Bills Introduced – 03-06-18

Yesterday, with both the House and Senate in session, there were 29 bills introduced. Of those, two may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 5175 To require the Secretary of Energy to carry out a program relating to physical security and cybersecurity for pipelines and liquefied natural gas facilities. Rep. Upton, Fred [R-MI-6]

HR 5179 To direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to coordinate a National Cyber Hacking Competition for high school students, and for other purposes. Rep. Barragan, Nanette Diaz [D-CA-44]

HR 5175 will be controversial as it would seem to take the oversight for the security if these facilities out of the hands of TSA. Of course, TSA has done little about the security of these facilities and nothing in the form of mandated security requirements. It will be interesting to see exactly what authority is given to DOE by this bill.

I will be watching HR 5179 to see what definitions are used (particularly the definition of ‘cyber hacking’) to see if this would include control system hacking and what policies are put into place to encourage future coordinated disclosures on the part of students who continue on in the cybersecurity research realm.