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Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →At a January 13, 2026, House hearing, then-acting CESER director Alex Fitzsimmons promoted an AI-centered defense strategy for energy infrastructure as Democrats questioned whether federal workforce reductions and delayed grants could weaken the agency’s ability to carry out its existing work. The dispute is not simply whether AI can help defend energy systems; it is whether CESER can develop those tools without losing the people, partnerships, and conventional cybersecurity programs needed to put them to use.
What happened at the January hearing?
The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy held a legislative hearing titled “Protecting America’s Energy Infrastructure in Today’s Cyber and Physical Threat Landscape.” Fitzsimmons, then acting undersecretary of energy and acting director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER), testified alongside witnesses representing utility and public-power perspectives. The hearing addressed both energy-sector threats and five proposed bills; the measures were under discussion, not established by this hearing as enacted law. Congress.gov’s hearing record provides the official listing.
The broader security problem is not limited to malicious software. CESER’s remit includes cybersecurity, physical and supply-chain risks, emergency response, and restoration. Fitzsimmons described planning for overlapping stresses such as severe weather, constrained pipeline capacity, and an opportunistic nation-state cyberattack. That scenario illustrates why an AI tool, even if effective at detecting a cyber threat, would be only one part of energy resilience.
What is AI-FORTS?
AI-FORTS stands for Artificial Intelligence for Operationally Resilient Technologies and Systems. CESER describes it as a program framework for using AI to protect energy infrastructure from AI-enabled attacks, improve threat detection, help systems continue operating through compromise, test supply-chain security, and evaluate AI systems used to operate, control, or defend energy networks. Fitzsimmons presented it as a defensive response to adversaries’ growing use of AI-enabled cyber capabilities. The DOE AI-FORTS description outlines the program’s stated aims.
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“Operate through compromise” is a resilience goal: systems should be able to maintain essential functions when an intrusion is suspected or underway, rather than relying on prevention alone. It does not mean that an AI system can independently make safe operational decisions or that energy infrastructure is already protected by a deployed AI-FORTS product. The program includes research, testing, and partnerships; it is not one nationwide defense platform.
What the FY2026 budget request proposed
DOE’s FY2026 CESER congressional justification proposed reducing the Risk Management Tools and Technologies account by $39 million, or 35%, while describing the shift as a redirection toward AI and “Cyber Armor” research, development, and implementation. The figures below are changes in the administration’s budget request, not proof of final appropriations or actual spending. The CESER budget justification contains the requested amounts.
| Budget line | Proposed change | What the request indicates |
|---|---|---|
| Supply Chain Cybersecurity Risk Management | Down $9 million, or 31% | Less requested support for this risk-management work. |
| Cyber Risk Assessments, Frameworks and R&D Coordination | Down $7.5 million, or 48% | A substantial proposed reduction in assessment and coordination activities. |
| University-based R&D and Cybersecurity Centers | Down $15.5 million, or 100% | The request eliminated funding in this line item. |
| Risk Management Tools and Technologies, total | Down $39 million, or 35% | The request described this as a strategic redirection toward AI and Cyber Armor work. |
| Tools to Manage Risks from Natural Hazards, Physical Threats, and EMP/GMD | Down $10.5 million, or 48% | A proposed reduction in work addressing non-cyber physical and environmental risks. |
| Cybersecurity and Energy Security Technologies | Up $3.5 million, from $31 million to $34.5 million, or 11% | An increase in a separate requested line item. |
These are requested budget changes, not interchangeable with appropriations, obligations, outlays, or administrative decisions about individual grants. The budget document establishes the proposed reallocation; it does not by itself establish which proposals Congress funded or what amount was ultimately spent.
What bills were lawmakers considering?
The committee’s hearing memorandum listed five measures. Their proposed functions span information sharing, emergency leadership, utility assistance, state planning, and pipeline preparedness. The committee memorandum identifies the legislation.
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| Proposed bill | Policy focus |
|---|---|
| Energy Threat Analysis Center Act of 2026 | Improved government-industry sharing and analysis of energy threat information. |
| Energy Emergency Leadership Act | A stronger or more formal DOE role in energy emergencies. |
| Rural and Municipal Utility Cybersecurity Act | Cybersecurity funding and technical assistance for rural, municipal, and cooperative utilities. |
| Securing Community Upgrades for a Resilient Grid Act (SECURE Grid Act) | Broader state energy-security planning that considers physical, cyber, and supply-chain risks. |
| Pipeline Cybersecurity Preparedness Act | Formalized cybersecurity preparedness for pipelines. |
The package matters to smaller utilities in particular: a cybersecurity program that depends on specialized staff, extensive data, or costly infrastructure may be difficult for a municipal or cooperative operator to use without practical assistance. The bill titles and hearing record do not establish that any measure became law.
