HR 612 Introduced – Cybersecurity Research

Earlier this week Rep. Langevin (D,RI) introduced HR 612, the United States-Israel Cybersecurity Cooperation Enhancement Act of 2017. The bill would establish a grant program to support joint cybersecurity research by US and Israeli organizations. The bill is essentially the same as HR 5843 that was passed in the House in the 114^th Congress (not covered in this blog).

The bill provides no new funding to support the grants.

The bill could cover industrial control system cybersecurity research projects. This is based upon the definition of ‘cybersecurity threat’ used in the bill {§2(d)(3)}. It uses the definition from Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 {Title I of Division N, PL 114-113; 6 USC 1501(5)} which in-turn relies on the broader definition of ‘information system’ from the same source.

Moving Forward

This bill is currently scheduled for a vote on Tuesday under the House suspension of the rules procedure. This provides for limited debate, no floor amendments and a super majority for passage. Consideration under this process signifies that the House leadership expects broad, bipartisan support for the bill.

If the bill makes it to the floor in the Senate (an open question as it is too early in the new Congress to tell how well the Senate is going to work), the bill would almost certainly be considered under the unanimous consent process.