Demand Funding to Protect America's Power Grid and Our Futures

Our power grid is extremely vulnerable to attack from nuclear electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) and solar flares. An EMP is a powerful burst of electromagnetic energy which can potentially cause enormous destruction to life as we know it. Because we're now so dependent on electricity, EMPs could disrupt Earth's magnetic field, disable satellites, eliminate all telecommunications including the Internet, ground commercial aviation, and ruin the electrical grid. This would send us back into the 19th century for years. Congress was told in 2015 that a major EMP could cause widespread "starvation, disease, and societal collapse" that could lead to the deaths of tens of millions of people. Terrorists could detonate man-made EMPs in the atmosphere and generate a paralyzing EMP.

Solar storms are another real threat to the electrical grid. It is well known that moderate solar storms can disrupt communications. It is estimated that there is a 12% chance that a monster solar storm will hit Earth within the next 10 years that could cause $2 trillion of damage in the first year of recovery which is 20 times the cost of Hurricane Katrina. A huge solar storm hit in 1859 and knocked out telegraph lines (the only method of electronic communication at that time) throughout North America and Europe. A similar storm occurred in July, 2012, when the sun spewed out a huge magnetic cloud that went straight through Earth's orbit; luckily, Earth was in a different path around the sun when that happened. However, if the storm had gone through nine days before, global communications would have gone down, electrical transformers would have been destroyed, banks and ATMs would have stopped working, gas for cars wouldn't be available because gas pumps need electricity, and even toilets wouldn't have worked since they depend on electric pumps. People would have starved since food couldn't be delivered to stores and markets, businesses would have failed since people wouldn't have been able to access money to buy their products, millions would have died because they couldn't purchase their needed prescriptions.

Congress, which appropriates money, needs to take this very real threat seriously and act to protect our electrical grid. It is estimated that it would cost about $2 billion, the amount of foreign aid we give to Pakistan annually, to protect America's power grid in order to minimize the damage from either a nuclear EMP or a massive solar flare. Americans could be protected from this threat if Congress would suspend aid to Pakistan for a year and put it toward protecting our electrical grid.

Protecting our Homeland should be the number one priority. Please sign this petition asking your senators and members of Congress to unite and work together to preserve and protect our electrical grid before it's too late.