Review - S 1050 Introduced – Bulk Power System Protection

Last month, Sen Scott (R,FL) introduced S 1050, the Protect American Power Infrastructure Act. The bill would prohibit owners of defense critical electrical infrastructure from buying covered electrical power supply equipment from companies owned or controlled by foreign adversaries. No funding is authorized by this legislation.

Moving Forward

Scott is not a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration, nor are his three cosponsors. This means that it is unlikely that there will be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. I suspect that there would be some industry opposition to this broadly written rule, so if the bill were considered in Committee it is unclear at this point if there would be sufficient support for the bill to be favorably reported. I do not think that there would be enough support to see the bill considered under regular order by the full Senate.

 

For more details about the provisions of the bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-1050-introduced - subscription required.