House to Take-up Amendment to HR 1437 – 1 Week CR

The House is scheduled today to take up the Senate Amendment to HR 1437, the Providing Research and Estimates of Changes In Precipitation (PRECIP) Act. This bill is being used as the vehicle for a short (1-week) continuing resolution. The substitute language being proposed in lieu of the Senate amendment is a relatively clean continuing resolution. There are a number of changes being made to various statutes that had an expiration date tied to the current CR (PL 117-180) for December 16^th. That CR would be extended to December 23^rd, 2022, next Friday.

There is one ‘odd’ provision in the new language. In Division A, §101(2), the bill would add a new §158 to the original CR:

‘‘SEC. 158. During the period covered by this Act, section 227(a) of the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015 (6 U.S.C. 1525) shall not apply.’’.

Section 1525 provides a sunset for the reporting requirements  6 USC 1524(c) set for December 18^th, 2022. That subsection requires annual reports from DHS to Congress on “Intrusion detection and prevention capabilities” and similar OMB annual reports on “development and implementation of intrusion assessment plan, advanced internal defenses, and Federal cybersecurity requirements.”

It is odd that no one in the Homeland Security Committee had caught this sunset provision earlier and dealt with it in other legislation. I suspect that we will see an extension of the sunset date in the final spending bill.

BTW: The Senate amendment was included in Division D of the substitute, so the earlier work done on the bill in the House and Senate is not wasted.