Electric Grid Security Still “a Work in Progress”
Threats to the U.S. electric power grid in recent years, including actual attacks on transmission substations, have prompted utilities and regulators to adopt various steps to enhance grid security. A new report from the Congressional Research Service reviews the observable changes in security practices to date and discusses the current threat environment. See NERC Standards for Bulk Power Physical Security: Is the Grid More Secure?, March 19, 2018.
Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.
Bankruptcy Basics: A Primer, March 22, 2018
ATF’s Ability to Regulate “Bump Stocks”, CRS Legal Sidebar, March 22, 2018
Eight Mechanisms to Enact Procedural Change in the U.S. Senate, CRS Insight, March 20, 2018
Net Neutrality: Will the FTC Have Authority Over Broadband Service Providers?, CRS Legal Sidebar, March 20, 2018
Section 232 Steel and Aluminum Tariffs: Potential Economic Implications, CRS Insight, March 19, 2018
Unauthorized Childhood Arrivals: Legislative Activity in the 115th Congress, March 22, 2018
Turkey: Background and U.S. Relations in Brief, updated March 23, 2018
Iran’s Foreign and Defense Policies, updated March 20, 2018
It Belongs in a Museum: Sovereign Immunity Shields Iranian Antiquities Even When It Does Not Protect Iran, CRS Legal Sidebar, March 22, 2018
January saw us watching whether the government would fund science. February has been about how that funding will be distributed, regulated, and contested.
This rule gives agencies significantly more authority over certain career policy roles. Whether that authority improves accountability or creates new risks depends almost entirely on how agencies interrupt and apply it.
Our environmental system was built for 1970s-era pollution control, but today it needs stable, integrated, multi-level governance that can make tradeoffs, share and use evidence, and deliver infrastructure while demonstrating that improved trust and participation are essential to future progress.
Durable and legitimate climate action requires a government capable of clearly weighting, explaining, and managing cost tradeoffs to the widest away of audiences, which in turn requires strong technocratic competency.