Back in July, Rep Womack (R,AR) introduced HR 4664, the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2024. The House Appropriations Committee also published their Report on the bill. There are actually three cybersecurity spending mentions included in the bill. There are multiple discussions about cybersecurity (mostly information technology related) issues in the Committee Report.
Cybersecurity in the Bill
Under the Treasury Department heading of Departmental Offices (pg 3) the bill splits $34 million in spending seven ways, including money for the Treasury’s Office of Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection.
On pages 5 through 6, the Legislation provides $150 million for the Treasury’s Cybersecurity Enhancement Account, specifically including $7 million for the Treasury’s Chief Information Officer Officer’s administrative expenses. The Report (pg 13) indicates that this is $50 million above what was include in the FY 2023 final spending bill, but $65 million less than what the President requested.
Finally, on pages 40 through 41, the bill allocates $21 million for the Office of The National Cyber Director salaries and expenses.
Cybersecurity in the Report
While none of the cybersecurity discussions in the Report directly impact any industrial control system or operational technology issues, they do provide some insight into how the Committee looks at cybersecurity issues in general. Those discussions include:
Pg 10 – Cybersecurity in the Financial Services Sector [oversight],
Pg 14 – Cyber-based threats and unauthorized access to Treasury networks and systems [internal cybersecurity],
Pg 16 – Cybersecurity in the Fiscal Service [internal cybersecurity],
Pg 19 – [IRS] Cloud Adoption [internal cybersecurity],
Pg 27 – [ONCD] Cyber Coordination [oversight],
Pg 27 – [ONCD] National Cyber Workforce Strategy [service member transition training],
Pg 49 – E-rate for School Cybersecurity [oversight and funding]
Pg 55 – [GSA] Login.gov Compliance with Digital Identity Standards [oversight],
Pg 60 – [GSA] Chinese Technology and Equipment in Federal Government Buildings and Leases [internal security]
Pg 71 – [OPM] Cybersecurity Workforce [internal cybersecurity training], and
Pg 71 – OPM IT Working Capital Fund [internal cybersecurity].
Moving Forward
To understand how politically polarized this spending bill is, one only has to look to the ‘Dissenting Views’ portion of the Committee Report on pages 289 thru 291. It is unlikely that there will be any Democratic votes for this bill if/when it comes to the House floor, but it is unclear whether the spending cuts have been sufficient to see the radical wing of the Republican Party vote for the bill.
Commentary
See my ‘Coming FY 2024 Spending Bill Logjams’ for my discussion about the problems passing spending bills this session. Those problems have been further compounded by the removal of Speaker McCarthy over the passage of the continuing resolution with Democratic support and the ongoing problem with electing a new speaker. Even if a new Speaker is elected in time enough to take actions on the pending spending bills, it is now very unlikely that there is enough time before November 17th to get those bills through a conference Committee.
And a reminder, anything that comes out of conference in a form that could pass in the Senate will require Democratic votes to pass in the House. There is a very real possibility that that the passage of the first such bill would again trigger the removal of whomever is Speaker and initiate Speaker Chaos 3. Perhaps the new Speaker should just go for an omnibus spending bill out of the gate and lose their job over that. Then at least, the executive branch could continue to function.