Pallone Opening Remarks at Energy Subcommittee Markup of Bipartisan Cybersecurity Bills

Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) delivered the following opening remarks at today's Energy Subcommittee markup of five bipartisan cybersecurity bills:

Thank you, Chairman Latta, for holding today’s markup on five bipartisan cybersecurity bills. 

Our energy system is under threat – from uncontrolled increases in electricity demand, from extreme weather like we saw the past two weeks, and from cyber threats. Those cyber threats can come from nation-state actors like Russia and China, sophisticated terrorist organizations, or hacking groups without the support of a nation-state. Regardless of the source, these are genuine threats to the reliability of the power grid that every single American relies on every day.

The bills the Subcommittee will markup today represent an attempt to reduce our vulnerability to cybersecurity risks. They will not eliminate the risk, but they represent an important step forward.

Three of the bills amend or reauthorize provisions that were established in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which passed nearly five years ago. And I'm pleased to see that Republicans are finally seeing the value of some the programs in that law, but we are only reauthorizing a tiny subset of the programs created and enhanced by that law. Cybersecurity is critical to energy reliability, and there are a lot of other programs in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law focusing on reliability that also need reauthorization. We should be working together to reauthorize those as well.

We are also marking up legislation that ensures the Department of Energy has the authorities it needs to enhance energy security, but the Department’s leadership needs to start showing that they care about energy security. Instead of focusing on energy security, Secretary Wright has illegally canceled over two billion dollars in investments in our nation’s power, even as winter storms over the last two weeks have once again stressed the need to modernize our nation’s grid for the future.  

I think that’s a shame. One of the programs we are reauthorizing today had $80 million in funds for rural electric cooperatives and municipal utilities held up for countless months due to senseless delays at Trump’s DOE. If we want the programs we are reauthorizing to succeed, we must ensure that this never happens again.

And with that I yield back the balance of my time.

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