I guess my understanding of the physics is faulty. My understanding is that ever CME has an EMP as a sub-element in the event. The severity of the CME increases the severity of the corresponding EMP. I guess I'd always seen EMPs as analogous to shockwaves: Every explosion has a shockwave, just some of them are more devastating than others, depending on attributes of the explosion.
Fascinating. And I get it now; I was using "EMP" for shorthand of the electrical damage caused by a CME, and that's not right. (Cletus and his ground wire.) I knew about the fragility of our power grid (went deeply into the research behind switching to a solar install career, about 10 years ago) and that Mother Nature has some infrequently used tools in the shop that could shred our infrastructure... and that was before JIT manufacturing, overnight shipping as a norm, and electric fleet vehicles... Yikes.