[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 2866 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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119th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 2866

 To amend the National Agricultural Research, Extension, and Teaching 
Policy Act of 1977 to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to establish 
a program providing for the establishment of Agriculture Cybersecurity 
                    Centers, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

           September 18 (legislative day, September 16), 2025

 Mr. Budd (for himself and Ms. Cortez Masto) introduced the following 
      bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on 
                  Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To amend the National Agricultural Research, Extension, and Teaching 
Policy Act of 1977 to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to establish 
a program providing for the establishment of Agriculture Cybersecurity 
                    Centers, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Cybersecurity in Agriculture Act of 
2025''.

SEC. 2. AGRICULTURE CYBERSECURITY CENTERS.

    Subtitle K of the National Agricultural Research, Extension, and 
Teaching Policy Act of 1977 (7 U.S.C. 3310 et seq.) is amended by 
adding at the end the following:

``SEC. 1473I. AGRICULTURE CYBERSECURITY CENTERS.

    ``(a) In General.--The Secretary, acting through the Director of 
the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and in consultation 
with the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall establish a program 
under which the Secretary shall--
            ``(1) on a competitive basis, award grants to, or enter 
        into cooperative agreements with, eligible entities to 
        establish 5 Regional Agriculture Cybersecurity Centers to carry 
        out research, development, and education on agriculture 
        cybersecurity, with respect to seed agriculture, horticulture, 
        animal agriculture, and the agriculture supply chain;
            ``(2) establish a national network of such Regional 
        Agriculture Cybersecurity Centers; and
            ``(3) designate one eligible entity to coordinate the 
        activities of such national network.
    ``(b) Duties.--A Regional Agriculture Cybersecurity Center shall--
            ``(1) conduct research on cybersecurity systems for the 
        agriculture sector, including developing cybersecurity 
        situational awareness systems to monitor cybersecurity threats, 
        intrusions, and anomalies;
            ``(2) develop a security operations center for the 
        agriculture sector--
                    ``(A) to analyze cybersecurity threats, intrusions, 
                and anomalies; and
                    ``(B) to recommend mitigation actions;
            ``(3) develop cybersecurity technologies and tools for the 
        agriculture sector, including--
                    ``(A) domain-specific intrusion and anomaly 
                detection systems;
                    ``(B) domain-specific intrusion prevention systems;
                    ``(C) domain-specific role-based access control and 
                user authentication systems;
                    ``(D) lightweight device authentication protocols; 
                and
                    ``(E) secure network architectures;
            ``(4) build live cybersecurity testbeds to assess and 
        refine cybersecurity technologies, tools, and systems developed 
        for the agriculture sector;
            ``(5) conduct attack/defense exercises to validate and 
        evaluate cybersecurity solutions for field deployment and 
        agriculture industry adoption;
            ``(6) develop cybersecurity education and training programs 
        for agricultural stakeholders;
            ``(7) conduct cybersecurity training using the testbeds 
        referred to in paragraph (4);
            ``(8) build a regional research and development 
        collaboration network; and
            ``(9) ensure that the research described in paragraph (1), 
        the technologies and tools described in paragraph (3), and the 
        attack/defense exercises described in paragraph (5) are 
        specifically designed to prevent cyberattacks from--
                    ``(A) the People's Republic of China;
                    ``(B) the Democratic People's Republic of Korea;
                    ``(C) the Russian Federation;
                    ``(D) the Islamic Republic of Iran; and
                    ``(E) such other countries as the Secretary, in 
                consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, 
                determines to be appropriate.
    ``(c) Definition of Eligible Entity.--In this section, the term 
`eligible entity' means a land-grant college or university that--
            ``(1) has programs in the food and agricultural sciences 
        and cybersecurity; and
            ``(2) coordinates regional industry partners, cooperatives, 
        government authorities, and other stakeholders--
                    ``(A) to strengthen the security, privacy, and 
                resiliency of agricultural systems;
                    ``(B) to bolster the resiliency of cybersecurity 
                infrastructure used by independent, noncentralized, 
                locally owned and operated agricultural networks; and
                    ``(C) to develop a skilled workforce equipped to 
                manage and protect agricultural systems from 
                cyberattacks.
    ``(d) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized to be 
appropriated to carry out this section $25,000,000 for each of fiscal 
years 2026 through 2030.''.
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