In its first meeting the House Homeland Security Committee created five subcommittees Tuesday, including a “cybersecurity, science, and research and development” group that will have oversight authority on issues involving the “protection of government and private networks and computer systems from domestic and foreign attack (and) prevention of injury to civilian populations and physical infrastructure caused by cyberattack.”
Members of the cybersecurity subcommittee were not named, but Rep. Christopher Cox (R.-Calif.), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, is expected to fill the subcommittee by the end of March.
The subcommittee will oversee “security of computer, telecommunications, information technology, industrial control, electric infrastructure and data systems, including science, research and development; protection of government and private networks and computer systems from domestic and foreign attack; prevention of injury to civilian populations and physical infrastructure caused by cyber attack, and relevant oversight.”
The Homeland Security Committee will coordinate all House oversight of the Homeland Security Department. It will also exercise exclusive legislative jurisdiction over the Homeland Security Act that established the federal department tasked with protecting the U.S. from terrorist attack.