00:07:55,990 --> 00:08:01,750 Now stay tuned and remain hopeful. But for now, let's take a closer look at 101 00:08:01,750 --> 00:08:04,610 what this complicated power grid is all about. 102 00:08:09,730 --> 00:08:15,330 For most of man's history, the planet and its inhabitants had only the light 103 00:08:15,330 --> 00:08:16,330 of the sun. 104 00:08:16,430 --> 00:08:19,610 and then fire to manage the needs of life. 105 00:08:20,150 --> 00:08:25,790 It wasn't until the 19th century that with the invention of electricity and 106 00:08:25,790 --> 00:08:29,750 modern power gave us control over our environment. 107 00:08:31,570 --> 00:08:33,510 Electricity spread was rapid. 108 00:08:34,070 --> 00:08:37,610 First the cities, which started to glow. 109 00:08:38,490 --> 00:08:42,470 Power then came to rural areas, slowly at first. 110 00:08:43,120 --> 00:08:45,880 But soon, the entire country had access. 111 00:08:46,760 --> 00:08:53,020 In a matter of decades, life in America took an extraordinary leap forward. 112 00:08:54,320 --> 00:08:59,820 Homes, factories, businesses, streetlights, everything became 113 00:08:59,820 --> 00:09:05,280 connected to the constant source of life which became known as the grid. 114 00:09:10,670 --> 00:09:16,010 It's considered one of the great feats of 20th century engineering, designed to 115 00:09:16,010 --> 00:09:18,590 move power from a wide variety of sources. 116 00:09:18,970 --> 00:09:24,450 Plants driven by coal, hydroelectric, natural gas, and nuclear. 117 00:09:24,750 --> 00:09:29,470 And in recent years, green energy sources such as wind and solar. 118 00:09:29,930 --> 00:09:34,410 all of it creating electricity that pulses through a fragile labyrinth of 119 00:09:34,410 --> 00:09:39,070 thousands of substations and transformers across high-voltage power 120 00:09:39,070 --> 00:09:42,570 lines and into every corner of our society. 121 00:09:42,850 --> 00:09:49,330 The electric grid is actually operated by about 3,000 different companies, both 122 00:09:49,330 --> 00:09:55,130 public and private sector, involved in the generation, transmission, and 123 00:09:55,130 --> 00:09:56,950 distribution of electric power. 124 00:09:58,670 --> 00:10:03,830 There are three independent regional grids, the Eastern Grid, the Western 125 00:10:03,830 --> 00:10:09,130 Grid, and Texas Grid. And now, increasing demand combined with aging 126 00:10:09,130 --> 00:10:14,590 infrastructure has left America vulnerable, not just to temporary 127 00:10:14,590 --> 00:10:19,650 blackouts, but to potentially devastating wide-scale power failures. 128 00:10:20,950 --> 00:10:22,810 It all starts... 129 00:10:23,100 --> 00:10:28,540 with massive high-voltage transformers that interconnect power lines across the 130 00:10:28,540 --> 00:10:29,540 country. 131 00:10:30,240 --> 00:10:34,620 These transformers are considered the workhorses of the grid. 132 00:10:35,180 --> 00:10:40,600 Their function is to convert raw electricity from power plants into 133 00:10:40,600 --> 00:10:46,420 higher or lower voltages for uses in homes, offices, and factories. 134 00:10:49,550 --> 00:10:51,730 The extra high voltage transformers are huge. 135 00:10:52,030 --> 00:10:53,530 There are hundreds of tons each. 136 00:10:55,330 --> 00:10:57,910 You have to shut down a freeway to deliver them. 137 00:11:00,750 --> 00:11:05,570 And you have to move stop lights and power lines and street lights just to 138 00:11:05,570 --> 00:11:09,370 get them down a road through a city to get them delivered to the installations. 139 00:11:10,810 --> 00:11:12,230 In a grid down situation, 140 00:11:13,290 --> 00:11:17,690 There's just going to be no chance of getting extra high voltage transformers 141 00:11:17,690 --> 00:11:19,030 on site and installed. 142 00:11:21,130 --> 00:11:25,310 Our chief vulnerability are these big transformers. And if you lose them, 143 00:11:25,430 --> 00:11:26,930 you've basically lost the whole grid. 144 00:11:27,450 --> 00:11:29,850 And they're not manufactured in this country anymore. 145 00:11:30,330 --> 00:11:33,430 You're talking about 18 months to replace one transformer. 146 00:11:33,830 --> 00:11:37,390 And this country can't survive for 18 months. It probably can't survive for 147 00:11:37,390 --> 00:11:38,950 six months without electricity. 148 00:11:39,790 --> 00:11:45,070 What's really troubling, experts say, is that utilities have been buying some of 149 00:11:45,070 --> 00:11:50,370 these critical high-voltage transformers from China and putting them into our 150 00:11:50,370 --> 00:11:57,190 grid. We knew about 300 large Chinese transformers that we had imported 151 00:11:57,190 --> 00:12:03,130 into the United States, and we knew that at least 200 of those were embedded in 152 00:12:03,130 --> 00:12:04,130 the electric grid. 153 00:12:05,180 --> 00:12:08,560 marketing job, they're underselling other sources. 154 00:12:08,980 --> 00:12:13,400 Why isn't there a requirement that somebody check to see whether it has 155 00:12:13,400 --> 00:12:17,260 some kind of a backdoor, some type of vulnerability, and there's no 156 00:12:17,260 --> 00:12:18,460 requirement that you check it? 157 00:12:18,820 --> 00:12:24,440 Mike Mabee calculates that Chinese transformers now provide 10% of the 158 00:12:24,440 --> 00:12:30,340 electricity provided in New York City and 20% in Las Vegas, based on 159 00:12:30,340 --> 00:12:33,080 advertising claims from Chinese companies. 160 00:12:43,080 --> 00:12:47,240 Top former energy official claims an attack on an American power grid was 161 00:12:47,240 --> 00:12:51,420 terrorism. The attack was the most significant incident of domestic 162 00:12:51,420 --> 00:12:55,300 terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred in the U.S. 163 00:12:55,600 --> 00:12:57,980 Metcalf, California, 2013. 164 00:12:58,700 --> 00:13:00,800 Just outside Silicon Valley. 165 00:13:01,280 --> 00:13:04,980 This was an unprecedented and sophisticated attack on a grid 166 00:13:04,980 --> 00:13:10,920 substation. Unidentified gunmen using AK-47s attacked some of the giant 167 00:13:10,920 --> 00:13:13,840 transformers that funnel power to Silicon Valley. 168 00:13:14,180 --> 00:13:19,200 Shortly before 1 a.m., someone cut telephone cables near the substation. 169 00:13:19,300 --> 00:13:24,740 About a half hour later, multiple gunmen quickly fired dozens of shots at 17 170 00:13:24,740 --> 00:13:27,960 transformers inside the perimeter of the station. 171 00:13:28,480 --> 00:13:33,380 Fifteen minutes later, transformers began to fail. But officials managed to 172 00:13:33,380 --> 00:13:36,560 avoid serious disruptions by rerouting power. 173 00:13:36,960 --> 00:13:40,340 The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission investigated the incident and 174 00:13:40,340 --> 00:13:45,520 concluded, with the aid of the U.S. Navy SEALs team, that this was probably a 175 00:13:45,520 --> 00:13:46,499 terrorist attack. 176 00:13:46,500 --> 00:13:50,900 The Wall Street Journal reported that one minute before the police arrived, 177 00:13:51,300 --> 00:13:54,000 the attackers disappeared into the night. 178 00:13:54,860 --> 00:13:56,900 No one has ever been arrested. 179 00:13:57,630 --> 00:13:59,790 Recently, we saw another one in Arizona. 180 00:14:00,450 --> 00:14:03,190 Diesel fuel set to a timer, ready to blow. 181 00:14:04,090 --> 00:14:07,570 It doesn't need to be sophisticated because, unfortunately, a lot of these 182 00:14:07,570 --> 00:14:11,350 systems were put together in the 70s and the 80s. So far, none of those attacks 183 00:14:11,350 --> 00:14:14,790 have resulted in widespread power outages. Otherwise, well, you might have 184 00:14:14,790 --> 00:14:18,590 heard about it. But their frequency has raised concerns about the security of 185 00:14:18,590 --> 00:14:20,890 this obviously vital piece of our infrastructure. 