S 4690 Introduced - FY 2025 ARD Spending
Last month, Sen Heinrich (D,NM) introduce S 4690, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies spending bill. The Senate Appropriations Committee published their Report for the legislation. The bill includes one cybersecurity mention, and the Report includes one cybersecurity discussion.
The House version of this bill is HR 9027. The House Appropriations Committee ordered the bill reported favorably, but no other action has been taken in the House.
Cyber in the Bill
As we saw in the House bill, the sole cybersecurity mention is found on page 6 under the heading of Office of the Chief Information Officer. The paragraph provides funding for the Office including specific funding for “cybersecurity requirements of the department”. The table below shows the spending for those requirements in this bill and HR 9027.
INSERT Senate USDA Cyber
Cyber in the Report
The only cybersecurity discussion in the Report is found on Page 20 as part of the discussion about the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) there is a brief discussion about ‘Agricultural Data Security’. The Committee notes the “critical need for agricultural data security advancements alongside increased use of autonomous systems and new technologies.” To support that ‘critical need’, the Committee increased the ARS funding by $1 million “for ARS to collaborate with a land-grand (sic) university to research these data security needs and solutions. The partnership should involve a university with expertise in both agricultural technology cybersecurity (sic).”
Moving Forward
Because of constitutional issues, the Senate waits for the House to pass spending bills. When the bill is subsequently considered by the Senate, one of the first actions taken is the offering of an amendment in the form of a substitute which substitutes the language from the related Senate bill for the language of the House bill. From there, the Senate amends and votes on the revised Senate language.
Unfortunately, it looks like the House is not going to consider HR 9027 this year. That means that this bill is effectively dead-on arrival through no fault or design of the Senate.