Review - S 4660 Introduced – FY 2023 EWR Spending

Last month, Sen Feinstein (D,CA) introduced S 4660, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2023. The Senate Appropriations Committee also published their Report on the bill. As with the House version of this bill (HR 8255), there is only one mention of cybersecurity in the bill itself, but numerous cybersecurity related discussions in the Report.

CESER Spending

On page 26, the bill provides funding for CESER funding for “expenses including the purchase, construction, and acquisition of plant and capital equipment, and other expenses necessary for energy sector cybersecurity, energy security, and emergency response activities”. The bill would provide $202 million for FY 2023 which about $3 million less than the funds allocated in the House bill.

More details on CESER programs are provided in the Committee Report on pages 125-7. This includes funding ($20 million) for the Cyber Testing for Resilient Industrial Control System (CyTRICS) program. The Report also directs DOE “to continue supporting consequence-driven cyber-informed engineering activities at a level consistent with prior years” (pg 126).

Moving Forward

HR 8255 was rolled into the HR 8294 minibus that was passed by the House last month. That means that if the Senate takes up HR 8244 before the end of the fiscal year (possible but not real likely, based upon recent history) this bill will be incorporated in the substitute language upon which the Senate will actually base their debate/amendment process. If the bill is considered, it would not receive much more support than necessary to overcome the cloture process in the Senate, and that level of support would be problematic.

 

For more details about the programs and spending discussed in the Report, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-4660-introduced - subscription required.