From: GovInfoSecurity.com
House Panel Places Few Limits on How Money Could Be Spent
By Eric Chabrow
A House Appropriations Committee bill would give the Department of Homeland Security $24 million less for cybersecurity than President Obama seeks. But it would provide the administration lots of flexibility in how to spend the money.
The legislation, which cleared the panel May 16 and goes to the full House, would earmark $786 million for cybersecurity operations in fiscal year 2014, which begins Oct. 1. This figure represents a 4 percent increase over current spending levels and includes nearly $200 million for a federal network security program housed at DHS. That initiative is aimed to assist other agencies in providing adequate, risk-based and cost-effective cybersecurity, which includes the acquisition and operation of continuous monitoring and diagnostic software.
“At a time when many committees on the Hill are trying to insert themselves into cybersecurity, it’s noteworthy that Appropriations did not offer much in the way of explicit instructions, guidance or reporting requirements for cybersecurity policy,” says Allan Friedman, research director at the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
Hands-Off Approach
The complexity of implementing information security initiatives is the major reason appropriators are taking a relatively hands-off approach on how to spend money on cybersecurity. “Nobody is really sure on how to restrict it,” says former Federal Chief Information Officer Karen Evans.
Evans says the panel’s bill likely includes less money for cybersecurity than the president requests because DHS isn’t expected to spend all of its cybersecurity appropriation for the current fiscal year. House appropriators also may believe that DHS might not be able to spend the extra $30 million by the end of the next fiscal year. For instance, Evans says, DHS might fall short in hiring the number of cybersecurity experts it plans to employ by Sept. 30, 2014, the end of the next fiscal year.
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