Bills Introduced – 03-16-17

Yesterday, with just the House in session {the Senate left for an early start to a week in their home states campaigning (er, working)}, there were 44 bills introduced. Of those, three may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 1571 To provide first responders with planning, training, and equipment capabilities for crude oil-by-rail and ethanol-by-rail derailment and incident response, and for other purposes. Rep. Herrera Beutler, Jaime [R-WA-3]

HR 1579 To require drinking water systems to assess and address their vulnerabilities to climate change, source water degradation, and intentional acts to ensure security and resiliency. Rep. Peters, Scott H. [D-CA-52] 

H Res 200 Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States should develop and adopt a comprehensive cybersecurity policy. Rep. Taylor, Scott [R-VA-2]

It will be interesting to see why HR 1571 was referred to the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee instead of the Transportation and Infrastructure or the Homeland Security Committees.

I will be following HR 1579 only if it specifically addresses cybersecurity or cyber resiliency issues.

While House Resolutions are usually of little real importance if this one actually mentions control system security issues that should be addressed as part of a ‘comprehensive’ cybersecurity policy. If it does not, the policy will hardly be ‘comprehensive’.