HR 5293 Amendment Process - FY 2017 DOD Spending

The House Rules Committee completed work on their rule for the amendment process for HR 5293, the FY 2017 DOD spending bill. As expected the rule is a structured rule that will only allow for the consideration of 75 specific amendments. Only one of those amendments is cybersecurity related, providing funding for the Information Assurance Scholarship Program for DOD personnel.

Cybersecurity Provisions in Bill

There were no specific cybersecurity provisions in the actual bill and there was only a single limited mention of cybersecurity issues in the Committee Report supporting the bill. That two paragraph mention notes that the funding in the bill provide a $992 million increase in cybersecurity related spending throughout the bill over the FY 2016 spending. The second paragraph mentioned the Committee’s concerns about recruiting and retaining a trained and qualified cyber workforce.

Cybersecurity Amendment

The one cybersecurity amendment is # 54 proposed by Rep. Aguilar (D,CA). It would take $5 million dollars out of the $32 billion Operation and Maintenance, Defense-Wide, account to provide funding for the Information Assurance Scholarship Program. The funding for this program initiated in 2012 has been hit and miss.