Increasing fragmentation of U.S. cybersecurity rules has prompted Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and James Lankford, R-Okla., to introduce the new Streamlining Federal Cybersecurity Regulations Act, reports CyberScoop.
Under the legislation, the National Cyber Director would be mandated to establish a committee joined by the chief of the Office of Management and Budget's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, federal regulatory agency leaders, and other government heads, which would work to consolidate disparate cybersecurity requirements from various agencies while creating minimum standards. Such a committee would also be tasked to adopt the new framework, as well as provide annual reports to the Senate Homeland Security and House Oversight and Accountability committees, according to the bill. The development comes a month after the need to harmonize cyber regulations was raised in a Senate hearing, where Lankford also opposed independent agencies' rulemaking efforts. "There's still some boundaries that need to be there when they're creating new regs, that they're not a completely independent fourth branch of government," Lankford said.