186 00:14:21,370 --> 00:14:25,790 This also raised concerns that these seemingly random events... 187 00:14:26,090 --> 00:14:28,990 could be precursors of bigger things to come. 188 00:14:29,310 --> 00:14:35,550 The attack was played down by PGandE, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company that 189 00:14:35,550 --> 00:14:39,710 provides electricity to millions in the northern two-thirds of California. 190 00:14:40,270 --> 00:14:46,970 It wasn't until March 2014, almost a year later, that the Metcalfe story 191 00:14:46,970 --> 00:14:49,210 finally broke in the Wall Street Journal. 192 00:14:49,570 --> 00:14:53,870 This attack did happen, but you didn't hear a peep out of the utility whose 193 00:14:53,870 --> 00:14:54,870 substation was attacked. 194 00:14:56,270 --> 00:15:01,950 The FBI came to the conclusion that the Metcalfe attack was most likely not a 195 00:15:01,950 --> 00:15:06,150 terrorist attack in the end, probably just a disgruntled employee. 196 00:15:06,710 --> 00:15:08,790 But what do you think? 197 00:15:09,050 --> 00:15:13,550 The operation against the Metcalfe transformer substation represents an 198 00:15:13,550 --> 00:15:18,350 engraved invitation for ISIS or any terrorist group or criminal gangs to 199 00:15:18,350 --> 00:15:22,430 attack the U.S. power grid and put the nation into dark, perhaps for weeks or 200 00:15:22,430 --> 00:15:24,800 months. In February 2022, 201 00:15:25,520 --> 00:15:30,900 60 Minutes ran a story that took a hard look at the vulnerability of the US 202 00:15:30,900 --> 00:15:31,900 power grid. 203 00:15:32,100 --> 00:15:37,260 John Wellinghoff was chairman of FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory 204 00:15:37,260 --> 00:15:42,380 Commission, a small government agency with jurisdiction over the US high 205 00:15:42,380 --> 00:15:43,980 -voltage transmission system. 206 00:15:44,740 --> 00:15:49,380 Wellinghoff commissioned a study to see if a physical attack on critical 207 00:15:49,380 --> 00:15:53,060 transformers could trigger cascading blackouts. 208 00:15:53,380 --> 00:15:57,540 It was actually a very shocking result to us that there's very few number of 209 00:15:57,540 --> 00:16:01,900 substations you need to take out in the entire United States to knock out the 210 00:16:01,900 --> 00:16:02,859 entire grid. 211 00:16:02,860 --> 00:16:04,840 Knock out the entire grid? That's correct. 212 00:16:05,100 --> 00:16:07,940 How many would it take to knock out, putting the entire country in a 213 00:16:07,940 --> 00:16:09,120 blackout? Less than 20. 214 00:16:09,560 --> 00:16:14,740 The report was leaked to the Wall Street Journal. It found the U.S. could suffer 215 00:16:14,740 --> 00:16:20,000 a coast-to-coast blackout. if saboteurs knocked out just nine substations. 216 00:16:20,220 --> 00:16:21,199 That's right. 217 00:16:21,200 --> 00:16:27,440 Nine out of 55,000 substations. Between 2010 and 2020 alone, 218 00:16:27,620 --> 00:16:34,220 there were more than 700 documented attacks on this nation's electric grid. 219 00:16:34,950 --> 00:16:41,050 Metcalf took place in 2013, and so immediately there was a call for there 220 00:16:41,050 --> 00:16:45,470 to be some type of a physical security standard to protect the electric grid. 221 00:16:45,630 --> 00:16:49,830 Unfortunately, that never really materialized. In 1981, 222 00:16:50,730 --> 00:16:56,930 GAO came out with a report about how inadequate the physical security of the 223 00:16:56,930 --> 00:17:02,570 electric grid was. Here we are talking now, 40 years later, about the exact 224 00:17:02,570 --> 00:17:03,990 same thing. 225 00:17:15,880 --> 00:17:20,680 on any given day according to experts there are thousands of attempts to 226 00:17:20,680 --> 00:17:25,819 penetrate the networks that control systems across america's power grid and 227 00:17:25,819 --> 00:17:31,190 the risks are only growing The more advanced and digitalized our grid 228 00:17:31,190 --> 00:17:34,190 becomes, the more vulnerable it is to hackers. 229 00:17:34,450 --> 00:17:36,610 Hacking is part of a cyber attack. 230 00:17:36,890 --> 00:17:42,270 It is a way to get into a system, and then you can do all sorts of things. You 231 00:17:42,270 --> 00:17:45,910 can sleep in that system if you've hacked into it. You can lay dormant for 232 00:17:45,910 --> 00:17:49,510 years and monitor critical information that's being transmitted back and forth. 233 00:17:49,670 --> 00:17:52,710 You can get a game, if you will, of how to get the system. 234 00:17:53,200 --> 00:17:57,080 debilitated by watching it play out in its normal functions. There are a lot of 235 00:17:57,080 --> 00:17:59,820 things that happen as a result of hacking. 236 00:18:00,020 --> 00:18:05,540 The real danger is that our infrastructure, in particular our 237 00:18:05,540 --> 00:18:11,540 electric power grids, are as vulnerable to cyber attack as the thousands upon 238 00:18:11,540 --> 00:18:16,860 thousands of businesses, companies, government agencies that have already 239 00:18:16,860 --> 00:18:20,480 been hacked over the last few months and even the last couple of years. 240 00:18:20,910 --> 00:18:25,270 We've had these recent cyber attacks, you know, like SolarWinds and the 241 00:18:25,270 --> 00:18:30,390 Colonial Pipeline and the attacks in the meatpacking industry. And do you realize 242 00:18:30,390 --> 00:18:36,350 there is absolutely no requirement that anybody detect, 243 00:18:36,930 --> 00:18:41,790 mitigate or remove malware from the electric grid? 244 00:18:44,010 --> 00:18:49,150 The SolarWinds hack was, and really is, continues to be one of the biggest 245 00:18:49,150 --> 00:18:52,070 espionage campaigns recently discovered. 246 00:18:53,390 --> 00:18:58,330 When it comes to sophisticated cyber hacks on a national scale, it might 247 00:18:58,330 --> 00:19:03,010 sound like the stuff of science fiction, except it's already happened. 248 00:19:03,450 --> 00:19:08,850 A massive cyber attack in 2015 left a quarter of a million Ukrainians without 249 00:19:08,850 --> 00:19:09,850 electricity. 250 00:19:10,050 --> 00:19:13,290 Russia hacked into their grid and cut off power. 251 00:19:14,920 --> 00:19:16,340 There were three attacks. 252 00:19:16,700 --> 00:19:23,620 The first was the December 2015 attack in western Ukraine, where they took off 253 00:19:23,620 --> 00:19:27,100 the power and light and heat in the middle of winter. 254 00:19:27,600 --> 00:19:33,900 And they followed that up again one year later with a power outage in Kiev, the 255 00:19:33,900 --> 00:19:34,900 nation's capital. 256 00:19:35,760 --> 00:19:40,180 And then they pulled off the most destructive cyber attack the world had 257 00:19:40,180 --> 00:19:42,740 ever seen, the NotPetya attack. 258 00:19:43,240 --> 00:19:44,780 It was a destructive attack. 259 00:19:45,060 --> 00:19:48,020 And it wiped out data, Ukrainian federal agencies. 260 00:19:48,660 --> 00:19:54,960 It wiped out the ability for anyone to pull money out of ATMs to pay for gas. 261 00:19:55,120 --> 00:19:58,560 It paralyzed railway services and post services. 262 00:19:59,120 --> 00:20:04,320 It was the first ever automated blackout tool. And a push of a button can, like a 263 00:20:04,320 --> 00:20:07,100 machine gun, hit all of the circuit breakers at the utility. 264 00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:10,760 And that's what happened. You don't build a tool like this just to use it 265 00:20:10,760 --> 00:20:12,640 once. You build it as a kind of... 266 00:20:13,960 --> 00:20:18,360 repeatable attack that you can drop somewhere else and it will cause a 267 00:20:18,360 --> 00:20:19,360 blackout again. 