HR 6825 Passed in House – Nonprofit Grant Program

Yesterday the House took up HR 6825, the Nonprofit Security Grant Program Improvement Act of 2022. The bill was considered under the suspension of the rules process. After limited debate, with no dissenting voices heard, the bill passed by a vote of 288 to 129. The bill is unlikely to be considered in the Senate.

The bill would amend the current Nonprofit Security Grant Program (6 USC 609a) to specifically includes the risk of “extremist attacks other than terrorist attacks and threats’ in the coverage of the grant program. It also increases the out-year funding from $75 million per year to $500 million per year. The program currently supports cybersecurity measures.

It is not clear why there was so much Republican opposition to the bill since no one spoke out during the debate. I suspect, however, that this was a combination of the increased cost and the addition of the ‘extremist attacks’ language. With Chairman Thompson (D,MS) specifically citing the racially motivated attack this weekend in Buffalo in yesterday’s debate (pg H4984), there may have been some supporters of the ‘replacement theory’ that felt some of their base might be targeted by the new funding.

This bill is unlikely to be considered in the Senate. It is not ‘important’ enough to take up the legislative time required for regular order and the significant Republican opposition would make consideration under the unanimous consent process impossible. The only hope for moving forward would be to include the language in a larger, must pass, or sure to pass, bill.

For more details about the provisions of the bill, see my article on CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-6825-introduced - subscription required.