Review - S 1458 Introduced – SECURE Small Business Act

NOTE: Corrected bill number in title 0642 EST 5-28-23

Earlier this month, Sen Cortez-Masto introduced S 1458, the Strengthening and Enhancing Cybersecurity Usage to Reach Every (SECURE) Small Business Act. The bill would require the Small Business Administration to establish a program to assist small business concerns with purchasing cybersecurity products and services. No funding authorization is included in this legislation.

Moving Forward

While Cortez-Masto is not a member of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration, her sole co-sponsor {Sen Risch (R,ID)} is a member. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. I see nothing in this bill that would engender any organized opposition. I suspect that there will be substantial bipartisan support for the bill if it were considered.

As with most bills in the Senate, this legislation is not important enough to be considered under regular order. If it were to be considered by the full Senate, it would most likely be as an amendment to an authorization or spending bill.

Commentary

The wording for the sunset provision in the bill is more than a little odd. Even if the bill were enacted next month (extremely unlikely) the SBA is given six months to establish the marketplace, which means some time in December (and few programs get established in the congressionally mandated timeframe). This means that in an unrealistic world, the program would be in existence for little more than nine months, hardly enough time to see if the program were effective, and certainly not time enough for congress to reauthorize if it were even overwhelmingly effective. These sunset provisions are not usually tied to a date certain, but rather they are typically expressed in a period of 2 to 5 years from the date of enactment.

 

For more details about the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-1459-introduced - subscription required.