IT Public Policy Blogs

Congress Faces Hectic Fall Agenda

The House and Senate return to work September 8 after a month-long summer recess and plan to take action on a number of priority issues on both the foreign and domestic policy agenda. Here are where things stand on some major issues:

HEALTHCARE REFORM – President Obama's top domestic priority, the plan to overhaul the costly U.S. healthcare system, has drawn intense fire from opponents. Three bills have been approved by committees in the House of Representatives, but no Republicans have backed them. President Obama is to make a rare speech to a joint session of Congress on Sep. 9, to push his new healthcare strategy.

THE ECONOMY – President Obama signed his $787 billion economic stimulus plan in February, and has started to cautiously claim credit for some improved data. But with U.S. unemployment still at 9.4 percent, and most economists expecting it to reach 10 percent, it is too soon to talk with confidence of recovery. There is still periodic talk in Congress that another stimulus plan may be needed, but the administration was waiting and watching -- and hoping for a better jobs picture.

CLIMATE CHANGE - The Obama administration would like to have a climate change law in place before international talks in Copenhagen in December. The House narrowly passed legislation to cut carbon emissions and Senate Democrats are expected to introduce their version of a sweeping bill. But it was unclear whether the full Senate will pass anything this year, despite the White House expressing a willingness to be flexible on its wish-list.

CYBERSECURITY therefore is competing with two wars: an economic meltdown and contentious health care reform. The recent resignations of two high-profile cybersecurity officials from the Obama administration, coupled with apparent delays in the naming of the new White House cybersecurity coordinator, have given rise to some grumbling in the information technology community that the issue has fallen off the White House radar. Don’t be too quick to read much into these developments. Even if cybersecurity is not currently No. 1 on the president’s agenda that does not mean the issue has disappeared. We at Symantec federal government relations continue to focus on pursuing policies around passing a national data breach law, reforming the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and major cyber security preparedness legislation. More updates to come so please stay tuned……