September 2019, Vol. 246, No. 9
Government
Pipeline Cybersecurity Protection Legislation Moves Forward
House Democrats and Republicans have had trouble agreeing on a pipeline safety bill so far this year, but a second bill on pipeline security faces no such problem.
The House Energy & Commerce Committee passed the Pipeline and LNG Facility Cybersecurity Preparedness Act by a voice vote in mid-July, a few weeks before the House left for its August-September working session. The bill was introduced by Energy Subcommittee ranking member Fred Upton (R-Mich. and Rep. David Loebsack (D-Iowa). It would establish a program at DOE to create policies and procedures to improve the physical and cybersecurity and resiliency of natural gas transmission and distribution pipelines, hazardous liquid pipelines and (LNG) facilities.
The bill doesn’t require pipelines to do anything. Rather the legislation authorizes the Department of Energy to develop, for voluntary use, advanced cybersecurity applications and technologies and to perform pilot demonstration projects relating to physical security and cybersecurity for those same sectors.
When the bill was introduced in the last Congress, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA) and the American Gas Association (AGA) sent a joint letter to the bill sponsors expressing pleasure the bill does not seek to regulate pipeline sector security operations. P&GJ
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