The National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO), in partnership with the National Governors Association (NGA) published their Public Communications Playbook for Energy Emergencies—a new resource designed to strengthen state-level crisis communications strategies for energy emergencies. The playbook offers guidance and best practices to help State and Territory Energy Offices and Governors’ offices coordinate messaging, in coordination with industry partners, and communicate effectively with the public during emergencies that disrupt energy production or delivery. Effective communications during energy disruptions can save lives and expedite the return to normal economic activity.
The playbook provides adaptable resources including examples of state government public messaging and media outreach during energy emergencies. Additionally, the playbook includes a “timeline of engagement” template that outlines key communication actions states may take in the critical hours and days of incident response to an energy supply disruption.
“Damage to our Nation's energy infrastructure and delivery system from variety of hazards, including severe weather (hurricanes, flooding, tornados, earthquakes, wildfires, etc.), systems and infrastructures failures, deliberate physical, cyber, attacks and other events can result in immediate impacts to the public, as well as other sectors dependent on energy. The State Energy Offices play a key role in supporting their governors during energy emergencies and in implementing communications protocols and plans to coordinate with relevant energy companies, mission critical facilities such as hospitals and water treatment and others and share appropriate information with the public,” said David Terry, President of NASEO. He added that "energy emergency communications are a key component of the State Energy Security Plans that every State Energy Office in the nation recently updated to strengthen energy emergency planning, mitigation and response. This playbook helps to better equip state leaders with strategies for managing communications and offers key communications elements to consider during an energy emergency, which is vital to ensuring safety and mitigating misinformation and panic.”
The playbook emphasizes the importance of unity in messaging, proactive planning, and adaptive communication strategies to ensure state officials can effectively navigate the complex challenges in providing unified public communications during energy supply and infrastructure disruptions.
The NASEO-NGA Public Communications Playbook for Energy Emergencies playbook is available for download on the NASEO website.