House Passes HR 4743 – Cybersecurity Consortia

Last night the House passed HR 4743, the National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium Act of 2016. After 13 minutes of debate the bill passed by a strongly bipartisan vote of 394 – 3. The three dissenting votes were cast by Republicans.

The bill would allow the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate with, and support with existing grant monies, an independent National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium to:

• Provide training to State and local first responders and officials;

• Develop and update a curriculum utilizing existing programs and models;

• Provide technical assistance services to build and sustain capabilities in support of preparedness for and response to cybersecurity risks and incidents;

• Conduct cross-sector cybersecurity training and simulation exercises for entities, including State and local governments, critical infrastructure owners and operators, and private industry;

• Help States and communities develop cybersecurity information sharing programs; and

• Help incorporate cybersecurity risk and incdent prevention and response (including related to threats of terrorism and acts of terrorism) into existing State and local emergency plans.

The bill now moves to the Senate where it will almost certainly be considered (if it makes it to the floor, that is not guaranteed by any stretch of the imagination) under the Senate’s unanimous consent procedure without debate or vote.

HR 4743 Reported in House – Cybersecurity Consortium

Yesterday the House Homeland Security Committee submitted their report on HR 4743, the National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium Act of 2016. The reported version of the bill reflects amendments made to the bill during a markup hearing by the Committee on April 28^th, 2016.

The revised version of the bill makes some technical changes to the relationship between the Department and the National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium. The original language would have had the Department establish the Consortium, where the new language allows the Secretary to work with an independently established Consortium. This relieves the Department from any potential responsibility for funding of Consortium activities beyond potentially providing grant monies to support specific actions.

The House is currently scheduled to take up this bill under suspension of the rules on Monday. This means that there will be limited debate on the floor and no additional amendments will be allowed to the bill. It also indicates that the leadership expects broad bipartisan support for the bill because these rules require a super-majority (2/3rds of members present) for passage.