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 25th, 2025. The House Homeland Security Committee held a markup hearing on September 25th, 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.
The major difference between HR 1000 and that earlier bill is that subsection (a) of the proposed §1334 expands the list of educational institutions to include: “and other institutions of higher education offering two-year programs.” Similar language is added in a couple of other places in the bill.
Definitions
Section 1334(i) provides definitions of two key terms used in this new section:
PIVOTT Program
Section 1334(a)(1)(A) would require CISA to enter into partnerships with community colleges or technical schools “to establish education and training programs and facilitate internship and post-graduation Federal job opportunities at participating institutions”. CISA would be required to “provide students participating in the Program with full tuition scholarships, including academic fees, lab fees, travel, lodging, per diem, stipends, internship costs, costs associated with virtual participation, certification testing fees, and any other expenses the Director determines necessary to complete any requirement under the Program”.
Students who complete the program would have a 2-year service requirement in a cyber role in the federal government agency or a State, local, Tribal, or territorial government.
CISA would also be required to “establish and update annually a list of existing cyber certification programs developed or offered by entities in the private sector, academia, nonprofits, or other institutions”. CISA would be further authorized to fund “up to three certifications and associated certification examinations per student from such list”.
CISA would be required to ‘seek to enroll’ “not fewer than 250 students for the first full academic year of the Program that begins one year after the date of the enactment of this section”, and have a plan to, within 10-years operation of the program, to have enrolled 10,000 students.
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.
Commentary
This sounds an awful lot like the NSF CyberCorps program. That program is funded by the National Science Foundation, but appears to be administered by CISA’s National Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies (NICCS). If this is the same program, then this is part of the ongoing effort to specifically authorize existing programs that have been unofficially supported by Congress. This is being done to avoid program cancellation’s as part of ongoing budget cutting efforts.