HR 5893 Introduced
FY 2024 CJS Spending
Last month, Rep Rogers (R,KY) introduced HR 5893, the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024. The House Appropriations Committee did not publish a report for this bill, nor has it published an explanatory text as it did for HR 5894. There are three cybersecurity mentions in the bill, none of particular interest here. There have been 285 amendments submitted to the House Rules Committee for possible inclusion in the rule for the consideration of the bill. Only one of those amendments is of potential specific interest here.
Cybersecurity
There are two cybersecurity spending provisions in the bill. First, under the heading “Salaries and Expenses, General Legal Activities” on page 27, the bill provides $938,500,000 for “litigation support contracts and information technology projects, including cybersecurity and hardening of critical networks”. Second, under the heading “Violence Against Women Prevention and Prosecution Programs” the bill provides (on page 49) $10 million for grants for “for prevention, enforcement, and prosecution of cybercrimes against individuals”.
In §513 the bill discusses restrictions on the acquisition of high-impact or moderate-impact information system. In subsection (c) (on page 104), the bill requires agencies to conduct “an assessment of any risk of cyber-espionage or sabotage associated with the acquisition of such system”.
Amendments
On October 30th, the House Rules Committee called for amendments to this bill. To date 285 amendments have been submitted to the Committee. One of those amendments may be of interest here:
#277 Rep Crenshaw (R,TX) “Prohibits funds to the Department of Commerce unless two reports ordered by Executive Order 14034 are certified as submitted. This includes a report ordered by Executive Order 14034, which asks the Secretary of Commerce to report to the Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor on additional executive and legislative actions to address the risk associated with connected software applications that are designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned or controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of, a foreign adversary.”
Moving Forward
The Rules Committee is scheduled to meet tomorrow to formulate the rule for the consideration of the bill on the floor of the House. The bill could move to the floor later this week. Based upon actions from last week, I think that there is a very real possibility that the bill will proceed through consideration of the amendments selected by the Committee, but floor action will stop before the final vote is taken. I have no idea what the House leadership is going to do with HR 4820, the THUD spending bill, and HR 4664, the Financial Services spending bill, but I suspect they will have to do the same with this bill.
Commentary
Spending bills have always been something of a legislative problem, but this year the House Republicans have elevated the problems to heights never considered before. This bill, and its late introduction partner HR 5894, the LHH spending bill, were introduced almost three months after the other 10 spending bills this year, and more importantly after Speaker McCarthy was fired. The bill could not be offered earlier due to disagreements in the Committee about what anti-DOJ measures were going to be included. The inability of the Committee to come to agreement bodes ill for this bill moving forward in the House.