Kevin Johnson

USA TODAY

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and three colleagues say there are too many risks to the grid

Industry officials say mandatory standards aren%27t needed

Voluntary standards may not be good enough%2C Reid and others say

WASHINGTON — Power industry executives are meeting here this week as federal lawmakers are raising questions about physical security at power plants across the country.

Referring to last year's sniper attack on a key substation in California's Silicon Valley, four senators said the incident at the Metcalf transmission station represented "a wake-up call to the risk of physical attacks on the (electric power) grid.''

"This incident came uncomfortably close to causing a shutdown of a critical substation, which could have resulted in a massive blackout in California and elsewhere in the West,'' Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and three Democratic colleagues wrote in a Feb. 7 letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC), which develops standards for the nation's bulk power industry.

"We are concerned that voluntary measures may not be sufficient to constitute a reasonable response to the risk,'' the senators wrote. "While it appears that many utilities have a firm grasp on the problem, we simply do not know if there are substantial numbers of utilities or others that may have not taken adequate measures to protect against and minimize the harm from physical attack.''

The industry, NERC President Gerry Cauley said in a written response, had "adopted a broad set of physical security guidelines that have been updated over time'' since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Cauley acknowledged that federal law authorized NERC to develop physical security standards but said, "I do not believe it makes sense to move to mandatory standards at this time.''

It's not possible, Cauley said, to provide "100%'' protection for the far-flung network of electric substations.

"I am concerned that a rule-based approach for physical security would not provide the flexibility needed to deal with the widely varying risk profiles and circumstances across the North American grid and would instead create unnecessary and inefficient regulatory burdens and compliance obligations,'' Cauley said.

Lawmakers, however, cited the April 16, 2013, attack on Pacific Gas & Electric's Metcalf transmission station as cause for serious concern.

In the attack, transmission cables were "severed'' and nearly 100 rounds were fired on the power station, "which could have caused a large-scale blackout in California and surrounding states.''

FERC spokeswoman Mary O'Driscoll declined comment.

But Jon Wellinghoff, former commission chairman, said the process for developing safety standards "doesn't significantly address known threats and vulnerabilities.''

"It's been almost a year after Metcalf and I don't think you see substantial physical (security) improvements,'' Wellinghoff said.

The industry is "aware of the discussions ... regarding how a physical security standard could be structured and how it would work," said Scott Aaronson, senior director of national security policy at the industry trade association Edison Electric Institute, which is holding its annual meeting here.