Senate Leaders Broker Deal To Begin CISA Debate Post-Recess
Senate leaders agreed Wednesday to a deal to advance consideration of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act. The deal would allow consideration of 22 amendments to S-754 but delayed further votes on the bill until after the August recess. The deal, announced by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also set up a Senate debate in September on the White House's nuclear deal with Iran. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., separately told reporters that making a deal on the Iran debate was crucial in final negotiations on the S-754 schedule. Senate Republicans will offer 10 amendments on S-754, while Senate Democrats will offer 11. The agreement on further S-754 debate followed contentious behind-the-scenes negotiations that appeared as late as Wednesday afternoon to be at a stalemate.
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A manager's amendment from Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Vice Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., will remain under consideration before partisan amendments are considered, McConnell said on the Senate floor. The Burr-Feinstein amendment, released earlier this week, had been seen as a first step in reaching agreement on S-754 (see 1508040059). The Senate will consider two less-controversial amendments from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., one of S-754's main opponents. One of his amendments would require the removal of personal information from cyberthreat data shared by the private sector, while the other would require establishing procedures for “timely” notification of individuals whose information was shared in violation of S-754's privacy scrubbing rules. “A couple of days ago, it was my fear that this bill would be brought up ... and it would be brought up with no opportunity for senators on both sides of the aisle to fix the legislation,” Wyden said on the Senate floor after the agreement was announced. Now, “there is going to be a real debate.”
Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., another S-754 critic, will offer an amendment that would strike a proposed Freedom of Information Act exception that would have covered cyberthreat information shared by the private sector. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., will also offer a pro-privacy amendment. Sens. Dean Heller, R-Nev., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., who have also been critical of S-754 provisions, will also each offer an amendment. Paul's amendment would bar private sector entities that violate a user agreement or privacy agreement with a customer in the course of sharing information from receiving liability protections. Heller's would change the wording of a requirement for when entity sharing information should be required to assess whether the data contains personal information so that it apply when an entity “reasonably knows” there may be personal information included. Paul had proposed several other amendments to S-754, including one that would have limited federal funding for localities and states that flouted federal immigration law, that were “muddying” negotiations, an industry lobbyist told us.
The agreement on a path forward on S-754 came after multiple postponements Wednesday of a planned cloture vote on the bill as negotiations continued. McConnell said on the Senate floor that morning that he and Reid had “made some progress” on an agreement. But Burr told reporters before and after a Republican caucus lunch meeting that he was “pretty doubtful we're going to finish this week on the bill.” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told reporters before the lunch meeting that she was “puzzled” by Democratic resistance to an earlier Republican offer to allow both parties to each introduce 10 amendments, calling that proposal “pretty reasonable.” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters that Senate Democrats had made a counteroffer and that progress on S-754 was now in Republicans' hands.
S-754 supporters' efforts received a boost late Tuesday from the White House when a spokesman said the Senate should “take up this bill as soon as possible and pass it.” The spokesman acknowledged in a statement that although “there are still areas of concern that we hope to address, the bill's sponsors have made a good faith effort to address some of our biggest concern.” Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas raised concerns about several S-754 provisions in a letter to Franken posted Monday (see 1508030033), but industry stakeholders had earlier believed there was quiet support from the White House for passage of the bill (see 1507300069).