268 00:20:20,260 --> 00:20:25,400 Two years later, when I went to Ukraine to interview the people who had run the 269 00:20:25,400 --> 00:20:31,720 forensics on these attacks, what stuck with me is they said, listen, we don't 270 00:20:31,720 --> 00:20:33,760 actually think we were the end target. 271 00:20:34,060 --> 00:20:36,220 We think we were the test kitchen. 272 00:20:36,520 --> 00:20:40,000 We think you, the United States, is the end target. 273 00:20:40,560 --> 00:20:46,440 Only when it comes your way, the damage will be so much worse because we are 274 00:20:46,440 --> 00:20:52,760 still not so automated here in Ukraine. In the United States, we had digitized 275 00:20:52,760 --> 00:20:58,800 every nook and cranny of our critical infrastructure, of the grid, of our 276 00:20:58,800 --> 00:21:01,540 health care system, of our pipelines. 277 00:21:01,900 --> 00:21:07,600 And so when those same capabilities came for us, the Ukrainians said, you better 278 00:21:07,600 --> 00:21:08,600 watch out. 279 00:21:08,890 --> 00:21:10,930 because the damage will be so much worse. 280 00:21:16,090 --> 00:21:22,590 I truly believe the next geopolitical conflict will either play out in the 281 00:21:22,590 --> 00:21:27,670 form of a cyber war or will involve some major cyber component. 282 00:21:28,210 --> 00:21:33,350 And the country that wins that conflict will look a lot like a digital Israel. 283 00:21:34,080 --> 00:21:40,740 a country that can continue to run its most basic functions and services while 284 00:21:40,740 --> 00:21:43,920 surrounded by hostile neighbors and hostile activity. 285 00:21:44,240 --> 00:21:50,980 And right now, the United States is not that country. We would lose that 286 00:21:50,980 --> 00:21:56,180 war. I'm convinced that at some point or another, it's going to happen. 287 00:21:56,880 --> 00:22:02,400 The Chinese are in, the Russians are in, and the Iranians are believed to be in. 288 00:22:02,960 --> 00:22:05,140 they could wreak untold havoc. 289 00:22:05,420 --> 00:22:09,000 I was told that by the former chief scientist of NSA. 290 00:22:14,160 --> 00:22:19,400 The head of US intelligence, Dan Coats, said publicly that the Russians were in 291 00:22:19,400 --> 00:22:25,660 the control plane of our power grid and the Chinese had access controls of our 292 00:22:25,660 --> 00:22:27,280 natural gas pipeline system. 293 00:22:33,770 --> 00:22:39,150 Do you think that adversaries of the United States have the capability right 294 00:22:39,150 --> 00:22:41,230 now to shut down the power grid? 295 00:22:43,670 --> 00:22:49,210 Yeah, they do. I mean, I think that there are very malign actors who are 296 00:22:49,210 --> 00:22:54,990 trying, even as we speak. There are thousands of attacks on all aspects of 297 00:22:54,990 --> 00:22:58,330 the energy sector and the private sector generally. I mean, the meat plant, for 298 00:22:58,330 --> 00:22:59,330 example. 299 00:22:59,610 --> 00:23:02,030 It's happening all the time. 300 00:23:04,560 --> 00:23:09,140 And the cyber threats facing this country are growing with dramatic 301 00:23:09,140 --> 00:23:15,640 advances. Potential aggressors are exploiting vulnerabilities in our 302 00:23:15,640 --> 00:23:16,640 security. 303 00:23:21,820 --> 00:23:27,720 As we are seeing millions of security incidents on our critical infrastructure 304 00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:33,460 every single day, we have caught Russia hacking into our grid. 305 00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:35,480 probing our nuclear plans. 306 00:23:35,740 --> 00:23:38,580 We've caught China hacking into our pipelines. 307 00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:40,520 I covered those attacks. 308 00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:46,500 We just declassified a report that said that the goal of those pipeline breaches 309 00:23:46,500 --> 00:23:51,840 was to get a foothold in the event China would need to knock out our pipelines 310 00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:52,840 one day. 311 00:23:55,470 --> 00:23:59,410 We need to prepare for the consequences of a cyber attack. 312 00:23:59,650 --> 00:24:00,750 We are not ready. 313 00:24:00,950 --> 00:24:04,990 Tom Ridge, who was the first Secretary of Homeland Security, said to me, you 314 00:24:04,990 --> 00:24:08,590 know, we are not a preemptive society. 315 00:24:09,110 --> 00:24:10,790 We react to events. 316 00:24:13,110 --> 00:24:17,870 There are days when I look at my three-year-old and I wonder what the 317 00:24:17,870 --> 00:24:19,550 future will look like for him. 318 00:24:20,130 --> 00:24:22,290 We have never been closer. 319 00:24:22,990 --> 00:24:29,110 to a cyber-induced cataclysmic attack on our critical infrastructure. 320 00:24:29,510 --> 00:24:30,510 There's no plan. 321 00:24:30,610 --> 00:24:32,290 There are plans for hurricanes. 322 00:24:32,510 --> 00:24:35,850 There are plans for snowstorms. There are plans for earthquakes. 323 00:24:36,290 --> 00:24:42,310 There is no plan for a cyber attack that would be infinitely longer in duration 324 00:24:42,310 --> 00:24:45,670 and more widespread than any of those natural disasters. 325 00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:06,940 A lot of people, when they think of a nuclear war, what comes to mind is the 326 00:25:06,940 --> 00:25:10,560 image of mushroom clouds, cities laid to waste. 327 00:25:10,780 --> 00:25:15,020 But that may not be the way a nuclear war actually looks today. 328 00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:21,220 So if you detonate a nuclear weapon 200 kilometers or higher in outer space, 329 00:25:21,620 --> 00:25:24,240 people on the ground might not even know that it happened. 330 00:25:24,460 --> 00:25:28,520 But it will send an electromagnetic pulse charge down. 331 00:25:28,970 --> 00:25:32,850 and damage all the components critical to the electric grid. 332 00:25:38,090 --> 00:25:43,830 In other words, a nuclear explosion in the atmosphere above the United States 333 00:25:43,830 --> 00:25:49,110 could unleash a burst of invisible electrical energy that within a fraction 334 00:25:49,110 --> 00:25:54,830 of a second could wash over this country and overload all of our most sensitive 335 00:25:54,830 --> 00:25:55,970 electronic devices. 336 00:25:58,340 --> 00:26:00,660 including the nation's power grid 337 00:26:00,660 --> 00:26:07,660 an EMP 338 00:26:07,660 --> 00:26:12,140 pulse is a very dangerous threat and it's a realistic threat it's something 339 00:26:12,140 --> 00:26:15,780 that would basically if you're not nuclear hardened it will basically shut 340 00:26:15,780 --> 00:26:20,420 down any digital computer that is operating in the in the range of the EMP 341 00:26:20,420 --> 00:26:24,200 so if you set off an EMP a high-altitude burst EMP 342 00:26:24,990 --> 00:26:27,910 Basically, every light in this hotel is going to go off, every computer is going 343 00:26:27,910 --> 00:26:29,470 to go off, every cell phone is going to go off. 344 00:26:30,290 --> 00:26:31,550 That's what an EMP does. 345 00:26:34,150 --> 00:26:39,050 From a very low-yield nuclear detonation, from a very simple, small 346 00:26:39,050 --> 00:26:44,190 missile, or even a weather balloon launched up 20 miles above the Earth, 347 00:26:44,350 --> 00:26:49,550 can be absolutely devastating to the transformers and the rest of the 348 00:26:49,550 --> 00:26:50,770 electrical infrastructure. 349 00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:58,680 I was asked, as a STRATCOM writer, to respond to an EMP attack. 