By A House panel approved amendments to next fiscal year’s defense appropriations bill meant to bolster funding by over $1 billion to all military cyberspace activities and ensure cyber reserve forces are able to properly train and retain personnel in the of face future threats in the domain.
The House Appropriations Committee-Defense subcommittee submitted its provisions for the $630 billion FY ’18 Defense Appropriations Bill, which the full committee approved June 29.
The subcommittee is recommending $7.9 billion in cyber security funding with increases in nearly every area of the military for personnel, procurement, research and development, and operation and maintenance (O&M). Only the Army’s amount designated for procurement would see a decrease, from around $230 million in FY ’17 to about $200 million in FY ’18.
The largest recommended increases in spending are for the O&M portion, with the Navy seeing a $200 million increase from FY ’17 and the Air Force receiving nearly $100 million more.
The Army and Air Force would both receive a nearly $400 million increase in total cyberspace activity funding from FY ’17 to FY ’18, while the Navy would receive a $300 million increase.
“As part of its fiscal year 2018 budget documentation, the Department of Navy established a unique cyber sub-activity group for operation and maintenance accounts, which the Committee believes will increase visibility and congressional oversight of requested funding for cyberspace activities,” the subcommittee wrote in the text of its mark-up.
With the increased spending, the panel included an amendment to ensure transparency on operational measures by directing the secretary of defense to provide quarterly briefings to both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees on all significant cyber operations carried out by the DoD no later than 30 days after the end of of each fiscal quarter.
To ensure support for cyber operations moving forward, the subcommittee is proposing $9.8 million in funding for Army National Guard’s cyber protection teams’ (CPT) personnel and O&M. This is a $1.8 million increase from the original defense budget request, and would go towards bolstering the outreach and personnel needs for the Army National Guard’s 11 CPTs and the Army Reserve’s 10 CPTs.
“The Committee supports Army Reserve efforts to engage with universities and the private sector to develop formal cyber public private partnerships to further cyber training and employment,” the subcommittee included in its report accompanying its proposed spending bill. “Committee encourages the Director of the National Security Agency/Commander of the United States Cyber Command to work with the Chief of the Army Reserve to provide a pathway for certification of this program.”
Other amendments included in the subcommittee’s NDAA mark called on the Air Force to establish an Air Force Specialty Code to help in its effort to recruit and retain military personnel for its Cyber Mission Force. Also included in the bill is a provision for the secretary of defense to strengthen the DoD’s cyber security posture by developing strategies and programs to increase the pace of phasing out legacy systems from department networks.
