Review - S 4715 Introduced – Cyber Workforce Development

Earlier this month Sen Rounds (R,SD) introduced S 4715, the Federal Cyber Workforce Training Act of 2024. The bill would require the National Cyber Director to formulate a plan for the establishment of a federal cyber training institute. It does not authorize the actual establishment of the institute, that would require subsequent legislation. The bill specifically does not authorize new spending.

Moving Forward

This bill is scheduled to be taken up by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee tomorrow. This typically means that there is consensus on how to move forward with the bill. I suspect that there will be significant bipartisan support for the bill. The main question is whether or not Sen Paul (R,KY) will support the bill. While the bill can (and probably will) pass without Paul’s vote, his opposition will signal that the bill would not be able to be considered under the Senate’s unanimous consent process, nor would it likely be able to be considered as an amendment to another, more politically important bill.

Commentary

While the proposed institute is not a cybersecurity institute, all cyber work roles should include some level of cybersecurity responsibilities. I think it would be helpful to delineate a responsibility for the institute to establish a minimum level of cybersecurity training for all cyber personnel. To that end, I would like to suggest the insertion of a new §2(b)(2)(C):

“(C) establish a common skill level cybersecurity curriculum for all entry level positions and a more advanced cybersecurity training program for personnel transitioning to mid-career level positions;”

 

For more details about the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-4715-introduced - subscription required.