Support En Bloc Amendments

Floor Speech

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Ms. SEWELL of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the En Bloc Amendment package Number 2 offered by Chairman Thornberry. I want to thank the Chairman and Ranking Member Smith for including my amendment, marked as Sewell Amendment Number 34, in this package.

My amendment is a very simple one that not only promotes our continued efforts to increase training and readiness in the area of cybersecurity but also helps encourage and promote the critically important pipelines between our senior military colleges, local educational agencies and ROTC programs. The need for improvement in the area of cybersecurity is increasingly apparent. Over the past several years, there has been a sharp increase in the number of cyberattacks that threaten our national security and economic stability. This bill seeks to address this emerging threat by establishing ROTC cyber institutes at our senior military colleges. My amendment simply allows for these cyber institutes to place a special emphasis on entering into partnerships with local educational agencies that service rural, underserved, or underrepresented communities.

Our nation's ROTC programs around the country help provide students with invaluable character education and promote student achievement, leadership, and diversity. These cooperative efforts between our military branches and local educational institutions help produce successful students and citizens. In particular, in rural and underserved communities, like the ones I represent in the 7th Congressional District of Alabama, ROTC programs not only provide the critically important tools to be successful academically and socially, but also represent an opportunity to improve their social mobility and expand their world beyond their communities.

The outcomes of these programs are both apparent and convincing. They help increase the odds of students graduating high school, finding employment, going to college and becoming an even more productive member of society. The new ROTC cyber institutes established in this legislation are a perfect symbiosis between a program with a proven track record and an emerging national security threat that will require recruitment and training of the best and brightest from ALL walks of life.

Again I want to thank the Chairman and Ranking Member for supporting this common sense yet critically important amendment. This is a win for everyone involved.

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