The House Homeland Security Committee voted 18-12 Wednesday to pass a bill that would authorize $10 billion in funds to build a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, The Hill reported Wednesday.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House panel, introduced the Border Security for America Act that would also allocate $5 billion to hire 5,000 additional Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol agents as well as fund ports of entry development efforts.

The measure would authorize the reimbursement of states for up to $35 million with regard to the use of National Guard resources to shore up border security efforts.

The committee sends the bill to the House floor amid debate on the issue of adding border security provisions to a potential measure that seeks to protect Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program recipients, the report added.

The bill’s approval came a month after CBP awarded four companies contracts worth up to $500,000 each to build concrete wall prototypes and another set of contracts for non-concrete wall prototypes for the proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall.

The Washington Post would say that “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” Others–in house, in congress, in forum–would beg to differ.

Congressman Will Hurd (R-), who represents the 23rd District of Texas, aims to repaint the administration-landscape, in the hopes that the bipartisan issues standing on the steps of Capitol Hill are moving up the staircase.

In 2015, Hurd was elected to the 114th Congress and currently serves on the Committee of Oversight and Government Reforms and chairs the Information Technology Subcommittee. He also sits on the Committee on Homeland Security and is the vice chair of the Border and Maritime Security Subcommittee.

On a daily basis, Hurd has the harmonization of cyber norms and data protection regulation on his mind.

“I’m worried that we don’t want to stall some of the progress that we’ve achieved over the last couple of years,” he said at the Washington Post Cybersecurity Summit on Tuesday.

Within the early stages of President Donald Trump’s administration, a solid number of agencies have acting CIOs, leaders in making strategic decisions about how to modernize legacy systems.

Hurd said that one of the goals of his Modernizing Government Technology Act is to create a larger window of transparency, that he wants to see security “baked into a product throughout its life cycle rather than thrown in as an afterthought.”

Even without the working capital funds to reinvest in modernizing legacy IT, this process is easier said then done, apparently.

“By the time we actually pass the legislation, is it already old news?” he said. “Can you legislate for outcomes? If we legislate something we should do X, Y and Z, something that is not going to evolve over time.”

The expansion of technology capabilities are in-bloom, making it difficult for Congress to keep stride with rules and regulations. However, this former CIA operative and cybersecurity professional possesses an exuded brilliance and due diligence that is formidable in the inner workings of the legislative branch–even as a moderate in his second term on the Hill.

In an interview with NPR on ‘Trump and Congress’ Hurd is hopeful about the future of tax reform, among other outstanding issues, but not so much the minds making those decisions.

“Being able to ensure that Americans keep more money in their pocket and not send it to Washington D.C.–that is something we can accomplish,” he said. “But I think, right now, the American people want to see political leaders transcend–D or R–and actually get things done.”

From IT modernization to making the grade in the era of a Trumpist regime, the Congressman from San Antonio, TX projects certainty and confidence on defeating doubt, the importance of dynamic bipartisanship and how to approach the long period of convalescence that is forming hurricane-sized challenges for government reform.

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