The cybersecurity ball(s) are in the Senate’s court

Now that the House nearly unanimously passed its Cybersecurity Enhancement Act earlier this month, some attention has turned to the plethora of similar draft legislation in the Senate with speculation over which of the bills is most likely to move forward. The apparent lack of a leader among the legislation or their sponsors prompted a comment from former administration cybersecurity adviser Melissa Hathaway that the Senate needs to consolidate some or all of the current bills into one that the Senate can get behind and take action on. Others seem to think that it’s not important which bill moves forward, as long as one of them does, because that will give the sponsors or champions of other bills the opportunity to augment or reshape or otherwise optimize any proposed bill through the amendment process. This sounds like two different ways to look at the situation that arrive at the same net conclusion, which is that as long as there are multiple competing agendas (even if they are focused on the same sorts of outcomes), there won’t be much progress.