What a yes vote endorsed
Rural and Municipal Utility Cybersecurity Act
What this does
The bill rewrites Section 40124 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to continue the Rural and Municipal Utility Advanced Cybersecurity Grant and Technical Assistance Program at the Department of Energy. The program directs the Secretary to provide technical assistance and award funding, including grants, cooperative agreements, and prizes, to small utilities so they can protect against, detect, respond to, and recover from cyber threats. Eligible entities include rural electric cooperatives, municipally owned utilities, other publicly owned utilities, qualifying not-for-profit partnerships, and investor-owned utilities that sell less than 4,000,000 megawatt hours per year, with priority given to those that have limited cybersecurity resources or own critical grid or defense infrastructure. Information shared under the program is deemed voluntarily shared and exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and from state, Tribal, and local open-records laws. The bill authorizes $250,000,000 for fiscal years 2027 through 2031.
Passed the House by voice vote
How we know · 6 sourced claims
- The bill rewrites Section 40124 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to continue the Rural and Municipal Utility Advanced Cybersecurity Grant and Technical Assistance Program.Source: Sec. 2 (amending 42 U.S.C. 18723)
- The program directs the Secretary to provide technical assistance and award funding, including grants, cooperative agreements, and prizes, to eligible entities to protect against, detect, respond to, and recover from cybersecurity threats.Source: Sec. 2, new 40124(b)
- Eligible entities include rural electric cooperatives, municipally owned utilities, other publicly owned utilities, qualifying not-for-profit partnerships, and investor-owned utilities that sell less than 4,000,000 megawatt hours per year.Source: Sec. 2, new 40124(a)(5)
- The Secretary must give priority to entities that have limited cybersecurity resources, own assets critical to the bulk-power system, or own or operate defense critical electric infrastructure.Source: Sec. 2, new 40124(d)(2)
- Information shared with or by the government under the program is deemed voluntarily shared and exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and from state, Tribal, and local open-records laws.Source: Sec. 2, new 40124(e)
- The bill authorizes $250,000,000 to carry out the program for fiscal years 2027 through 2031.Source: Sec. 2, new 40124(f)