Federal Government Information Technology

Senators Want Dumber Tech For Energy Grid Cybersecurity

Nextgov: Legislation to dumb-down the nation’s electrical grid in the name of cybersecurity advanced out of a Senate committee on Thursday, bringing a retro approach to securing critical infrastructure one step closer to passage.

The Securing Energy Infrastructure Act, cosponsored by Sens. Angus King, I-Maine, and Jim Risch, R-Idaho, advanced out of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on a voice vote. The central provision of the bill is a pilot program led by the director of the Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence at the Energy Department, which is part of the broader intelligence community, to research ways to build redundancies and safety procedures into the power grid that do not rely on digital infrastructure.

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