Bloomberg has a long article on a cyber security bill before Congress. It appears the bill won't pass, or will be so watered down as to be useless. On the other hand this bill proposed giving federal bureaucrats significant power over utility companies. Power to decide how much security must be paid for is the power to wreck a utility. I don't believe federal bureaucrats are wise enough to be intrusted with that kind of power.
Cyber attack means hostile hackers gain control of the computers that run our electric generators, our gas holders, our transformer banks, our transmission lines, and the rest of our physical plant and make them do bad things, such as another great blackout, fires and explosions.
Better would be to let the utility companies know that we have an army of hungry nasty tort lawyers just looking for work. If the utilities let the lights go out, we start a class action suit for gross negligence and triple damages and legal fees and court costs. And the scalps of the CEO and all the directors.
Back this up with insurance companies. All utilities carry insurance to pay off that army of tort lawyers. Pretty soon the insurance company inspectors will be saying things like "If you don't fix this gaping loophole and that horrible weakness, we won't insure you."
The dickering over cyber security requirements between professionals, insurance men, utility engineers and lawyers will get more protection for less cost than empowering federal bureaucrats. Federal bureaucrats are all liberal arts majors who have difficulty changing a light bulb and who work for politicians. They certainly cannot improve reliability of utility company operations, they are too ignorant and too politically motivated.
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