Lawmakers from both parties say CISA cuts have gone too far
Lawmakers from both parties say CISA cuts have gone too far
https://cyberscoop.com/lawmakers-bipartisan-cisa-budget-cuts/
Publish Date: 2026-05-21 16:03:00
Source Domain: cyberscoop.com
Two cybersecurity-focused members of Congress agreed Thursday that reductions to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have done too much damage to an agency essential to defending civilian networks against foreign adversaries.
Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., and Rep. James Walkinshaw, D-Va., spoke during a panel at the National Cyber Innovation Forum. Despite representing different parties, and serving on different congressional committees, the two lawmakers offered closely aligned assessments of CISA’s role and the consequences of recent cuts.
Bacon, who is the chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation, framed the agency as central to protecting domestic networks.
“What we really need is a strong CISA that helps protect our domestic networks, our energy grids and things like that,” he said, before adding that “unfortunately” the administration had moved in the opposite direction over the past year.
He said officials had not appreciated the agency’s defensive value, telling the audience he did not think they recognized the “one-for-one output” CISA provides.
Walkinshaw, who is a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, echoed that view and tied it directly to the threat picture.
Referring to Chinese-linked intrusion campaigns like Salt Typhoon, he said the United States is contending with adversaries “getting into critical infrastructure overseas and coming after big parts of our critical infrastructure industry here at home.” He said CISA’s information-sharing function and its relationships with utilities and local governments are part of what makes a centralized civilian defense workable.
Both lawmakers placed their concern in the context of a threat environment they described as escalating. Bacon ranked China as the leading cyber adversary to the United States, surpassing Russia, and said intrusions lay groundwork for further…
