Press Releases

Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA), the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released the following statement on the Biden administration's recently released Executive Order on Strengthening and Promoting Innovation in the Nation’s Cybersecurity:

"The Biden administration’s recently issued executive order (EO) is a capstone on four years of prolific and decisive action on cybersecurity. The United States faces continued threats to government systems and critical infrastructure from both nation state threats and criminal actors. The People’s Republic of China’s recent attacks on the Treasury Department and critical telecommunications systems show that cybersecurity threats pose a clear and present danger. The EO explicitly acknowledges the threat of the People’s Republic of China’s advanced and persistent threat. I commend the Biden-Harris Administration’s attention to combatting China’s gray zone tactics and the attention to securing American technology.

The EO demonstrates the Biden administration’s commitment to developing real, actionable threat mitigations by proposing concrete policy solutions. New rules for supply chain security, secure by design principles, end-to-end encryption, future proof post-quantum encryption standards, and standards development and implementation requirements show a whole-of-government approach to tackling key cyber vulnerabilities. Specifically, the administration’s mandate for updated FedRAMP requirements concerning cryptographic key management security practices will help improve the security of Federal Government communications against adversarial nations and criminals. I commend the administration’s EO for highlighting the FedRAMP program’s role in improving the cybersecurity of federal systems and securing federal communications. As author of the FedRAMP Authorization Act, I am committed to improving the program and ensuring it enforces and enables robust security across federal cloud service adoption.

The Oversight Committee must work to build on the substantial cybersecurity accomplishments of the Biden Administration. The President’s actions on cybersecurity should serve as a wakeup call to invest in better software practices and to codify key provisions of this EO into law. I have long advocated for federal information technology to better serve the American people, and I encourage the incoming Administration to work with Congress to ensure a government-wide commitment to cybersecurity."