Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support H.R. 7299, the Strengthening VA Cybersecurity Act of 2022. This bill represents a bipartisan, bicameral effort to oversee the Department of Veterans Affairs' cybersecurity efforts. This legislation requires independent assessment of the VA's cybersecurity readiness by a federally funded research and development center, or FFRDC. This bill is necessary because of the poor performance of VA in audits required by the Federal Information Security Modernization Act, also known as FISMA, and independent audits from the VA OIG on individual VA sites. The bill also seeks to address the issue of ``shadow IT'' which is has been a priority of the committee this Congress. If VA does not know what is on its networks and can't identify assets being utilized outside of the Office of Information Technology, then VA can't secure it. VA's repository of veterans' health information needs to be protected. We owe it to veterans to address these challenges now so that Congress and veterans can be assured that VA will secure their personal information. Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support H.R. 7299, as amended, and I reserve the balance of my time.”