Review - HR 9420 Introduced – Cyber Education Task Force

Earlier this month, Rep Torres (D,NY) introduced HR 9420, the Cybersecurity Education Task Force Act of 2022. The bill would required the National Cybersecurity Director to establish a Cybersecurity Education Task Force. No funding is authorized by this proposed legislation.

Moving Forward

Torres is not a member of the House Education and Labor Committee to which this bill was referred for consideration. This means that there would not be enough influence to see the bill considered in Committee. This is especially true in the last days of the 117^th Congress.

I do not see anything that would have engendered any organized opposition to the bill had it been considered. I suspect that the bill could have been adopted in Committee by a bipartisan support. It would likely have then been considered in the House under the suspension of the rules process.

Commentary

It is odd that CISA is included in the list of organizations to be represented on the Task Force and no other government agency is. While CISA is a major user of cybersecurity talent, and supervises federal agency cybersecurity implementation activities, it is not really an education focused agency. I would have expected to see the National Institute of Standards and Technology also represented on the Task Force as they have several educational development responsibilities related to cybersecurity.

For more details about the provisions of the bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/review-hr-9420-introduced - subscription required.