Infrastructure measures to be considered in Tuesday committee hearing

(The Center Square) – North Carolina lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday will review two bills aimed at protecting the state’s infrastructure.

The committee is the second stop for Senate Bill 58 to “Protect Critical Infrastructure” after the legislation was amended and approved by the Senate Agriculture, Energy and Environment Committee last week.

SB58 would create a class C felony punishable by up to 19 years, three months in prison for those who “knowingly and willfully destroy, injure, or otherwise damage, or attempt to destroy, inure, or otherwise damage, an energy facility.” Those who violate the law resulting in a death would face a B2 felony, punishable by up to 32 years in prison.

The bill also upgrades penalties for attacks on telephone and broadband infrastructure, and public utilities, to class C felonies.

It’s inspired by gunshots at two substations in Moore County that took out electricity on Dec. 3, leaving about 45,000 residents in the dark amid frigid temperatures, the bill’s sponsor, Senate Majority Whip Tom McInnis, R-Richmond, said last week.

SB58 includes punishments for trespassing at energy facilities and at wastewater and communications infrastructure, as well. Under the bill, those convicted of trespassing would face up to a year in prison, while trespass that risks serious bodily injury would carry a potential sentence of two years, one month.

Other aspects of the bill include a fine of $250,000 and civil liabilities for actual and consequential damages for those who injure an energy facility, or “who acts as an accessory before or after the fact, aids or abets, solicits, conspires, or lends material support.”

“We don’t know how important our electric grid is until we lose it,” McInnis told the Senate Agriculture, Energy and Environment Committee.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will also consider Senate Bill 83, titled “No High Risk Apps/Gov’t Network & Devices,” which was reported favorably by the Senate State and Local Government Committee on Feb. 21.

SB83 would prohibit the use of any high risk platform on public networks, or by employees, elected officials, appointees, or students using devices controlled by a public agency, the judicial branch or the General Assembly.

The bill comes as states across the country and federal government entities are moving to ban the use of TicTok over concerns about its parent company’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Gov. Roy Cooper issued an executive order in January to prohibit the use of TikToc and other “high-risk applications” on state-owned devices, and SB83 would enshrine a ban in law.

The bill identifies TicTok, WeChat, and Telegram as high risk platforms. It defines devices as “any cellular phone, desktop or laptop computer, or other electronic equipment capable of connecting to a network.”

TicTok is a popular video sharing app owned by ByteDance Limited, a Chinese internet technology company headquartered in Beijing and incorporated in the Cayman Islands. WeChat is a Chinese instant messaging, social media and mobile payment app with over 1 billion monthly active users. Telegram is a Dubai-based encrypted messaging service founded by Russians in 2014 that now boasts more than 200 million monthly active users, which have included the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as ISIS.

SB83 would provide exceptions for law enforcement, cybersecurity workers, protecting human life, and judicial or quasi-judicial proceedings. If approved, it would take effect on April 1, and would give employees, elected officials, and appointees until April 15 to uninstall high risk platforms.

The bill would also task state agencies with reporting each year by Aug. 1 the number of instances of unauthorized uses or attempted uses of high risk platforms to the state’s Chief Information Officer. The CIO would then be required to compile and submit a report to the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Information Technology by Oct. 1.

If approved, both SB58 and SB83 are expected to head next to the Committee on Rules and Operations of the Senate.