Infrastructure compromise includes Hassan's cybersecurity grants
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Aug. 2—CONCORD — A $1 billion grant program from U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan to help state and local communities fight cyberattacks took a big step forward on Capitol Hill.
The proposal has been included in a new $1 trillion infrastructure bill that a bipartisan group of senators has brokered and announced last Sunday night.
The compromise could come to the full U.S. Senate for a vote later this week.
Hassan promoted this program during a recent hearing after the Sunapee School District and Strafford County agencies dealt with crippling cyberattacks in 2019.
"I will keep working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to move this bipartisan infrastructure bill forward and deliver on the priorities that I hear about from Granite Staters," Hassan said.
Hassan's bill, known as the State and Local Cybersecurity Improvement Act, would approve grants of $1 billion over four years.
States would have to provide at least 80% of the grants to local governments and rural areas would get at least 25% of the money.
Hassan said state and local governments spend an estimated 1-3% of their information technology budgets on cybersecurity, while the federal government spends 16%.
Shaheen helped negotiate plan
Hassan chairs the Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight Subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen was one of the 10 senators who negotiated the compromise that includes $550 billion of new spending over the next five years.
Shaheen said many of the programs will provide aid to projects in New Hampshire, including $65 billion nationally to expand broadband and $15 billion to clean up PFAS contamination.
"This historic legislation is a robust investment in our nation's infrastructure and our country's future, and it advances key New Hampshire priorities that I've long fought for," Shaheen said.
U.S. Senate Republican leaders have withheld comment on the proposal until they've gone through the bill that's 2,700 pages long.
Liberal Democrats in the U.S. House have vowed to try and defeat this legislation unless the Senate moves ahead on the much-more expensive, budget reconciliation bill that has a price tag of more than $3 trillion.
