Review - HR 8070 Reported in House – FY 2025 NDAA

Last week, the House Armed Services Committee published their report on HR 8070, Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025. The reported bill includes two cybersecurity and two uncrewed aircraft system provision of potential interest here. The Committee completed their final markup of the bill on May 22^nd, 2024 and ordered the bill reported favorably by a strongly bipartisan vote of 57 to 1.

The bill’s provisions of potential interest here include:

• §902. Executive Agent for Countering Threats Posed by Small Unmanned Aircraft.

• §924. Establishment Of the Drone Corps as A Basic Branch of the Army.

• §1501. Authority to accept voluntary and uncompensated services from cybersecurity experts.

• §1502. Establishment of the Department of Defense Hackathon program.

The Committee Report includes the following cyber related discussions that may be of interest here:

• Connected Vehicle Cybersecurity Center (pg 50),

• Digital literacy at Army (pgs 52-3),

• Enhanced environment for Multi-Domain Operations Cybersecurity Testing (pg 54),

• Briefing on Cybersecurity Threats to Water Infrastructure (pg 296),

• Clarification and Deconfliction of Responsibilities for Cybersecurity Functions within the Department of Defense (pg 298), and

• Digital Reserves (pg 301).

Moving Forward

Last week, the House Rules Committee called for potential amendments to HR 8070 with an amendment deadline of close of business on May 31^st, 2024. To date there have been 1,259 proposed amendments submitted, 114 of those were submitted after the published deadline. To date there has been no meeting notice published for the Rules Committee to formulate the rule for the consideration of the bill.

Commentary

Normally, the approval of the reported version of the bill by a vote of 57 to 1, a strong show of bipartisan support for the bill, would mean that the bill would be expected to move smoothly through the floor consideration of the bill through a rule with various floor amendments being considered. In the 118^th Congress, however, this could mean that the provisions of bill do not adequately target the objectives of the more conservative members of the Republican caucus. In the last year, that has frequently meant that the Rules Committee could not craft a rule for consideration of the bill, or if such a rule was developed, would be effectively vetoed by a small number of Republicans voting no.

The bipartisan support for the current bill, could allow the Leadership to bring the bill to the floor under the suspension of the rules process and depend on a number of Democratic votes to pass the bill. Each time that happens, the support of Speaker Johnson by the Republican fringe is further eroded.

 

For more details about the provisions of the bill and the report discussions, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-8070-reported-in-house - subscription required.