Tag Archives: Senate

U.S. Senate backers of Obamacare deal seek support but prospects unclear

U.S. Senate backers of Obamacare deal seek support but prospects unclear

By Yasmeen Abutaleb and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Proponents of a bipartisan deal struck by two U.S. senators to stabilize Obamacare sought on Wednesday to win Republican support for the measure, which would restore subsidies to health insurers that President Donald Trump has scrapped.

With 2018 health insurance markets facing potential chaos, Republican Senator Lamar Alexander and Democratic Senator Patty Murray were hoping to build broad support for a short-term fix for former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.

Their proposal would meet some Democratic objectives, such as reviving subsidies for Obamacare and restoring $106 million in funding for a federal program that helps people enroll in insurance plans.

In exchange, Republicans would get more flexibility for states to offer a wider variety of health insurance plans while maintaining the requirement that sick and healthy people be charged the same rates for coverage.

The Trump administration said last week it would stop paying billions of dollars to insurers to help cover out-of-pocket medical expenses for low-income Americans, part of the Republican president’s effort to dismantle the 2010 Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

Trump and other Republicans have disparaged the payments to insurers as a “bailout” but the president on Tuesday indicated support for the efforts by Alexander and Murray as a one- or two-year fix while work continues to unwind the law.

While the two senators’ proposal has broad Democratic support, it is unclear how many Republicans will endorse it and whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan will allow a vote on the plan.

It also remained unclear how fully Trump supported the plan and whether he would sign it into law.

Republican Senator Susan Collins, a moderate who helped kill earlier efforts to repeal and replace the healthcare law, said she backed efforts to shore up Obamacare, but that it remained unclear if there would ultimately be enough support.

“Now, the White House is sending conflicting messages,” she told CNN in an interview on Wednesday, adding that the insurer payments had been “mischaracterized” as a boon for the industry.

Collins said she did not know if McConnell would schedule a vote but that “if it comes to the floor, I think the votes are there.” She said it also could win House approval if Trump “reiterates his support.”

Republicans, describing Obamacare as ineffective and a massive government intrusion in a key sector of the economy, have sought for seven years to repeal and replace it. Scrapping the law was also a top Trump campaign pledge. But the party, which has controlled the White House and Congress since January, has so far failed to make good on its promise.

Democrats have fought to defend Obamacare, which extended health insurance to 20 million Americans.

(Reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb; Editing by Peter Cooney and Bill Trott)

Senators close to bipartisan deal on health exchanges: Schumer

FILE PHOTO - Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks with reporters following the party luncheons on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 26, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two U.S. senators from both parties are close to finalizing a bipartisan deal to shore up the health insurance exchanges created under Obamacare, the chamber’s top Democrat said on Thursday.

The move, which Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said was “on the verge” of completion, would stabilize the market for individuals who buy their own insurance plans on the federal or state-based exchanges.

The potential agreement comes after Republicans have repeatedly failed to carry out their years-long pledge to repeal and replace the 2010 Affordable Act, former Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare overhaul.

Schumer said Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, a Republican, and ranking Democrat Patty Murray had resurrected a bipartisan approach, which had been cast aside amid the latest near-vote on a repeal bill.

Alexander and Murray had been working to protect the government payments made to insurers to help reduce medical expenses for low-income Americans enrolled in Obamacare. Alexander also wanted states to have more flexibility to design insurance plans under the program.

“They both inform me that they’re on the verge of an agreement, a bipartisan healthcare agreement to stabilize markets and lower premiums,” Schumer said on the Senate floor on Thursday.

The pact could buoy health insurance companies, which came out forcefully against the Republican repeal effort and have faced uncertainty since the November election of Republican President Donald Trump, who vowed to sink the law.

While the majority of insured Americans receive coverage through their employers or government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, more than 10 million people have individual plans through the online exchanges, and about 11 million are expected to sign up next year.

Most of these consumers receive income-based tax credits and subsidies to reduce costs. Insurers have filed their premium rates for 2018, many of which are expected to rise at least 20 percent because of uncertainty that the government will continue paying some of those subsidies.

