Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday spoke out about the need for action against China’s threat to American infrastructure networks, even as some members of the party have soured on a primary agency that fights such cyberattacks.
“The Chinese Communist Party is ready to shut down our essential services, our communications, our energy grid, our maritime ports and our water systems, to name just a few, and we cannot allow this situation to continue,” Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, R-Tenn., said at the hearing. “We’ve played defense far too long, and now it’s time to go on the offense.” Green added that cybersecurity would be the committee’s top priority.
The panel’s top Democrat Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., countered that several Republicans and supporters of President Donald Trump are seeking to slash funding for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the country’s main line of defense. As many as 100 Republican lawmakers voted to cut CISA’s funding in the last Congress and some of the “loudest and most influential voices on the other side wanted to eliminate CISA entirely,” he said.
