Review – HR 9770 Introduced – Cyber PIVOTT Act

Last month, Rep Green (R,TN) introduced HR 9770, the Providing Individuals Various Opportunities for Technical Training to Build a Skills-Based Cyber Workforce (Cyber PIVOTT) Act of 2024. The bill would require CISA to “establish education and training programs and facilitate internship and post-graduation Federal job opportunities at participating institutions”. No new funding would be authorized by this legislation.

This bill would amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 by adding a new section: §1334, CISA education and training programs and resources.

Moving Forward

On September 25^th, the House Homeland Security Committee held a business meeting where they considered 21 pieces of legislation, one of which was HR 9770. The bill was amended (not currently available) and ordered to be reported favorably by a vote of 27 to 0. Once the Committee report is published, the bill will be available to be considered by the full House. The strongly bipartisan vote in Committee means that the bill will be brought to the floor under the suspension of the rules process and would be expected to pass with similar bipartisan support.

Commentary

While this bill may appear to be important for increasing the cybersecurity knowledge base of the federal government, it is lacking one major component – funding. The crafters of the bill accept no responsibility for the cost of the new program, leaving it up to the House Appropriations Committee to figure out the funding level necessary to support the new program as well as determining from where the funding will come. Given the Republicans desire to reduce federal spending, and because of how late this bill would be passed in the session (if that can in fact happen) there will almost certainly be no funding for this bill in FY 2025. If the Republicans retain control of the House after November 5^th, there would likely be no funding for the legislation through FY 2027. With one of the cosponsors {Rep Guest (R,MS)} on the House Appropriations Committee, this fact is almost certainly understood by the crafters of the bill, making this a posturing bill, not a real attempt to address the cybersecurity staffing issue.

 

For more information about the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-9770-introduced - subscription required.