Despite those worries, insurers on Wednesday signed contracts with the government that will result in every U.S. county having at least one company selling Obamacare plans.

Trump has signaled that his administration would take other action to unwind the law, and on Wednesday said he would sign an order next week allowing people to buy insurance coverage across U.S. state lines.

Republican Senator Rand Paul, who has been pushing for the move, says Trump can do this by legalizing nationwide health associations that individuals could then join.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

SEC chair grilled by Senate panel over cyber breach, Equifax

Jay Clayton, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, arrives for a Senate Banking hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. September 26, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

By Michelle Price and Pete Schroeder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) told a congressional committee on Tuesday he did not believe his predecessor Mary Jo White knew of a 2016 cyber breach to the regulator’s corporate disclosure system, the exact timing of which could not be known “for sure.”

Jay Clayton, who was formally appointed to his role in May, also said listed companies should disclose more detailed information on cyber breaches “sooner,” and that the U.S. regulator was working on new guidelines to ensure this.

The Senate Banking Committee grilled Clayton on Tuesday over a 2016 hack of EDGAR, the agency’s online corporate financial disclosure system, only disclosed last Wednesday, which has shaken confidence in the SEC’s cyber defenses.

Clayton said he had decided last weekend to disclose the breach once he had enough information to establish it was “serious,” but he would not be drawn on who at the agency had known about it and whether there was an attempt to cover it up.

“I have no belief sitting here that Chair White knew,” Clayton said when asked whether his predecessor had been aware of the hack, adding: “I don’t think we can know for sure” on the exact timing of the breach.

Clayton fielded several questions from senators on the recent Equifax Inc data breach in which hackers stole personal data of about 143 million customers of the credit reporting firm, including on the timing of the company’s disclosure.

Although the former Wall Street lawyer declined to comment on whether the SEC was investigating stock sales made by Equifax executives prior to the disclosure, he said he was “not ignoring” the issue.

The hearing, which had been scheduled prior to the disclosure of the SEC’s breach, offered lawmakers, companies and investors the first opportunity to hear from the SEC chief on the incident.

Clayton originally had been scheduled to discuss capital market reform at his first hearing before the committee since being formally appointed in May, but his pro-growth agenda was largely eclipsed by the SEC breach and the Equifax scandal.

Wall Street’s top regulator came under fire last week after disclosing that hackers might have used information stolen from EDGAR, which houses millions of market-sensitive corporate disclosures such as earnings releases, for insider trading.

“When we learn a year after the fact that the SEC had its own breach and that it likely led to illegal stock trades, it raises questions about why the SEC seems to have swept this under the rug,” Senator Sherrod Brown, the ranking Democratic member of the committee, asked Clayton during opening remarks.

“What else are we not being told, what other information is at risk, and what are the consequences?” Brown asked. “How can you expect companies to do the right thing when your agency has not?”

CYBER DEFENSES EYED

Reuters reported on Monday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service have launched investigations into the breach, which occurred in October 2016 and appeared to have been routed through servers in Eastern Europe. The breach appeared to have been one of several cyber incidents documented by the SEC in recent months, Reuters reported.

Clayton said he only learned about the 2016 hack in August and that the SEC’s enforcement staff and inspector general’s office have launched internal probes.

The regulator reported the breach to the Department of Homeland Security’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team when it was first discovered, Clayton said in the testimony, adding the regulator plans to hire more cyber security experts.

Clayton said the hack was possibly the result of a defect in the EDGAR software and said that personally identifiable information did not appear to have been put at risk, but he declined to provide further detail.

He said the SEC was still determining the extent and impact of the breach and that it could take “substantial time” to complete due to the amount of data that needed to be analyzed.

The committee also quizzed Clayton about other potential breaches at the agency and the regulator’s general cyber defenses.

Clayton said he could not say with “100 percent certainty” that the EDGAR breach was the only one suffered by the agency, and added that he planned to ask Congress for more funds to tackle the rising cyber threat.

“We’re going to need more money for cyber security, and I intend to ask for it.”

