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sector to enhance response and recovery efforts while co-ordinating federal capabilities to mitigate the impact of energy disruptions.

The DOE has provided grants to state energy offices to develop energy security plans, including gas allocation, demand restraint policies and associated regulations. The DOE maintains a mechanism whereby it can work effectively with individual states during emergencies.

The DOE also works regularly with private-sector utilities to address critical energy infrastructure challenges, including resiliency.

Under the direction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the North American Electricity Reliability Corporation (NERC) is the national entity most responsible for the oversight of standards relating to short-term (operational) reliability in US electricity systems (see also Chapter 9, “Electricity”). Many areas are outside of FERC’s jurisdictional responsibility and are overseen by state public utility commissions. FERC is an independent federal agency tasked with regulating the interstate transmission of electricity and the operation of wholesale electricity markets. (The commission also regulates interstate flows of natural gas and liquefied natural gas [LNG] export terminals.)

NERC and FERC created an information-sharing hub for cybersecurity, and NERC has upgraded reliability standards over time to address new cybersecurity risks. FERC, NERC, the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center, the Computer Emergency Response Teams of the Industrial Control Systems and the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center all are active in this space.

On climate change resilience specifically, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) oversees planning and adaptation strategies at the federal level. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under the Department of Commerce serves as the main scientific body to assess climate change risks and resilience (see Chapter 3, “Energy and Climate Change”).

Energy resilience policies

This section explains federal emergency response policies and federal resilience policies, including the ability of federal assistance to rebuild more resilient infrastructure, including energy infrastructure, after a disaster.

In 2013, the PPD21 played an important role in promoting the concept and importance of resilience. The energy sector is one of the 16 sectors classified as having critical infrastructure for security and resilience in the United States. The federal government is responsible for strengthening the security and resilience of critical infrastructure, including the energy sector. According to the PPD21, resilience is defined as “the ability to prepare for and adapt to changing conditions and withstand and recover rapidly from disruptions”. It includes the ability to withstand and recover from deliberate attacks, accidents, or naturally occurring threats or incidents. Focus on preparedness, in particular, increased under the PPD21.

The FAST Act of 2015, which amended the Federal Power Act of 1935, includes several components to improve the security of US energy infrastructure. The FAST Act provides

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the Secretary of Energy with broad new authority to address grid security emergencies (US Congress, 2014). “Grid security emergency” is defined to include a physical attack, “a malicious act using electronic communication or an electromagnetic pulse, or a geomagnetic storm event”. Also as part of the FAST Act, FERC and the DOE are required to develop and implement processes and tools to protect critical electric infrastructure information and to facilitate needed sharing of this information among stakeholders to ensure security and resilience of energy infrastructure during emergencies. In addition, the FAST Act provides authority for the DOE to mandate specific actions to protect energy infrastructure in response to a grid security emergency, as identified by the president. These actions include: 1) assessing and monitoring risk; 2) developing and implementing new protective measures to reduce risk; 3) managing incidents; and 4) sustaining security improvements.

In addition, recent amendments to Section 406 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (Stafford Act) authorise FEMA to provide contributions to state, local and certain private non-profit organisations to repair public facilities damaged by a major disaster. The reconstruction should be done according to the latest standards that incorporate a hazard-resistant design. This provision requires FEMA to fund improvements in infrastructure resilience, including energy infrastructure resilience, rather than limit the repair or replacement of damaged assets to pre-disaster design. The DOE provides technical support to FEMA in the identification of relevant energy infrastructure hazard-based codes and standards, and the development of implementing policy to the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018.

Incident emergency response

The DHS develops supporting guides and tools to assist jurisdictions in their implementation of the NIMS, which guides all levels of government, non-governmental organisations and the private sector to work together to respond to and recover from incidents. The NIMS applies to all incidents, from traffic accidents to major disasters, and provides all stakeholders with the shared vocabulary, systems and processes to successfully deliver the capabilities described in the National Preparedness System. Finally, the NIMS defines operational systems, including the Incident Command System, Emergency Operations Center structures and Multiagency Coordination Groups that guide how personnel work together during incidents.

The NRF is a guide to how the nation responds to all types of disasters and emergencies. It is built on scalable, flexible and adaptable concepts identified in the NIMS to align key roles and responsibilities across the nation. This framework describes specific authorities and best practices for managing incidents that range from serious but purely local, to large-scale terrorist attacks or catastrophic natural disasters.

When there is a potential major incident, such as a hurricane, ISER begins preparing staffing plans to co-ordinate its emergency response duties. Working with FEMA, ISER dispatches responders to both State Emergency Operations Centers in threatened states and the FEMA Regional Response Coordination Center in the threatened region(s) in advance of the incident (DOE, 2018c).

Once a disaster happens, on-the-ground ISER responders provide subject matter expertise to state and industry partners about assessing the disaster’s impacts on the energy sector, restoring the system to full capacity, and identifying any unmet needs that may require federal support or co-ordination. Throughout the restoration period, ISER

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holds daily calls with both the electricity and the oil and natural gas subsectors to ensure there is a unified response effort, as well as co-ordination calls with the impacted states and various federal partners. ISER also provides twice-daily situation reports and analysis of impacts to the energy sector, including potential regional and national impacts for large events.

For areas where restoration may be prolonged, ISER responders work closely with local utilities, the affected state(s), FEMA and the US Army Corps of Engineers on temporary emergency power requirements.

Table 12.2 ISER response efforts, 2018

Source: DOE (2018a), 2018 Emergency Response Summary, www.energy.gov/ceser/articles/2018-emergency- response-summary.

ISER reviews response and recovery processes to improve its emergency response organisation capabilities and optimise future recovery support. For remote locations, the recovery efforts are reviewed extensively, with issues of grid resilience and energy reliability taking priority in future response planning efforts.

Exercises

Emergency response exercises are a crucial part of ensuring that industry and government are well prepared to work together during emergencies, both naturally occurring and human-caused. The DOE (through ISER) sponsors preparedness exercises at the local, state and national levels. In May 2018, for example, the DOE sponsored Clear Path VI, which addressed co-ordination between industry, state and federal partners in managing interdependencies within and between infrastructure sectors. Clear Path VI was linked to the FEMA National Level Exercise 2018, which focused on the response and recovery from a major hurricane impacting the MidAtlantic region. ISER also sponsors the Liberty Eclipse series, which is an exercise to assess the grid’s ability to recover from a significant cyberattack. Another relevant example is GridEx, which is a NERC-sponsored (with ISER support) biennial exercise

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