Review – Bills Introduced – 7-18-26

On Saturday, with neither the House nor Senate in session, there were five bills introduced. One of those bills will receive additional coverage in this blog: 

• HR 9770 Making continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2027, and for other purposes. Cole, Tom [Rep.-R-OK-4]   

For more information on these bills, including legislative history for similar bills in the 118th Congress, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/bills-introduced-7-18-26 - subscription required. 

Review - S 438 Introduced – Cyber PIVOTT Act

Back in February Sen Rounds (R,SD) introduced S 438, the Providing Individuals Various Opportunities for Technical Training to Build a Skills-Based Cyber Workforce (Cyber PIVOTT) Act of 2025. 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 is very similar to HR 9770 that was introduced by Rep Green (R,TN) in September of 2024. On September 25^th, 2025. The House Homeland Security Committee held a markup hearing on September 25^th, 2024. The bill was amended and ordered to be reported favorably by a vote of 27 to 0. The report was never filed nor was an amended version of the bill published. No further action was taken.

On the same date that S 438 was introduced, Green introduced HR 1000 which was very similar to HR 9770. On February 26^th, 2025, the House Homeland Security Committee held a business meeting where HR 1000 was considered. The Committee ordered the bill reported favorably without amendment by a near party-line vote of 17 to 8. It is not clear why there was such a radical change in support from Democratic members of the Committee. No further action has been taken on HR 1000 in the 119^th Congress.

The differences between S 438 and HR 1000 are mostly formatting in nature with two exceptions. First, the definition section is expanded from 2 to 12 terms and is moved from subsection §1334(i) to (a). Secondly, a §1334(b)(5)(A)(ii) provides a broad FACA exemption to the advisory committee suggested in clause (i).

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

While Rounds is not a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration, his sole cosponsor {Sen Peters (D,MI)} is the Ranking Member of that Committee. This means that there could be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. With no spending authorized in the legislation, I see nothing in the bill that would engender any organized opposition. I suspect that there would be some level of bipartisan support for the bill.

As with any bill under primary consideration of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, the main roadblock could be opposition by the Chair, Sen Paul (R,KY). Paul has an almost visceral objection to government programs, so it would not be surprising if he were to object to this PIVOTT program. And since he is the Chair, his objection would mean that the bill would not be considered by the Committee.

 

For more information on the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-438-introduced-cyber-pivott-act - subscription required.

Review - HR 1000 Introduced – PIVOTT Act

Last month, Rep Green (R,TN) introduced HR 1000, 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.

This bill is very similar to HR 9770 that was introduced by Green in September of 2024. On September 25^th, 2025. The House Homeland Security Committee held a markup hearing on September 25^th, 2024. The bill was amended and ordered to be reported favorably by a vote of 27 to 0. The report was never filed nor was an amended version of the bill published. No further action was taken.

Moving Forward

The House Homeland Security Committee will be holding a business meeting tomorrow where this bill will be considered. Based on the results when HR 9770 was considered last year, I suspect that there will be widespread, bipartisan support for the bill. Once the requisite report is published by the Committee this bill will almost certainly be taken up by the full House under the suspension of the rules process.

 

For more details about the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-1000-introduced - subscription required.

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. 

Bills Introduced – 9-24-24

Yesterday, with both the House and Senate in session, there were 67 bills introduced. Three of those bills will receive additional attention in this blog:

• HR 9768 Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative Act Swalwell, Eric [Rep.-D-CA-14]

• HR 9769 Strengthening Cyber Resilience Against State-Sponsored Threats Act Lee, Laurel M. [Rep.-R-FL-15]

• HR 9770 Cyber PIVOTT Act Green, Mark E. [Rep.-R-TN-7] 

As I reported on Monday (subscription required), these three bills are scheduled to be included in a House Homeland Security markup hearing today.