At a House hearing on Jan. 13, Adrienne Lotto, Senior Vice President of Grid Security, Technical and Operations Services at the American Public Power Association, said that APPA strongly supports reauthorization of the Rural and Municipal Utility Advanced Cybersecurity Grant and Technical Assistance Program (RMUC).
She made her remarks at a House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy hearing, “Protecting America’s Energy Infrastructure in Today’s Cyber and Physical Threat Landscape.”
The hearing focused on the following bills:
• Energy Threat Analysis Center Act of 2026
• Energy Emergency Leadership Act
• Rural and Municipal Utility Cybersecurity Act
• Securing Community Upgrades for a Resilient Grid (SECURE Grid) Act
• Pipeline Cybersecurity Preparedness Act
In her remarks at the hearing, Lotto said that the key pillars of cyber and physical security are mandatory and enforceable standards, information sharing and public-private partnerships and “defense-in-depth” and sector-wide exercises.
To effectuate this, APPA strongly supports the reauthorization of the RMUC program, regulatory harmonization and the replacement of the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC) by the Department Homeland Security.
The electric power industry works closely with the federal government, including the North American Electric Reliability Corp., the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response and DHS, on matters of critical infrastructure protection, she noted.
One important venue for this collaboration is the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council (ESCC), Lotto said.
“The ESCC serves as the principal liaison between the federal government and the electric power sector, with the mission of coordinating efforts to prepare for, and respond to, national-level disasters or threats,” she said.
APPA and public power utilities “play a leadership role in the ESCC, which includes CEOs and trade association leaders.”
Their counterparts include senior administration officials from the White House, relevant Cabinet agencies, federal law enforcement, national security organizations and Alex Fitzsimmons, Acting Undersecretary of Energy and Director of the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response at the DOE, she went on to say. Fitzsimmons also participated in the hearing as a witness.
Lotto said that “rescinding CIPAC protections in which the ESCC previously operated without any replacement hinders the ability of industry to engage fully with the federal government partners.”
And this includes information sharing program areas such as the DOE’s Energy Threat Analysis Center.
“Industry was apprised by DHS that the administration’s proposed CIPAC replacement is ready for publication in the Federal Register and public power encourages the administration to finalize it quickly,” Lotto said.
RMUC Program
Enacted in 2021, the RMUC Program was authorized and appropriated $250 million in grants and technical assistance over five years to rural, municipal, and small investor-owned electric utilities to enhance their security posture.
“APPA believes that this program is a once in a generation opportunity to improve cybersecurity of under-resourced, not-for-profit utilities that should be extended and expanded,” Lotto said.
She noted that through RMUC, APPA received a four-year, $4 million cooperative agreement to establish the Cyber Pathways Program.
This program is designed to support public power utilities with cybersecurity assessments, training, and a new cybersecurity designation program to recognize utilities implementing cybersecurity best practices.
Cyber Pathways focuses on resource-limited public power utilities, connecting them with cybersecurity resources, and improving their cyber maturity and incident response capabilities.
In addition, APPA has also been selected for negotiation of another financial assistance award of $2 million over four years to test and improve cybersecurity incident response capabilities at 19 public power utilities.
“APPA believes there is much more work to do to build on the successes achieved thus far in the program and as such, we strongly support the RMUC Act, which would reauthorize the program through 2030. We believe this funding will yield dividends to the nation’s security far exceeding the initial investment,” Lotto said.
Along with Lotto and Fitzsimmons, other witnesses at the hearing were:
• Scott Aaronson Senior Vice President, Energy Security and Industry Operations, EEI
• Nathaniel J. Melby, Ph.D., Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Dairyland
Power, on behalf of National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
• Rebecca O’Neil, Research Principal, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment
Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
