The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee advanced three bills this week designed to bolster federal efforts to prevent cyberattacks and increase federal government transparency online.
One of the three bills that were passed in committee is the DHS Cyber Hunt and Incident Response Teams Act, which would authorize “cyber hunt” and “cyber incident response” teams at the Department of Homeland Security to help prevent cyberattacks on federal agencies and the private sector.
The second bill is the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act, which requires the Government Publishing Office (GPO) to publish an online public database of all executive branch reports mandated by Congress.
The third is the Modernizing Congressional Reporting Act, which requires each federal agency to self-publish the congressionally-mandated reports the agency is required to produce each year.
All three of these bills were introduced by U.S. Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH).
“Our cyber response teams play an important role in protecting against cyber threats and help get our cyber infrastructure back up and running after an attack occurs,” Portman said. “I applaud the committee for approving this bipartisan legislation and urge the full Senate to pass it soon so we can ensure that DHS has the authorities it needs to effectively reduce cybersecurity risks as soon as possible. I’m also pleased that the committee approved two bipartisan measures designed to increase federal government transparency and give our citizens access to taxpayer-funded reports and studies. I urge the full Senate to pass these measures soon.”