House holds more hearings on Grid cyber vulnerabilities

There will be a hearing May 21, 2:00 PM, 311 Cannon Building in Washington DC on “Implications of Cyber Vulnerabilities on the Resiliency and Security of the Electric Grid”. Expected witnesses: Joseph Kelliher, Chairman, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Richard Sergel, Chief Executive Officer, North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Greg Wilshusen, Director, Information Security Issues, Government Accountability Office (GAO) Bill McCollum, Chief Operating Officer, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) I suspect there will be an update from FERC about the status of the mitigation measures for the Aurora vulnerability.  If anybody has attended any conferences lately, it sounds like there was a broad range of compliance with the recommended mitigation measures. The Committee asked FERC several months ago whether it needed any additional authority under the Federal Power Act… does Chairman Kelliher’s participation suggest that something big is coming? Will the Committee follow up with NERC on their efforts to conduct a survey?   I hope there will be a discussion of the difference between NIST and NERC CIPs – with a TVA witness, it sounds like we could hear something on that. Joe Weiss