Just one day after National Cyber Director (NCD) Harry Coker urged Congress to pass bipartisan legislation that would bolster efforts to harmonize cybersecurity regulations across the Federal government, a companion bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La.
Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and James Lankford, R-Okla., introduced the ‘‘Streamlining Federal Cybersecurity Regulations Act” – and moved it out of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in July. The bill would task the NCD to lead a regulation harmonization committee.
The committee – composed of the head of each regulatory agency – would publish a framework for achieving cyber harmonization within a year after the bill is passed.
Rep. Higgins revealed that he introduced the House equivalent of the bill on Nov. 14 during a House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security hearing today on the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) cybersecurity regulations.
Earlier this month, TSA unveiled a long-awaited proposal for cybersecurity mandates that would direct pipeline and railroad owners and operators to set up risk management programs and establish incident reporting protocols.
“There’s only so many staff available within the actual entities that operate, say in our rail and pipelines, and if those men and women that are dedicated to work in that office, if they have to spend so much of their time and energy complying with the regulatory requirements, then they’re not investing that energy in the actual monitoring of threats and responding to threats,” Rep. Higgins said. “We have a responsibility to attempt to do better – not that the initial effort was not well intended, it’s just that we’re dealing with an emerging and complex threat for the first time in our history.”
The congressman demonstrated that across the Federal government, cybersecurity regulations as simple as reporting cyberattacks vary greatly. “There’s a variety of actual implementation responses happening across the government entities that we must harmonize,” he said.
TSA Deputy Executive Assistant Administrator for Operations Support, Chad Gorman, responded to Rep. Higgins, saying that “TSA supports the overall goal of harmonizing cybersecurity requirements with our industry stakeholders.”
Gorman testified during the hearing that this was an area TSA asked for specific feedback on in its recent notice of proposed rulemaking, which is open for public comment until Feb. 5, 2025.
