Congress has two months to decide whether to abandon, renew, or reform a controversial surveillance law at the heart of Edward Snowden’s leaks.

Administrations of both parties have taken a lead role in jockeying over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, typically working to tamp down reform talk. Trump officials, however, were absent at a hearing on the subject Wednesday.

The silence continued Thursday, when President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as National Security Agency director dodged a question about FISA reforms at a confirmation hearing.

The White House says it is working behind the scenes, but the administration’s lack of a public stance has garnered criticism from Democrats. Even the Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, seemed to express frustration with the no-show at his hearing.

“If the administration would like to brief us in an open or closed setting, I will help work to set it up,” he said. “In the meantime, the Senate Judiciary Committee needs to move ahead.”

Asked for comment, the White House declined to explain why the administration was absent.

“The administration is having productive discussions,” the White House said in an unsigned statement.

Grassley and other lawmakers are working ahead of an April 20 deadline to renew FISA’s Section 702.

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