Dutch Ruppersberger: “First, I would like to focus on two of this bill's most important provisions as it relates to technical and tactical…”

“First, I would like to focus on two of this bill's most important provisions as it relates to technical and tactical: first, cybersecurity, and, number two, space. The bill makes significant investments in the variety of critical cybersecurity programs, a need highlighted by repeated attacks on the information technology systems of the Federal Government and private industry over the past year. As cybersecurity evolves and intensifies, our intelligence community must be able to respond quickly and with the latest technologies available. The National Security Agency, which I'm proud to say is in my district, has already developed a number of technologies that are already helping to protect us against these threats; but we need to ensure that NSA and other intelligence agencies have the resources that they need to develop and deploy the defenses that will keep our networks running and information secure. This bill helps do that. Second, this bill makes important investments in space. It supports the President's request to develop a new imagery capability. In addition, it supports the Senate proposal, which we must start funding to continue building upon our known capabilities. These are critical investments, and we are prepared to see them through. We must keep major space acquisitions on budget and on schedule. We do not have unlimited resources and cannot afford to have these critical acquisitions spin out of control.”