Review - S 4166 Introduced – State Grid Security Plans

Back in March, Sen Cortez-Masto (D,NV) introduced S 4166, the Securing Community Upgrades for a Resilient (SECURE) Grid Act. The bill would amend 42 USC 6326 to require States to include local distribution systems in their State Energy Security Plans described in that section. No new funding is authorized by this legislation. 

This bill is very similar to HR 7257 that was passed in the House this week. Most of the differences between the two bills are editorial changes in format. The one significant change is that S 4166 lacks the definition of the term ‘State Energy Security Plan’ found in subsection 3(c) of HR 7257. 

Moving Forward  

Cortez-Masto, and one of her two cosponsors {Sen Murkowski (R,AK)} are members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered by the Committee. As was seen in the House, I would expect that the bill would receive significant bipartisan support if it were considered. 

If this bill was brought to the floor of the Senate for consideration, probably under the unanimous consent process, it would be as substitute language for HR 7257. The language from the Senate bill could also be added to the EWR spending bill, if/when that bill makes it to the floor of the Senate. 

For more information on the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/publish/posts/detail/204440771/share-center - subscription required. 

CSB Adds Nippon Dynawave Incident to List of Current Investigations

Yesterday, the Chemical Safety Board updated their Current Investigations page, adding the ‘Nippon Dynawave Packaging Company Fatal Tank Collapse’ investigation. On May 27th, the CSB announced sending a team of investigators to look into the “the rupture and implosion of a large tank containing white liquor, a corrosive chemical solution used in paper and pulp processing” at the Longview, WA facility; 11 workers were killed and another 7 were seriously injured in the incident. 

Based upon past incidents, we will probably see an investigation update from the CSB in the next week or so. 

Looking Back – 12-28-29 – TSDB and TWIC

Nearly every morning I start my computer time by looking at information from Google about what happened in my blog in the previous 24 hours. Google, and blogspot.com is a Google service, provides interesting pieces of analytical data about my blog readership. One item of particular interest is the top ten blog posts each day. As you would expect, most of those posts were from the last couple of days, but with 16 years of publishing this blog, every once-in-a-while, a blog post from ancient history rises into that list. 

Today a blog post from December 29th, 2009, Reader Comment – 12-28-09 – TSDB and MTSA, showed up on the list. This ended up being the middle post in a three-post discussion about how TWICS were supposed to keep terrorists out of critical infrastructure facilities. Those three posts were: 

TIDE vs TSDB,  

Reader Comment – 12-28-09 – TSDB and MTSA, and 

Reader Comment – 02-01-10 TSDB. 

While the three posts are over 15 years old, I see nothing in them that does not ring true today.