On Monday, Texas passed the Lone Star Infrastructure Protection Act, authored by Sen. Donna Campbell and Rep. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, to protect Texas against hostile foreign actors like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, from the state’s critical infrastructure.
“The Lone Star Infrastructure Protection Act is paramount to ensuring that Texas implements strong measures needed to fortify our critical infrastructure,” Parker said. “This legislation also sends a clear message that we will not allow hostile foreign actors to access these vital elements of our great state. I am thankful for the opportunity to work with Sen. Campbell on this important policy and am honored to join her today with Gov. Greg Abbott to witness this bill becoming law. We must never forget that the safety and security of 30 million Texans rest on our shoulders.”
Recent infrastructure attacks such as the Colonial Pipeline, Russian attacks on the City of Austin software, JBS meat plant, Chinese attacks on Mumbai’s grid system, and coordinated strikes against operations in almost two dozen Texas cities in 2019 inspired the bill.
“Not only must we learn from these failures, but we must also address them. Senate Bill 2116 puts our state on the right track,” Campbell said. “It has long been my priority to protect the State of Texas. As chair of the Veteran Affairs and Border Security committee, I have the honor and unique responsibility of protecting the citizens and service members of this great state, and we must ensure that hostile nations that seek to harm our state are prevented from connecting physically or remotely into our critical infrastructure systems.”
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