§18723 Rural and Municipal Utility Advanced Cybersecurity Grant and Technical Assistance Program

Summary

Creates a federal program that gives grants and technical help to rural and local electric utilities so they can better protect, detect, respond to, and recover from cyberattacks. Key words: advanced cybersecurity technology means tools or services that improve protection, detection, response, or recovery; bulk-power system is as defined in section 824o(a) of title 16; eligible entity means rural electric co‑ops, utilities owned by local governments or local agencies, a nonprofit partnered with at least six such utilities, or an investor‑owned utility that sells under 4,000,000 megawatt‑hours per year; Program means the Rural and Municipal Utility Advanced Cybersecurity Grant and Technical Assistance Program. The federal Secretary must set up the Program within 180 days after November 15, 2021, working with the Secretary of Homeland Security and talking with FERC, NERC, and the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council. The Program must help deploy advanced cybersecurity tools and get more eligible utilities to share threat information. Grants and help will be awarded competitively using rules and a formula set by the Secretary, who can also make cooperative agreements and must tell all eligible utilities about opportunities. Priority goes to utilities with few cyber resources, those owning assets important to bulk‑power reliability, or those with defense‑critical electric infrastructure (see section 824o–1(a) of title 16). Sensitive information that could harm physical or cyber security must be kept from public release. Up to $250,000,000 is authorized for fiscal years 2022 through 2026.