House Passes HR 1301

Earlier today the House took up HR 1301, the FY 2017 DOD Appropriations bill under a closed rule. There was one hour of debate and no amendments were considered. The House passed the bill by a bipartisan vote of 371 to 48.

Today’s bipartisan vote would seem to indicate that the bill could be taken up by the Senate. The minimal opposition would, however, make it very difficult to have the bill considered under the Senate unanimous consent process. This means that consideration of the bill is likely to come after completion of the advice and consent process for the remainder of President’s cabinet and at least a few more of the resolutions of disapproval.

HR 1301 Introduced – FY 2017 DOD Spending

Last week Rep. Frelinghuysen (R,NJ) introduced HR 1301, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2017. This bill provides continued funding for DOD for FY 2017 after the current funding expires on April 28^th, 2017. The House Rule Committee web site provides a link to the Explanatory Statement that serves as the Appropriations Committee Report on the bill. That statement is based upon H Rept 114-577 for HR 5293 and S Rept 114-263 for S 3000 from the last Congress; the provisions of those reports will continue to apply through the remainder of the Fiscal Year.

As usual there are no specific cybersecurity provisions outline in HR 1301, the bill just does not get down to that level of detail in the spending being appropriated for the remainder of the fiscal year. The Statement, however, does provide a wealth of detail about the cyber spending for DOD. Page 7 of the Statement provides an overview of the cyber spending for each of the DOD components. DOD requested $5.7 Billion and the bill provides $6.7 Billion.

There are a number of specific cyber activities outlined in the 350-page document. Some are increases and some are decreases, but it comes out to a $1 billion increase. No real details about the projects are provided, but here are some of the ones of potential interest:

• Air Force Training – Specialized skill training (pg 76) - Program increase - cybersecurity training – Increase $7.8 million;

• Army R&D Programs – Missile and rocket advanced technology (pg 214) - Cybersecurity and supply chain risk management research – Increase $10 million;

• Army R&D Programs – Major T&E investment (pg 216) - Cyber vulnerabilities research – Increase $12 million;

• Army R&D Programs – Amy technical test instrumentation and targets (pg 216) - Cybersecurity of space and missile defense assets – Increase $10 million;

• Navy R&D Programs – Advanced surface machinery systems (pg 229) - Cybersecurity boundary defense capability excess growth – Decrease $4 million;

• Navy R&D Programs – Cyber operations technology development (pg 232) - Excess growth – Decrease $2.5 million;

• Navy R&D Programs – Information systems security program (pg 234) - Excess growth – Decrease $5.2 million;

• Air Force R&D Programs – AF defensive cyberspace operations (pg 249) - Program Increase - $10 million;

• Air Force R&D Programs – Cyber intelligence - Eliminate program growth (pg 264) – Decrease $8 million.

The House Rules Committee will hold a meeting tomorrow to establish the rule for the consideration of HR 1301. The House is currently planning on taking up HR 1301 on Wednesday.

Bills Introduced – 03-02-17

With both the House and Senate preparing to leave for a long weekend there were 120 bills introduced yesterday. Of those six may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 1301 Making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2017, and for other purposes. Rep. Frelinghuysen, Rodney P. [R-NJ-11]

HR 1309 To streamline the office and term of the Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, and for other purposes. Rep. Katko, John [R-NY-24]

HR 1324 To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to provide for the establishment of cybersecurity standards for certain radio frequency equipment. Rep. McNerney, Jerry [D-CA-9]

HR 1335 To direct the Federal Communications Commission to issue rules to secure communications networks against cyber risks, and for other purposes. Rep. Clarke, Yvette D. [D-NY-9]

HR 1344 To provide grants to assist States in developing and implementing plans to address cybersecurity threats or vulnerabilities, and for other purposes. Rep. Kilmer, Derek [D-WA-6]

S 516 A bill to provide grants to assist States in developing and implementing plans to address cybersecurity threats or vulnerabilities, and for other purposes. Sen. Warner, Mark R. [D-VA]

Readers may remember that late last session Congress passed HR 2028 that provided temporary spending authority for FY 2017 until April 28^th. It looks like HR 1301 may be the first in a series of bills extending that spending authority until the end of this fiscal year. I had kind of expected an omnibus spending bill and we still may see one for a number of the agencies with only a limited number of department specific bills such as this one.

I will only be covering HR 1309 if it contains specific provisions related to the surface transportation of hazardous chemicals.

It is interesting to see two bills addressing cybersecurity in communications. It is unclear how much of an overlap there will be with HR 1324 and HR 1335.

I would suspect that HR 1344 and S 516 are companion bills; identical bills that provide for parallel processing in both houses of congress to speed up the deliberative process. I suspect that these bills will extend grant eligibility but not expand the amount of grant moneys available.