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By: FEDweek StaffThe Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has approved nominees for all three seats on the MSPB governing board, which has lacked a quorum since early 2017 and has been completely vacant since early 2019.
If approved by the full Senate, the nominees—federal employment lawyer Cathy Harris, Interior Department chief human capital officer Raymond Limon, and MSPB general counsel Tristan Leavitt—would face a backlog of some 3,400 appeals of hearing officer decisions that have built up in that time.
While Limon and Leavitt were approved on a voice vote, Harris was approved by the committee’s Democratic majority on a party-line vote. Republicans had raised concerns at an earlier confirmation hearing regarding partisan statements she had made in the past.
That split holds the potential to hold up the nominations of Harris, or possibly all three. While the board could begin issuing decisions again with only two members in place, Republicans previously have insisted on filling all three seats at once.
The committee also passed:
S-2875, to require prompt reporting by non-federal entities to the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency of cyber attacks and ransomware payments; directs agencies that are notified of attacks to provide that information to CISA; create a cybersecurity incident reporting council to coordinate federal reporting requirements; and create an interagency task force to prevent and disrupt ransomware attacks.
S-2902, to require agencies to report all cyber-attacks to the CISA and report major incidents to Congress; provide additional authorities to CISA for responding to incidents and breaches on federal networks; codify aspects of President Biden’s executive order on improving the nation’s cybersecurity to enforce higher level security protections for federal information systems; and require OMB to issue guidance for agencies to allocate cybersecurity resources.
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