Rural and Municipal Utility Cybersecurity Act

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 7266) to amend the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to reauthorize the Rural and Municipal Utility Advanced Cybersecurity Grant and Technical Assistance Program, and for other purposes, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the legislation and to include extraneous material on H.R. 7266.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in support of H.R. 7266, the Rural and Municipal Utility Cybersecurity Act, sponsored by Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks from Iowa's First Congressional District.

Throughout the 119th Congress, the Energy and Commerce Committee has held several hearings examining the state of our Nation's energy system and the persistent threats facing critical infrastructure. We heard directly from industry experts and administration officials about the ability of adversarial nations to exploit vulnerabilities in our energy infrastructure.

We know that rising energy demands and a growing reliance on intricate networks of energy delivery systems could widen attack surfaces and opportunities to cause harm and sow chaos in the daily lives of hardworking Americans.

These threats are uniquely concerning for rural communities and small utility operators that do not have the same resources as their investor-owned counterparts. These rural cooperatives and municipal utilities are economic drivers for small towns and remote areas of our country to ensure they can participate in the 21st century economy.

H.R. 7266 reauthorizes the Rural and Municipal Utility Advanced Cybersecurity Grant and Technical Assistance Program for 5 years to equip small utilities with the resources necessary to secure their systems and keep the lights on for their communities.

Importantly, the RMUC Act streamlines burdensome grant application practices at the Department of Energy to reduce unnecessary regulatory bureaucracy. By simplifying the funding process, we can get dollars from the agency into the hands of cybersecurity professionals in a way that meets the urgency needed to address our system needs.

In addition, this program will leverage the expertise of the Department of Energy by providing targeted technical assistance to cybersecurity operators to enhance threat visibility and implement security protections.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Miller-Meeks), who has been a leader in this issue. She stands before us to protect rural and small-town America, and that is exactly what her legislation does.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my good friends from Virginia and Iowa working together on this bill. I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 7266, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

H.R. 7266, the Rural and Municipal Utility Cybersecurity Act, sponsored by the gentlewoman from Virginia (Ms. McClellan) and the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Miller-Meeks), reauthorizes a critical program from the bipartisan infrastructure law. This initiative is designed to aid municipal utilities, rural electric cooperatives, and small investor-owned utilities.

The reason this is important is that the cyber threats to our Nation's power grid are growing every day, from sophisticated cyberattacks from nation-state actors to AI-enhanced cyberattacks from single criminals. The offensive capabilities of people who would attack our power grid are growing.

The only solution is an investment in a robust defense of the grid. While larger utilities may have more resources to invest in cybersecurity, the smaller utilities and nonprofit cooperatives and municipal utilities may not have the resources to spend on sophisticated cyber defenses.

The rural and municipal utility cybersecurity program steps in to fill the gap, ensuring that those smaller entities get the assistance and the guidance they need from the Department of Energy.

In addition to reauthorizing this important initiative, the bill makes it easier for smaller utilities to access DOE's technical assistance programs, a tweak that should result in more eligible utilities gaining access to DOE's knowledge and resources.

Madam Speaker, I thank Representative McClellan for her work as the co-lead on this bill. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes,'' and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Virginia (Ms. McClellan), and I thank her for her leadership on behalf of rural and smaller municipal utilities in communities across the country.

Madam Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I thank Chairman Guthrie for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of my bill, H.R. 7266, the Rural and Municipal Utility Cybersecurity Act, a bipartisan bill I am proud to lead with Congresswoman McClellan, to help reauthorize and strengthen a critical program that helps rural and municipal electric utilities defend against growing cybersecurity threats to our Nation's energy grid.

Just this spring, national security experts warned that hostile nation-states are shifting from isolated cyber incidents to sustained campaigns against U.S. critical infrastructure, including the energy sector. Yet, many small and rural utilities lack the capacity and expertise to act on this information.

RMUC is designed to close that gap. In Iowa's First District, rural electric cooperatives serve ratepayers across 20 counties and face the same threats as major urban systems but with fewer resources.

By reauthorizing the Rural and Municipal Utility Advanced Cybersecurity Grant and Technical Assistance Program at DOE and authorizing $250 million over 5 years to deploy advanced cybersecurity technologies and support participation in information-sharing programs, this bill ensures rural electric cooperatives, public power, and other small utilities have access to advanced cybersecurity tools, technical assistance, and grant funding to protect, detect, respond to, and recover from cyber threats.

At a time when cyberattacks on our critical infrastructure are escalating, small and rural utilities need the resources to defend against nation-state actors and sophisticated threats. This bill provides that support.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the Rural and Municipal Utility Cybersecurity Act, which I am proud to co-lead with Representative Miller-Meeks of Iowa.

This bill represents the sort of bipartisan work that is important for the security and stability of the American grid and the safety of the American people.

This bill reauthorizes the vital RMUC program, which helps rural and small municipalities to protect themselves against ever-multiplying and more sophisticated cybersecurity threats that could prove severely disruptive to small and rural communities alike, just like the ones I represent in Virginia's Fourth Congressional District.

Far too often, these communities lack the resources and the support necessary to defend against malign actors targeting important infrastructure and services, and AI has made it easier for such malign actors to do so.

For example, rural Prince George County, Virginia, in my district, just a few weeks ago, fell victim to a cyber incident that impacted the county's payment services. Fortunately, the attack didn't impact other, more consequential services, but it serves as an example of why we must take proactive steps to ensure the security of our grid, especially in small and rural communities that are especially vulnerable.

Our bill fills those gaps by ensuring that these communities can face the challenges of our increasingly digital world and, in turn, bolster cybersecurity defenses for the entire Nation's grid.

Madam Speaker, I am glad to work with my colleague from Iowa to advance this important bill, and I urge my colleagues to support our legislation to reauthorize this vital program.