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Chairman Andrew Garbarino (who will soon be moving up to chair the full committee) says Congress needs to reauthorize "two key authorities" expiring this year: the 2015 Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act and the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program.

Garbarino: "Reauthorizing CISA 2015 will ensure we keep encouraging rapid and trusted information sharing among public and private sector entities, and extending the [local grant program] will make sure that states and localities have reliable funding to strengthen their cybersecurity."

Ranking member Eric Swalwell congratulates Garbarino on his promotion, noting that they've worked well together over the past three years, especially on cyber. He says it's vital "to have somebody at the full committee with your cyber knowledge and expertise" as it addresses AI, quantum, and more.

Swalwell also criticizes Trump's massive CISA cuts. "Fewer brains and reduced funding means less capability, less capacity, and less collaboration, which is detrimental to ongoing efforts to mature operational technology security programs."

The witnesses — journalist @kimzetter.bsky.social, Dragos CEO Robert M. Lee, Operational Technology Cyber Coalition's Tatyana Bolton, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Nate Gleason — are delivering their opening statements.

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"Despite the elevated risks associated with attacks on OT systems," Bolton says, "this area of cybersecurity remains significantly underprioritized and underfunded."

In response to questioning from Swalwell, Lawrence Livermore's Gleason reveals that his lab's contract with CISA expired on Sunday, so LLNL cyber experts are no longer analyzing data collected by CyberSentry (free sensors deployed on critical infrastructure networks).

"National laboratories are not legally able to operate without being funded by a government agency," Gleason says, "so our threat hunters stopped monitoring networks on Sunday."

Gleason: "One of the most important things is getting visibility into what's happening on our OT networks. We don't have enough of that, and so losing this visibility through this program is a significant loss."

that's part of why we can't afford for CISA to be understaffed. CISA needs to build stronger, not weaker, ties with security firms and ISACs and like entities, including Water, ONE, the RECC, and others charged with helping to secure the OT space.