HR 4502 Passed in House – Cybersecurity Hiring

Today, the House took up HR 4502 [removed from paywall], the Modernizing the Acquisition of Cybersecurity Experts Act, under the suspension of the rules process. With only 16 minutes of debate, the legislation was passed by a strongly bipartisan vote of 394 to 1. Rep Lesko (R,AZ) was the only vote against the bill.

The bill would restrict agencies from establishing minimum educational requirements for cybersecurity positions. It would allow such requirements “only if a minimum education qualification is required by law to perform the duties of the position in the State or locality where the duties of the position are to be performed”.

Moving Forward

The strong bipartisan support for this bill in the House would seem to indicate that this bill could be considered under the Senate’s unanimous consent process. This is important because the bill is not politically important enough to take up the Senate’s time under regular order.