Dems seek top-to-bottom assessment of CISA workforce

After the exit of around 1,000 CISA workers, legislation from three top House Democrats orders a force structure assessment like that more common to military branches.

A group of leading House Democrats introduced legislation Monday requiring the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to conduct an assessment of its workforce to determine whether it’s up to the task after the exit of around 1,000 employees during President Donald Trump’s second term.

The concept of a force structure assessment is more common in military branches, including one that Congress previously ordered for Cyber Command. The CISA Force Structure Assessment Act would order the agency to carry out a review of whether the agency still has the necessary personnel, training and certifications after budget cuts and other Trump-era departures.

“America’s cyber defenses are only as strong as the people behind them,” Rep. James Walkinshaw, the Virginia Democrat serving as lead sponsor of the bill, said in a news release. “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.”

Also sponsoring the bill are the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, and the top Democrat on its cybersecurity subcommittee, Delia Ramirez, D-Ill.

Additional elements of the force structure assessmewould include a review of the security of federal IT systems and support for state and local governments; the risks posed by AI, quantum computing and other cutting edge technologies; CISA’s threat-hunting and incident response capabilities; support for critical infrastructure and operating technology, including CISA’s role as a sector risk management agency for a number of industry sectors; the operation of the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative; and international cooperation.

Some lawmakers and other observers have worried those areas have been greatly impacted by staffing cuts, ultimately hurting CISA’s ability to carry out its core functions.

Ramirez dinged GOP lawmakers for “a lack of interest in safeguarding our nation’s cybersecurity and our residents’ civil rights and privacy” in going along with the CISA cuts and other developments at the Department of Homeland Security.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have voiced concern about the scope of cuts at CISA, but Republicans have approved some of them while pushing back on others. CISA itself is currently seeking to hire hundreds of new personnel, even as its latest budget blueprint calls for yet more funding reductions.

“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,” Thompson said. “After Trump has spent the past two years targeting and slashing CISA’s workforce, we need the agency to assess if it has [the] right personnel in place to fulfill its mission.”

National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross has discussed White House plans to develop a cybersecurity academy meant to consolidate and enhance existing federal cyber training and education programs, with the aim of addressing cyber workforce shortages. His office has reportedly drafted an executive order that would establish that academy.

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