The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will mark up three cyber-related bills next week, including proposals on creating “hunt and incident response teams” at the Department of Homeland Security and bolstering a cyber workforce, as members vowed at a meeting today to continue to prioritize cybersecurity this Congress.
The committee will mark up bills including S. 315, the DHS Cyber Hunt and Incident Response Teams Act, during an executive meeting on Feb. 13. The bill, sponsored by committee members Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and Rob Portman (R-OH), would require DHS to maintain cyber hunt and incident response teams meant to defend against cyber attacks on federal agencies as well as the private sector. This bill was approved by the committee last year, but did not get a vote by the full Senate.
The Federal Rotational Cyber Workforce Program Act, sponsored by Senate Homeland Security ranking member Gary Peters (D-MI), will also be marked up by the committee next week. This bill would create a system to rotate cyber professionals through various agencies to address gaps in the workforce, and was also previously approved by the committee during the 115th Congress, but did not see further action.
Lastly, the committee will mark up the S. 333, the National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium Act, sponsored by Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), which would authorize DHS to work with the National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium to help states and communities develop cybersecurity information sharing programs, and to conduct cross-sector cybersecurity training for state and local governments, critical infrastructure owners and operators, and private industry. This bill was formally reintroduced on Tuesday, and was originally approved by the committee in September.
Both Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Peters said that cybersecurity will continue to be a “priority” for the committee while speaking at the panel’s organizational meeting today held to approve rules and subcommittees for the 116th Congress. Johnson also discussed his hope that the committee will remain “non-partisan,” citing as an example the failure of the Senate to pass a bill to reauthorize DHS last year despite the committee approving it with an “almost unanimous vote.”
“Last Congress, when we voted to reauthorize DHS, and it still hasn’t been done, but we never got that across the floor of the Senate because there are so many contentious issues and nobody would come together, but this committee did,” Johnson said. “On both sides, there could have been all kinds of different amendments that could have poisoned the process, but the committee members here said no, let’s focus on areas of agreement and passed that almost unanimously, with one dissenting voice."
Committee member Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), who announced she is running for president last month, told Inside Cybersecurity that election security will be her main cyber-related priority for the committee, specifically pointing to the need to pass the Secure Elections Act, which bipartisan sponsors recently confirmed will be reintroduced soon.
“The biggest priority is the bill that I am co-sponsoring with Sen. [James] Lankford [R-OK] on election security,” Harris said following today’s meeting. “I was very disappointed that it was not brought to the floor for a vote, it obviously received a great deal of bipartisan support…it was born out of our shared experience receiving information about the threats to our elections infrastructure that we created the bill, and it should be one of the highest priorities. It is directly related to the security of the homeland…that’s going to be my highest priority."
The Secure Elections Act was referred to the Senate Rules Committee during the 115th Congress, where it did not get a vote. -- Maggie Miller (mmiller@iwpnews.com)