350 00:26:58,900 --> 00:27:02,600 And the answer is yes, because we have nuclear-hardened satellites, nuclear 351 00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:05,660 -hardened command and control shelters. We can respond to that. But our nation 352 00:27:05,660 --> 00:27:09,020 as a whole has not really looked at the critical infrastructure that could be 353 00:27:09,020 --> 00:27:10,020 damaged by EMP. 354 00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:12,340 And we need to kind of take a look at that entire threat. 355 00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:17,740 Entire cities could go dark in the blink of an eye. 356 00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:27,780 Texas State Senator Bob Hall has been aware of EMP for more than 50 years. 357 00:27:28,020 --> 00:27:32,300 When he was in the Air Force as a young man, after attaining an engineering 358 00:27:32,300 --> 00:27:36,800 degree at the Citadel, he was called on to protect our missiles from 359 00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:38,140 electromagnetic pulse. 360 00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:42,940 He's so deeply concerned about the existential threat it represents. 361 00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:47,820 He's fought for protective legislation for more than a decade. 362 00:27:48,380 --> 00:27:52,100 but the legislature failed to act in three different sessions. 363 00:27:53,140 --> 00:27:56,020 I ended up on assignment at Norton Air Force Base. 364 00:27:56,340 --> 00:28:01,160 The Pentagon came to the program office and told us that we had a new threat 365 00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:06,740 that they had not known about before but was extremely serious and actually was 366 00:28:06,740 --> 00:28:10,620 rendering our missile system, the Minuteman, totally impotent until we 367 00:28:10,620 --> 00:28:16,800 fixed it. There was a, I call it a crash program, and I was picked to... 368 00:28:17,320 --> 00:28:22,160 be the project manager to get the missile deployed as a hard missile. 369 00:28:22,580 --> 00:28:28,380 The power of an EMP is potentially devastating and it's an open secret 370 00:28:28,380 --> 00:28:30,360 among nuclear capable countries. 371 00:28:30,700 --> 00:28:37,420 We actually know that the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians have in their war 372 00:28:37,420 --> 00:28:44,380 plans the first strike plan to take out our electrical power system with an EMP 373 00:28:44,380 --> 00:28:45,900 attack. It's not speculation. 374 00:28:46,590 --> 00:28:50,650 We know that. We learned it about the Russians when the USSR collapsed. 375 00:28:51,090 --> 00:28:54,850 There were a number of defectors that left Russia and came to the United 376 00:28:54,850 --> 00:29:01,550 States. So they showed up here with boxes, suitcases full of data showing 377 00:29:01,550 --> 00:29:07,050 what the Russians planned to do with an EMP attack, what the Russians had given 378 00:29:07,050 --> 00:29:08,490 in information to the Chinese. 379 00:29:09,150 --> 00:29:13,790 We've listened to Kim Jong-un of North Korea threaten an EMP attack. 380 00:29:15,150 --> 00:29:18,050 This man goes by the name of Riza Khalili. 381 00:29:18,390 --> 00:29:21,350 It's a pseudonym he uses to protect his identity. 382 00:29:21,730 --> 00:29:26,610 He was born in Tehran, served in the Revolutionary Guard, and worked as a 383 00:29:26,610 --> 00:29:29,150 paid spy for the U.S. inside Iran. 384 00:29:29,490 --> 00:29:33,950 He's become one of this country's most outspoken voices, calling for the 385 00:29:33,950 --> 00:29:35,850 overthrow of the Iranian government. 386 00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:43,360 They launched a ballistic missile off of a vessel in the Caspian Sea 387 00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:48,740 successfully. There is no other reason to launch a ballistic missile from a 388 00:29:48,740 --> 00:29:51,840 ship than for the EMP purposes. 389 00:29:52,340 --> 00:29:56,960 So these actions are very alarming and points to the fact that they're quite 390 00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:00,560 aware of EMP and our weaknesses to protect ourselves. 391 00:30:00,860 --> 00:30:05,560 The thought that they could destroy tens if not hundreds of millions of Americans 392 00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:09,980 and effectively take... United States. How? By detonating a single nuclear 393 00:30:09,980 --> 00:30:14,460 weapon, not even very precisely, but just somewhere in space over the middle 394 00:30:14,460 --> 00:30:15,359 of this country. 395 00:30:15,360 --> 00:30:21,700 These are fanatics who believe that the demise of America and the destruction of 396 00:30:21,700 --> 00:30:27,180 Israel. will trigger an event where the last Islamic Messiah will appear, kill 397 00:30:27,180 --> 00:30:31,420 the rest of the infidels, and then Islam will rule the world. And that's where 398 00:30:31,420 --> 00:30:32,420 the danger lies. 399 00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:37,640 Iranian scientists have been present in North Korea when North Korea detonated a 400 00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:42,640 nuclear bomb, and they are jointly working together for arming their 401 00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:44,200 missiles with a nuclear warhead. 402 00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:49,160 Too often, the U.S. seems to have two modes of response to a problem. 403 00:30:49,980 --> 00:30:53,490 Before the problem occurs, The U.S. ignores it. 404 00:30:54,410 --> 00:30:59,870 After it occurs, the U.S. tries to throw enough money at it to put things right. 405 00:31:00,370 --> 00:31:04,870 Trouble is, if the power grid goes down, there isn't going to be enough money and 406 00:31:04,870 --> 00:31:07,330 time in the world to get it working again. 407 00:31:11,270 --> 00:31:15,710 Well, you know, if 9-11 didn't teach us anything, then I don't know what will, 408 00:31:15,790 --> 00:31:18,630 because the next attack on U.S. could be the end of America. 409 00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:35,040 If there was a system-level EMP attack today, what would be the survival of the 410 00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:36,040 electrical grid system? 411 00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:38,480 It really wouldn't survive at all. It would not survive. 412 00:31:38,700 --> 00:31:39,700 Right. 413 00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:45,640 An EMP attack would not have to come from a state actor with a high-altitude 414 00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:50,320 missile blast, as there are actually smaller weapons of war available, which 415 00:31:50,320 --> 00:31:53,560 could take out individual critical substations. 416 00:31:56,620 --> 00:31:59,240 There are these non-nuclear EMP weapons. 417 00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:04,960 There's an item called the EMP suitcase, and it looks just like a suitcase. 418 00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:08,940 It could be operated by a single individual with little or no training. 419 00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:14,960 We've arrived at a place where a madman, a terrorist, a criminal could topple the 420 00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:18,680 technological pillars of civilization for a major metropolitan area all by 421 00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:19,680 himself. 