United States S 3619: Department of Defense Comprehensive Cyber Workforce Strategy Act of 2026

Bill Text

II
119TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION S. 3619
To require the Secretary of Defense to develop a cyber workforce strategy
for the Department of Defense, and for other purposes.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
JANUARY 13, 2026
Mr. PETERS (for himself and Mr. ROUNDS) introduced the following bill;
which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Armed Services
A BILL
To require the Secretary of Defense to develop a cyber work-
force strategy for the Department of Defense, and for
other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Department of Defense 4
Comprehensive Cyber Workforce Strategy Act of 2026’’. 5
SEC. 2. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE CYBER WORKFORCE 6
STRATEGY. 7
(a) STRATEGY AND REPORT REQUIRED.—Not later 8
than January 31, 2027, the Secretary of Defense shall, 9
acting through the Chief Information Officer of the De-10
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partment of Defense and the Assistant Secretary of De-1
fense for Cyber Policy and in consultation with the Chief 2
Information Officers and Principal Cyber Advisors of the 3
military departments— 4
(1) develop a comprehensive cyber workforce 5
strategy; and 6
(2) submit to the Committee on Armed Services 7
of the Senate and the Committee on Armed Services 8
of the House of Representatives a report on the 9
strategy developed under paragraph (1). 10
(b) CONTENTS.—The report required by subsection 11
(a)(2) shall include the following: 12
(1) An assessment of progress achieved and re-13
maining gaps in implementation of the 2023–2027 14
Department of Defense Cyber Workforce Strategy, 15
including identification of elements that should be 16
continued, modified, or discontinued in the strategy 17
developed under subsection (a)(1). 18
(2) A descriptive analysis of the Defense Cyber 19
Workforce Framework (in this section referred to as 20
the ‘‘Framework’’), including the goals, activities, 21
milestones, and key performance indicators used by 22
the Department of Defense to measure progress and 23
assess the effectiveness of the implementation of the 24
strategy required by subsection (a)(1). 25
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(3) Assessment of the scope of the affected 1
workforce for the Framework, including specific 2
workforce numbers, vacancy numbers, work roles, or 3
other statistical data relating to personnel system 4
metrics. 5
(4) Identification of progress of the Department 6
in implementing the Framework based on the goals, 7
activities, milestones, and key performance indica-8
tors described in paragraph (2). 9
(5) Identification of any issues, problems, or 10
roadblocks identified by the Department in imple-11
menting the Framework, as well as any adjustments 12
required to measurements of progress or inclusions 13
of new goals, activities, milestones, key performance 14
indicators, or work roles since publication of such 15
framework, and any steps taken by the Department 16
to overcome issues or lack of authority to address 17
roadblocks. 18
(6) Opportunities to leverage support from non- 19
Department entities, or of any workforce or talent 20
management authorities that exist within other Fed-21
eral agencies in which inclusion in the Framework 22
might benefit the Department. 23
(7) The availability of commercial tools that 24
support Framework talent management processes 25
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and might enhance performance or effectiveness, in-1
cluding for workforce qualification and certification 2
tracking, talent identification and tracking, tagging 3
for additional skill identifiers in existing personnel 4
management systems, or enhancing skill develop-5
ment for specific work roles. 6
(8) Opportunities to leverage supplementary 7
personnel models that might be adapted from other 8
domains, such as cyber civilian reserves or cyber 9
auxiliary forces. 10
(9) Integration of existing academic centers of 11
excellence or other university partnerships to help 12
improve workforce development, talent acquisition, 13
and skills development. 14
(10) A review of Framework work roles for arti-15
ficial intelligence, data science, and data engineering 16
to assess alignment with corresponding work roles in 17
industry and recommendations for modifications to 18
enable more effective recruiting of industry talent. 19
(11) Resource requirements and implementation 20
timeline for the strategy developed under subsection 21
(a)(1), including budget estimates and key mile-22
stones. 23
(c) EXTERNAL VIEWS.—In developing the