Committee Hearings – Week of 1-7-18

Today is the first full week of the second session of the 115^th Congress. Both the House and Senate will be in session, but the hearing schedules is pretty light. Only one hearing of potential interest to readers of this blog; a DOE oversight hearing that will briefly touch on cybersecurity.

DOE Oversight

Tomorrow the Energy Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will be holding a hearing on “DOE Modernization: Advancing DOE’s Mission for National, Economic, and Energy Security of the United States”. According to the staff background memo, this will include a look at the DOE’s role in energy sector cybersecurity. The lengthy witness list includes:

• Dan Brouillette, DOE;
• Paul Dabbar, DOE;
• Frank Klotz , DOE;
• Sarah Ladislaw, Center for Strategic and International Studies;

• Donald Levy, University of Chicago and Co-Chair;

• Mark Menezes; DOE;
• Rich Powell, ClearPath Foundation;

• Dan Reicher, Brookings Institution; and

• Steve Wasserman, Argonne National Laboratory

On the Floor

There is one bill that will make it to the floor this week that may be of specific interest to readers of this blog; HR 3202, the Cyber Vulnerability Disclosure Reporting Act. The bill would require a report to Congress on procedures that DHS has developed in regards to vulnerability disclosures. It only addresses DHS vulnerability discoveries, not those made by DOD or DOE and the report to Congress is not really a public report, but it is required to be unclassified (with potentially classified annexes).

The bill will be considered Tuesday under suspension of the rules. There will be limited debate and no floor amendments. It is expected to pass with bipartisan support.