After a year of high-profile cyberattacks on government and private sector infrastructure that have raised the profile of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the House Appropriations Committee is proposing a substantial funding bump for CISA in the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) fiscal year 2022 (FY2022) budget.
The Appropriations Committee proposed a $2.42 billion operating budget for CISA in FY2022. That figure marks a $397.4 million increase – or about 16 percent – from the enacted FY2021 budget.
“As recent events like the Colonial Pipeline hack have demonstrated, it is obvious that we must do more to secure our nation’s cyber infrastructure. That’s why this bill’s investments in preventing cyberattacks and rooting out cyber intrusions are so critical,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the Appropriations Committee Chair, said in a release.
Included in the bill is $20 million for a cyber incident response and recovery fund. Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who head the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, introduced a similar act earlier this year, and the crux of that bill was folded into the Senate-passed United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 (USICA). The response and recovery fund was not incorporated into the USICA alternatives passed by the House this week, but it makes an appearance in the lower chamber via the appropriations bill.
The appropriations bill also includes funding bumps of $186.7 million for cybersecurity, $21.1 million for infrastructure security, and $13 million for stakeholder engagement and requirements for the agency, among others. Other funding increased to include an additional:
- “$34 million for emergency communications;
- $17.1 million for integrated operations;
- $13.7 million for risk management operations; and
- $3 million for mission support activities.”
The funding increase falls in between the increase the White House proposed and the size that tech trade groups have proposed. President Biden proposed a nearly $110 million increase for the agency, while tech trade groups were pushing for an additional $750 million for the agency’s operating budget.
CISA received a one-time funding injection of $650 million earlier this year as part of the American Rescue Plan Act.
