Modernizing the Acquisition of Cybersecurity Experts Act of 2023

Floor Speech

As ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4502, the Modernizing the Acquisition of Cybersecurity Experts Act.

I thank my distinguished colleagues, Representative Nancy Mace from South Carolina, who is the chair of the Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation Subcommittee, and Representative Katie Porter, who is the ranking member of the Health Care and Financial Services Subcommittee, for their excellent bipartisan work on this bill, something that, yes, does still exist in the U.S. House of Representatives.

This year, more than 750,000 cybersecurity jobs in the United States will be left unfilled. Each one is a missed opportunity for a talented person and also a missed opportunity for our country.

These are well-paid positions with great job security. They are essential to the protection of our government, the prosperity of our businesses, and the security of our communities.

One big barrier to entry for many of these jobs is the requirement that applicants have a college degree, even if that degree has no bearing on the technical expertise required to satisfactorily meet the demands of the job or to successfully perform the work. Remember that Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of college before he created Facebook.

According to a 2017 study by Harvard Business School, more than 60 percent of employers turned down qualified applicants in the IT field because they didn't have a college degree. Many such applicants were turned down even when they sought to fill jobs vacated by individuals who also didn't have college degrees.

This degree inflation excludes people from opportunity. In 2022, less than 40 percent of the population over the age of 24 had a bachelor's degree.

As technological and cultural advancements continue to transform the nature of the workplace, businesses and public-sector entities alike have begun to realize that college degrees are not always effective proxies for job qualifications and skills. Often, highly capable candidates became that way precisely because they pursued their own path in life, a nontraditional route into the workforce. To remain competitive and to attract top talent, hiring authorities could no longer allow degree inflation to automatically disqualify more than half of our workforce.

H.R. 4502 applies the same logic to the Federal cybersecurity workforce which performs the critical work of defending our Federal networks and our Federal data from attack. Recognizing the government must be competitive to attract high-demand cybersecurity talent to public service, the bill eliminates the requirement that a BA degree is a prerequisite to Federal hiring for cybersecurity.

Eliminating unnecessary degree requirements isn't just good for business, it is good for workers and especially minority workers who are too often excluded from opportunity. In 2022, less than 30 percent of the Black population had a bachelor's degree. For the Hispanic population, that number is even lower at 21 percent. Addressing degree inflation and advancing legislation like this takes steps toward creating the more inclusive and fair society that the public wants.

This bill contributes to a record of strong bipartisan cooperation to strengthen Federal cybersecurity and its workforce. Democrats led passage of the CHIPS and Science Act last year with increased funding for Federal cyber workforce programs, and the Office of the National Cyber Director recently published the Biden-Harris administration's National Cyber Workforce and Education Strategy. This strategy includes a provision encouraging employers to take a more skills-based approach to hiring for these cyber positions.

While Republicans in the House continue the crusade to shut down the government--let's hope they have thought better of it now--I do hope that Americans see that it is still possible for Congress to come together on commonsense legislation like this to advance meaningful opportunity in a well-functioning government.

Mr. Speaker, I urge everyone to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. RASKIN. Porter).

I thank the distinguished gentlewoman from California for her introduction of this legislation with Congresswoman Mace and for her leadership here.

The gentlewoman is absolutely right that there are people who may have gotten a college degree and a Ph.D. in some other field but are completely unprepared and unqualified to have a cybersecurity professional's job in the Federal Government, and there are those who never went to college at all who would be excellently prepared based on what their professional and life experience has been.

I thank them for moving in this direction, and I hope we can look at some other parts of Federal hiring to make sure we are making equivalent adjustments, so we are getting, as the gentlewoman says, the best candidates.

I am wondering--and I would yield to the gentleman for a second, if he knows the answer to this.

Is it just a happy coincidence that the acronym for this legislation is the MACE Act? Was that pure coincidence? I don't know.

In any event, I congratulate Ms. Mace and Ms. Porter on this excellent legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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