Cyber bills have dominated the House’s agenda this past week, including a bill that reauthorizes several National Science Foundation grant-funded cyber programs, FierceGovernment IT reports.
The House passed the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act last Friday in a 395-10 vote, giving the NSF’s cybersecurity grant programs $420 million over the next three years.
Six NSF programs are reauthorized under the act, sponsored by Reps. Mike McCaul (R-Texas) and Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.), but grants would be capped at $140 million annually.
The bill also cuts two grants for the cybersecurity faculty development traineeship program and for postdoctoral research fellowships, the report said.
Under the bill, the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development program would have to coordinate federal unclassified research and development priorities.
The National Institute of Standards of Technology would have to develop an automated system under the bill as well, all of which would cost $382 million to implement through fiscal 2016, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates.
NSF previously funded its grant programs under its general authority spending, applying $148.62 million to the grant programs in fiscal 2010.
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act also made it through the House last week as well as a bill that would update the Federal Information Security Management Act.
