Bills Introduced – 05-09-18

Yesterday with both the House and Senate in session there were 43 bills introduced. Of these, two may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 5729 To restrict the department in which the Coast Guard is operating from implementing any rule requiring the use of biometric readers for biometric transportation security cards until after submission to Congress of the results of an assessment of the effectiveness of the transportation security card program. Rep. Katko, John [R-NY-24]

HR 5733 To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to provide for the responsibility of the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center to maintain capabilities to identify threats to industrial control systems, and for other purposes. Rep. Bacon, Don [R-NE-2]

The Transportation Workers Identification Credential (TWIC) reader rule was adopted in 2016 with an implementation date of August 23, 2018. With the Coast Guard having submitted a rule to delay the implementation of that rule and now this bill being introduced it would seem that the regulated community seems to be having some problems with the implementation. Katko is the Chair of the Transportation and Protective Security Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee. It will be interesting to see how fast this bill is considered in that Subcommittee. It will have to be quick (next week?) if HR 5729 is to be effective.

I am really looking forward to seeing the text of HR 5733 for two reasons. First I am hoping to see an effective definition of control system that can be used in this and subsequent cybersecurity legislation. Second, since this looks to be an authorization bill, it will be interesting to see if ICS-CERT is specifically mentioned.