Why Democrats questioned staffing and grants
Democrats argued that DOE workforce departures and canceled or delayed grants could erode the operational base needed to protect energy systems. CyberScoop’s account of the hearing reports that Fitzsimmons accepted “more than 3,500” as a fair estimate of DOE staff removed or departing when Rep. Rob Menendez pressed him on the workforce. That reported figure should not be read as a verified count of firings alone: the account does not resolve the mix of departures or establish a complete personnel accounting.
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Fitzsimmons told committee chair Bob Latta that CESER had the staff and resources needed to carry out new legislative duties. Democrats, by contrast, questioned whether the reductions left enough people to handle existing responsibilities and cited hundreds of grants they said had been canceled or delayed. Those grant claims are attributed to the lawmakers and hearing coverage; the available account does not provide a complete grant-by-grant accounting of federal dollars, total project value, cancellations, delays, or later restorations.
Rep. Frank Pallone argued that the proposed bills were inadequate against broader energy-reliability problems he associated with Republican policy. That was his political assessment, not an independently measured finding. CyberScoop’s hearing coverage reports the exchange and the competing claims. The central unresolved issue is implementation: whether CESER has enough experienced staff and dependable funding to sustain emergency coordination and conventional risk work while building new AI capabilities.
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What AI may add—and what it cannot settle
AI could help analysts process large volumes of operational and threat data, identify anomalous behavior, test AI systems before utilities rely on them, and model interactions among weather, fuel, supply-chain, and cyber risks. These are intended capabilities, not demonstrated outcomes from AI-FORTS. The hearing transcript records Fitzsimmons describing the program’s defensive priorities; it does not establish broad deployment or proven performance against live attacks. The official testimony transcript provides the hearing context.
Using AI in energy operations also creates technical and governance challenges:
- Reliability: False alarms can overwhelm operators, while missed detections can leave an intrusion unnoticed.
- Adversarial risk: Attackers may manipulate inputs, exploit model weaknesses, or compromise the data and software on which a tool depends.
- Operational safety: A mistaken automated action in an industrial-control environment can have physical consequences, so human oversight and safe fallback procedures matter.
- Legacy equipment and data: Utilities may use older systems not designed for AI integration, and sensitive operational data may be difficult to share.
- New dependencies: Models, vendors, cloud services, and hardware add supply-chain and concentration risks of their own.
- Uneven access: Smaller utilities may lack staff and infrastructure to adopt tools developed for better-resourced operators.
AI therefore cannot substitute for incident responders, utility coordination, field expertise, grant-supported research, or emergency decision-making. Whether a particular tool improves resilience depends on independent evaluation, integration with existing systems, clear accountability, and a workable fallback if the tool is unavailable, compromised, or wrong.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How CESER’s plans developed after the hearing
DOE’s later announcements show that the AI effort moved beyond the January hearing as a set of specific planning and testing initiatives. CESER released its first five-year strategic plan for FY2026–2030 on March 18, 2026. On April 14, CESER and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory launched the Mjölnir AI Testbed to assess the security and reliability of AI models used in energy operations, planning, and grid management. On July 16, CESER listed Stormbreaker, a testbed intended to advance evaluation of large language models and agentic AI in critical-infrastructure and operational-technology environments.
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DOE’s announcement describes Mjölnir’s aims, while CESER’s listings describe Stormbreaker; the announcements establish that these initiatives were launched or listed, not that they are mature operational defenses, widely deployed, effective against live threats, or adequately funded. See the CESER strategic-plan announcement, the Mjölnir announcement, and the CESER blog listings.
Leadership also changed after the hearing. Fitzsimmons was the acting director at the January 13 hearing; DOE listed Andrew McClure as CESER director by July 29, 2026. The CESER office page provides the agency’s current leadership listing and description of its broader mission.
What to watch next
The announcements do not settle the core resource question. To assess whether the AI push strengthens energy security rather than merely changing priorities, the consequential evidence will be practical and measurable:
Quick Recap
- Whether testbed results lead to tools utilities can safely adopt, including small municipal and cooperative operators.
- How CESER evaluates model reliability, adversarial resilience, safety, and human oversight before operational use.
- Whether funding for AI is additive or comes at the expense of established cybersecurity, supply-chain, university, and physical-risk work.
- How many CESER positions remain filled and which grants were canceled, delayed, restored, or completed.
- Whether the proposed bills receive further legislative action and what authorities or resources any enacted law actually provides.
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