Wednesday, July 29, 2020

HR 7667 Reported in House – FY 2021 CJS Spending


Earlier this month the House Appropriations Committee published their marked-up version of HR 7667, the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2021 along with their Report on the bill. There were no specific mentions of cybersecurity in the bill, but the Report did include several cybersecurity mentions, only one addressed control system security issues.

Industrial Control Systems


On page 24 of the Report the Committee discussed the importance of NIST’s Scientific and Technical Research and Services work on advanced manufacturing systems. They directed NIST “to prioritize
new STRS funds to achieve fundamental scientific understanding of manufacturing processes and equipment and to enable new smart manufacturing systems capabilities for high-priority metals-based additive manufacturing, manufacturing robotics, and cybersecurity for industrial control systems [emphasis added].”

Cyber Threats


On page 19 the Committee expressed their concerns about cybersecurity issues around on-line data collection efforts in the 2020 Census. They directed “the Census Bureau to prioritize cyber protections and high standards of data differential privacy”.

On page 24 the Committee discussed threats to the ‘digital economy’ and urged “NIST to address the rapidly emerging threats in this field by furthering the development of new and needed cryptographic standards and technologies”.

Cybersecurity Training


The report addressed a number of cybersecurity training initiative, including:

• National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (pg 24),
• Cybersecurity Training for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program (pg 26),
• CyberCorps (pg 137),

Moving Forward


This bill will be included in second FY 2021 spending minibus, HR 7617. The House is currently scheduled to take up that minibus tomorrow.

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