Energy Sector
What Does the Department of Homeland Security Say About the Sector?
Definition: The Energy Sector fuels the economy and underpins the functioning of every other critical infrastructure sector in the United States, delivering electricity to homes and businesses, and supplying oil and natural gas across three interrelated segments. More than 80 percent of the country's energy infrastructure is privately owned and operated, spanning over 6,400 power plants and extensive networks for the production, refining, storage, and distribution of petroleum and natural gas. The National Security Memorandum (NSM) 22 updates and replaces the earlier Presidential Policy Directive 21 (PPD-21) to reflect today’s threat landscape — including strategic competition with nation-state actors, advances in technology like artificial intelligence, and the need for coordinated risk management.
Goals:
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Sustain the security and reliability of energy infrastructure against physical and cyber threats
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Strengthen public-private partnerships and information sharing to build sector-wide preparedness and resilience
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Reduce vulnerabilities across the electricity, oil, and natural gas subsectors through coordinated risk management
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Maintain continuity of energy services before, during, and after all-hazard incidents and emergencies
UNIFIED RESILIENCE
Align federal, state, and local partners around energy security and PNT resilience, integrating grid modernization, infrastructure protection, and emerging threat response while building workforce capacity in SMRs, battery storage, hydrogen, and eLoran.
SECURE BY DESIGN
Advance resilient, redundant infrastructure by embedding security into planning and design, reducing single-point dependencies and ensuring continuous energy and PNT services through government, academia, and industry partnerships.
OUTREACH & INNOVATION
Advance public awareness and industry engagement on energy and PNT security through forums, innovation challenges, and stakeholder dialogue, accelerating the adoption of resilient technologies essential to national security.
IHS Sector Growth Goals
OUTREACH & INNOVATION
Advance public awareness and industry engagement on energy and PNT security through forums, innovation challenges, and stakeholder dialogue, accelerating the adoption of resilient technologies essential to national security.
SECURE BY DESIGN
Advance resilient, redundant infrastructure by embedding security into planning and design, reducing single-point dependencies and ensuring continuous energy and PNT services through government, academia, and industry partnerships.
UNIFIED RESILIENCE
Align federal, state, and local partners around energy security and PNT resilience, integrating grid modernization, infrastructure protection, and emerging threat response while building workforce capacity in SMRs, battery storage, hydrogen, and eLoran.
IHS Sector Growth Goals
Energy Infrastructure
Security and Resilience
The Energy Security and Resilience Partnership explores the latest trends shaping the transformation of the energy sector, with a focus on the mindset and capabilities that today's and tomorrow's security leaders need to succeed.
The Energy Sector underpins all other critical infrastructure and economic activity, and in Texas it is largely privately owned and operated, delivering electricity to nearly 10 million homes and millions of businesses while supporting the nation’s largest oil, natural gas, refining, pipeline, export, and motor fuels systems.
Texas leads the U.S. in electricity generation, wind power production, crude oil and natural gas output, and refining capacity; it operates the independent Texas Interconnection grid managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, supplies about one-third of U.S. refining capacity, hosts major Gulf Coast refinery and port concentrations, and contains two Strategic Petroleum Reserve sites.
Aligned with federal frameworks such as National Security Memorandum 22, the National Infrastructure Protection Plan, and the Energy Sector-Specific Plan—and coordinated nationally by Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the US Department of Energy—Texas’ all-the-above, market-driven energy strategy emphasizes grid independence, fuel diversity, infrastructure protection, export strength, and enhanced resilience.
The Texas Homeland Security Strategy (2026–2030) reinforces energy as a core state lifeline sector, prioritizing reliability of generation, transmission, and distribution; diversification across oil, gas, nuclear, coal, wind, and solar; hardening of critical facilities; and strengthened incident response and recovery to ensure continuity of essential services statewide.
Partners
Energy Security and Resilience Partnership
The Energy Sector underpins all other critical infrastructure and economic activity, and in Texas it is largely privately owned and operated, delivering electricity to nearly 10 million homes and millions of businesses while supporting the nation’s largest oil, natural gas, refining, pipeline, export, and motor fuels systems.
Texas leads the U.S. in electricity generation, wind power production, crude oil and natural gas output, and refining capacity; it operates the independent Texas Interconnection grid managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, supplies about one-third of U.S. refining capacity, hosts major Gulf Coast refinery and port concentrations, and contains two Strategic Petroleum Reserve sites.
Aligned with federal frameworks such as National Security Memorandum 22, the National Infrastructure Protection Plan, and the Energy Sector-Specific Plan—and coordinated nationally by Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the US Department of Energy—Texas’ all-the-above, market-driven energy strategy emphasizes grid independence, fuel diversity, infrastructure protection, export strength, and enhanced resilience.
The Texas Homeland Security Strategy (2026–2030) reinforces energy as a core state lifeline sector, prioritizing reliability of generation, transmission, and distribution; diversification across oil, gas, nuclear, coal, wind, and solar; hardening of critical facilities; and strengthened incident response and recovery to ensure continuity of essential services statewide.
Energy Sources
Water & Wastewater Critical Infrastructure Exchange
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The W/WW CI sector is considered a lifeline sector, a sector vital to the life of the individual and society. The safety, resilience and continuity of this sector is paramount to the Nation’s economy and public health. The goal of this sector is to provide clean drinking water and properly treated wastewater, services essential to everyday life.
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This exchange aims to facilitate the cross sector sharing of ideas, all working towards a collaborative effort to improve the security, resiliency, and business continuity of the water/wastewater critical infrastructure sector.