(Reporting by Michelle Price and Pete Schroeder; editing by Leslie Adler and G Crosse)

Trump ally Stone denies collusion with Russia

U.S. political consultant Roger Stone, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, speaks to reporters after appearing before a closed House Intelligence Committee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., September 26, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican political consultant Roger Stone, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, flatly denied allegations of collusion between the president’s associates and Russia during the 2016 U.S. election in a meeting with lawmakers on Tuesday.

In a 47-page opening statement seen by Reuters before his appearance before the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Stone said he viewed it “as a political proceeding” and accused some committee members of making “provably false” statements to create the impression of collusion with Russia.

After spending almost three hours behind closed doors taking questions from committee members, Stone again denied accusations that he had engaged in improper conduct during the 2016 campaign but was much more contentious than in the rambling statement.

“I am aware of no evidence whatsoever of collusion by the Russian state or anyone in the Trump campaign,” Stone told reporters.

The House panel is one of the main congressional committees investigating allegations that Russia sought to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election and probing whether any Trump associates colluded with Moscow.

Russia denies any such efforts, and Trump has dismissed any talk of collusion.

Stone said he had had a frank exchange with committee members, but described some clashes between Democrats and Republicans. He said he answered all of their questions except for refusing to identify an “opinion journalist” who had acted as a go-between between Stone and Julian Assange.

Assange is the publisher of WikiLeaks, which released emails stolen from Democrats that helped Trump’s campaign.

After Stone spoke, Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said Stone had declined to answer one line of questions, and the panel might have to subpoena him to return and do so.

Schiff declined to say whether those questions were related to Assange.

TIES TO TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER

Stone, one of Trump’s closest political advisers in the years before he ran for president, was formerly a partner in a lobbying firm with Paul Manafort, a Trump campaign manager. Manafort has also been scrutinized in the investigations into Russia and the election. In August, FBI agents raided his home.

Stone said Manafort’s attorneys had informed his attorneys that federal prosecutors planned to indict Manafort.

Stone said he had not heard from Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian involvement in the election and possible collusion, and there were currently no plans for a similar appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Stone said he had spoken to Trump “recently,” but not about his appearance before the committee.

Mike Conaway, the Republican lawmaker overseeing the investigation, said he had no response to Stone. But he said he had watched Stone’s remarks to reporters “and they were very accurate.”

In his written statement, Stone also accused the committee of cowardice because he was not allowed to testify in an open forum. He said he wanted the transcript of his interview to be released.

“I am most interested in correcting a number of falsehoods, misstatements, and misimpressions regarding allegations of collusion between Donald Trump, Trump associates, The Trump Campaign and the Russian state,” Stone said in the statement.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia sought to influence the election to boost Trump’s chances of defeating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent.

In his statement, Stone acknowledged his reputation as a tough political strategist, but said he did not engage in any illegal activities.

“There is one ‘trick’ that is not in my bag and that is treason,” he said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Susan Thomas and Jonathan Oatis)

Philippine president’s Senate foes, allies vow to block budget cut for rights body

FILE PHOTO: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures as he delivers his speech, during the oath taking of Philippine National Police (PNP) star rank officers, at the Malacanang Presidential Palace in Manila, Philippines August 30, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

By Enrico Dela Cruz

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s critics and allies in the Senate vowed on Wednesday to block a lower house move to slash the annual budget of a public-funded human rights agency opposed to his bloody war on drugs to just $20.

The house, dominated by Duterte’s supporters, voted on Tuesday to allocate a 2018 budget of just 1,000 pesos ($20) to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), which has investigated hundreds of killings during the president’s ferocious anti-narcotics crackdown.

Vice President Leni Robredo, who was not Duterte’s running mate and has locked horns with him numerous times, said the lawmakers’ move effectively abolishes the CHR, a constitutional body.

Duterte’s signature campaign has left thousands of mostly urban poor Filipinos dead. Critics say the lawmakers are trying to retaliate against the CHR for pursuing allegations of executions by police during sting operations, which police deny.

The CHR is among the domestic and foreign rights groups that Duterte frequently admonishes, accusing them of lecturing him and disregarding Filipinos who are victims of crimes stemming from drug addiction.

