Review - HR 4367 Introduced – FY 2024 DHS Spending

Earlier this week, Rep Joyce (R,OH) introduced HR 4367, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2024. The House Appropriations Committee also published their Report on the bill. The bill includes a relatively modest ($19 million) increase in spending for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). While chemical security is not mentioned in the bill, there are a number of chemical security, cybersecurity, cyber workforce, and counter-UAS provisions outlined in the Committee Report.

Chemical Security

There are no discussions about chemical security issues in the bill or the report. There is a single line entry in the funding tables on page 170 of the report under Infrastructure Security. It shows that the Committee is funding ‘Chemical Security’ (including the CFATS program) at $37.949 million for FY 2024. That is $3.26 million less that FY 2023 and $3.3 million less than the President requested. The Appropriations Committee clearly expects the CFATS program to continue through FY 2024.

CISA Spending

Starting on page 41, the bill outlines the FY 2024 spending for CISA. The bill would provide $2.37 billion for the Agency. According to the Report (pg 4) this is $19.2 above the FY 2023 spending. The Committee noted that:

“Recognizing that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) budget has grown 44 percent over the last three fiscal years, the bill provides $2,926,291,000 to sustain investments in securing federal civilian cyber networks and helping state and local governments and the private sector secure both cyber and physical infrastructure. The amount is $19,153,000 above the fiscal year 2023 enacted level. This strategic pause in significant budget growth provides CISA the opportunity to mature its operations commensurate with the enacted level.”

Moving Forward

This, as with all spending bills, is a bill that has not been passed in the House for some time. In recent years disagreements over immigration and border issues have even stopped the Committee from attempting to publish/report a DHS spending bill. The Republican leadership has included their solutions this year over the opposition of the minority. The Minority Views section (pg 190) of the report outlines their problems with those solutions. What this means for the bill is that it may pass in the House, but it will be strictly on a party-line vote. That is, of course, if the Republican 11 are satisfied in the level of spending cuts included in the bill.

There is little in this bill that will pass mustard with the Democrats in the Senate. Their version of the bill will look a lot different. When the Senate takes up HR 4367 (if, a really big ‘if’, the House actually passes it) they will substitute language from the version being developed by the Senate Appropriations Committee. That version (much amended to appease at least 10 Republicans) may pass on a slightly bipartisan basis. Then a conference committee will work out the differences and maybe McCarthy will work a deal with Democrats to pass the bill in opposition to the right wing of his Party.

There are way too many ‘if’s’, ‘maybe’s’, and ‘may’s’ and other qualifiers in that description. I will not be surprised if this bill never makes it to the President’s desk.

 

For more details about the provisions of the bill, including funding changes and policy discussions, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-4367-introduced - subscription required.