Got Power? Congress Starts to Act to Protect the Grid as Volcanoes Erupt on Sun and Tensions Escalate in Middle East
For a majority of Mainer’s the longest they can remember going without electricity is a few weeks and that was during the Ice Storm of ’98.
Another natural phenomenon could very realistically trigger a catastrophic power outage that could plunge the United States into darkness, possibly for years. In fact, solar flares have caused previous power outages.
National experts have been sounding the alarm for some time and now Congress is paying attention.
A bipartisan bill is being introduced today in the House to protect the country’s power grid from an attack.
Many of the national experts have been to Maine to testify before state legislators hoping that states would implement protections for the electric infrastructure.
In fact, protecting Maine’s power grid is now a matter of state law and a preliminary report from the Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is due this week.
A final report from the PUC will be ready for the next legislature to consider in January.