The upper house minority bloc, composed of six staunch critics of the president, will seek to restore the 678 million peso budget the government and a Senate sub-committee had proposed for the CHR.

Senator Risa Hontiveros described the plan to cut the budget to almost nil as “a shameless rejection of the country’s international and national commitments to champion human rights”.

Several allies of Duterte in the 24-seat chamber said they would scrutinize the house move and try to ensure the commission had a budget that would allow it to work properly.

Senator Richard Gordon said the CHR had a job to do and should not be restricted.

“That is their role – to expose possible abuses,” he said.

Another legislator, JV Ejercito said senators would not make the CHR impotent.

“The CHR is in the thick of things and very relevant nowadays and probably even next year and the years to follow because of what’s happening,” he said in a statement.

Duterte once threatened to abolish the CHR after its chief, Chito Gascon, sought to investigate alleged abuses by police anti-drugs units.

Duterte on Tuesday appeared to distance himself from the lawmakers proposing the meager budget. He said CHR was constitutionally created and should probe whatever it wants, adding he was “not here to destroy institutions”.

“He had it coming. He opens his mouth in a most inappropriate way. He knows nothing,” Duterte said, referring to Gascon.

“The congressmen are really angry. I have nothing against him. Give them a budget for all I care, whatever he likes to investigate.”

 

(Additional reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Martin Petty)

 

Subdued by Harvey, Congress reconvenes facing fiscal tests

Church Volunteers work to remove Hurricane Harvey flood damage from a home in Houston, Texas, U.S. September 2, 2017.

By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Hurricane Harvey devastated Texas, but could bring some fiscal order to Washington where Republicans and Democrats will need to put political differences aside in order to approve spending to repair the damage from flooding in and around Houston.

Lawmakers returning to Washington after a month-long break are expected to swiftly agree to an initial request for nearly $8 billion in disaster aid. More requests will follow from the Trump administration, with the fractious Republicans who control the House of Representatives and the Senate determined to look capable of governing in a crisis.

Some estimates say Harvey could cost U.S. taxpayers almost as much as the total federal aid outlay of more than $110 billion for 2005’s record-setting Hurricane Katrina.

That sobering cost and the urgent needs of Harvey’s victims have helped to calm a fiscal storm that had threatened to engulf Congress and President Donald Trump ahead of Oct. 1. The rancor revolves around the deadline for lawmakers to approve a temporary spending measure to keep the government from shutting down, as well as the need to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.

“There’s reason to hope that in the wake of the tragedy in Texas … there will be a renewed sense of community and common purpose that can help get things done,” said Michael Steel, a Republican strategist who once worked as spokesman for former House Speaker John Boehner.

Before Harvey, Trump had threatened to veto such spending and trigger a shutdown if Congress refused to fund his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall. He has dropped his threat, the Washington Post reported on Friday, making a shutdown less likely.

As of the Labor Day holiday weekend, approval by Congress was widely anticipated in late September of a stopgap bill, or continuing resolution, to continue current spending levels for two to three more months.

The need to help Hurricane Harvey victims “creates another reason as to why you’d want to keep the government open,” Republican Senator Roy Blunt said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.

 

FRESH START WITH TRUMP

With much of Washington distracted by tensions with North Korea over its nuclear program, Congress must also raise the federal debt ceiling by the end of September or early October to stave off an unprecedented U.S. government debt default, which would shake global markets.

The debt ceiling caps how much money the U.S. government can borrow, and some conservatives are loath to raise it without spending reforms. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Sunday said Congress should act quickly to increase the debt limit, otherwise relief funding for hurricane-ravaged areas of Texas might be delayed.

“Without raising the debt limit, I am not comfortable that we will get money to Texas this month to rebuild,” Mnuchin said on Fox News Sunday.

Blunt, a junior member of Senate Republican leadership, said it was possible lawmakers could tie legislation raising the debt ceiling to measures providing financial aid for recovery from Harvey. “That’s one way to do it,” he said on Meet the Press.

Montana Republican Senator Steve Daines said Friday he would prefer to see spending reforms attached to the borrowing ceiling. “We need to do something to reduce the debt.”

