Senator Jerry Hill To Introduce Utility Legislation Monday

Monday, March 10 - 10am - India Basin Shoreline Park, Overlooking PG&E's Hunters Point Substation

Jerry Hill to Introduce Legislation in San Francisco Requiring Electric Utilities to Develop Security Plans to Prevent Attacks Like the One by Snipers Who Disabled Transformers at a PG&E Substation Last Year

A Former Federal Regulator Called the Attack ‘Domestic Terrorism’ That Could Cause a Widespread and Prolonged Blackout If Replicated

WHAT: State Senator Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo/Santa Clara Counties, will hold a news conference outside Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s Hunters Point substation in San Francisco to announce he is introducing legislation that would require electric utilities in California to develop security plans to make the power delivery system less vulnerable to attacks by saboteurs like the ones that caused $15.4 million in damage to PG&E’s Metcalf substation near San Jose last year. A former federal regulator has called the attack “the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred” in the United States and warned that, if widely replicated, could cause a blackout in much of the nation for a long time.

WHEN: Monday, March 10, 2014, 10 a.m.

WHERE:

India Basin Shoreline Park, Hunters Point Boulevard and Hawes Street, San Francisco

Overlooking the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. Hunters Point Substation

CONTACT: Aurelio Rojas, 916-747-3199 cell; Leslie Guevarra, 415-298-3404 cell

BACKGROUND: On April 16, 2013, a coordinated attack by snipers on PG&E’s Metcalf substation south of San Jose knocked out 17 giant transformers. Someone slipped into an underground vault and cut telephone cables. Snipers then fired on the substation for 19 minutes before police arrived, found a gate locked and then left. Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the time, called the attack “the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred” in the United States. A blackout was averted in the Silicon Valley by re-routing power around the site. But Mark Johnson, retired vice president of transmission for PG&E, told a utility industry conference last November that he fears the incident may have been a dress rehearsal for a larger attack. There was no PG&E security personnel at the substation and no one from the company arrived at the scene until more than an hour and half after the attack. Nearly a year later, no one has been arrested or charged in the attack, nor has it been determined whether it was a terrorist attack or just well-planned vandalism. But Senator Hill, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Gas and Electric Infrastructure Safety, said the attack was a wake-up call for utilities to improve how they secure power substations. Hill’s legislation, which he is amending into an energy-related bill he previously introduced – SB 699 – would:

1)      Require the electric utilities to develop security plans to:

a.       Make the power delivery system less vulnerable to security threats

b.      Reduce the consequences of successful security breaches

c.       Improve the speed of power restoration

d.      Make critical services such as water supply less vulnerable when power has been disrupted

2)      Require gas and electric utilities to coordinate with law enforcement in the event of deliberate destruction of utility equipment

3)      Require gas and electric utilities to consult with the California Highway Patrol to designate certain employees as first responders to manage hazards and restore service in the event of an accident, natural disaster, or security breach.

While terror attacks on electric infrastructure are new in the United States, about 2,500 attacks were carried out by terrorist groups against transmission lines and towers in various parts of the world between 1996 and 2006, the National Academy of Sciences found in a report, Terrorism in the Electric Power Delivery System, published in 2012.

The report found that “well-planned attacks on the power system, undertaken by informed terrorists, could result in power outages with extents and durations that are much larger than those produced by all but the largest natural events.”

The report added that “any increase in the reliability of the power grid makes the system more capable of withstanding terrorist attacks, more able to mitigate the impacts of such, and less interesting as a target of terrorists.”

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 Nate Solov

Office of Senator Jerry Hill

916-651-4013

www.senate.ca.gov/hill

Office of Senator Jerry Hill - www.senate.ca.gov/hill

Contact: Aurelio Rojas 916-747-3199 cell; 

Leslie Guevarra 415-298-3404