422 00:32:20,110 --> 00:32:26,210 Today, we have two satellites that were launched by North Korea, one in 2013 and 423 00:32:26,210 --> 00:32:28,050 a second one in 2016. 424 00:32:28,690 --> 00:32:34,390 They're on a polar orbit from south to north and cross the United States 425 00:32:34,390 --> 00:32:35,650 several times a day. 426 00:32:35,890 --> 00:32:41,010 We've monitored those satellites since they've been launched, and there's never 427 00:32:41,010 --> 00:32:44,290 been any data sent back from those satellites. 428 00:32:45,010 --> 00:32:48,750 That means one of two things. Either they were both total duds. 429 00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:53,360 Or they are weapons waiting for a signal to drop a nuclear weapon. 430 00:32:56,600 --> 00:33:02,160 There are many who are complacent about the potential motivations of our 431 00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:07,720 adversaries and believe they'd never risk an attack on the U.S. because a 432 00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:12,140 counterattack from the U.S. would destroy them. But what those skeptics 433 00:33:12,140 --> 00:33:18,380 may not appreciate is that a cyber or EMP attack can be disguised even 434 00:33:22,159 --> 00:33:27,960 Not only is Russia playing around with these capabilities in Ukraine, they're 435 00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:29,800 playing around with attribution. 436 00:33:30,020 --> 00:33:36,300 They're seeing if they could launch an attack on a system and not immediately 437 00:33:36,300 --> 00:33:43,040 be blamed for it. And when you can't tie back an attack to the actor, how do you 438 00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:44,040 respond? 439 00:33:45,230 --> 00:33:49,330 There's another threat looming out there that could also knock out the power grid 440 00:33:49,330 --> 00:33:53,890 to the same degree as these other threats. And in this case, there's 441 00:33:53,890 --> 00:33:56,090 nothing anyone can do to stop it. 442 00:33:56,410 --> 00:33:59,990 It's called geomagnetic disturbance, or GMD. 443 00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:07,340 We know we have been hit with what they call them sunspots, coronal mass 444 00:34:07,340 --> 00:34:12,940 ejections is a more scientific term. The earliest we have of a massive coronal 445 00:34:12,940 --> 00:34:15,580 mass ejection dates back to 1859. 446 00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:17,960 It was called a Carrington event. 447 00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:22,020 And you think, well, we didn't have electrical power then. Well, we did have 448 00:34:22,020 --> 00:34:26,760 a telegraph system, and our telegraph system was fried coast to coast, and 449 00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:30,600 even in Europe, sent telegraph operators to the hospital. 450 00:34:31,310 --> 00:34:32,889 It burned up equipment. 451 00:34:34,670 --> 00:34:39,830 Famed insurer Lloyds of London issued a comprehensive report about the risk of a 452 00:34:39,830 --> 00:34:43,070 major geomagnetic storm to the world's economy. 453 00:34:43,429 --> 00:34:47,870 Lloyds pointed out that a Carrington-level extreme geomagnetic 454 00:34:47,870 --> 00:34:53,350 storm is almost inevitable in the future and also mentioned that the duration of 455 00:34:53,350 --> 00:34:57,670 any outage could last up to two years and is largely dependent. 456 00:34:58,220 --> 00:35:01,760 on the availability of spare replacement transformers. 457 00:35:01,980 --> 00:35:08,820 This threat has now silently grown to where it is perhaps one of the 458 00:35:08,820 --> 00:35:14,800 largest natural disaster scenarios that the country could face, that society 459 00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:16,140 could face. 460 00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:22,200 How likely is it that we're going to have a storm of the severity, let's say, 461 00:35:22,220 --> 00:35:24,820 of the Carrington event? I don't think it's a question of if we're going to 462 00:35:24,820 --> 00:35:26,580 have such a storm. It's a question of when. 463 00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:34,100 This is sometimes referred to as a natural EMP because it has the same 464 00:35:34,100 --> 00:35:39,700 devastating characteristics as a nuclear EMP, which was touched on earlier in 465 00:35:39,700 --> 00:35:40,379 this film. 466 00:35:40,380 --> 00:35:46,520 Most Americans have no idea, but in 2012, there was a massive disturbance on 467 00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:51,120 the surface of the sun. This solar superstorm, considered the most powerful 468 00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:58,060 in more than 150 years, sent a burst of energy hurling through space at over 5 469 00:35:58,060 --> 00:36:04,940 million miles per hour, narrowly missing Earth by a 470 00:36:04,940 --> 00:36:05,940 matter of days. 471 00:36:11,340 --> 00:36:13,920 So, what's being done about it? 472 00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:19,260 We did a lot of geomagnetic storm studies, assessments we call them, where 473 00:36:19,260 --> 00:36:23,080 we looked at specific power grids, we looked at their past experience during 474 00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:27,040 storms. and we looked at future in terms of what might happen. 475 00:36:27,340 --> 00:36:33,600 We did work for countries of Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, parts of Japan, 476 00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:39,080 and almost all of that early work was done overseas because most U.S. 477 00:36:39,140 --> 00:36:40,500 companies weren't particularly interested. 478 00:36:41,100 --> 00:36:42,560 We're extremely vulnerable. 479 00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:48,640 In fact, we've been designing the power grid for decades without any awareness 480 00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:51,500 of this threat environment. 481 00:36:52,730 --> 00:36:56,770 Essentially, we're playing a game of Russian roulette with the sun. 482 00:36:59,570 --> 00:37:03,870 We're at a juncture here where we can do it right and get the protection built 483 00:37:03,870 --> 00:37:05,650 in, or we're in for a train wreck. 484 00:37:08,050 --> 00:37:09,590 The threats are known. 485 00:37:10,330 --> 00:37:11,750 They have been studied. 486 00:37:12,490 --> 00:37:14,310 Commissions have been formed. 487 00:37:15,090 --> 00:37:16,590 Reports issued. 488 00:37:18,090 --> 00:37:21,150 So if we've been aware of these risks for decades, 489 00:37:21,980 --> 00:37:27,480 How did we get to this place where the power grid continues to loom as a 490 00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:29,280 critical national weakness? 491 00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:32,300 Let's find out. 492 00:37:34,060 --> 00:37:40,880 I can give you 1.2 billion reasons why this has not been fixed. And that is the 493 00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:46,500 $1.2 billion that the electric utility industry has spent in the last decade 494 00:37:46,500 --> 00:37:52,340 lobbying. our federal Congress, along with political contributions to members 495 00:37:52,340 --> 00:37:56,480 of key committees that could enact legislation to protect the electric 496 00:37:56,480 --> 00:37:57,480 grid. 497 00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:06,540 The reality is, as hard as it may be to believe, the federal government does not 498 00:38:06,540 --> 00:38:10,740 have any direct authority to require the electric grid to protect itself. 