The White House is being warned that North Korea is mapping plans for a “devastating” attack on the United States with an atmospheric nuclear explosion that would disable the nation’s electric grid, potentially leading to the deaths of virtually all impacted.

In the latest calls for action from experts and military officials, President Trump is being urged to create a special commission to tackle the potential for an electromagnetic pulse attack, one similar to the iconic Manhattan Project.

“Winston Churchill once said, ‘History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.’ The surest way for history to be kind to President Trump is for him to write it, by being the first leader to truly address the existential threat of EMP,” said commission advocate and Marine Corps veteran Tommy Waller, director of special projects at the Center for Security Policy.

“The first and foremost thing he must write is an Executive Order establishing his own EMP Commission in the White House — a task force that draws from the experience of the previous EMP Commission,” he added.

Congress let the prior EMP Commission die out this year just as concerns about an EMP attack have reached a high with North Korea specifically talking about its plans.

In a column for the Ripon Forum, the magazine of the moderate GOP Ripon Society, Waller wrote:

After massive intelligence failures grossly underestimating North Korea’s long-range missile capabilities, number of nuclear weapons, warhead miniaturization, and proximity to an H-Bomb, the biggest North Korean threat to the U.S. remains unacknowledged — nuclear EMP attack.

North Korea confirmed the EMP Commission’s assessment by testing an H-Bomb that could make a devastating EMP attack, and in its official public statement: “The H-Bomb, the explosive power of which is adjustable from tens of kilotons to hundreds of kilotons, is a multi-functional thermonuclear weapon with great destructive power which can be detonated even at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP attack according to strategic goals.”

The Pentagon and some states have started to take action to protect the electric grid from an EMP attack, but the administration and Congress have largely shrugged off the concerns, according to EMP advocates.

Previous congressional testimony has suggested that 90 percent of humans within the area of an EMP attack would die in a year, either from hunger, lack of water and health care, and violence.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com