Review - S 3505 Introduced – DOD Cyber Emergencies Response

Last month, Sen Peters (D,MI) introduced S 3505, the Defense Support for Cyber Emergencies Response Act of 2023. The bill would amend 10 USC 12304, to specifically allow DOD to recall “any unit of the Selected Reserve or any member of the Selected Reserve not assigned to a unit organized to serve as a unit, or any member of the Individual Ready Reserve” to respond to certain cyber incidents. No funding is authorized by the legislation.

The bill is very similar to S 2153 (removed from paywall) of the same name that Peter’s introduced in June. No action has been taken on that legislation, beyond its referral to the Senate Armed Services Committee. This new version of the bill specifically includes the Coast Guard reserves in the coverage of the bill and changes the definition of the term ‘covered incident’ added by the legislation.

Moving Forward

Peters is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there should be sufficient influence to see this bill considered in Committee. I suspect that there would be some level of bipartisan support for this bill, and it would probably be sufficient to see the bill recommended by the Committee. This bill is not politically important enough to be considered under regular order, a time-consuming process. There is a chance that the bill could be considered under the unanimous consent process, but that is a politically fraught process.

 

For more details about the differences between this bill and S 2135, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-3505-introduced - subscription required.