OE's Office of Infrastructure Security and Energy Restoration (ISER) is responsible for coordinating the protection of critical energy assets and assisting federal, state, and local governments with disruption preparation, response, and mitigation in support of Homeland Security Presidential Directives 7 and 8. DOE/OE (through ISER) is the lead office for executing the Emergency Support Function #12. Energy (ESF-12) mission is outlined in the National Response Framework, and it facilitates the assessment, reporting, and restoration of damaged energy systems and components when activated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for incidents requiring a coordinated federal response.

ESF-12 is an integral part of the larger DOE responsibility of maintaining continuous and reliable energy supplies for the Nation through preventive measures and restoration and recovery actions. As such, the OE approach for ESF-12 is to leverage a coordinated integration of several DOE capabilities and resources to emergency response situations. These capabilities and resources include personnel with emergency response and/or energy systems operations experience, leading-edge analytical modeling and visualization capabilities, coordination and contacts with private industry, state governments, and U.S. government agencies, and facilitation of special policy waivers or legal authorities by the Secretary of Energy. This approach enables DOE/OE to provide highly scalable ESF-12 support for a range of emergency events with a relatively small footprint while continuing to develop a number of different mission support areas.

ESF-12 activities are designed to ensure energy resources are available throughout the preparation, response, and mitigation stages. The term "energy" includes electric power, oil, natural gas, and coal. It includes all aspects of producing, refining, transporting, generating, transmitting, conserving, building, distributing, maintaining, and controlling energy systems and system components. Energy security implications are addressed based on individual circumstances of the incident.

The ESF-12 mission is accomplished by executing three main functions. These functions are:

1. Information Dissemination – Timely sharing of accurate information is the key to successfully meeting disruptions in the energy sector. ESF-12 collects, evaluates, and shares information on energy system damage and estimations on the impact of energy system outages. Additionally, ESF-12 consolidates information and performs detailed analysis concerning the energy restoration process such as projected schedules, percent completion of restoration, geographic information on the restoration, and other information as appropriate. This information is shared with national, state, local and private sector entities. All publicly releasable information is used to produce Situation Reports.
    
2. Legal Authorities and Waivers – Creating a favorable environment for the private sector and government to recover from an energy disruption minimizes the effects of the disruption. DOE, with close cooperation with other agencies, has the ability to facilitate system restoration via certain legal authorities and waivers. These actions help utilities restore their systems efficiently. They also provide a mechanism to ensure national priorities are accomplished during the restoration process.
    
3. Overcoming Incident Specific Energy Challenges – Every incident is different and provides a unique set of challenges. ESF-12 provides technical expertise, field assessments, and assistance to government and private sector stakeholders to overcome challenges in restoring the energy system.

Fact Sheets

• ESF - 12 Annex (PDF 93 KB)
• Federal Partners and Functions (PDF 83 KB)