U.S. House members have voted to approve a bill that would provide tools and training necessary for law enforcement agencies to fight cyber crime at the state and local levels.

Rep. John Ratcliffe’s office (R-Texas) said Tuesday the Strengthening State and Local Cyber Crime Fighting Act of 2017 would authorize the Hoover, Alabama-based National Computer Forensics Institute, which has served as a cybercrime training center for more than 6,250 local officials across U.S.

“Whether it’s an email that was sent, an online purchase that was made or geolocation information that places an individual at the scene of the crime – digital evidence now plays a role in virtually every crime law enforcement officers face today,” said Ratcliffe.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) noted that authorizing NCFI will help equip law enforcement agencies with tools and training to gather digital evidence and use computer forensics.

Grassley and fellow Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) and Luther Strange (R-AL) introduced a companion bill in the Senate.

The House on Wednesday passed by a voice vote a bipartisan bill that would authorize federal agencies to create their own working capital funds to update their information technology systems, Nextgov reported Wednesday.

Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) and other lawmakers introduced on April 28 the Modernizing Government Technology Act that would direct appropriators to authorize $250 million in annual funds for a central modernization fund over two years.

Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), Tom Udall (D-New Mexico), Steve Daines (R-Montana) and Mark Warner (D-Virginia) also proposed a similar version of the bill in April, according to the report.

Hurd said the MGT Act seeks to build up information security, facilitate the federal government’s adoption of cloud computing and other modern technology platforms and provide incentives to cost-saving efforts and chief information officers, MeriTalk reported Wednesday.

“Under MGT, savings obtained by federal agencies by doing things like streamlining IT systems, replacing legacy products, and transitioning to cloud computing can be placed in a working capital fund that can be accessed throughout the three years for further modernization efforts,” Hurd added.

CSRA President and CEO Larry Prior, an inductee into Executive Mosaic’s Wash100 for 2017, said the bill’s passage in the House marks an important step to facilitate updates to the federal IT infrastructure amid cyber threats, the report added.

The Department of Homeland Security‘s Science and Technology Directorate and its partner agencies from the Netherlands will invest up to $2.6 million in collaborative cybersecurity research projects.

DHS S&T will collaborate with the Netherlands’ organization for scientific research and national cyber security center in efforts increase research and development collaboration between cybersecurity researchers from both countries, the department said Wednesday.

Participating research organizations will focus on the development of data acquisition, distributed denial of service, industrial control systems, domain name systems and supervisory control applications.

“With this joint call we reaffirm our joint mission to foster stronger research links between the Netherlands and the U.S. and strengthen collaboration between our nations’ best cybersecurity researchers,” said Patricia Zorko, director of cybersecurity at the Netherlands’ security and justice ministry.

DHS noted it will obligate half of the available R&D funds under the bilateral initiative from its $9.5 million Cyber Security International Collaboration Research and Development Program.

The partnership seeks to help fund up to five joint research proposals through the program.

A bipartisan group of five lawmakers has introduced a bill that seeks to add accountability and transparency in the federal government’s vulnerabilities equities process.

Sens. Brian Schatz’s (D-Hawaii) office said Wednesday the Protecting our Ability To Counter Hacking Act aims would update the current process for agencies to determine if they should  disclose or withhold vulnerabilities in technology products, applications, services and systems.

Schatz crafted the bill with fellow Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) and Cory Gardner (R-Colorado) as well as Reps. Ted Lieu (D-California) and Blake Farenthold (R-Texas).

“The PATCH Act requires the government to swiftly balance the need to disclose vulnerabilities with other national security interests while increasing transparency and accountability to maintain public trust in the process,” said Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The bill would establish a Department of Homeland Security-led interagency review board to develop a consistent policy on how the government should assess vulnerabilities for disclosure and retention.

The Coalition for Cybersecurity Policy and Law and companies such as McAfee and Mozilla support the bill.

Lawmakers proposed the PATCH Act in the wake of a global ransomware attack that compromised at least 200,000 computers.