Editor’s Note: The bill was consolidated into the 2018 Omnibus Spending Bill effective through September 30, 2018.
The Hill reported that lawmakers advanced a spending measure that would provide roughly $1.8 billion in cybersecurity funding for a Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
While the bill would allocate the money for the National Protection and Programs Directorate, the DHS office tasked with securing critical infrastructure from cyber threats, it would cut funds to the DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate for research and development programs, like tech startup innovation co-investment, by more than $100 million.
We are drastically cutting the important cybersecurity and research and development work that happens at the Science and Technology Directorate and shifting that money to fund a border wall,” said Maryland Representative Dutch Ruppersberger.
NPPD works on cybersecurity and physical infrastructure.
New Jersey Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen, House Appropriations Committee chairman, cited cybersecurity at the start of the markup process before the committee voted to advance the bill. In general, the funding would “secure our nation from the many threats we face, whether that’s terrorism, criminals and illegal goods crossing our borders, or attacks on our cyber networks,” he said.