GOP domestic policy bill includes money for military cyber

Democrats have critiqued the bill for not protecting funds for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The tax and spending bill Congress sent to President Donald Trump and that he signed into law over the holiday weekend contains significant dollars for cybersecurity, with a heavy emphasis on military-related spending.

The biggest pot of money under the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” would be $1 billion for cyber offensive operations for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, which counts among its geographical areas of responsibility territorial waters for cyber adversaries in Russia, China and North Korea. Cyber offense was something the second Trump administration emphasized when coming into office.

Cyber Command would get a $250 million allocation for “artificial intelligence lines of effort.” Another $20 million would go to cybersecurity programs at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. 

A $90 million pool of funds for several purposes at the Defense Department would include “cybersecurity support for non-traditional contractors.”

A broader set of funds at the Coast Guard would allow some funds to be spent on cyber there. A $2.2 billion allocation for maintenance includes upkeep of “cyber assets.” A $170 million allocation for “maritime domain awareness” includes “the cyber domain.”

The lone non-military mention of money that can be spent on cyber comes via the $10 billion-per-year Rural Health Transformation Program, a state grants program meant to counter the legislation’s Medicaid funding cuts that the National Rural Health Association says falls short of doing so.

Grants can be devoted to, among other things, “cybersecurity capability development.”

Earlier in the process, when House committees were assembling their sections of the bill, Democrats took issue with a lack of funds for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

“On the matter of cybersecurity, once again, Republicans say one thing [and] do another. Despite the Chairman’s pronouncement that the 119th Congress would be devoted to improving the Nation’s cybersecurity, there is not one penny in the Homeland Security Committee’s reconciliation title devoted to the issue,” the Democratic critique reads.

“This tone-deaf reconciliation package ignores serious threats facing the Nation — including cyber threats from Russia, China and its typhoon campaign, Iran, and cyber criminals — while turning a blind eye to the administration’s reckless dismantling of America’s cybersecurity agency,” the critique continues. “From election security, to threat hunting, to security by design, the Trump administration is gutting the core services CISA offers governments and the private sector alike, and Committee Republicans do not care.”

Update, July 28, 2025: This story has been updated to reflect the correct value of the funding contained in the bill.

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