HR 2894 Introduced - Civilian Cyber Security Reserve Act

Back in March, Rep Panetta (D,CA) introduced HR 2894, the Civilian Cyber Security Reserve Act. “The bill would authorize DOD and DHS to each establish a separate Civilian Cyber Security Reserve pilot project “to address the cyber security needs of the United States with respect to national security”. This bill is very similar to S 1324 (subscription required) that was introduced earlier in March.

Differences

There are three differences between this and the Senate bill. The first is a purely editorial difference; definitions in the Senate bill are found in §2(a) and in this bill they are found in §2(i). The two remaining differences are found in the two paragraphs that were left out of the House bill.

In the Senate bill §2(b)(4) would ensure that they ‘reservists’ appointed to temporary positions were not replacing current employees performing cybersecurity duties. This would prevent future budget cutting efforts from replacing full time employees with lower cost temporary employees.

Finally, the Senate version included §2(b)(5) that would have required the Department of Labor to publish appropriate employment rules to protect cyber reservists called up for federal service in much the same way that 38 USC Chapter 43 protects the civilian employment rights of military reservists.

Moving Forward

Panetta is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, one of the two committees to which this bill was assigned for consideration. He may have enough influence to see this bill considered in Committee. The main problem for this bill is the potential for it to undercut the recruitment of departing military personnel for National Guard and Reserve cybersecurity units. Thus I suspect that there might be some significant opposition in that Committee to this bill moving forward.

There are no sponsors for this bill from the House Homeland Security Committee, to which this bill was also assigned. That Committee would be more likely to overlook the military’s recruiting problems to enhance the surge capacity of DHS. If this bill is going to move forward, Panetta is going to have to get cosponsors from that Committee to see the bill considered and potentially moved to the floor for consideration. Even that bypass may not be effective if the leadership of the Armed Services Committee objects to this bill.

Commentary

I think that the idea of a non-military cybersecurity reserve organization for DHS has more than a little merit. Having said that, the two missing provisions that I described above would ill serve anyone signing up for such service if the House version of this bill is advanced.