House Homeland Chairman Mark Green’s departure could leave congressional cyber agenda in limbo

Congress is losing a cybersecurity advocate in Mark Green, the Tennessee Republican who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee and announced his pending retirement Monday — a decision that could put new pressures on the fate of cyber legislation in the months ahead.

As head of the committee, Green has championed cyber workforce legislation as his top priority, and recently called for a vote on the measure on the House floor. He has supported reauthorizing a cybersecurity 2015 information sharing law that expires in September. Last month, his committee held a field hearing on cybersecurity in California.

Green said he would leave for an unspecified job in the private sector following a final vote on the legislation alternatively called President Donald Trump’s domestic policy bill, a rescission package or the “big, beautiful bill.” The Senate has yet to act on that legislation, but House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he’s still targeting July 4 for final passage in his chamber. The measure advanced in the House last month by a single vote.

“The cybersecurity community is going to feel this loss,” Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, said of Green’s impending move. “At a time when the administration probably considers the border the top issue, he’s gone out of his way to both handle the border and actually prioritize cyber.”

Green’s exit could mark at least the temporary return of the panel’s next most senior Republican, Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, to lead a committee he chaired from 2013 to 2019. Green and McCaul have reportedly discussed the idea of McCaul taking over until 2026 so candidates interested in fully replacing Green could mount campaigns.

McCaul, too, has made cybersecurity a focus: He sponsored one version of what eventually became the 2015 Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Act (CISA 2015) and co-founded the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus. “That would be great,” Montgomery said. “McCaul understands cybersecurity is national security.”

If the position goes to the next person in panel seniority after McCaul — Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La. — an industry source said “that could be positive” since Higgins has sponsored legislation to harmonize conflicting regulations. A committee aide said that the House Steering Committee would ultimately pick Green’s successor.

The status of renewing CISA 2015 was already up in the air before Green’s announcement, the industry source said. Passage is both an “easy and difficult” prospect, they said: easy in the sense that there’s bipartisan support for the idea, and difficult because lawmakers would need to find a legislative vehicle for moving it quickly. The source said it was encouraging to see Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., recently indicate openness to extending the law, as he had originally opposed its passage 10 years ago.

Also up in the air is renewal of a state and local cyber grant program likewise set to expire in September.

Montgomery said whoever takes over, a change of committee leadership is “going to put a lot of pressure” on Rep. Andrew Garbarino, the New York Republican who chairs the cybersecurity subcommittee of Green’s panel, “to put all this stuff on his shoulders and carry.”

A committee aide said that the panel wouldn’t take its eye off cyber without Green.

“The Committee remains focused on cybersecurity, which is a core aspect of its oversight and legislative jurisdiction,” the aide said. “The Committee’s cybersecurity priorities, including the CISA 2015 reauthorization and harmonizing duplicative cybersecurity regulatory requirements, have not changed and remain a priority — especially for Subcommittee Chairman Garbarino, who has held hearings on both topics this Congress.”

Green hasn’t given many details about his next move.

“Recently, I was offered an opportunity in the private sector that was too exciting to pass up,” Green said. “I am extremely proud of my work as Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.”