S 4049 Substitute Language – FY 2021 NDAA

On Monday (Congressional Record is running a day behind) the Senate voted to begin consideration of S 4049, the FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This is just the first hurdle the bill has to clear. The debate will center around substitute language (SA 2301, pg S3739) for the bill that was offered by Sen Inhofe (R,OH), one of the 121 amendments to S 4049 that was offered on Monday.

Substitute Language

The Inhofe amendment contains substantial additions to the original language and changes at least some provisions within the bill. The amendment adds two new Divisions to the bill:

Division E – Additional Provisions

Division F – Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021

All of the cybersecurity provisions that I described in the original bill remain in the revised language. The new Division E includes (among a bunch of other stuff) adds three new cybersecurity provisions:

§6613. Cybersecurity State Coordinator Act. [similar to S 3207]

§6614. Cybersecurity Advisory Committee. [similar to S 4024?]

§6615. Cybersecurity Education and Training Assistance Program.

I note that §6613 is similar to S 3207, but I have not done a word for word comparison to tell how closely it matches the earlier bill. The §6614 comparison is more theoretical since the Government Printing Office has not yet published S 4024.

The Division F language is very similar to S 3205, including §9503 which is the same as §504 in the original bill. There are no new cybersecurity provisions in this Division.

Other Amendments Proposed

As I mentioned earlier there were 120 other amendments to S 4049 submitted on Monday. They include the following amendments that I intend to follow here:

SA 2214 Sen King (I,ME) - Subtitle X National Cybersecurity Certification and Labeling [S 3658],

SA 2215 Sen King - SEC. XXX CISA Director,

SA 2226 Sen Rubio (R,FL) – DIVISION XX - Intelligence Authorizations for Fiscal Year 2021 [S 3665],

SA 2231 Sen Fischer (R,ND) - SEC. XXX Internet of Things [S 3688],

SA 2263 Sen Cassidy (R,LA) - SEC. 10XX. Small Scale Lng Access [S 3712],

None of the amendments (other than the substitute language, of course) that I have listed here or in my earlier post have yet been listed as potentially being considered in the floor consideration of S 4049.