Earlier this month Rep Fleischmann (R,TN) introduced HR 8997, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025. The House Appropriations Committee published their Report on the bill. The bill only contains one cybersecurity mention, but the report discusses multiple cybersecurity issues as well as some unique chemical processing issues.
Cybersecurity Mentions in Bill
Pgs 30-1 of the bill provides spending for the DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response. The bill would allocate $200 million for the purchase, construction, and acquisition of plant and capital equipment, and other expenses necessary for energy sector cybersecurity, energy security, and emergency response activities. This is the same amount provided in the reported version of HR 4394, the FY 2024 version of the bill.
Cybersecurity Overview
In discussing the topic of energy security on page 7 of the report notes:
“The Committee also recognizes the importance of securing the energy sector against cyber threats. In addition to maintaining funding for the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, the recommendation supports prioritization of cybersecurity issues across most programs of the Department.”
Further in the discussion of CESER on page 106 the report notes:
“In light of documented cyber targeting of utilities, including by state actors, the Committee encourages the Department to incorporate pilot programs with energy industry asset owners and operators able to demonstrate active defense cybersecurity protection.”
On page 107 under the Preparedness, Policy, and Risk Analysis topic, the Committee directs the Department to establish partnerships between national labs, public universities, and private industry to develop and implement a semiconductor industry workforce cybersecurity curriculum.
These are verbatim repeats of the comments in the Report on FY 2024 bill.
Cybersecurity Program Funding
On page 107 under the topic Risk Management Technology and Tools, the Report provides “to $4,000,000 for university based research and development of scalable cyber-physical platforms for resilient and secure electric power systems that are flexible, modular, self-healing, and autonomous.” This is a $1 million reduction from the amount listed in the reported version of HR 4394.
New Cybersecurity Reports
On page 68, under ‘Remote Lock Operations’ the Committee directs the Corps of Engineer to brief the Committee on “its plans to mitigate and manage operational, environmental, and budgetary risks associated with remote operation of critical infrastructure, including physical security vulnerabilities, cybersecurity risks, and threats to the nation’s economic stability and homeland security from adversarial nations and non-state actors.”
On page 106, under ‘Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response’ the report discusses the potential security risks of electric vehicles built by automakers located in foreign entities of concern operating in the United States. The Committee directs CESER to prepare a report “that identifies and addresses cybersecurity risks to and recommended solutions for the U.S. energy grid, charging station infrastructure, and bidirectional charging capabilities through vehicles assembled by automakers from foreign entities of concern.”
Chemical Mentions in Report
The report includes spending for the following chemical programs:
Pg 99 - $7,500,000 to initiate a competitive grant program to conduct research and development on utilizing existing ethanol fermentation infrastructure to increase biobased chemical production, including the anaerobic bio-production of 3-hydroxypropionic acid,
Pg 99 - $5,000,000 for efforts to improve thermochemical conversion processes and increase the production,
Pg 102 - $20,000,000 for continued research for energy efficiency improvement and emissions reduction in the chemical industry, including processes that utilize dynamic catalyst science coupled with data analytics (continued from FY 2024), and
Pg 103 - $10,000,000 for research and development activities to improve the energy efficiency of water purification technologies, including the development of membranes that can remove and concentrate PFAS and the integration of these membranes into electrochemical, photochemical, and plasma-based destruction systems.
Proposed Amendments
The House Rules Committee is scheduled to meet on Monday to formulate a rule for the consideration of four spending bills, including HR 8997. Over 120 amendments have been proposed for consideration by the Rules Committee for inclusion in the rule for considering this bill. Only one of the amendments proposed to date is of potential interest here:
Amendment #69 submitted by Rep Moylan (R,Guam) proposes to increase and decreases the Department of Energy Energy Programs, Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response account to emphasize the need of Guam Power Authority for a Department of Energy assessment on the cybersecurity of Guam's energy installations.
Moving Forward
The House is expected to consider the bill this coming week. This was one of the spending bills that was passed last year, and it will probably pass again. It is highly unlikely that the Senate will take up their version of the bill before the end of the September. That means that once again, we are going to see conflict between the House leadership and the spending radicals on how to pass minibus spending bills. This year, that conflict is going to be aggrevated by whatever election results we end up with in November.