Committee Hearings – Week of 11-14-21

With both the House and Senate back in Washington for a week between holidays, we have a nearly full slate of congressional hearings. Of interest here will be two ransomware hearings and markup of a cybersecurity bill.

Ransomware Hearings

On  Tuesday, the House Oversight and Reform Committee will hold a hearing on “Cracking Down on Ransomware: Strategies for Disrupting Criminal Hackers and Building Resilience Against Cyber Threats”. The witness list includes:

• Jen Easterly, CISA,

• Chris Inglis, National Cyber Director, and

• Bryan Vorndran, FBI

On Wednesday, two subcommittees of the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a joint hearing on “A Whole-of-Government Approach to Combatting Ransomware: Examining DHS’s Role”. The witness list includes:

• Rob Silvers, DHS,

• Jeremy Sheridan, Secret Service, and

• Brandon Wales, CISA

Neither hearing is expected to do more than mention controls system security in passing.

Cybersecurity Markup

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a business meeting. In addition to a number of nominations, it will take-up S 2629, the Better Cybercrime Metrics Act. This bill would add law enforcement cybercrime reporting requirements, but does not address private sector reporting cybercrimes to law enforcement or federal agencies.

On the Floor

This week the House is scheduled to take up HR 5376, the Build Back Better Act. I have not yet reviewed the most likely version of the bill to appear before the House, I have been awaiting last minute changes.

The Senate will likely take up HR 4350, the FY 2022 National Defense Authorization Act. The Senate will ignore the House language, taking up instead substitute language based upon S 2972. Readers will have seen my posts about the large number of amendments that have been proposed. More will likely be coming this week. It will be interesting to see which amendments actually make it to the floor for consideration. This will not be quick and the final vote may be delayed until after the Thanksgiving recess.