Review - HR 4046 Introduced - NTIA Policy and Cybersecurity Coordination

Last month, Rep Duncan (R,SC) introduced HR 4046, the NTIA Policy and Cybersecurity Coordination Act. The bill would establish within the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) the Office of Policy Development and Cybersecurity. The current Associate Administrator for Policy Analysis and Development would become the first Associate Administrator for Policy Development and Cybersecurity, heading the new Office.

Duncan and one of his two cosponsor {Rep Curtis (R,UT)} are members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. I do not see anything here that would engender any specific opposition, since this would essentially acknowledge and codify actions that are being undertaken at NTIA in any case. I suspect that the bill would receive significant bipartisan support and could be moved to the floor of the House using the suspension of the rules process; limited debate, no floor amendments and a super majority to pass.

I was surprised not to see the language in this bill as a proposed amendment to HR 4046, the FY 2022 CJS spending bill, on the House Rules Committee site. That Committee will be formulating the rule for the consideration of the spending bill on Tuesday. Since NTIA is a component of the Commerce Department, this would have been an ideal place to move this bill forward. This may mean that Duncan has not place a high priority on this bill.

For more details about the duties of this new Office, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-4046-introduced - subscription required.