Review - HR 2471, Division B, CJS Provisions – FY 2022 Spending

In this post, I am looking at Division B of HR 4241, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022. Division B is the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2022. This equates with HR 4505 that was introduced in July of last year, but was never considered in the House.

As with most spending bills, the details of interest about the spending levels and program instructions from the House and Senate Appropriations Committees are found in the Joint Explanatory Statement (JES) for the Division. The JES acknowledges the program requirements of the Committee Report on HR 4505, and continues most of those requirements while adding some new instructions.

Spending

The table below shows the spending for FY 2022 for four agencies covered by Division B that are frequently mentioned in this blog. Each agency received more funding than they did in FY 2021, but less than the House proposed in HR 4505. There was no Senate bill introduced for this fiscal year to compare against.

Spending in 1,000s	HR 2471	Δ from 2021	Δ from HR 4505
BIS	$141,000	+$8,000	-$2,410
NTIA	$50,000	+$4,500	-$29,000
NIST	$1,230,063	+$195,563	-$139,007
NSF	$8,838,000	+$351,241	-$796,036

For more details on Division B cybersecurity issues, including new program instructions from the House and Senate appropriators, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-2471-division-b-cjs-provisions - subscription required.

Review - HR 2471, Division F – CISA Provisions – FY 2022 Spending

Division F of HR 2471, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, is the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2022. As with most annual spending bills, the language is very formulaic and changes little (other than the actual financial numbers) from year to year. The meat of the spending bill is found in the Joint Explanatory Statement (JES) provided by the negotiators (essentially a conference committee) of the final language of the bill. The JES for Division F can be found here. The JES also reaffirms the provisions of the House Appropriations Committee report on HR 4431, the DHS spending bill introduced earlier this year.

The table below shows the spending for CISA in FY 2022. The ‘FY 2021’ numbers are the final approved numbers for last year. The ‘HR 4431’ numbers were those proposed in the standalone House spending bill. And the ‘Division F’ are those included in the final HR 2471 spending bill

($ in thousands)	FY 2021	HR 4431	Division F
CISA Total	$2,024,976	$2,422,348	$2,593,656
Operations	$1,662,066	$1,927,750	$1,992,527
Procurement, Construction	$353,479	$467,167	$590,698
Research and Development	$9,431	$7,431	$10,431

In addition to providing more details about the spending allocations, the JES provides additional congressional reporting requirements over those found in the Committee Report on HR 4431 and one new program is outlined.

For more details about the spending increase allocations and the reporting requirements for Division F, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-2471-division-f-cisa-provisions - subscription required.

HR 2471 Passed in House and Senate – FY 2022 Spending

On Wednesday, the House passed the amendment to HR 2471 that turned it into the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022. The final action was taken on a voice vote after two recorded votes on ‘divided portions’ of the bill. Then yesterday, the Senate agreed to the House amendment by a vote of 68 to 31. The House and Senate similarly passed HJ Res 75, a short term continuing resolution that keeps the current spending authorization in place until March 15^th. This action was necessary to allow time for a printing of the bill for the President’s signature.

A detailed analysis of the portions of the bill of interest here will take some time. I have, however, had a chance to look at look at Division Y—Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022. The provisions of this Division are essentially identical to the Title II provisions included in HR 3600, that I addressed earlier this week.