Carly Fiorina Calls for 'Consolidated Command' to Protect Against Solar Storms

Indianola, Iowa — -- Warning that the nation is not adequately protected from the threat of a major solar storm, Carly Fiorina said she would create a "consolidated command" to deal with the threat as president.

"I would stand up a consolidated command in the United States government," Fiorina said when asked how she would respond to the threat of a solar storm, known technologically as electromagnetic pulse (EMP), at a Republican county gathering Saturday night.

"Today we have people who have bits and pieces of the problem all over the government, the jealously guard their turf, none of them work together,” Fiorina continued.

Fiorina's imagined command center, which she acknowledged would require an act of Congress to create, would be designed to respond to the threat of EMP as well as cyber-warfare. Her recommendation comes after the Obama administration on Thursday released a multi-agency response plan to prepare against the threat of a solar storm, which could potentially damage or destroy electric grid and telecommunications systems on Earth.

Noting her past experience as the chair of the CIA advisory board and in advising secretaries of defense and state, Fiorina said she has “absolute confidence that we are the most sophisticated nation on the planet” capable of guarding against any threat.

The problem, she said, is that the United States not doing so to the full extent.

“No, we are not sufficiently,” she said. “It’s not because we don’t have the know how, it’s not because we don’t have the technology, it is not because we don’t have the sophistication. It is because our government has become inept.”

Fiorina pointed to the hack on Office of Personnel Management, through which the personal information of tens of millions of Americans was breached, as one example of government ineptitude. She made the case that the OPM hack could have been prevented through technologies commonly employed in the private sector, though not used by the government office at the time of the breech.