Overview[]
The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack (EMP Commission) was established pursuant to Title XIV of the Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001.[1]
Duties of the EMP Commission include assessing:
- the nature and magnitude of potential high-altitude EMP threats to the United States from all potentially hostile states or non-state actors that have or could acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles enabling them to perform a high-altitude EMP attack against the United States within the next 15 years;
- the vulnerability of United States military and especially civilian systems to an EMP attack, giving special attention to vulnerability of the civilian infrastructure as a matter of emergency preparedness;
- the capability of the United States to repair and recover from damage inflicted on United States military and civilian systems by an EMP attack; and
- the feasibility and cost of hardening select military and civilian systems against EMP attack.[2]
The Commission is charged with identifying any steps it believes should be taken by the United States to better protect its military and civilian systems from EMP attack.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 once again reestablishes the EMP Commission but with an expanded purpose that includes the evolving threat from, among other things, nonnuclear EMP weapons and natural EMP generated by geomagnetic storms.[3]
References[]
- ↑ As enacted into law by Pub. L. No. 106-398; 114 Stat. 1654A-345z.
- ↑ See Pub. L. No. 106-398, §§1401-09, 114 Stat. 1654, 1654A-345-348 (2000). See also Pub. L. No. 109-163, §1052, 119 Stat. 3136, 3434-35 (2006) (reestablishing the EMP Commission to continue its efforts to monitor, investigate, make recommendations, and report to Congress on the evolving threat to the United States in the event of an EMP attack resulting from the detonation of a nuclear weapon or weapons at high altitude) and Pub. L. No. 110-181, Div. A, §1075, 122 Stat. 3, 333 (2008) (providing, among other things, that the EMP Commission and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall jointly ensure that the work of the EMP Commission with respect to EMP attack on electricity infrastructure, and protection against such attack, is coordinated with DHS efforts on such matters).
- ↑ See Pub. L. No. 114-92, §1089, 129 Stat. 726, 1015-16 (2015).
Source[]
- "Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack" (full-text).