HR 3407 Introduced – Automated Vehicles Cybersecurity

Last month Rep. Kinzinger (R,IL) introduced HR 3407, which would add a requirement to 49 USC for manufacturers of highly automated vehicles to provide a cybersecurity plan for those vehicles. This is part of a series of bills that were introduced by members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that could serve as alternatives to the passage of the amended HR 3388 that was adopted by the Committee on July 27^th.

This bill would provide the same new §30130, Cybersecurity of automated driving systems, found in the revised HR 3388. I discussed this section in detail in my earlier blog post on HR 3388.

Commentary

I have heard it suggested that this series of bills may have actually preceded the amendment of HR 3388, rather than, as I explained in my post on HR 3401, serving as an alternative to passing the more complex bill to ensure that key provisions make it into law. There are two different items in this bill that support my contention. First, the definitions found in this bill {§2(b)} are identical to those provided both in HR 3388 {§13(a)} and HR 3401 {§1(b)}. This shows significant staff coordination during the crafting of these three bills.

Second §1(a) of this bill is identical to §5(a) of HR 3388. They both introduce the proposed §30130, saying:

“IN GENERAL.—Chapter 301 of subtitle VI of title 49, United States Code, is amended by inserting after section 30129 (as added by section 4) [emphasis added] the following new section:”

There is no section 4 in this bill; there is no §30129 mentioned in this bill. What this clearly means is that §1(a) of this bill was lifted en toto from the revised HR 3388. The staff did not do a really good job of cutting (editing) and pasting when they prepared this bill. It does provide clear insight, however, into the order of crafting HR 3388 and the subsequent series of bills introduced on the same topic.