Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the Rules Committee for making my amendment in order, as well as Chairwoman Granger and Ranking Member Visclosky for their hard work on this important Defense Appropriations bill. Mr. Chairman, I offer this bipartisan amendment with my good friends Mr. Correa, Mr. Lieu, Ms. Shea-Porter, Mr. Ratcliffe, and Ms. Stefanik in order to support the DOD Cyber Scholarship Program. Since 2001, DOD has funded the Information Assurance Scholarship Program, or ASP, in order to boost the Nation's cyber workforce through scholarship and capacity-building grants. Scholarship recipients are required to fulfill a service obligation by working in a cybersecurity position at DOD upon graduation. This program has been extremely successful, bringing nearly 600 students into the DOD workforce. However, due to budget constraints, the Department reduced funding for the program beginning in 2013 and stopped recruiting new students. Now, this program received $7.5 million in 2005, its peak funding level, but for FY 2017, it received a mere $500,000. The cybersecurity challenges that we face, Mr. Chairman, are growing every day. This scholarship program will help ensure that students are encouraged to pursue degrees in cybersecurity-related fields and that more of them can then work defending our Nation.…”