New legislation introduced by U.S. Reps. James Walkinshaw (D-VA), Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Delia Ramirez (D-IL) would strengthen the nation’s cybersecurity workforce while protecting the federal networks it is designed to protect.
The CISA Force Structure Assessment Act would require the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to determine whether the sweeping cuts made to the agency impacted its ability to protect federal networks, while continuing to support state and local governments and secure critical infrastructure. Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, nearly 1,000 CISA employees have been fired, sidelined, or pushed out, leaving the agency with a third fewer employees to help government and industry share information about cyber threats.
“America’s cyber defenses are only as strong as the people behind them,” Walkinshaw said. “As cyber threats grow more sophisticated and technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing reshape the threat landscape, Congress needs a clear accounting of whether CISA has the workforce, skills, and resources required to keep Americans safe and enable mission delivery. This legislation will identify critical gaps and give Congress concrete information to address them.”
The legislation would require the CISA director to conduct an assessment on the agency’s workforce, including its training and industry-recognized certifications, as well as the security of federal information systems and support for state, local, Tribal and territorial governments; the risks associated with AI, quantum computing and other technologies, the capability of the agency to handle threat-hunting and cyber incident response, and the agency’s support for critical infrastructure and operational technology.
“With Iran targeting our critical infrastructure and frontier AI models creating new cyber risks, we must ensure we have a cybersecurity workforce to counter these growing threats,” said Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson. “After Trump has spent the past two years targeting and slashing CISA’s workforce, we need the agency to assess if it has right personnel in place to fulfill its mission. I thank Congressman Walkinshaw for introducing this necessary legislation to do exactly that.”