The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said in a Jan. 31 estimate that the Harvesting American Cybersecurity Knowledge through Education (HACKED) Act of 2019 would cost $57 million to implement over the next five years. The legislation would task the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) with leading interagency efforts to coordinate cybersecurity training and workforce programs, identify cyber career pathways that include the Federal government, and develop standards and guidelines for improving Federal cybersecurity awareness. In working up its estimate, CBO assumed the bill would be enacted in FY2020. As for how the $57 million would be spent, CBO estimated that NIST would spend roughly $10 million a year on grants beginning in 2021, and that related administrative costs for the grants would cost about $2 million a year. NIST also would spend $7 million from 2020-2025 to hire scientists, engineers, and contractors to fulfill other requirements under the bill related to improving the cybersecurity workforce.
