U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio’, R-Fla., continues to champion a bill that extends the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Counterterrorism Advisory Board (CTAB) and it gained steam on Capitol Hill this week.
At the end of 2017, Rubio, U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-NH, and U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., brought out the “Counterterrorism Advisory Board Authorization Act." While the House passed its version of the bill, Rubio did not get his proposal across the finish line. The proposal codifies the CTAB, which was created in 2010, for another two years.
Rubio and Hassan brought the proposal back this year and they were able to get it through the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee this week.
Rubio’s office praised the CTAB for leading to “better coordination and ongoing situational awareness for senior leadership” and for focusing on “recommendations about whether to issue a National Threat Alert System alert, and has aided in the response to aviation threats, border threats, homegrown violent extremists, and cyber threats.”
“Protecting our nation against terrorist attacks and other threats is a fundamental obligation of government, and I am pleased the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs took action on our bipartisan legislation,” Rubio said on Wednesday. “I look forward to this legislation heading to the Senate floor so we ensure DHS components and their partners are working in coordination to devise joint strategies to deter and disrupt terrorist operations and other threats to our homeland.”
“Identifying and preventing terrorist attacks and other threats before they occur is vital to the safety and security of countless Granite Staters and Americans, and the Counterterrorism Advisory Board plays an important role in those efforts,” Hassan said. “I am grateful that the Committee voted to approve this common sense legislation, and I’ll keep working across the aisle to get this bill signed into law to bolster efforts at the Department of Homeland Security to effectively combat terrorist threats.”
U.S. Rep. John Katko, R-NY, is championing the companion bill in the U.S. House.
