HSGA Committee Amends and Adopts Cybersecurity and Chemical Safety Bills

Yesterday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, held a business meeting where they considered 16 pieces of legislation including:

• S 4000, Intragovernmental Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, and

• S 4166, Technological Hazards Preparedness and Training Act of 2022,

S 4000 would require DHS to enter into information sharing agreements with the House and Senate on cybersecurity issues. Substitute language was offered and adopted by a voice vote.

S 4166 would require FEMA to “maintain the capacity to provide States and local governments with technological hazards and related emerging [CBRN] threats technical assistance, training, and other preparedness programming to build community resilience to technological hazards and related emerging threats. Two amendments were offered for this bill. The Committee adopted the amendment offered by Sen Paul (R,TN) by a voice vote. A second amendment offered by Sen Scott (R,SC) was rejected by a voice vote..

Unfortunately, the HSGAC does not make amendments publicly available. So, we will not be able to tell what changes have been made to either bill until the Committee publishes their report.

Committee Hearings – Week of 5-22-22

This week with the Senate in Washington, and the House holding remote hearings, there is a moderately heavy hearing schedule. There are still a few FY 2023 budge hearings be held, but we only have about a month left before the House should start publishing FY 2023 spending bills (the Senate may or may not be publishing any). There is one markup hearing that includes cybersecurity bills.

FY 2023 Budget

Tuesday - Member Day – House – Homeland Security Subcommittee – Appropriations,

Wednesday – Member Day – House – THUD Subcommittee – Appropriations,

Wednesday – FEMA – House – Homeland Security Subcommittee – Appropriations,

‘Member Day’ hearings allow members of the House that are not members of the Appropriations Committee to testify before the Subcommittee on the appropriations process.

Markup Hearing

On Wednesday the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will be holding a business meeting that will include consideration of 15 bills and one naming bills. Bills of interest here include:

• S 4000, Intragovernmental Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, and

• S 4166, Technological Hazards Preparedness and Training Act of 2022

S 4000 Introduced – DHS and Congress Info Sharing

Earlier this month, Sen Portman (R,OH) introduced S 4000, the Intragovernmental Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act. The bill would require DHS to enter into information sharing agreements with the House and Senate on cybersecurity issues. No funding authorization is included in this bill.

The Agreements

The agreements would be made with the Senate Sergeant at Arms and the House Chief Administrative Officer. The agreements could include processes for:

• Direct and timely sharing of technical indicators and contextual information on cyber threats and vulnerabilities,

• Direct and timely sharing of classified and unclassified reports on cyber threats and activities, and

• Seating of cybersecurity personnel of the Senate or the House of Representatives at cybersecurity operations centers.

Periodic reports to Congress would be required by DHS on the status of the implementation of the agreements.

Moving Forward

Portman and one of this three cosponsors {Sen Peters (D,MI)} are members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (Peters is the Chair), so there should be sufficient influence to see this bill considered in Committee. There is nothing in the bill that would engender any organized opposition to the legislation. I expect that the bill would receive strong bipartisan support and the bill would be a strong candidate for consideration on the floor of the Senate under the unanimous consent process.

The mere introduction of this bill could be sufficient impetus to see such agreements formalized.

Bills Introduced – 4-5-22

Yesterday, with both the House and Senate in session, there were 41 bills introduced. One of those bills will receive additional coverage in this blog:

S 4000 A bill to require the establishment of cybersecurity information sharing agreements between the Department of Homeland Security and Congress, and for other purposes. Sen. Portman, Rob [R-OH] 

Presumably this would cover sharing of information about vulnerabilities and potential vulnerabilities in congressional cyber systems. It will be interesting to see if the definition used would be OT expansive enough to cover building control systems and security systems for the Capitol and congressional office buildings.