House Homeland Security chairman determined to move key cyber reauthorizations

WASHINGTON – House Homeland Security Chairman Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) said that despite efforts to move standalone renewals of critical cybersecurity legislation they may need to end up attaching reauthorizations to other bills to move them through.

The PILLAR Act (Protecting Information by Local Leaders for Agency Resilience), introduced in September by Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Chairman Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), would extend the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program through FY2035. The program received a temporary reprieve at the end of the government shutdown but would see another expiration without funding passed when the continuing resolution ends Jan. 30. The PILLAR Act passed the House by voice vote last month. 

“I would love to see the Senate move that,” Garbarino, who became chairman of the committee in July, said today at a McCrary Institute and CrowdStrike forum, adding that legislators are looking for a vehicle for the language if the Senate doesn’t take up the bill on its own.

When asked to pinpoint a New Year’s resolution, Garbarino said he wants to see the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, which also got temporary renewal via the CR, get its long-term extension.

Garbarino’s 10-year renewal bill, the Widespread Information Management for the Welfare of Infrastructure and Government Act, unanimously cleared his committee in September. In the upper chamber, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) introduced their own 10-year extension, but HSGAC Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has voiced opposition to passing a clean CISA 2015 extension.

Garbarino said he doesn’t know if a clean 10-year reauthorization would be able to pass the House, either, given opposition from the Freedom Caucus. “I don’t know how it gets done on its own,” he said, adding that discussions are ongoing but it could be included in whatever subsequent funding extension Congress grapples with come the end of January. “Which is unfortunate – we worked very hard to get our bill out of committee,” the chairman said. “We love our piece of legislation that we got done.”

However it gets renewed, Garbarino called it imperative to keep the landmark cyber information sharing law alive. “If we don’t have this bill people are going to stop sharing information,” he said, agreeing with McCrary Institute Director Frank Cilluffo that the day that happens “is a bad day.”