House committee sets CISA budget cut at $135M, not Trump’s $495M

The move indicated at least some resistance to the president’s CISA reduction goal, but Democrats still said that was too steep for the agency’s fiscal 2026 funding legislation.

A House panel approved a fiscal 2026 funding bill Monday that would cut the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency by $135 million from fiscal 2025, significantly less than the Trump administration’s proposed $495 million.

The chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Rep. Mark Amodei, said the annual Department of Homeland Security funding measure “responsibly trimmed” the CISA budget. But Illinois Rep. Lauren Underwood, the top Democrat on his panel, said the legislation “fails to address the catastrophic cybersecurity threats facing our critical infrastructure.”

The subcommittee approved the bill by a vote of 8-4.

CISA would get $2.7 billion under the measure, according to a committee fact sheet, or $134.8 million less than the prior year.

While the full committee chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said “the bill provides critical support for cybersecurity technology,” Republicans also criticized the agency’s past work.

“In terms of cyber security, DHS has an important role to play defending critical infrastructure and Federal networks against cyber attack, but CISA strayed from the authority given to it by the Congress,” Amoedi said in a prepared opening statement. “We have responsibly trimmed that agency’s budget by eliminated duplicative contracts and positions, consolidated election security and chemical security missions into the existing critical infrastructure security framework, defunded equity positions and returned the focus of CISA to its core mission of protecting Federal networks, and ensuring that the days of censorship through mis-, dis- and mal- information efforts are over.”

CISA under the Biden administration denied any censorship efforts.

Democrats on the subcommittee took issue with the proposed CISA cuts. 

“Despite the ever-increasing threats against American families, businesses, critical infrastructure, and national institutions, their bill weakens our national security, and leaves Americans vulnerable to attacks from our adversaries by sharply cutting cyber and infrastructure security,” said Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the full committee.

Said Underwood: “The only people who benefit from this bill’s failure to invest here are cybercriminals in China, Russia, and around the world who will now find it easier to attack Americans.”

Still, the scaled-back cuts indicate at least a degree of bipartisan resistance to the scope of the Trump administration’s CISA-chopping agenda. The Trump blueprint called for more than 1,000 positions to be eliminated in fiscal 2026, although the administration has already reportedly reached that figure.

Amoedei said he expected “spirited amendment discussions” during full committee deliberations on the legislation Thursday.

Government

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• CIA’s Michael Ellis says cyber intelligence is changing how the agency operates

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Technology

• European parliament members call for slowdown of Serbia’s EU entry over spyware use

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• Pegasus, NoviSpy variant spyware found on devices of Serbian activists

• Wyden seeks upgraded NSA security guidance on commercial VPN use

Threats

• Microsoft discloses two actively exploited zero-days among 974 vulnerabilities

• Russian national extradited to US for alleged involvement in bank-account takeover scheme

• Attackers exploit zero-days in consistently besieged SonicWall product

• Jail time for Maine child in 764 marks turning point in federal law enforcement

Policy

• Whistleblower says USPS deploying new, ‘untested’ IT systems governing mail-in ballots

• ‘Watershed 250’ test program in Texas looks to private sector for water cybersecurity help

• Former sexual abuse victims say Grok used their images, videos to train deepfake capabilities

• Cyber threats nudge Trump to sign executive order on foreign equipment in U.S. energy infrastructure