Cybersecurity bill features rare collaboration in House; now comes the Senate challenge

House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, is tantalizingly close to achieving one of his top remaining cybersecurity goals — a year before he gives up the gavel after six years of running the committee — in creating a prominent, stand-alone cybersecurity agency within the Department of Homeland Security.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act was unanimously approved by the House on Dec. 11, and the fate of McCaul's bill is now in the hands of Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and other senators, who apparently want to make some last-minute tweaks to the measure.

“I’d kind of like to see a couple tweaks to it,” Johnson said. “[But] we’re going to do anything we can to facilitate that passage.”

Johnson previously said such legislation wouldn't move in the Senate until next year, but the House's unanimous passage of the bill seems to have convinced the Wisconsin Republican to revisit that timeline.

“We're hopeful that there's room for additional action” this year, said a source close to the House Homeland Security Committee. “We've been in constant contact with our Senate contacts.”