Senior Republicans were warning Trump not to anger Democrats by carrying through with his threat to curtail the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for immigrant children, which Democrats widely support. Democratic votes will likely be needed to both raise the debt ceiling and prevent a shutdown.

Trump might have listened to them. Sources said on Sunday that he has decided to scrap the program that shields the young immigrants from deportation, but he will give Congress six months to craft a bill to replace it.

With his tendency to send conflicting policy signals and attack fellow Republicans, Trump may present the biggest uncertainty as Congress gets back to work.

The four top Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate and House are set to hold a rare bipartisan meeting with Trump on Wednesday to chart a path forward for the multiple fiscal issues.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who will attend the meetings, spent much of August feuding with Trump, who attacked the Kentuckian repeatedly on Twitter.

One Republican strategist said the Senate leader would not dwell on those tensions. “Basically every Republican senator is looking to put whatever nonsense happened on Twitter in August in the rear view mirror and focus on all the important work that needs to get done in September,” said Josh Holmes, a former chief of staff and campaign manager for McConnell.

 

(Additional reporting by David Morgan and Chris Sanders; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Mary Milliken)

 

Trump Jr. to testify in Senate, Manafort lawyer subpoenaed: CNN

FILE PHOTO: Donald Trump Jr. speaks at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio U.S. July 19, 2016. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has agreed to testify privately to the Senate Judiciary Committee as it looks into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, CNN reported on Tuesday, weeks after he was invited to testify in public at a hearing in July.

Spokesmen and spokeswomen for the committee’s leaders did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report.

CNN also reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had issued subpoenas to Melissa Laurenza, an attorney with the Akin Gump law firm, who formerly represented Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and to Jason Maloni, a Manafort spokesman.

CNN said Maloni and a spokesman for Mueller declined comment and that Laurenza referred questions to a spokesman who did not immediately comment.

Russia has loomed large over the first six months of the Trump presidency. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia worked to tilt last year’s presidential election in Trump’s favor. Mueller, who was appointed special counsel in May, is leading the investigation, which also examines potential collusion by the Trump campaign with Russia.

Several congressional committees are also looking into the matter.

Moscow denies any meddling. Trump denies any collusion by his campaign, while regularly denouncing the investigations as political witch hunts.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; editing by Grant McCool)

Trump administration sends conflicting signals on Russia sanctions

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence (L) arrives with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (R) to attend a joint press conference held by U.S. President Donald Trump and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos at the White House in Washington, U.S., May 18, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump grudgingly accepted new congressional sanctions on Russia, the top U.S. diplomat said on Tuesday, remarks in contrast with those of Vice President Mike Pence, who said the bill showed Trump and Congress speaking “with a unified voice.”

The U.S. Congress voted last week by overwhelming margins for sanctions to punish the Russian government over interference in the 2016 presidential election, annexation of Crimea and other perceived violations of international norms.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters that he and Trump did not believe the new sanctions would “be helpful to our efforts” on diplomacy with Russia.

Trump has been clear that he wants to improve relations with Russia, a desire that has been hamstrung by findings of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered to help the Republican against Democrat Hillary Clinton. U.S. congressional panels and a special counsel are investigating. Moscow denies any meddling and Trump denies any collusion by his campaign.

Tillerson, who did business in Russia when he was chief executive of Exxon Mobil, has said repeatedly that the world’s two major nuclear powers cannot have such a bad relationship.

“The action by the Congress to put these sanctions in place and the way they did, neither the President nor I were very happy about that,” Tillerson said. “We were clear that we didn’t think it was going to be helpful to our efforts, but that’s the decision they made, they made it in a very overwhelming way. I think the president accepts that.”

Tillerson stopped short of saying definitively that Trump would sign the sanctions, saying only that “all indications are he will sign that bill.”

Vice President Mike Pence, at a press conference in Georgia with Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, said unequivocally that “President Trump will sign the Russia sanctions bill soon.”

Pence acknowledged that the administration objected to earlier versions of the sanctions bill because it did not grant enough flexibility to the administration, but said it “improved significantly” in later versions.

