BY DAVID STUCKENBERG, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
Over the weekend, in a dim corner of Washington D.C. and in a quiet recess of the Pentagon, a national security tragedy occurred with little notice or fanfare. On Sept. 30, the Congressional Commission to Assess the Threat of Electromagnetic Pulse to the United States of America (or EMP Commission) was shut down indefinitely.
Since 2000, the EMP Commission, an unpaid team of leading scientists, engineers, and security experts has worked tirelessly to test, understand, and uncover risks posed to our nation's civil and military infrastructure by Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP). EMP is a well known physical electromagnetic phenomena generated by a nuclear or special weapon or coronial mass ejection (CME).
In 2012, Earth passed by a CME that missed the planet by days. Had Earth passed through the phenomena, damages would've set the United States back 200 years, according to NASA. Based on historic data, Lloyds Bank and Oxford University fixed the likelihood of a major CME impact to North America at 12 percent per decade.
Over the course of 17 years, the commission's research effectively uncovered key risks to the nation's power grid and civil infrastructure including dangers to nuclear power stations and even federal government. However, while EMP sources and risks remain, the official work to educate our public and leaders has ended.
ronically, on Sept. 20, just days before the commission's termination, the commander of United States Strategic Command warned that America is unprepared to deal with EMP.
Describing the effects, General John E. Hyten warned, "It's a dangerous threat and a very realistic threat. If you set off an EMP, a high altitude EMP, basically every light in this hotel is going to go off; every computer is going to go off; every cell phone is going to go off; and every car in the parking lot will no longer work. That's what an EMP does ... We have to be able to respond. But our nation has not looked at EMP." Such damage would affect the continent and take months to years to correct.
http://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/353996-north-korea-won-the-battle-against-americas-emp-commission
