HR 3101 Reported in House – Port Cybersecurity

Last week the House Homeland Security Committee published their report on HR 3101, the Strengthening Cybersecurity Information Sharing and Coordination in Our Ports Act of 2017. The same day, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee was discharged from further consideration of the bill.

HR 3101 was ordered reported without amendment when it was considered by the Committee on 9-7-17. This typically means that there is little to be gained by reviewing the report. But, with Transportation and Infrastructure Committee being discharged from consideration, it is important to look at the included letter (pgs 15) from the Chair of that Committee {Rep. Shuster (R,PA)} to see if there were any conditions imposed when he acquiesced in allowing the bill to move forward.

Sure enough, there were two conditions, both agreed to by Chairman McCaul (R,TX). The second, is the standard requirement that the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee be represented in any conference (if required) on the bill. The first is:

“Further, this is conditional on our understanding that mutually agreed upon changes to the legislation will be incorporated into the bill prior to floor consideration.”

There are no changes in the reported version of HR 3101, as I would expect given the fact that no amendments were adopted by the Committee. We will not be able to see the changes that are being made until today’s Congressional Record is published tomorrow (remember, the bill is being considered on the floor today). Interestingly, neither will any of the members of Congress that will be voting on the bill. Such is the power of committee chairs.

I do not expect that the changes will be major and I do not really look for them to make changes to affect the IT-centric nature of this bill.