Consolidated Spending Bill Passed in House - HR 133

As I start writing this post, the House has begun their debate of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021. The House is using HR 133, the United States-Mexico Economic Partnership Act, as the vehicle for the spending bill. The bill was passed in the House and then amended in the Senate; technically the House is considering the Senate amendment to this bill, so the House (and later the Senate) can avoid a bunch of the required activities associated with new legislation. The House will vote on the bill before I finish writing this blog post.

The provisions of this bill that I would normally review are found in the following Divisions of the bill:

• DIVISION A – Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2021 (pg 9);

• DIVISION B – Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2021 (pg 132);

• DIVISION C – Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2021 (pg 258);

• DIVISION D – Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2021 (pg 425); and

• DIVISION F – Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2021 (pg 656).

NOTE: All page numbers in this post are .PDF page numbers. This committee print of the bill has all sorts of copy/paste page numbers interspersed in the publication so those printed page numbers are almost worthless.

I found no significant mentions of cybersecurity in any of the divisions above beyond the standard spending provisions mentioned in the relative department spending bills.

In addition to two Divisions related to COVID-19 relief there are 15 other divisions that have been added to this bill. They include:

• DIVISION R - Protecting our Infrastructure f Pipelines and Enhancing Safety (PIPES) Act of 2020 (pg 2634),

• DIVISION U - Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Provisions (pg 2844),

• DIVISION W - Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (pg 3043),

• DIVISION Z – Energy Act of 2020 (pg 3194),

Oh, and by the way, the language that the Senate passed for HR 133 was also included in this bill.

Senate Homeland Security Provisions

DIVISION R of this bill includes a number of provisions that originated in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. These provisions include TITLE VII—DHS Countering Unmanned Aircraft Systems Coordinator Act (essentially S 1867).

Intelligence Authorization Act

The version of the Intel Authorization language in this bill appears to be compromise language between the version passed in the Senate in S 4049 and the version reported in the House in HR 7856. Division W includes the following cybersecurity related sections:

§601. Report on attempts by foreign adversaries to build telecommunications and cybersecurity equipment and services for, or to provide such equipment and services to, certain allies of the United States.

§602. Report on threats posed by use by foreign governments and entities of commercially available cyber intrusion and surveillance technology.

§603. Reports on recommendations of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission.

Joint Explanatory Statement - DHS

The House Rules Committee also published Joint Explanatory Statements for each of the divisions that would equate to stand alone spending bills. Votes are still ongoing in the House, so I will take some time to look at the JES for Division F, DHS.

The following adjustments for cybersecurity spending were made to the spending requests from the President:

• Reduced by $2,596,000 for the proposed Joint Cyber Coordination Group (pg 2),

• Increased by $4,250,000 to continue TSA field assessments to identify pipeline cybersecurity gaps (pg 35),

• Increased by $16,000,000 for Coast Guard cyber readiness (pg 39),

• Increased by $1,600,000 for Secret Service cyber fraud task force modernization (pg 43),

• Reduced by $2,500,000 the proposed increases to the CISA CyberSentry program (pg 48),

• Reduced by $6,500,000 the proposed increases for CISA cybersecurity advisors (pg 48),

• Increased by $20,607,000 the spending for the CISA Cyber Defense Education and Training (CDET) program (pg 49),

• Increased by $10,000,000 the spending for CISA to enhance cybersecurity education and training and programs to address the national shortfall of cybersecurity professionals (pg 49),

• Increased by $4,300,000 the spending for CISA  Cybersecurity Education and Training Assistance Program (CETAP) (pg 49),

• Increased by $3,000,000 to expand CISA's threat hunting capabilities (pg 51),

• Increased by $10,568,000 to establish the Joint Cyber Planning Office (JCPO (pg 51),

• Increased by $4,000,000 for the SLTT Cyber Information Sharing Program (pg 53),

House Vote on Spending Bill

The House divided the vote on the amended version of HR 133 into two separate votes. The first vote was on Divisions B, C, E, and F. The House subsequently voted on the remainder of the bill. Both votes passed, but some glitch on the Clerk of the House web site is not allowing the details of those votes to be seen yet.

As a separate matter when the House approved H. Res 1271, the rule for the consideration of HR 133, earlier in the evening it automatically approved an amendment to the Senate amendment to HR 1520, the Purple Book Continuity Act of 2020. That amendment extended the most recent Continuing Resolution spending authority through midnight December 28^th, 2020. This would provide the Senate with the option of extending the spending bill deadline if it cannot pass HR 133 this evening.