499 00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:17,720 From the beginning, The electric utility industry has always been essentially 500 00:38:17,720 --> 00:38:22,160 self-regulated. And although they've made some efforts to protect the grid 501 00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:27,300 from all hazards, nearly every objective expert believes they haven't done 502 00:38:27,300 --> 00:38:32,960 enough. A big part of the problem? The electric industry doesn't feel like 503 00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:36,800 protecting the grid from outside threats should be their responsibility. 504 00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:41,440 And no other government agency wants to step up. 505 00:38:42,030 --> 00:38:43,550 Nobody wanted to take responsibility. 506 00:38:43,770 --> 00:38:47,430 So the Department of Defense, for example, you know, would say, well, an 507 00:38:47,430 --> 00:38:51,450 EMP from the sun is a natural threat. So that belongs to the Department of 508 00:38:51,450 --> 00:38:52,428 Homeland Security. 509 00:38:52,430 --> 00:38:53,770 That's not our responsibility. 510 00:38:54,130 --> 00:38:57,250 The Department of Homeland Security would say, well, an EMP can be caused by 511 00:38:57,250 --> 00:39:01,130 a nuclear weapon or non-nuclear weapons by terrorist attack. And so that's a DOD 512 00:39:01,130 --> 00:39:04,930 responsibility. And the Department of Energy, you know, that is responsible 513 00:39:04,930 --> 00:39:08,710 for overseeing the electric grid would say national security isn't our problem 514 00:39:08,710 --> 00:39:10,870 at all. So it belongs to somebody else, not us. 515 00:39:11,950 --> 00:39:17,330 Just as the physical grid has been pieced together over decades, so is its 516 00:39:17,330 --> 00:39:18,330 regulatory system. 517 00:39:18,630 --> 00:39:24,850 It's overseen today by two agencies, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or 518 00:39:24,850 --> 00:39:31,010 FERC for short, and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, or 519 00:39:31,010 --> 00:39:35,690 NERC. Their names are confusing, but the end result is not. 520 00:39:36,570 --> 00:39:41,250 FERC has delegated its power to NERC, and NERC... 521 00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:43,720 is a pawn of the electric industry. 522 00:39:44,680 --> 00:39:49,260 In essence, the fox is guarding the hen house. 523 00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:58,680 Any time we've seen anyone put forth even bipartisan legislation that 524 00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:04,480 would mandate that utility companies meet the very basic standard of 525 00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:09,440 cybersecurity, it has always been knocked down by lobbyists. But the 526 00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:14,760 reality on the ground is that a lot of these utilities are managing these 527 00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:17,020 tangled webs of software. 528 00:40:17,540 --> 00:40:20,860 Most of it hasn't been updated in a decade. 529 00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:24,820 They don't want the inspections that would come. They don't want the 530 00:40:24,820 --> 00:40:27,360 oversight that would come with government. They want to continue to 531 00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:29,940 regulate themselves and be opaque. 532 00:40:30,540 --> 00:40:35,520 When the commission and others of us who've been raising the alarm about this 533 00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:38,920 have asked the question, don't you have children? 534 00:40:39,720 --> 00:40:40,760 Don't you have? 535 00:40:41,240 --> 00:40:46,140 people that you want to assure survive and the answer of course is whether 536 00:40:46,140 --> 00:40:49,060 they're government bureaucrats or whether they're electric power utilities 537 00:40:49,060 --> 00:40:55,800 executives yes they do and yet the inertia the intention 538 00:40:55,800 --> 00:41:02,800 that it'll be somebody else's problem it won't happen on my watch is so profound 539 00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:09,500 what all this means is that there isn't a single person or independent agency 540 00:41:09,500 --> 00:41:12,930 in our government responsible for the nation's grid. 541 00:41:13,190 --> 00:41:17,770 There's no one at the helm keeping the electric utilities honest. 542 00:41:18,050 --> 00:41:23,910 And as a result of that $1.2 billion of lobbying expenditures made over the last 543 00:41:23,910 --> 00:41:28,670 decade, there's been very little accomplished in terms of legislative 544 00:41:28,670 --> 00:41:34,870 fixes at the federal or the state level. The utility industry has made itself 545 00:41:34,870 --> 00:41:36,110 untouchable. 546 00:41:39,930 --> 00:41:44,150 is a veteran U.S. Marine and served as a Lieutenant Colonel with combat 547 00:41:44,150 --> 00:41:45,390 experience overseas. 548 00:41:45,790 --> 00:41:50,750 He currently serves as the Director of Infrastructure Security at the nonprofit 549 00:41:50,750 --> 00:41:55,670 Center for Security Policy, now managing the Secure the Grid Coalition. 550 00:41:56,570 --> 00:42:02,110 He's committed and dedicated to the mission of securing the U.S. power grid. 551 00:42:02,350 --> 00:42:06,370 The Chairman of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Committee of 552 00:42:06,370 --> 00:42:07,850 IEEE USA. 553 00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:15,480 once made some comments about how other countries such as Israel and the UK have 554 00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:20,380 appointed a single champion to be in charge of protecting their electric 555 00:42:20,380 --> 00:42:24,800 grids. He made a comment that in America, it's Waldo. 556 00:42:25,540 --> 00:42:30,800 Where's Waldo, right? And that's true. There is no one person who's in charge 557 00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:32,660 of the protection of the U.S. electric grid. 558 00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:37,400 The president could designate somebody, give them the resources, give them the 559 00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:40,060 mandate to actually get out there and fix our grid. 560 00:42:41,540 --> 00:42:45,780 When there have been a couple of legislative or executive order success 561 00:42:45,780 --> 00:42:51,280 stories, ultimate progress has been completely obstructed by bureaucracies 562 00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:56,520 at various departments, such as Homeland Security and the Department of Energy. 563 00:42:57,100 --> 00:43:01,660 Two recent administrations have attempted to enact legislation with no 564 00:43:01,660 --> 00:43:02,760 ultimate success. 565 00:43:03,300 --> 00:43:08,080 President Obama argued strongly for protection from geomagnetic 566 00:43:08,080 --> 00:43:10,400 disturbances, or natural EMP. 567 00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:16,480 An executive order relating to GMD was passed in 2016, but there was terribly 568 00:43:16,480 --> 00:43:22,240 ineffective regulator follow-through, creating essentially no GMD protection. 569 00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:29,040 In March 2019, President Trump signed an executive order seeking protection 570 00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:31,400 against electromagnetic pulse attacks. 