“And let me say that in signing the sanction, our President and our Congress are speaking with a unified voice,” Pence said.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said on Tuesday the sanctions bill was under review and would be signed.

“There’s nothing holding him back,” Sanders said at a news briefing. Trump has until Aug. 9 to sign the bill, or veto it, or it will automatically become law.

In retaliation for the sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that the U.S. diplomatic mission in Russia must reduce its staff by 755 people. Russia is also seizing two properties near Moscow used by American diplomats.

Tillerson said Putin probably believes his response was a symmetrical action to Washington seizing two Russian properties in the United States and expelling 35 diplomats last December.

“Of course it makes our lives more difficult,” he said.

Tillerson said he and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would meet in Manila on the margins of next weekend’s meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe and Patricia Zengerle; editing by Grant McCool)

U.S. senators to introduce bill to secure ‘internet of things’

A man takes part in a hacking contest during the Def Con hacker convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. on July 29, 2017. REUTERS/Steve Marcus

By Dustin Volz

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Tuesday plans to introduce legislation seeking to address vulnerabilities in computing devices embedded in everyday objects – known in the tech industry as the “internet of things” – which experts have long warned poses a threat to global cyber security.

The new bill would require vendors that provide internet-connected equipment to the U.S. government to ensure their products are patchable and conform to industry security standards. It would also prohibit vendors from supplying devices that have unchangeable passwords or possess known security vulnerabilities.

Republicans Cory Gardner and Steve Daines and Democrats Mark Warner and Ron Wyden are sponsoring the legislation, which was drafted with input from technology experts at the Atlantic Council and Harvard University. A Senate aide who helped write the bill said that companion legislation in the House was expected soon.

“We’re trying to take the lightest touch possible,” Warner told Reuters in an interview. He added that the legislation was intended to remedy an “obvious market failure” that has left device manufacturers with little incentive to build with security in mind.

The legislation would allow federal agencies to ask the U.S. Office of Management and Budget for permission to buy some non-compliant devices if other controls, such as network segmentation, are in place.

It would also expand legal protections for cyber researchers working in “good faith” to hack equipment to find vulnerabilities so manufacturers can patch previously unknown flaws.

Security researchers have long said that the ballooning array of online devices including cars, household appliances, speakers and medical equipment are not adequately protected from hackers who might attempt to steal personal information or launch sophisticated cyber attacks.

Between 20 billion and 30 billion devices are expected to be connected to the internet by 2020, researchers estimate, with a large percentage of them insecure.

Though security for the internet of things has been a known problem for years, some manufacturers say they are not well equipped to produce cyber secure devices.

Hundreds of thousands of insecure webcams, digital records and other everyday devices were hijacked last October to support a major attack on internet infrastructure that temporarily knocked some web services offline, including Twitter, PayPal and Spotify.

The new legislation includes “reasonable security recommendations” that would be important to improve protection of federal government networks, said Ray O’Farrell, chief technology officer at cloud computing firm VMware.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Bill Rigby)

Wray confirmed by Senate to lead FBI after Comey firing

Wray confirmed by Senate to lead FBI after Comey firing

By Julia Edwards Ainsley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed former Justice Department lawyer Christopher Wray as FBI chief, nearly three months after the agency’s previous director, James Comey, was fired by President Donald Trump.

Wray, who was confirmed by vote of 92-5, will take charge of the country’s top domestic law enforcement agency during a federal probe into allegations of collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia.

Since the dismissal of Comey on May 9, the Justice Department has appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel to oversee the investigation with the help of the FBI. Russia denies any interference, and Trump has denied collusion with Russia.

Wray vowed in his confirmation hearing last month to remain independent and not be swayed by politics or pressure from the president. He also praised Muller as the “consummate straight shooter.”

He also worked with Comey on the government’s case in the Enron Corp fraud scandal in the early 2000s.

During the confirmation hearing, Republican Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said Wray’s background showed he was committed to independence, an attribute he said was “vitally important” in the next FBI director.

Wray served as assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division at the Justice Department under former Republican President George W. Bush.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, both Democrats who served under President Barack Obama, endorsed Wray.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by Peter Cooney)