Energy and Commerce Committee Takes up Cybersecurity Bills

Today in a markup hearing that was billed as being about opioid abuse legislation (and mostly was) the House Energy and Commerce Committee took up four cybersecurity bills that had previously been adopted in subcommittee action. The all four cybersecurity bills were adopted by voice votes with two of them being amended. The action on these cybersecurity bills came at the end of the almost 4-hour long hearing.

The four cybersecurity bills were:

• HR 5174, Energy Emergency Leadership Act;

• HR 5175, Pipeline and LNG Facility Cybersecurity Preparedness Act;

• HR 5239, Cyber Sense Act; and

• HR 5240, Enhancing Grid Security through Public-Private Partnerships Act

Committee Amendments

The pipeline cybersecurity bill was amended. The amendment was offered by Rep. Upton (R,MI) who is the Chair of the Energy Subcommittee. The major portion of this amendment was the addition of §3, Savings Clause. That section states:

“Nothing in this Act shall be construed to modify the authority of any Federal agency other than the Department of Energy relating to physical security or cybersecurity for natural gas pipelines (including natural gas transmission and distribution pipelines), hazardous liquid pipelines, or liquefied natural gas facilities.”

This amendment indirectly addresses the roles of both the DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA) and DHS’ Transportation Security Administration in protecting pipeline safety and security. This should alleviate the conflicts with the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee over jurisdictional issues that I identified in my earlier post.

The enhancing grid security bill was amended. The amendment was offered by Rep. Latta (R,OH). It added the Electric Reliability Organization as one of the agencies with which the Department of Energy would consult in developing the program outlined in the bill. The amendment also provided a definition of the term ‘Electric Reliability Organization’.

Moving Forward

This was probably the last time that there would be any opportunity to modify the language in these four bills. It is likely that they will move to the House floor, probably before the summer recess. They will almost certainly be considered under the House suspension of the rules provisions that limits debate and prohibits amendments from the floor. They will all almost certainly pass with broad bipartisan support.

If any of these bills get taken up by the Senate (impossible to predict) it will probably be under similar abbreviated consideration provisions as we will see in the House.