571 00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:38,320 This was codified into law with the 2020 Defense Authorization Act early the next 572 00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:44,400 year. But since he left office, progress has stalled, bogged down by inaction and 573 00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:49,160 endless calls for more studies, which simply go over the same ground. 574 00:43:49,800 --> 00:43:53,860 Some of the most recent progress reports on these urgent issues have been as 575 00:43:53,860 --> 00:43:55,420 brief as four pages long. 576 00:43:57,100 --> 00:44:03,000 If you think that this EMP and GMD issue is just a right-wing cause, consider 577 00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:05,600 what happened in the state of California in 2018. 578 00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:12,640 Its legislature dominated by Democrats unanimously passed two bills that 579 00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:18,560 formally recognize the urgent threats posed by EMPs and geomagnetic 580 00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:23,180 disturbances. I think it's appropriate and important for California to make a 581 00:44:23,180 --> 00:44:28,240 statement about this. This measure urges the President and Congress to work 582 00:44:28,240 --> 00:44:32,340 together to implement grid-hardening measures to help ensure our nation's 583 00:44:32,340 --> 00:44:36,320 critical electrical infrastructure is protected from threats of electric 584 00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:39,660 magnetic impulses and physical attacks on the infrastructure. 585 00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:45,720 The problem is, four years later, there's still been no concrete action. 586 00:44:47,050 --> 00:44:51,990 For those deeply concerned about these issues, California's failure to follow 587 00:44:51,990 --> 00:44:54,230 through has been a profound disappointment. 588 00:44:56,410 --> 00:45:02,270 So just because there have been many in the electric power industry who have 589 00:45:02,270 --> 00:45:06,810 fought against grid protection initiatives doesn't mean that the whole 590 00:45:06,810 --> 00:45:11,830 industry is opposed to this. We've seen some electric utility industry members 591 00:45:11,830 --> 00:45:16,390 take good actions. We've seen Dominion Power has done a lot. 592 00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:18,820 to secure its infrastructure against physical attack. 593 00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:24,240 Duke should be commended for its work. CPS Energy in San Antonio, Texas is 594 00:45:24,240 --> 00:45:25,600 another one that should be commended. 595 00:45:31,780 --> 00:45:36,220 People have thanked me for my service as a Marine, and there's nothing that I 596 00:45:36,220 --> 00:45:40,940 ever did in uniform that would compare to the service provided by those people 597 00:45:40,940 --> 00:45:43,480 who work hard to keep electricity flowing. 598 00:45:44,620 --> 00:45:51,380 The failure to act leaves people like Mike Mabee outraged. For him, the path 599 00:45:51,380 --> 00:45:54,700 ahead is doable and crystal clear. 600 00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:59,440 The way we have got to fix the electric grid is by holding the electric utility 601 00:45:59,440 --> 00:46:05,040 industry accountable for making sure that the grid is protected against these 602 00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:08,780 threats. And we have to hold the US government and the state governments 603 00:46:08,780 --> 00:46:10,920 accountable to make sure that happens. 604 00:46:12,680 --> 00:46:17,160 It's not that we don't know how to protect grid assets from these threats. 605 00:46:17,300 --> 00:46:21,600 The U.S. Defense Department has for decades protected important strategic 606 00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:25,200 systems, such as our nuclear weapons systems and communication systems, 607 00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:30,680 against nuclear electromagnetic pulse. There are military standards that show 608 00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:31,820 exactly how to do this. 609 00:46:34,260 --> 00:46:37,820 John Houston of Centerpoint Energy charged his engineers with coming up 610 00:46:37,820 --> 00:46:39,520 with mitigation measures for EMP. 611 00:46:39,980 --> 00:46:44,340 CenterPoint, using Siemens Siprotec protection devices, worked with Siemens 612 00:46:44,340 --> 00:46:48,820 to develop a compact, scalable digital substation protection and control system 613 00:46:48,820 --> 00:46:53,800 that can survive EMP, IMEI, and other hazards for a fraction of the cost to 614 00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:57,460 create an entirely new substation. That's a success story, and we're happy 615 00:46:57,460 --> 00:46:58,600 to say it's already available. 616 00:46:59,420 --> 00:47:03,760 Unfortunately, despite the availability and affordability of EMP mitigation 617 00:47:03,760 --> 00:47:07,320 measures, utilities have been slow to retrofit their substations. 618 00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:14,120 We know exactly what to do. We know how to do it. We know that it's not very 619 00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:19,000 expensive, and we know it can be done in phases depending on what level of 620 00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:23,900 protection we want. What we need to do is start with those things that are 621 00:47:23,900 --> 00:47:30,000 hardest to replace, our large transformers. We start by protecting 622 00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:34,700 them, protecting substations, protecting the transmission, the generation, the 623 00:47:34,700 --> 00:47:35,700 fuel supply. 624 00:47:38,240 --> 00:47:42,540 Microgrids enable us to get away from some of the real vulnerabilities like 625 00:47:42,540 --> 00:47:46,600 huge high voltage transformers and these big power lines. We could evolve away 626 00:47:46,600 --> 00:47:50,400 from the big grid. Every city could have its own independent power source. It 627 00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:54,920 would also change the politics of electric energy in a way more responsive 628 00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:55,920 to the people. 629 00:47:56,820 --> 00:48:01,700 Frustrated by the obstruction and persistent delays, concerned citizens 630 00:48:01,700 --> 00:48:06,380 from all walks of life have banded together in places like Rock Hill, South 631 00:48:06,380 --> 00:48:08,600 Carolina and San Antonio, Texas. 632 00:48:09,140 --> 00:48:14,660 The people of San Antonio are really the ones that own their own grid. This is a 633 00:48:14,660 --> 00:48:19,560 municipally owned electric utility, Joint Base San Antonio, through the 634 00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:23,180 leadership of Lieutenant General Stephen Quast and the Electromagnetic Defense 635 00:48:23,180 --> 00:48:24,180 Task Force. 636 00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:26,440 established a pilot project in San Antonio. 637 00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:32,000 And right now, there are courageous military officers in San Antonio working 638 00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:38,020 with engineers at CPS Energy to protect that grid against all hazards. It's the 639 00:48:38,020 --> 00:48:39,260 first of its kind in its country. 640 00:48:40,180 --> 00:48:45,000 Essentially, you do not have to be vulnerable to the fact that you use 641 00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:49,040 electricity. San Antonio can say, hey, businesses around the world, come to San 642 00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:53,360 Antonio and we will give you clean power and we will give you resilient power. 643 00:48:53,850 --> 00:48:55,170 where nobody can take it away. 644 00:48:55,390 --> 00:49:00,810 Another leading example is in Rock Hill in York County, South Carolina, where 645 00:49:00,810 --> 00:49:03,750 local residents came together to take action. 646 00:49:04,030 --> 00:49:09,390 They call it the Lake Wiley Project, and its purpose is to assure a viable local 647 00:49:09,390 --> 00:49:14,670 grid during and after any kind of major outage that impacts the nation's 648 00:49:14,670 --> 00:49:15,670 electrical power. 649 00:49:16,050 --> 00:49:20,690 In searching for a place, York County was an obvious place to come. 650 00:49:21,260 --> 00:49:25,660 So I went to the electrical engineering department at Clemson University, my 651 00:49:25,660 --> 00:49:29,880 alma mater, and asked for the names of graduates at Duke Energy. 652 00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:34,080 They provide electricity to all of York County. 653 00:49:34,860 --> 00:49:39,560 Together, we agreed on working the problem from the bottom up. 654 00:49:41,260 --> 00:49:44,840 The good news about this project and about studying EMTs is that it is 655 00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:49,140 fixable. The preliminary studies that we've done show for about $100 per 656 00:49:49,140 --> 00:49:51,860 citizen that you could easily take care of these type situations. 657 00:49:52,220 --> 00:49:55,680 So as we look forward into how to make those investments, I think that's 658 00:49:55,680 --> 00:49:59,400 something that's probably well deserving of people's attention and the funding 659 00:49:59,400 --> 00:50:01,660 towards that. We know what needs to be done. 660 00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:04,440 It's just a matter of a will to do it. 661 00:50:05,540 --> 00:50:08,920 And the question about what's it going to cost, what is the price? 662 00:50:09,450 --> 00:50:15,530 of the loss of life as we know it today what price tag do you put on that and 663 00:50:15,530 --> 00:50:19,230 compare it to the few dollars it would be spent the people have to contact 664 00:50:19,230 --> 00:50:23,150 their elected officials from the local level to the state level to the national 665 00:50:23,150 --> 00:50:27,850 level we cannot afford not to do it because look at the damage and look at 666 00:50:27,850 --> 00:50:33,170 what's going to happen if we don't so get educated get a call to action 667 00:50:34,830 --> 00:50:38,790 I want to start taking action as quickly as possible. We have for far too long 668 00:50:38,790 --> 00:50:42,930 talked about developing a strategy to develop a plan and start doing something 669 00:50:42,930 --> 00:50:46,650 concrete to start mitigating what could be a horrific catastrophe. 670 00:50:46,890 --> 00:50:51,070 I never want to be sitting here in the dark saying I told you so. People need 671 00:50:51,070 --> 00:50:56,770 to stand up and encourage their representatives to demand that we lock 672 00:50:56,770 --> 00:50:58,090 up our critical infrastructure. 673 00:50:59,830 --> 00:51:03,870 This is a fixable problem, and it's completely bipartisan. 674 00:51:04,780 --> 00:51:09,500 But we need to come together around solutions that will work, legislation to 675 00:51:09,500 --> 00:51:14,600 provide structure and regulatory discipline, and then people on the 676 00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:16,200 ground to get it done. 677 00:51:17,620 --> 00:51:24,080 The highly credentialed EMP Commission has provided detailed recommendations in 678 00:51:24,080 --> 00:51:25,820 their early reports to Congress. 679 00:51:26,100 --> 00:51:31,960 On our website, we've outlined a few of the highest priority action steps to 680 00:51:31,960 --> 00:51:33,460 protect our civilian infrastructure. 681 00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:37,180 and we will ensure we will follow through. 682 00:51:38,320 --> 00:51:43,260 How we respond to the looming threat facing our grid will ultimately be 683 00:51:43,260 --> 00:51:44,260 judged by history. 684 00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:51,300 Visit our website at griddownpowerup.com and send emails to your legislators, 685 00:51:51,660 --> 00:51:58,420 utility companies, and regulators and urge them to take action now to protect 686 00:51:58,420 --> 00:51:59,840 America's future. 687 00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:06,630 We know that In most civic causes, execution tends to fail because there's 688 00:52:06,630 --> 00:52:07,630 no follow-through. 689 00:52:07,870 --> 00:52:12,590 To overcome this issue, we are supporting and sharing proceeds with 690 00:52:12,590 --> 00:52:17,650 501c3 organizations with a history of fighting for grid protection. 691 00:52:18,110 --> 00:52:24,090 We also urge you to contact your local government officials to demand that this 692 00:52:24,090 --> 00:52:28,570 Achilles' heel in America's defense is addressed now. 693 00:52:29,770 --> 00:52:36,050 Most elected officials do what their constituents want them to do. And so if 694 00:52:36,050 --> 00:52:41,470 you are concerned about our electrical power system surviving, you need to let 695 00:52:41,470 --> 00:52:43,850 your legislator know how you feel. 696 00:52:44,050 --> 00:52:49,370 And if enough people make enough noise, we can get this through. I know we can 697 00:52:49,370 --> 00:52:50,370 get this done. 698 00:52:51,290 --> 00:52:56,210 There have been times in our nation's history when the American people have 699 00:52:56,210 --> 00:52:57,210 stepped up. 700 00:52:57,420 --> 00:53:02,920 and critical changes were made for the common good, which saved our country in 701 00:53:02,920 --> 00:53:03,920 dark times. 702 00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:12,460 The nation rallied during World War II, and private industry turned factories 703 00:53:12,460 --> 00:53:17,540 into an incredible arsenal of democracy that defeated the evils of Adolf Hitler 704 00:53:17,540 --> 00:53:19,100 and his Nazi regime. 705 00:53:20,180 --> 00:53:25,050 Under President Eisenhower, The national system of interstate highways changed 706 00:53:25,050 --> 00:53:27,030 the way our country conducts business. 707 00:53:31,450 --> 00:53:36,270 And the civil rights movement demonstrated our nation's ability to 708 00:53:36,270 --> 00:53:39,630 rise up against institutional racial segregation. 709 00:53:40,890 --> 00:53:43,390 Now, Martin Luther King couldn't do it alone. 710 00:53:44,190 --> 00:53:50,130 But a march in Selma, Alabama created a movement that inspired a million-man 711 00:53:50,130 --> 00:53:56,750 march. which galvanized tens of millions of Americans to stand up and demand an 712 00:53:56,750 --> 00:53:58,030 end to racial injustice. 713 00:53:59,670 --> 00:54:05,930 Taking action against seemingly insurmountable odds is part of our DNA. 714 00:54:07,690 --> 00:54:13,550 We, the people of the United States of America, the greatest country on earth, 715 00:54:13,770 --> 00:54:20,430 must demand that we have a reliable and defensible power grid so that our 716 00:54:20,430 --> 00:54:22,990 families can continue to thrive. 717 00:54:23,870 --> 00:54:29,830 We need America's citizens to spread the word, act, 718 00:54:30,110 --> 00:54:32,190 to make this happen. 719 00:54:32,910 --> 00:54:37,450 In our country, failure has never been an option. 720 00:54:38,070 --> 00:54:39,670 We got this, America. 721 00:54:41,470 --> 00:54:44,950 Choose power up, not grid down.